Everyone should learn how to sleep better. Sleep is like a vacation day—there can never be enough. And just like those precious vacation days, many of us don’t, in fact, get enough. You may only get a few hours’ of shuteye a night and not feel deprived, but eventually you’ll start noticing a difference, whether it’s in your work performance or overall energy level.

With all of the demands on our time, sleep can often seem like a luxury. But it’s not—it’s a necessity. Getting the right amount of restful sleep is vital to tackling everything you need to accomplish in a given day. You might be getting the recommended 8 hours, but is it a deep, comfortable sleep? Tossing and turning during the night can leave you feeling sluggish in the morning, which is almost as bad as no sleep at all.

Many of us think that we can skimp on shuteye during the week and make up for it on the weekends. According to an article published earlier this year by Rodale Press, sleep isn’t another chore to add to your weekend “to do” list—hoarding it all and sleeping until noon on Saturday and Sunday isn’t healthy for you, either. Instead, try to get the right amount each and every night.

Causes of Sleeplessness

Sleeplessness can stem from many things:

  • Stress
  • Indigestion
  • Preexisting conditions like joint pain, which can make it difficult to lay comfortably
  • Reactions to medications
  • Sleep disorders such as sleep apnea

It’s normal to have a tough time falling asleep now and then, but if this lasts over several days, you may want to see a doctor to pinpoint the source of your sleeplessness. If left unchecked, chronic insomnia can trigger a variety of conditions:

  • Lack of concentration
  • Difficulty making decisions
  • Memory loss
  • Nodding off at inappropriate times (like during a presentation!)
  • Slower reflexes, which can make you a hazardous driver
  • Weight gain (although the verdict’s still out on this one)
  • Lack of sex drive
  • Lack of appetite

Lack of sleep can affect your work performance, as well. You might suddenly find your inbox too overwhelming to deal with so you ignore it, or that important client meeting completely slipped your mind. Or, you zone out during the staff meeting and start daydreaming rather than focusing on the tasks at hand. If your body is not operating at full power, your projects won’t be, either.

The first step to restoring sleeplessness is treating the source of the problem. Stress—particularly related to work, family, and money—top the list of what keeps us up the most, followed by chronic sleep-related conditions such as sleep apnea. With this ailment, the body has abnormal pauses in breathing for a few seconds or as long as a few minutes. This can happen several times an hour and can cause you to go from light to very deep sleep throughout the night. This can cause restlessness and make you feel tired and sluggish the next day.

Easy Tips for Better Sleep

There is no magic solution for getting a better night’s sleep—everyone has their own trick for getting the right amount of zzz’s. But generally, there are a few small changes you can make that might help:

  1. Avoid drinking caffeine or eating right before bed. If you feel full from that second piece of cheesecake or jittery from that last cup of coffee, you’ll have a hard time settling down and drifting off.
  2. Develop nightly relaxation rituals. Establishing a routine that helps you unwind will put you in a sleep-friendly mode. Listening to relaxing music or reading often does the trick.
  3. Avoid TV. Watching the news or disturbing images on TV before turning in might stick with you through the night and cause bad dreams or restless sleep. On the other hand, a movie with a gripping plot might keep you riveted long past your bedtime.
  4. Soak in the tub. Few things are as relaxing as a long soak in a bubble-filled tub. Whether you make this a nightly ritual or an occasional splurge for yourself, create a little oasis in your bathroom. Break out the candles, soft music, and perhaps a glass of wine.
  5. Exercise. Just as a workout can help to boost your energy level, when it comes time to turn in, you’ll find that sleep comes much easier. As an added bonus, staying in shape can help you fend off sleep-related ailments and help you get ready to face the next day.
  6. Meditate. Some swear by this practice every morning, but meditating every night can help to ease whatever stress you may have on a particular day. Taking a few moments to be still and quiet your mind takes tremendous discipline and self-control—when was the last time you were truly alone with your thoughts? And taking it a step further—when was the last time you emptied your mind of all thoughts and were just…still? Contrary to popular belief, meditation is not affiliated with any particular religion—it’s simply a practice of quieting your mind and reconnecting with yourself.

(Image courtesy of under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 generic license.)

Classroom with Three Figures

Hey, thanks for taking the time to meet with me. I have a favor to ask.

Owning my own business is relatively new to me. I’m figuring things out as I go. And since I work from home, I don’t have the chance to seek feedback and discuss options with coworkers. So I was thinking that I could use a business mentor. Someone to help me avoid some of the pitfalls of entrepreneurship.

Maybe that someone could be you.

Here are the 8 qualities I’m looking for in a business mentor:

1. Has a genuine interest in my success.

The mentor must be willing to commit to helping me. You are interested in seeing me do well. And I’m asking you to make an investment in my future.

So you’re not looking for compensation. You’re not a coach or a consultant, and I’m not a client. Not that there is anything wrong with that. The mentor is a long term, career development resource. Coaches are hired to supervise specific performance goals. We’re working toward something bigger.

2. Demands an investment from me.

I will make the commitment as well. I don’t want to waste your time and effort. The best way to ensure that is to give me a list of deliverables or benchmarks. Assign me tasks to accomplish with deadlines and hold me accountable to them.

I’m not recruiting someone to work for me. It is on me to do the heavy lifting required to be a successful business owner.

3. Can agree on a framework.

We need to define this relationship. In addition to the deliverables you assign me, we need to figure out how often we’re going to meet. And we should have some rules surrounding what to expect from each other. Finally, there should be some way to tell if this is working for both of us.

4. Meets my definition of success.

You have been running a business on the Internet for a few years. You’re not rich — and I want to be able to say (at least) the same thing about my business. That is how I define the success of this venture.

I know other people have a different definition of success and look for someone who’s aligned with them on that. Fair enough. That’s just not what I want right now.

5. Has the right personality.

There is not a singular “good mentor” personality — although being a skilled observer and strong listener count for a lot in my book. But I’m not sure if I need you to tell me the answers I need or if you need to coax them out of me. Let’s see how this works. Of course, what works for me may not work for another person.

There is a chance we’re not right for each other. That doesn’t say anything about the quality of either personality. It’s just that mentoring is a tricky relationship. Sometimes you need to move on. So let’s try to leave our egos out of it when we assess how it’s going.

6. Can be honest.

I know I said there isn’t really a single personality type that fits the mold here. But being able to deliver honest feedback is a must. I have to be able to trust your advice. And I have to have the guts to hear it and absorb it even when it isn’t what I want to hear.

Of course this won’t work if I’m not honest and open with you, either. It’s disrespectful to you and won’t yield any advice worth following.

7. Can be outside my industry.

Right now I’m seeking someone doing the same work I do. But I recognize that business owners of all sorts have experience and insights that I would find valuable. It is possible for me to have more than one mentor. To maximize the benefit, other mentors should bring different experiences and qualities to the relationship. This can work if the other mentors match my definition of success and fit with my personality.

8. Will not make my business successful.

That’s on me. This is why I’m working for myself. I have control over my success and failures. As a mentor, you can be part of that success with your feedback and direction.

So…when can you start?

(Image courtesy of cliff1066™ under a Creative Commons 2.0 Attribution generic license.)

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Today marks the launch of our latest enhancement to the WorkAwesome site: the WorkAwesome podcast.

This weekly podcast will feature tips and tricks, motivation and inspiration, reviews and interviews – and much more. Hosted by yours truly, WorkAwesome editor Mike Vardy, the aim of the podcast is to bring you some of the things we’re doing at WorkAwesome in a different context – and with additional content to boot.

Our inaugural podcast features an interview with Jonathan Mead, best known for his website Illuminated Mind. Not only was he kind enough to share his take on doing awesome work, but he offered our WorkAwesome faithful a chance to win a free enrollment to his Paid to Exist program. To win, you need to leave a comment answering the following:

“What you would create or do if you had the ultimate freedom to do so?”

We’ll compile all the comments and draw one lucky winner to be announced here at WorkAwesome on Monday November 22.

As always, we want to know what you’d like to see in the WorkAwesome podcast – share your thoughts with us below as well. We’ll be sure to announce when the podcast shows up in iTunes — we’re still waiting on that. Follow us on Twitter and our Facebook page and you’ll be brought up to speed when we go live.

Enjoy the podcast!


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vworker

So, you’re sitting at your desk and your staring at the most beautifully designed web application mock-up that you’ve ever seen. You can see the pages’ dynamic data and behaviors interacting harmoniously together. You can see the financial windfall that this application is going to provide your company. Then you realize that it is only a Photoshop image and everything you want the application to accomplish is still stuck inside your overactive — yet optimistic — imagination. All those bells and whistles need code to support them. The hitch is, you’re not a programmer. It sounds like you need a freelancer, a “rent a coder” — so to speak. The best place on the web for virtual outsourcing has got to be vWorker.

vWorker is the dynamic online marketplace, formerly known as RentaCoder, where you can hire virtual workers to assist you in your business and personal projects. With vWorker you can rent a coder, hire a graphic designer, or even get custom Excel spreadsheet hacks. vWorker offers an environment where security and customer satisfaction allows thousands of successful transactions every month. They guarantee the work of their freelancers and in order to ensure everybody’s money is handled appropriately, vWorker offer a convenient payment escrow platform. Their service is free to prospecting employers. You will not fork over a dime more than your project’s final cost to rent a coder with vWorker. Here are the steps required to virtually outsource your project with vWorker.

1. Create a vWorker employer account.

In order to rent a coder from vWorker you will need to create an account. This account can be used to find a coder or fill any other virtual outsourcing needs your company may have. The process is very straightforward and can be started from the vWorker homepage by selecting the ‘Try It’ button under the employers and entrepreneurs heading.

2. Post your project.

After creating an account and verifying your email you will be directed to post your project. Before you enter all the information make sure you know exactly what you want. Remember, you will be dealing with around 300,000 freelancers when using vWorker. Getting what you want requires knowing exactly what you want to begin with. The process for posting your project is as follows:

  1. Enter your project information. This would include your project title, project type, bidding type, and whether the coder must sign a nondisclosure agreement before gaining access to information related to your project.
  2. Select whether the coder will be paid-for-deliverable products or paid-for-time. Each method of payment has its own guarantees structured by vWorker.
  3. Select a category for your project. Try to find a category as specific as possible. This will ensure you’re getting a coder with the necessary skills and background to complete your rent a coder project successfully.
  4. Write your bid request. This is the meat and potatoes of your project post. Enter as detailed of a summary as possible to ensure that the bidding coders can accurately estimate their time / costs. That way you’re not surprised when your rent a coder is unable to finish the project in the allotted amount of time. In addition, make sure you specify exactly what you expect to receive from your coder in the deliverables section. The vWorker guarantee only covers the items entered in the deliverables section.
  5. Enter any deadline or time restraint information for your project.
  6. Enter the desired location / language settings for your rent a coder.
  7. Enter your company Information. You should only have to do this the first time you use vWorker.
  8. Wait for verification of your project post. vWorker personally verifies each and every project to ensure the utmost quality of their service. Once verified, your rent a coder project will begin receiving bids.

3. Receive and review the bids and bidders.

During project submission to vWorker you set up an allotted time to receive bids on your project. During this time, you are able to monitor who’s bidding and what their bids are. You can also communicate with prospective project bidders. You can find a list of all bids on your project as well as links to the bidder’s bios towards the bottom of your vWorker project page. This is a good time to do a little research on the bidders themselves. As the bids are rolling in you can find all the information you need in their vWorker bio. A few things to watch for are:

  • What is your rent a coder’s worker rating? Obviously the higher this number the better!
  • How many jobs has your rent a coder completed successfully?
  • What is the number and outcome of Mediations / Arbitrations? If this number is high then the prospective bidder may be difficult to work with.
  • Check the prospective bidder’s areas of expertise / resume.
  • Read their work history and previous employer’s comments.

4. Rent a coder with vWorker.

After doing the research required and tallying the bids so to speak, you are ready to rent a coder from vWorker. Before accepting the bid, you need to view the bid and verify that it is truly the bid you want to accept. You can do this by clicking on the link in your email notification or “to do” list notification. You can also accept the bid by clicking on the “View or Accept” link next to the bidder you are interested in hiring on the project page.

5. Set up payment to an escrow account.

After accepting a bid from a prospective coder, you will be asked to authorize a credit card charge, PayPal charge, or snail-mail check payment in order to move the funds required to complete the project into escrow. This is for your own protection. These funds are held until you authorize their payment to the hired coder by accepting all or part of their final work. If for any reason you end up unsatisfied with your delivered product, vWorker has channels for the mediation of such problems.

6. Accept the finished product.

Accepting the product provided by your coder is all that’s left to do after effectively virtually outsourcing your project to vWorker. There are two different processes for accepting the coder’s final product. They are dependent on your choice of payment type during submission of your project.

  • If you chose to pay-for deliverables you can either accept all or a percentage of the coder’s work after downloading and reviewing the delivered product. To do this you click the link in the email sent to notify you of the project’s completion.
  • If you chose pay-for-time you will need to review your coder’s work and approve their time card within 3 days of the time card’s end date. After 3 days, the time card is automatically approved in accordance with your contract.

Now you see why RentaCoder, now vWorker, is such a big success. Contrary to what some in the tech magazine world might have wanted you to believe. If you followed the steps above, you were able to successfully rent a coder, receive the delivered goods from your chosen provider, make payment in a safe and guaranteed fashion, and do it all in record time. The only thing left for you to do is leave some positive feedback for your coder’s next possible virtual employer.

Conclusion

In today’s busy world sometimes the most productive way to work is through delegation and outsourcing. Virtual outsourcing has proven to be a valuable asset to any company. Through virtual outsourcing you will find you have more time to pitch new projects, improve existing projects or just have a bit more breathing room between the two. When used wisely, it can be a smarter way to make sure that the work you do is as awesome as it can be.

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WorkAwesome

How to Get Motivated in the Morning

Does it take you longer than you’d like (or require) to get going at the start of your day? Oleg Morkhov offers some ideas on how to get some spring in your step first thing so you can make the most of your morning.

How Do You Know When It’s Time to Quit Your Job?

There used to be a time when one would stick with a job for years upon years. Those days are over – new opportunities pop up more often than ever before and goals and objectives are more likely to change for the average worker. But how do you know when your time at an employer has come? WorkAwesome regular contributor Susan Johnston discusses ways to determine when that moment arrives.

Why You Should Think Twice Before Sending Angry Email

Sometimes emotions get the better of us. A client or coworker sends you an email that drives you over the edge. But before you draft up a nasty response, take a look at why Melanie Brooks concludes that you should think twice before pressing “send”.

Inbox 101

Your email is out of control, isn’t it? Perhaps it might not be right now, but there’s always that chance unless you’ve got a method of handling your inbox on an ongoing basis. Joshua Riddle breaks down the basics of managing your email that you can put into practice today.

Are You Rewarding Yourself through Procrastination?

This article by Richard Newman suggests that procrastinating may actually be a reward to yourself – and that not all rewards add up to positive results.

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awesome_links

This week’s edition features a discussion on how to relieve stress without putting stress on your pocketbook — and project management and to-do app referrals (usual suspects here at WorkAwesome) also make an appearance. In addition, if you found yourself distracted while you were reading this introduction, you’ll definitely want to check out our first “awesome link”.

On Distraction

This is a superb article by renowned writer Alain De Botton on one of the perils of this modern age: the significant loss in the new generation’s ability to focus. See if you can read it at one go without getting distracted (found via Matt Mullenweg‘s blog).

Low-Cost Methods for Stress Relief

I’m sure dealing with stress isn’t a new thing for most of you. It’s an integral part of our lives in this information age, and we need to learn to deal with it effectively. Trent from The Simple Dollar has an article on how he deals with it. Apart from meditating and exercising, the article does have some unique tips.

REMINDERS! is a To-Do App That Forces You to Act

In case a to-do list isn’t enough for you and you need to be reminded of each task, REMINDERS! for iPhone and iPod touch could prove useful. As mentioned by Lifehacker, the tool sends action-focused reminders to help you act on your tasks immediately.

4 Project Management Apps That Will Rock Your Mobile Device

A solid list of project management apps for your mobile device by Web Worker Daily. The article is unique in the sense that it focuses on tools for mobile project management, which a lot of managers have to do these days (i.e staying on top of their projects through their mobile devices).

Why I Don’t Cook at Home

And finally, here’s a nice comic by none other than The Oatmeal. Take it with a grain of salt, of course. Unless you don’t have salt at home because you don’t cook there, either.

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Loud heavy metal used to make me get all my work done in high school and today I’ve no idea how I was able to think that way.  My brother calls me an “old geezer” since opera and folk are more of what help me focus and get work done —  though when writing I generally prefer silence.  Sometimes a few songs are sure to make me focus (or simply relax) so that I can focus, though songs with lyrics can be distracting as I always seem to pay attention to the lyrics.  In that case, electronica is the way to go.

Since others have offered their music playlists here recently, I’ll share mine – which for a while now has been set for specific situations:

O Mio Bambino Caro, Maria Callas (opera).  When starting a new project this is the way to tune my brain into the perfectly focused setting.  Works great for “destucking” the brain later on too.

Corcovado, Tom Jobim (Bossa Nova).  After a hectic period this is great for de-stressing and calming down so I can get back into things.  Not so great while working since the lyrics tend to bring tears to my eyes.  Sniff…

Drifting, Manual (electronica).  The water sounds in this song are really energizing so any time I need to refuel I just turn this on and I can work away.

Knuddelmaus, Ulrich Schnauss (electronica).  Another energizing song with some head-bobbing action involved too.  A go-to when doing extensive research.

Running Down a Dream, Tom Petty (classic rock).  This is my war song when I’m preparing to work with a team.

Young Folks, Peter Bjorn and John (indie).  If a bad mood’s getting in the way this perks me up.  Side effects include head-bobbing as well.

But aside from the music I have, there are two streams I listen to that help me work:

WFUV.org.  This is a station from an NYC university that just happens to play music that keeps me at my laptop when I need to work full days.  They play everything from Arlo Guthrie to U2.

Radio DavidByrne.com.  I like this when doing administrative work or other work with which I’m familiar since one never knows what’s going to come on here from one week to the next.  David Byrne picks up great music in whatever country he visits and he puts it up in this stream.

(Image courtesy of Nina Matthews Photography under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 generic license.)

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Taskforce

If you’re anything like me, you get the majority of your assignments through email — not to mention any contacts you want to follow up with, newsletters you might want to read and various other notifications. That gets messy…fast.

Enter Taskforce.

Taskforce is the brainchild of Niccolo Pantucci, with the mission to “create tools that make people’s work lives easier, saving them time and money”. Hard to argue with that kind of philosophy.

Taskforce is a Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari Extension that integrates directly into your Gmail inbox and allows you to split your emails into 3 different types: Information, Action, and Broadcast. Once you sign up, you pick the extension of your choice, then are brought to a screen that allows you to create a filter of all “Broadcast” emails in one fell swoop — think Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other similar kinds of notifications.

This allows you to easily filter all the social media notifications you get and Taskforce will automatically put them in your activity feed to check later. Nifty!

Taskforce allows you to add tasks directly through its interface or through email. Creating a new task is easy. Just click the new task button, enter any relevant information, and you’re done. This allows you to turn emails into actions instead of just letting them sit there — something productivity gurus have been champions of for years.

Collaboration is easy with Taskforce. You can share tasks (even with people who don’t use Taskforce) by simply adding an email address in the box after you create a task. You can even add comments — either reminder notes for yourself or quick notes between yourself and the person you assigned the task to.

Not at your computer? Not a problem. Taskforce has an iPhone-optimized site.

Taskforce also allows for offline syncing. So, if you’re using Gmail offline you can still use Taskforce with the comfort of knowing everything will be there when you go back online.

Overall, Taskforce is a really well-thought out Gmail plugin that can enable you to take control of your inbox in a way that makes sense, allows for collaboration, and keeps emails and tasks from falling through the cracks. It’s definitely worth a test drive.

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Picking effective keywords for your content is at least as important as SEO. If you optimize for the wrong keywords, your search traffic will either be limited to lower search volumes than more optimal keywords, or the traffic will convert poorly.

In the early days of pay-per-click, airline companies would advertise “low fares” in their Adwords campaigns, and in their website copy, not realizing that the keyword’s semantic equivalent, “cheap tickets,” was what people were really searching for. At the time of this writing, “low fares” gets 3600 global searches a month, while “cheap tickets” gets 550,000; but they have roughly the same cost-per-click (CPC): US $1.84 vs. $1.97. All things being equal, “cheap tickets” would obviously have more leverage.

In the real world, of course, all things are not equal. In addition to traffic (monthly searches) and commerciality (usually measured in CPC), the competition of a keyword will determine whether or not it’s worth targeting. In principle, you can rank at the top of Google for any keyword if you’re willing to put enough time and effort into building links, but the opportunity cost of devoting a large amount of resources to one keyword is huge: you could spend the same amount of time getting 10 less valuable keywords to the top of Google with one-tenth the effort. Let’s look at a couple of ways to evaluate competition.

Traditional Keyword Competition Analysis

The standard method of gauging whether or not a keyword is accessible is by counting the number of pages indexed for that keyword. If I put “low fares” into Google without quotes (a broad match) Google tells me that there are 1.6 million pages indexed for it. If I do the same query with “low fares surrounded by quotes (an exact match), the number of pages with “low” and “fares” in a contiguous string somewhere in the title or on the page is only 561,000. If I put “intitle:’low fares’” into Google, I can see how many pages have the keyword in their title tag: in this case, 47,900.

But how many pages would make a keyword “too competitive”, and which match type should you use? This is where 10 internet marketers will tell you 10 different approaches. Some will tell you that under 30K intitle results means the keyword is accessible (I’m going to use “accessible” and “accessibilty” to avoid the awkwardness of using inverse competition as a positive metric). Others insist that only broad matches matter, since that’s the natural way results show up in Google. Different experts have different thresholds for accessibility: usually ranging from 10K to 100K.

A more sophisticated version of this approach is to factor in the total PageRank on the first page of Google results, then cross-reference this with the index count: the number of pages indexed in Google for the keyword, sometimes simply referred to as “competition”.

To do this, you would install an extension like SEO for Firefox or SEOQuake (available for Firefox and Chrome). When you do a search, these extensions will provide PageRank and other data beneath each search result. For the scope of this article, all we’re concerned with is the PageRank. Adding up the PR numbers of each result on the page gives you the total PageRank of that page. Here’s what Google results look like in using SEO for Firefox doing a search on SEOQuake. If turn off all parameters except for PR and Y!Links (the number of backlinks to the page, counted by Yahoo Site Explorer).

SEO for Firefox

If the total PR is under 25, and the exact match index count is under 10K, then it should be easy to get in the top four spots in Google with minimal link building. If the total PR is under 35, and the index count is under 60K, you should be able to get in the top four spots in two to three months; or twice as long if the index count is under 100K. If the total PR is over 35 at any index count, it would be considered inaccessible. Personally, I’ve found this method to be accurate about 60% of the time.

The PageRank-Only Method

In the last couple of years, some internet marketers have dispensed with the “index count=competition” metric to focus entirely on the PageRank of the top four spots in Google on a broad match (the keyword entered without quotes). I’ve had much more consistent results with this method. The principle is to focus on the strength of your competitors rather than the number of them.

Using the same browser extensions, you would apply the following criterion: If the adjusted PageRank of any of the top 4 results is 5 or higher, the keyword too competitive; otherwise, it’s accessible.

What is the adjusted PageRank? Instead of going by the reported PR of a particular search result, you add 1 to the PR for any intitle or indomain match. For instance, if the top four results for “low fares” are 3, 4, 0 and 3, and the second result had “low fares” in the title, it would be considered a PR5, so that we would judge it inaccessible. If the page ranking in the fourth spots was mylowfares.com, and had “low fares” in the title tag of the page, the ostensibly PR3 result would also be considered a PR5—adding 1 to the PR for the indomain match, and another 1 for the intitle match.

A few qualifiers:

  • The keyword in the title has to appear in its exact string somewhere, regardless of whatever text appears before or after it. So if “Parkinsons Disease” is the keyword, then “Parkinson’s Disease” would not be an intitle match
  • The same applies to indomain matches, except for spaces. Mylowfares.com would be an indomain match for “low fares,” but my-low-fares.com would not
  • For an exact match domain, you would add 2 instead of 1 to the PageRank. An exact match domain (EMD) is a .com, .net or .org (but no other extension) that has only the keyword in its exact order: e.g. lowfares.com. So a PR3′s adjusted PageRank would be a PR5, but a PR1 with an EMD, contrary to what others will tell you, is not invulnerable: it’s effectively a PR3 without an intitle match, or a P4 with one
  • The most accessible keywords have a maximum of one adjusted PR3 or PR4 result in the top four spots (e.g., no PR3 and PR4 in the same result set, or no PR3 and PR3)

These are just a couple of ways to analyze keyword competition. Internet marketers and SEOs love to debate over the “best” method, but the PR-only system is the one that actually comports with my experience. If you have a simpler or more effective method, feel free to let me know in the comments.

Image courtesy of http://www.6wunderkinder.com/wunderlist/

There is no dearth of to-do list tools or task management services, but that doesn’t mean there’s no scope for innovation left in this area. That’s exactly what Wunderlist shows. It’s been some time since I have come across such neat to-do list software. Apart from sporting a beautiful interface, which lets you change its background colors, it helps you add and manage multiple to-dos effortlessly.

You can create lists and then tag your tasks with them, drag and drop the to-dos, and also work offline and sync the tasks to your Wunderlist account when you are back online. The software is available as a download for both Windows and Mac computers.

Task Management At Its Best With Wunderlist

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