Why you shouldn’t read blogs?

The correct headline should be: why you should not read too many blogs. And the answer is because reading too many blogs takes time which else could have been devoted to taking action. Reading too many blogs would paralyze you. There are so many blogs out there, each one of them presenting different point of view, calls to different part of your mind. How can you respond to all?

How many should you read?

As many as you can in maximum two hours of time. I know I have been very liberal in allotting time to blog reading and I should have only asked for one hour. But we need to go slow when persuading people to change habit, or else our effort will not bear desirable result.

In the beginning, you should read and understand fully as many blogs as you can in 1-2 hours every day. Not a single minute extra should be wasted on this activity. But over time, you should reduce this time spent on blogging to 45-30 minutes.

What should you do in spare time then?

You should read books, industry journal, watch documentary, do research, or talk to people. In short, you should engage yourself in activities that give you more benefit. It is more about ROI on time invested. Some good blogs, like this one, do give you higher ROI on your time, but surfing through low-quality blogs take away from the overall benefit you get from reading a blog post.

Reading blog can be advantageous, and it often is, but indulging too much into it will reduce your productivity. So be judicious in your time allocation.

So what is the bottom line?

The bottom line is this: you must read various blogs, but your reading should not be limited to blog reading only. You should read from other sources as well. The varied your sources will be, the richer your experience will be.

Reading stimulates thought process

Reading mainly stimulates an individual’s thought process, making one think harder while sharpening comprehension and memorizing skill. While reading we try to guess about the content of next pages and understand the situation better, at the same time recalling characters and storyline. Reading also strengthens an individual’s concentration level.

Builds vocabulary skill

Voracious reading exposes a reader to numerous new words, phrases. Such exposure definitely sharpens vocabulary skill and develops command over the language.

Expertise on a subject

If you want to master a subject, don’t forget to read it first. Reading will build your knowledge and who knows tomorrow you may have your own book. Suppose you want to gain optimum knowledge in Anthropology, start reading books of the same subject. Soon, in 5 years time you will be an international Anthropology expert. If you are a research aspirant, it will help you too.

Reading helps writing

You can pen down great things only when you are filled with great knowledge from within. We are like a pitcher, always thirsty for knowledge. Fill yourself with knowledge, read voraciously; then only you can write great things tomorrow.

Travel world through books

If it’s not possible for you to travel the whole world on your feet, book is the best choice. If past enchants you, different cultures and places haunt you; why not grab a book and see the world through pages? Even while seeing the world on foot, you may miss many things and won’t come to know historical detail, but reading won’t disappoint you. Quench your thirst through books.

Better Website Copy Writing Tips

• Your copy should not be visually heavy. Make the copy easy to scan. You can do that by dividing copy using sub-headings, and bullet points.
• Keep one eye on the target audience and another on the matter you want to convey. It is necessary to strike a balance between the two.
• Always remember, in writing style is so important that at times style, in itself, becomes substance.
• Add relevant “call to action” at important junctures in your web pages. This will help you increase conversion.
• Do not talk about attributes, talk about benefits.
• Build the story until it reaches to climax in the last line where you should add the ultimate call to action.
• Do not make pages multi-focused.
• Define model target audience of the website before writing copy for them.
• Use short sentences and short and simple paragraphs.
• Keep the content jargon free.
• List the benefit.
• Make the benefit as clear as possible.

Copy is what determines the future of the website. The more time you will invest in creating the copy, better will be the future of your website.

Stay healthy, stay fit

The metabolism that you were once proud of has already left you, and so has the ability to regenerate energy; so the extra burden of frustration, anxiety and depression because the strenuous job-search routine may inflict malady upon you. You need to stay fit to fight it off. A fitter body will always help in having a more fulfilled life.

Do not lie about your age

Why will you even think of hiding your age? What is the benefit of doing so? If you hide your age, you are sending a message that you feel that you are too old for the job being offered, and no employer will like this kind of message. Your feeling reflects on your face, and the moment your contempt for being so old comes on your face, it is the end of your interview, at least for the interviewer.

Be yourself

If you are Mr. or Miss X then you are Mr. or Miss X; you cannot be a Y or a Z, even an A, B, or a C, so why even try to be that? The best thing you can do for youself is to be yourself. Just remember, it was you who has brought yourself so far, so why to be ashamed of it now? Act your age, so how much experience you have accumulated in the years that you have lived. This may not work for you, but not being yourself and pretending to be someone else will definitely not work in your favor.

Reflect on the things I have written above and assimilate them, make them your habit. I will catch you in the next part of the series. Use the comment box and let me know your view on the post in particular, and the series in general.

Then why they are not plunging in?

Because we are not living in the era where capital matters. What matters today to make a business successful is idea. A business requires a killer idea to become successful. In the paragraphs below, I will tell you how to find a killer business idea.

Find killer business idea in 3 easy steps

• Step 1: Based on the ability you have, look for the industry that you can work. Alternatively, you can also look for a sector in which you will be more comfortable working. Find an industry in which you would love to work.
• Step 2: Divide the industry in various sector and list major players in each sector. Also analyze, perceive, and observe the need gap. Ask consumers and retailers about what benefit they are seeking from their existing consumption which are not yet fulfilled. I am asking you to find a need gap.
• Step 3: Find the alternative routes to fill the need gap. See how you can fulfill industry’s demand efficiently. You need to find a way to keep the price of the solution you are offering within industry’s expected price range.

Once you are through with this, make a business plan and execute it. The business plan should cover every aspect of a business. You need to ascertain the challenges as well as opportunity. Do a SWOT as well as PESTLE analysis. Do not forget to make a list of things you need to run the business.

Why?

Because you have not so degenerated to be sold in the mass market as commodity.

Why then there are job fairs?

Well job fairs are there to help companies fill their vacant positions by paying less salary to those who are able and unemployed. It has nothing to do with your welfare. A company who rent a booth in any career or job fair is the one that either do not have quality jobs to offer or they want really cheap employees for those jobs that is why they go to such fairs and purchase employees at a wholesale price.

In a job fair, a company is looking for someone who is qualified but not in job. These people come cheap and do a good work once hired. It’s cheap and best!

I am suggesting you against going to a job fair, unless you are too desperate to land up in any job in the world because you will never get what you deserve.

Job fair is a whole sale market organized for the benefit of the buyers, which in this case is a company. Do you know of any wholesale market where a seller gets the benefit (good price)? It is the buyer who benefits from purchasing in a wholesale market.

Will you like to be traded like a commodity in the wholesale market, or will you work as a brand that deserves special attention and special pricing? The decision is yours.

• S – Strength
• W – Weakness
• O – Opportunity
• T – Threat

Strength and weakness are internal elements, which mean they are inherent to the product or organization. And opportunity and threat are external elements, which mean they are not inbuilt in, but are outside of the product or organization.

Opportunity is presented by the market, whereas, your competitors (both direct and indirect) can be a threat.

Benefit of SWOT analysis

• It helps you find out the opportunity that you can use to maximize the market penetration of your product or services.
• It helps you gauge your competition, and tells you what to avoid.
• It also brings the weakness of your product on the table, which you can eliminative before reaching to the market.
• SWOT analysis will help you make a better decision.

How to do SWOT Analysis?

Step 1: Find the strengths of your product

Step 2: Find the weaknesses of the product you are offering.

Step 3: Find the need gap (opportunity) in the market, based on the strength of your product.

Step 4: List the potential threats that you might face, if you cash in on the opportunity.

Notes:

1. 1. Always Use Bullet points to do the SWOT. There is no need to write long descriptive points.
2. 2. Do not reverse the order. Always start with analyzing S and W elements of SWOT followed by the analysis of O and T elements.

A parting thought

SWOT analysis is just a tool, and how well you use the tool will decide what result you will get from it. It is easy to get biased towards one’s own product and organization, but you should avoid this trap. Stay objective and stay focused when doing a SWOT analysis of your product or organization.

Importance of a press release

Press release helps our website in three ways:

• It helps us inform the stake holders about the recent development in our website by setting the news out.
• It helps us get back links to our website.
• And the third benefit of a press release is the massive one. A press release helps us get more traffic.

A well written press release will get picked by many news publishing sites operating in your niche, which not only will give you a backlink each to your website, but it will send a constant flow of traffic as well.

SEO benefit of a press release

Everything that gets posted on the Internet can be optimized for better ranking in major search engines. Be it articles, stories, poems, videos, podcasts, images, or even a press release. Unlike the press releases written for print medium, the press release written for web is technically optimized to help the company in question get some mileage in terms of the search engine juices.

How to optimize a press release

As usual start with doing a keyword research for your niche and use it as early as you can in the first paragraph of the press release. Use the main keyword in the title of the press release as well. You should not use more than three links in the body of the press release. I will suggest using 2 links, each at a distance of at least 100 words from each other.

There is a certain structure you need to follow in order to build a strong argument that in turn will win over the recipient. Before discussing the structure of a persuasive letter, let’s first talk about the research objective. The following list will tell you what all you need to know before you can begin writing a persuasive letter.

• Define the target audience
• Purpose of writing a persuasive letter.
• Make a list of information you want to include in the letter
• Make a list of supportive arguments. The arguments will show the reader what is in there for him.
• Make a list of possible objections, or mental block that might be pushing the reader to decide against your proposal.
• Is there something peculiar about the problem you are going to address? Make a list of it.

Anatomy of a persuasive letter

Introduction: Introduce your product, services and request in this first paragraph. Outline the important changes in this new version.

Outline the benefits: The introduction paragraph should be followed by the paragraph that will talk about the benefit of the product, services and request you are making. In this paragraph write statements that will build case for you.

Call for action: Once the recipient knows about the benefit he will have by accepting your proposal, you need to tell him what you want from him, and what action he should take to help you.

Thanks: Thank your reader for the time he has devoted in reading the letter. Also include a conclusion in this final paragraph. The conclusion should be as forward thinking as it can be.