~ The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is not a problem of physics but of ethics. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil from the spirit of man. ~ Albert Einstein

~ Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper. ~ Albert Einstein

~ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius --- and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. ~ Albert Einstein

Article Marketing Is All About The Title

The title of your article is the single most important piece of the puzzle when it comes to getting your article read. Although the content of the article is ultimately what people are searching for and hoping to find answers to their questions in, the simple fact is that without the right title it doesn't matter how good the content is, no one is ever going to see it. But there is a lot more to writing an effective article title than simply coming up with a catchy line that piques people's curiosity. These are the essential title writing steps you absolutely must adhere to if you hope to write an article than anyone is ever going to read.

1. Write Your Title For Search Engines
No matter how clever or funny your title may be, if the search engines aren't able to understand and categorize what you are trying to say, you are wasting your time. In print it is a different story. You want to grab the reader's attention with clever headlines that may have little to do with what your article is actually about. But search engines do not understand humor and semantics. They will take your title at face value so make sure your title is descriptive and straightforward.

2. Use Keywords
Absolutely imperative is the use of keywords. Choose your key words wisely and use them early. The first 3 to 4 words of your title should include your key words. So even if you like the way your title sounds, if your keywords are at the end of the title, consider revising it. You will be glad you did.

3. Be Concise
Try to be as concise as possible when writing your title. Write a rough draft and try to keep revising and condensing it until you are able to say exactly what you want to say in the fewest words possible. Less is more when you are writing titles that you want to attract attention.

4. Use Title Case
Title case is simply the formatting decision to capitalize the first letter of each word. You do not need to capitalize the first letter of lesser words like the, of, and, etc. However, my preference is to capitalize every word of the title. I think that it makes the title stand out as much as possible without being overdone. But it is definitely a matter of preference. Do not, however, capitalize every letter of every word. All caps titles are tacky and most article directories do not allow them anyway.

So there you have it; four simple steps to writing a title that can dynamically change the effectiveness of the articles you write. Just remember that it is not the title that is the most eye-catching or clever that necessarily gets the best results. It is the one that adheres to the necessities of online writing and utilizes well the internet marketing techniques essential for success that will win in the end.

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Turn Off Smart Quotes In Microsoft Word

Smart quotes are the bane of online writers. If you have never heard of them and have already tried your hand at submitting writing for online publication, you are probably already closely acquainted with them without even knowing it. If you are fortunate enough to learn of this issue early on it will not present much of a problem as it is an easy formatting fix. If however, you have already written tons of smart quote infested text you are hoping to upload onto the web, things can get a bit more complicated.

So what are Smart Quotes?
In short, smart quotes or "curly quotes" are the default quotation marks and apostrophes that Microsoft Word uses. Instead of using standard straight quotes, or "dumb quotes", Word automatically reformats them and turns them into the curly nuisances we speak of here.

If you do not fix this issue before you upload your nice, new, shiny article to the internet, it will not look the way you wrote it. Most likely what will happen is that every instance where an apostrophe or quotation marks are used will be turned into a question mark or some other unsightly character. The result will be a very unprofessional, unfinished looking article and a very frustrated writer.

How to Get Rid of Smart Quotes
Thankfully this is an extremely easy fix. If you are using Microsoft Office 2007 here are the steps:

1) Click on the Office button in the upper left hand corner of your screen. Scroll down to Word Options (at the bottom of the box). Click it. Scroll down to the "proofing" selection in the new window that just opened up, click it.

2) Now, click on Autocorrect Options. A new window will open up. Browse the tabs at the top of the box and click on AutoFormat. You will see the word "replace" with six check boxes below it. The first one is the one you want. It should say "straight quotes" with "smart quotes". Uncheck this box. If you like you can also uncheck the rest of the boxes save the last one titled "internet and network paths with hyperlinks" to further uncomplicated any internet formatting issues that you may experience.

3) You are almost done. Go back up to the tabs at the top of the box and click on the one that says AutoFormat As You Type. Now simply do the exact same thing you did in step 2 unchecking all of the same boxes here.

What if I Already Have Articles Written with Smart Quotes?
If you have already written text using Microsoft Word with the smart quote option on I will tell you what I did. There may be an easier way to do this but this seemed the easiest way to me. I simply used the find feature (just hold ctrl and hit F) in Word to find all of the apostrophes in my article, then all of the quotation marks. This way the program will bring you to each one, one at a time, and you can deal with them as they come. This will save you the trouble of scouring through your articles by hand trying to pick out every last apostrophe.

That is about all there is to say about smart quotes and what to do about them. I just hope you were able to find this information before smart quotes were able to cause you too much trouble. That's all for now!

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"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once and a while, you could miss it." Ferris Bueller's Day Off

"The pathway to freedom begins when we face the problem without making excuses for it" Joyce Meyer (Battlefield of the Mind)

Craigslist Ghosting - What Is It And What Does It Mean For You?

Craigslist Ghosting is simply the term coined for the system Craigslist uses to weed out internet marketers. Craigslist does not like internet marketers clogging up their listings and bogging down their servers, so they have come up with a system that very effectively limits the ability of internet marketers to utilize Craigslist as a viable source of marketing.

What Does Ghosting Do?
The system that Craigslist uses is intended to keep people from over posting. Generally you can post an average of three unique adds every forty-eight hours or so. If you try to break the rules, that is when the ghosting system kicks in.

When you try to post an ad that is identical or too similar to one that has already been posted within approximately a three to four day period, your ad will either be rejected or ghosted. If it is rejected then you get a notice right away telling you that you are trying to post a similar ad and that you cannot. If it is ghosted however, it will look like the ad is posted but in fact it will never show up on the site. Even if you look for it by following the confirmation links sent to you by the company it will look like it is up. But if you log on to Craigslist and look for it the way a prospective buyer would, it simply won't be there.

The ghosting system also kicks in if you try to post too many ads. Even if the ads are unique, the ghosting system tracks your computer's IP address and knows that it is you trying posting more than you are supposed to. This means that even if you try to fool Craigslist by setting up multiple accounts thinking that you can just post the limit with each account and get tons of ads out there, Craigslist will still know it is you if you are using the same computer.

What Does This Mean For You?
Well basically it means that you need to follow the rules and that Craigslist should be a part of your marketing strategy, but not the main part. There are techie ways of trying to beat the system like software that rotates your IP address, etc. I have never tried these methods out myself and so I cannot vouch for their validity.

My advice however is to just stick to the rules. Adhere to the posting limits, make your ads unique (title and body) and just work on writing that perfect ad that gets people's attention. Even at three ads a day, Craigslist is still by far the most effective free classifieds site to market with because it gets so much traffic. More often than not three ads on Craigslist will yield you more results that twenty on competing sites. Just remember to always go back and check your ads about twenty minutes after posting to make sure they are actually showing up and not being ghosted by the system.

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A keen sense of humor helps us overlook the unbecoming, understand the unconventional, tolerate the unpleasant, overcome the unexpected and outlast the unbearable.
- Billy Graham

Article Marketing - Testing Your Title

The absolute most important part about writing article titles for article marketing purposes is to test your title. Many people overlook this simple step but it really can be the difference between several readers and several thousand.

Just Because It's Done Doesn't Mean It's Done
Many people will finish writing a title that they are satisfied with and quit there. They see that it is clever, drives home the point they are wanting to emphasize, makes excellent use of key words and is written with search engines in mind. Sounds like a pretty good title, right? Well, maybe it is; but there is really no substitute for testing it out and making sure.

Come Up With Alternatives
Do not throw out your previous title ideas just because you think that you have found a better one. They will all be useful when it comes time to do the testing. Come up with several different titles and test them all because you never know which ones will pull up the best results.

Get Creative
Even a small, seemingly insignificant change can be the difference between ten thousand search results and ten million. Experiment and come up with many different variations of the same title. A change as small as changing "if" to "when" or "build" to "building" can make a huge difference.

Test Your Title
Now that you have a few options to work with it's time to test them out. Take each one and plug them into the Google search bar one at a time. You are looking for three things:

a. Organic Results: First, look at the organic results (the main body of search results, excluding paid results). You want to make sure that the results you are viewing are associated with the subject matter you were expecting. Do this one first every time and it will save you time. If the pages Google pulls up when you type in your prospective title have nothing to do with the article you are writing then there is no need to do any further investigating; throw that title away.

b. Paid Results: Second, take a look at the paid results (the highlighted search results that show up first and the ads on the right side of the browser). The more the better.

c. Number of Competing Pages: This is the number that shows up in the top right hand corner of your browser. You want this number to be as high as possible. If it is in the hundreds of thousands that is great, millions even better.

Please do not overlook this critical step when going about titling your articles. The article itself takes the most work to produce but the title is actually the most important factor in determining the success of that article. Don't let your hard work go to waste by forgetting to test your titles.

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Fresh Prince Wisdom

This is an interesting look at Will Smith, who he is, and how he lives his life.

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

"It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed." Theodore Roosevelt