How To Back Up Your Computer or PC (or Regret Is The Most Expensive Thing)

If you run a business backing up your computer or PC is NOT an option; many businesses have learned this the hard way when they lost money, time, or even closed their doors due to data loss from a dead hard drive or a virus.
The average user should also learn how to back up their computer. Family photos are irreplaceable, iTunes libraries can be expensive, and important documents can be lost due to hard drive failure, viruses, or accidental deletion.
Backing up your PC can solve this annoying and often catastrophic event known as data loss.
There are many ways to back up a computer: you could use a flash drive or burn CDs and DVDs, use an off-site back up, or use an external hard drive among other choices.
Which one is the best, easiest, most reliable, and worry free (as in you don't have to remember to do anything)?
If you're like the average person or small business the answer lies in backing up your PC with a technique known as imaging.
The benefits: it can be automated, and it backs up the WHOLE hard drive (operating system, programs, files, settings) where most methods only back up certain types of files.
I can attest first hand to the virtues of imaging your computer; about 2 years ago my hard drive died. I went and bought a new hard drive, installed it, and restored my image.
Total time: about 2 hours, and I was up and running like nothing had ever happened with all programs, files, and settings in their original state.
I was using (and still am) a certain imaging/back up program to image the hard drive every other day, and restore the latest image if I need to. To find out more about it simply click the link that says Resources For Imaging a Hard Drive at the bottom after you're done reading.
Let's compare restoring an image back-up to restoring some other types of back-ups:

Step 1: Buy new hard drive and install it.

Step 2: Reinstall whatever version of Windows you had. Wait! You'll need a CD or DVD with the operating system to do that and many newer PCs didn't come with a recovery disc, they came with a recovery partition on the hard drive and you were supposed to burn the discs yourself.
Didn't do it?
Looks like you'll need to call a computer repair company and pay them $100 or more to reinstall Windows.
If you lucked out and did burn the discs or your computer actually came with them, you can reinstall Windows, and assuming everything goes right (sometimes it doesn't), you'll have a bootable computer in 1-3 hours.

Step 3: Next you'll need to make sure your drivers are installed. Don't know what a driver is? Not sure where to find the drivers? Don't know which ones you need?
Where'd that computer repair guy go....?

Step 4: Then it's time to re-install all your applications and programs. Go dig up all the install discs or download links and the serial keys. Can't find them? More trouble...
Re-install each program one by one. This usually isn't very hard for most programs, but can be tedious and VERY time consuming. Depending on how many applications you had, this can take several days.

Step 5: Ok, you've installed your programs and activated them. Now time to re-install the printer or any other peripheral device you may have. Where's those darn discs again...?

Step 6: Finally, you can restore your data once you find the right place to restore it to.
Not sure where it goes?
Better hit Google or call the computer repair company again.

Step 7: Finally, you can do the fun stuff like get your desktop picture and screen saver back to where they were along with all your other settings.

Hope you get the point to all this.
Backing up your computer with image backups is a heck of a lot easier.
Do yourself a favor and avoid the pain of this very probable scenario.
Though there are other solutions to imaging, I'm a fan of one particular solution, which is a program that can be automated (you don't need to remember anything) and used to copy your hard drive. It's less than $50; an external hard drive to store the PC back-up on can be had for less than $100. Just make sure to get one that is at least as big as your computer hard drive so it can hold the complete image.
It is easy to use and easy to automate and it has multiple options to set it to your needs. For more in-depth information, see the link in the resource box.
Get an external hard drive online, or at your nearest electronics or computer store.
If you're already a user of the said solution you can update to the latest version by visiting the link this spot in the original piece on my site; just click the link in resource box to get to it.
And if you have more than 1 PC, you can save a few bucks; see the paragraph directly above.
You'll sleep better knowing your kid's birthday pictures are safe, along with your Quick Books files, iTunes library, and all your other data and files.

How To Develop An Effective Traffic Generator

Everyone who has a blog or website knows or will quickly learn that a traffic generator is the most pivotal concept for having a successful site; if you are trying to make a living or supplement your income in any way.

Search Engine Optimization for Traffic Generation

Search engine optimization plays a key role in web surfers finding and landing on your page so attention should be paid to optimization and of course, you want to gear that towards the heavy hitters like Google, Bing and Yahoo. But you also want to make sure that your optimization is not only cuddling up to the search engines, but is also targeted to the audience you are looking to engage.
Discovering and defining your target audience is essential. Web browsers are finicky and won't spend absorbent amounts of time on pages that are not interesting. Therefore you have a big task at hand when developing your traffic generator. Optimizing your domain, locating your audience and then keeping them coming back time and again are the key things to accomplish when blogging or owning a website.

Using Keywords As Your Traffic Generator
Once you have a solid idea of who you are targeting then it is time to think about optimizing and here is where many would be successful bloggers and domain holders fail miserable. Doing some research beforehand will prove to be essential. Optimization rests wholly in the key phases that you incorporate within your website and its domain and it is how people find you. It also influences your ranking on search engine sites. Thus, if the key words or phrases are not properly chosen, it is likely your site may never be found and will not be an effective traffic generator for you and your products or services.

There are some amazing tools available to help in your phrasing and word choices such as Keyword Discovery and WordTracker and it is highly recommended that you utilize them before choosing optimization words for your site. Keywords will impact on your ability to develop a traffic generator. When selecting your phrases, you have to find a good balance between unique and doable. Difficult words to spell and too common words should be avoided at all costs.
If a searcher can't spell what they are looking for, they won't find your website and if you choose a word such as 'women' the search results are in the millions and you will still get lost in the Internet abyss. Play around with these tools at length and find out what people are typing into their search engines and which words get the best results; then find a way to tailor those words and make them stand out.
You also want to define your niche and this too can be tricky. Many people search by exact phrases that suit their individual needs and this could allow you to tap into unchartered grounds and rank your site high. Therefore if your site is geared towards teens, place that word in your phrasing so that those looking for 'fashion for teens' will land on your site and not someone else's that just has 'fashion' or 'teens' as optimization words.
Many bloggers and site owners shy away from this tactic because they fear that being too narrow will lessen their audience; in essence this could be true, but that is usually not the case. If you want a traffic generator it is better to have 1,000 regular followers in your niche than to have 10 followers who don't really relate to your content.
Internet 'crawlers' are abound and your site should be in a form that searchers can find it. That means that your links and texts must be HTML friendly if you want an effective traffic generator. Computers and the Internet are smart but they can't read things like Java Script. Those need to be forefront and then within your site you can post other graphics; but the main goal is to get people to the site first.
Your site has to be easy to navigate as surfers are inpatient and don't have the time to search for what they want within a site. All the current happenings should be front and center in bolded text that is easy to read. Fancy texts and embedded links are flashy but are often missed or ignored so are not great as a traffic generator. Onlookers also want interesting things that are eye catching, so be sure to include lots of graphics and add definitions or explanations / descriptions of what the graphics are to entice people to click on them. This is especially true of pay per click sites that are used to generate income.
Be flexible in developing your traffic generator key words because much like fashion, sometimes what is in today is out tomorrow. Sign up for things like Google Analytics which will generate reports and keep you abreast regarding the traffic generation to your website and who is clicking on what graphics, ads and links. If you see that particular key words aren't working, work diligently to change them, even if you love that phrasing. Collecting thousands of useless links to attach to your site can also be useless if people aren't investigating them. It is better to have a few helpful and interesting links as a traffic generator rather than 100 that no one is interested in.

Our Internet Marketing Company Is Aware Of Google's Penguin

On the grounds that we are an internet marketing company, we need to keep on the surface of the latest adjustments and updates, specifically those within Google. The most recent Google Penguin update premiered on 04/24/12 and was viewed to be Google Panda's go-to guy. Penguin's aim is tremendously just like Panda, in that it is aimed towards cleaning out bad quality, unnatural and spammy sites. Nevertheless, this revision made things considerably more difficult for web marketers as the shifts weren't only about improving the level of quality of subject matter and pages on a site, but instead pertaining to one way backlinks, and those who are backlinking to you, which might potentially be beyond your control.

At first glimpse, it suggested your rivals could quite possibly build inbound links that were unnatural and over-SEO'd and deliver them to your webpage to try to negatively sway your search rankings. However, it looks like it is not quite so easy, as absolutely nothing ever is on the subject of Google. Penguin and Panda will consistently work alongside one another, and the 3 suggestions directly below were pertinent the day Google Penguin was introduced, and will be on-topic from now, and into the future. If you want to stay clear of penalties, you need to abide by Penguin's quality standards, and be mindful of the grade of your website, and your inbound link summary.

Google Penguin Search Engine Marketing Pointers

Number One - Alter Your Keywords

The Penguin edit immediately targeted what Google calls over-optimization. After you generate inbound links to your web page you add a backlink with terms in that backlink that is clickable towards your desired site or page. This anchor-text may be the terms: "click right here," "look at this," your website's name, full web link, or most ideal, the keyword phrases that you have been attempting get ranked for. Considering the fact that more ranking weight lies on getting the exact match keywords for your anchor text, that is where those performing website positioning aimed the majority of their efforts. Web pages whose link summary had a dramatically high proportion of exact match keywords compared to "natural and organic" backlink anchor-text were immediately affected by the update. The anchor text that you choose ought not only be aimed at the keywords you want to rank for, or you might be punished for over-optimization, because this is not going to look natural. When a third person hyperlinks to your web page, it is a great deal less frequent for them to select the relevant keywords that you would like to rank for, as contrasted with normal discussing and expressing for instance, "you can discover it here," or "at this amazing site." For each exact match search term you develop, you'll want to assemble around two random key phrases backlinks, to keep things safe.

Number Two - Please Don't Engage in Paid for Link Networks

Inferior web page link groups were a dramatically abused model, that was helping out in search engine positioning poor quality web sites in the search results effortlessly since their backlink profiles were very good. Some quality websites also became a part of these link systems, and eventually paid the price after they were found out. A standard paid link network may well incorporate 50 or perhaps 375 distinctive Internet domain names, which often own high PR, with all of the written content and back links on the homepage, since home-page links carried more relevance. In some instances, the content around the links was not even significant.

Number Three - Remain Natural and Continuous

Natural indicates developing content that is of top quality and created for giving benefit to those who come across it, not simply constructing content for ranking online. Natural and dependable also has to do with your efforts onsite and offsite. Considering that natural normally takes quite a while in search engine optimization, if you plan to quicken things, you have to remain consistent or it could set off some red flags within Google's criteria and quality check ups. Build small quantities of links every day versus major explosions out of nowhere. Furthermore, consistently publish high quality subject matter on your site. Should your search engine rankings take a fall, or increase out of no place, do not journey off your organic strategy. Stay consistent. Google understands that countless marketers pay attention to their web pages each day, and that should they discover a drop in positioning, that they typically either send considerably more backlinks, or clear away something they did a short while ago. Do not panic, or change up your organic efforts, just stay cool and keep going as you would have if very little had changed.

Using Copyscape for New Freelance Article Writers

Copyscape is probably the most popular tool to use for checking plagiarism. Most companies use it to find out if someone has stolen their content or if the article that has been submitted to them are just copies. If you are a freelance article writer, then you already know that Copyscape is a valuable tool to use in making articles. If you are a new freelance article writer or you want to start a career as a freelance writer, then you should know how to use Copyscape.

Copyscape is fairly easy enough to use.. You just need a website where you can put your written article and have it checked by Copyscape. However, not all people has a website, or not all people can afford to have a website. So, how to use Copyscape when you don't have a website? It's simple, just create an account to a free blog site and you can have a website. Sure there are free web hosting sites out there. However, free web hosting sites are often full of advertisements in them. These advertisements will be detected by Copyscape as plagiarisms. free blog sites are better to use. Some, like Blogger and WordPress offers free space to put your blogs and they will not put any advertisements in your blog site.

How to use Copyscape step by step guide.

1. Create an account in either or Login if you has been registered
   
   
   
2. Create a new post.
   
3. Copy your written article in the box provided.
   
4. Publish your post.
   
5. View your post.
6. Copy the the link at the address bar.(same with step number three)
7. Go to  and Paste the link of your blog post. then Click on "Go" (same with step number four)
8. Wait a few seconds and a result will appear.
9. Copyscape will tell you if there is any plagiarisms in your article. And if there are, Copyscape will display the link of sites that where the plagiarisms has been found. If you click on the link, you will be taken to the website where all the plagiarized words will be highlighted. You will then have to change those words that has been detected as plagiarized. After you have made changes, begin with step 2 again. Only this time, you will not be creating a new post but you will edit your post. Continue checking until no plagiarisms are detected.
10. If there are no Plagiarisms detected. Copyscape will say that there are no results found. Your article has now passed Copyscape and you can now submit it.
    

In freelance article writing, a plagiarized work means that it will not paid. To avoid this, learn how to use Copyscape to be sure that the work that you have done is original.

Online Surveys For Money - Finding Legitimate Surveys For Cash

Online paid surveys for cash is an exciting way to make money online. But the whole rules to begin making static income and finding better paying surveys is an intriguing process filled with both disappointments and rewarding surprises. With one hand, you will come across fraud that pay you nothing for all the hard work and time, while the gems reward you with great payouts. You need to also need to learn how to differentiate between the two if you are going to make some serious earnings from online paid surveys.

A market survey company is the one that handles all the surveying of survey takers for their clients, the product and services companies. There are many well known big names like Global Test Market which offers internet paid surveys. But it does not always insinuate that you can earn money with them. Let me explain. Big names are reliable and do typically pay on time. But the problem can be that these companies also have large databases of ready survey takers. It gets very competitive to really earn money from their surveys. With that being said, you should consider registering with them as a possible long-term income plan.
From time to time some scams for paid surveys pop up on the Internet. There are a few things which should raise red flags when you come across them. One red flag is an over-enthusiasm to recruit new sign-ups. A lot of times, these run on an MLM model where there are huge incentives for members to bring in a new member. Sometimes you will come across well known companies do adopt the same technique but if a survey site overdoes it, be wary. Internet paid survey companies should be concerned about building their main business which is to bring in good paid surveys if they are in for the long haul.

Many times these scam sites normally build a nice and beautiful website with many survey offers within for pay-per-click offers, pay-per-email, pay-per-sample test, pay-per-product/service trial, etc. Most of them are only free offers where you sign up for a freebie or participate in free internet surveys to accumulate credits or cash. Payout is supposed to be made when you earn a minimum amount. Unfortunately, many of such internet surveys sites are gone within less than a year, leaving many survey takers bewildered and disappointed.

The good news, there are other online survey companies that do pay their surveyors. Most of these are small niche sites to general survey sites that offer surveys for around $5 per completed online survey. Some paid survey companies offer a wider range of paid surveys in the form of focus group surveys, movie feedback surveys, shopping experience surveys, etc. These type of surveys are typically more time consuming and would require you to leave your house. But they do pay much better and can even pay up to $200 per survey. But how do you locate these survey companies?

One way is to spend your time searching online, then signing up with each and trying them out. You can check at online income or make money forums for work at home people for such opportunities. Or better yet, you can get hold of a ready listing or directory of online paid surveys companies. Such listings normally contain hundreds of online survey companies that have been tested to work and pay well.

Online Surveys for Cash - How to Avoid Fake Surveys

With the advent of online surveys for cash has also come the scammers and the malpractices. They promise surveys that pay but end up only taking your money and giving you nothing. This article will show you how to avoid these scumbags and find polls that actually reward your work!

If you're like me and have been scammed by fake survey sites that promised money but only took it, skepticism can be pretty high when one hears of online surveys for cash. The truth is that there are real companies that pay real money for our opinions. Large companies rely on the marketing research to make big decisions that cost thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. By setting up questionnaires and gathering a random group of individuals to fill out these questions, they get a sense of what their target audience is thinking.

This is where we come in! We give our answers honestly and in return for letting them know what we think, they give us a small amount of earnings. It's really nothing compared to how much they make from the data they collect. In fact, us survey-takers are probably being paid too little for all the info we give them!
The difficult part in finding online surveys for cash is locating these marketing research companies and getting on their list or database. Once you get in their list of people to contact for research purposes, you won't have to worry about looking for more and more polls to take. They'll send them your way.

Red Flags to Avoid
Some common signs that a site is not actually going to provide a survey and cash are having to pay before you even take a poll. If you have to pay something before taking a survey they most likely there is some scam going on. If you have to provide your credit card to get access to the "database" then most likely this will be some sort of scam as well. The reputable companies that do serious market research do not do any of this sort of stuff.

Hyped Up Promises
The easiest way to tell if something is legit or not is to look at the promises they make. The legitimate companies will not be promising that you'll get rich quick or anything of that sort. They'll state the pay for the poll and leave it at that. They'll let you use your own imagination for those dreams. Hyped up sites that promise the world are things to be avoided.

Ten Ways To Increase Response Rates on My Survey Review

Have you ever been asked to complete an online survey? Lots of Internet users have been. When browsing the Internet, you may find yourself looking at the page asking you to invest a few minutes of your free time in answering questions. Online surveys are designed to optimise website content, functionality and customer service. However, no one can predict what response rate you should expect as many people prefer to skip surveys. Here are 10 ways to increase response rates of the best online surveys.

1. Think of an engaging topic
The best online survey should have a catchy topic to make Internet users want to proceed with questions. The topic should give customers a hint about the online survey content. Use attention grabbers to engage potential respondents.

2. Give clear instructions
Inform people about the answering session. Some online surveys are arranged in blocks of questions; some consist of a series of questions. Tell respondents how many questions await them. Define a time frame needed to complete your survey. Instruct respondents what they should do if they can't give an answer.

3. Avoid dubious questions
The best online surveys consist of questions which are very easy to grasp. Remember that your purpose is to get information so make sure that questions accommodate various answers. The best online survey should provide respondents with a multiple choice and have room for their own answers. If your online survey offers respondents a list of possible answers, make sure they are mutually exclusive. Questions in online surveys shouldn't be vague - respondents should have clear understanding what they are being asked about.

4. Emphasise how important each respondent's opinion is for you
Inform respondents about the research purpose. Tell them how survey results can help you improve your business strategy. The best online surveys are never time wasters. Respondents should realise that their opinion may result in solving problems on a large scale.

5. Make participation anonymous
The best online survey gives respondents choice to answer questions anonymously. Some people hesitate to give a truthful answer in online surveys when they are asked to provide their full name and contact details. However, you need to take measures to ensure that each respondent can answer your online survey only once - it guarantees fair results.

6. Address your survey to the target audience
If you want to increase your survey response rates, identify your target respondents. The best online surveys have clearly mapped customer 'touch points' - websites, forums and portals where the target respondents are exposed to services or products. This is where the best online survey should be delivered. Don't try to address it to a wide range of Internet users; be specific about who you want to participate in your online surveys as it increases chances that it involves the necessary people.

7. Offer motivation
Sometimes it's necessary to incentivise people to participate in your online survey. Incentives can come as coupons, bonuses, free samples or tickets - whatever activity your company is engaged in. Yet, incentives shouldn't cost you the earth. The best online surveys are not necessarily tangible. There are people who may appreciate the fact that their opinion matters for you. Tell them how you are going to apply the survey results.

8. Get good placement
The best online survey is never placed on a website which is hidden away deep in the search engine results. To increase response rates of online surveys, you need to increase their viewings first. Remember that according to the statistics, Internet users stick to the first two pages of search results. Place your online survey on a website which enjoys top positions in search matches; such sites have more visitors which increases chances that surveys will be completed.

9. Make your survey look appealing
The best online surveys are aesthetically pleasing. Distorted text, blurred pictures and unreadable fonts may be a turn-off even for the most curious respondents. The best online survey doesn't need much graphics but a few images or a bit of multimedia may encourage people to complete online surveys. Yet, make sure your survey is not clattered with them as some Internet users might find it annoying.

10. Communicate survey results
Since people have taken time out of their day to respond to your online survey, they might be interested in its results. You can publish results online or send them by email if respondents don't mind indicating it. There is no real recipe for the best online survey; these are just tips which might help increase response rates of the best online surveys.