Monday 14 September 2015

10 On-Page SEO Tips to Use in 2015 By Amber Kemmis on Dec 31, 2014 | SEO, Attract Visitors

Image result for seo images





Search engine optimization has significantly changed in recent years much to the amiss of Google’s guidelines. As you move into 2015 and look to grow your website’s organic  traffic, what will be most important for you to use for on-page SEO? Here’s a list of on-page SEO techniques that you are probably already using but are still important in 2015 and also some newer developments in SEO that you should consider in your strategy.

Include these On-Page SEO Tips in Your 2015 Strategy:

1. Optimize Your Site Page Around One Keyword or Topic

The days of keyword “stuffing” are over, but you still need to keep your site pages optimized around one central idea and keyword. Keywords should appear in important on-page elements like the page title, heading, image alt text, and naturally throughout the page copy, but you should still be sure to craft each of these items for humans, not search engines

2. Remember that Keywords Are Important But Not Verbatim

Considering Google announced in 2014 that their paid search services, AdWords, would no longer rely on exact match keywords but also co-varieties of a keyword, it is likely that the same holds true for organic search, although it has not been explicitly announced.  Keywords no longer need to be the exact same variation as displayed in your keyword tool. For example,  the plural keyword, “inbound marketing tactics”, is equivalent to “inbound marketing tactic” in singular form with AdWord’s new targeting strategy. In addition, even if a searcher misspells, Google will still help them find your website despite the variation of the keyword optimized on your site.

3. URL Structure Should Be Short, Descriptive and Help to Categorize Your Website

A URL is one of the first things a search engine uses to determine page rank, which is why it is really important to make your URLs easy to crawl. You can do this by keeping URLs short (this is also beneficial for UX), aligning to the page’s topic and keyword, and ensuring that URLs help you to categorize your site pages.

4. Optimize Page Titles

A title tag is used by search engines to display a page in search results and can also be found at the top of your browser. Title tags tell search engines and searchers what the page is about. Since Google will only display between 50-60 characters in the title tag, you should keep title tags under 55 characters and try to drive people to click with compelling copy. You should also put keywords or topics towards the front of the title.

5. Utilize Proper Heading Tags

Heading tags should clearly tell the reader and search engines about the page’s topic. A search engine is able to identify the heading when it is tagged by bracketing text in <H1> within the page’s HTML (Note: If you have a CMS or COS like HubSpot or WordPress, this is usually coded in the background). Heading tags help tell a search engine the level of importance of the content by also using <H2> and <H3> tags. You can check your site’s current heading tags by viewing in HTML view.
In addition to what you should do with heading tags , you should also avoid a few things including:
  • Avoid using generic terms like “Home” or “Products”
  • Don’t put important information that would likely be your <H1> as an image.

6. Optimize Image Alt Text

While you should not hide your heading tag in an image, you should still give search engines more opportunities to link to your website by adding keywords in the image alt text and file name.

7. Grow Natural Links

Google continues to use natural, quality inbound links as a main ranking factor. In 2015, you should closely monitor inbound links to ensure that they are constantly growing and that the inbound links come from quality websites.

8. Increase Site Speed

Since 2011, Google has made it apparent that site speed matter in search rankings, and today, with a bigger emphasis on the user experience than ever before, site speed will continue to be a critical ranking factor. Users don’t like to wait, and we are becoming more and more accustomed to the fast load times, which means your site will be left in the dust when a user must wait. There are a few important things you can do to speed up site speed:
  • Test site speed using Google or a built-in CMS tool like utilized in HubSpot
  • Ensure your web server can handle you size of your company and website needs. Overloaded web servers can slow down load times.
  • You may also find that one of the following culprits is slowing down times:
    • Embedded videos or media
    • Using a lot of images
    • Images that are not compressed to minimize pixels before uploading
    • Clunky coding
    • Using a lot of plugins
If you suspect any of the above are causing slow load times, you can find experts to help clean up your site or minimize the use of each.

9. HTTP vs. HTTPS: Why They Matter

With a big push to make the web world more secure, Google has began emphasizing the importance of utilizing HTTPS. While many websites have traditionally ran on a Hyper Text Transfer Protocal (HTTP), a Hyper Transfor Protocal Secure (HTTPS) ensures that a website is encrypted and cannot be hacked. With Google beginning to test the waters in using HTTPS as a ranking factor, it will be important to secure your website with HTTPS in 2015.

10. Mobile Search Implications

With nearly 40% of organic traffic coming from mobile devices in 2014, it should come as no surprise that mobile-friendly websites will rank better with Google. To ensure you are mobile optimized, you should be avoiding common mistakes described by Google including faulty redirects, mobile-only 404s, blocked media, and slow mobile load times.
Although it may feel like Google is trying to make our jobs as inbound marketers more difficult, they ultimately want to provide the best user experience, which should be the goal of your website as well. If you’d like to discover how you could better optimize your website in 2015, request a marketing assessment from SmartBug Media today.

Thursday 10 September 2015

The Power Of Personalization In eLearning




Ask 10 people to order a pizza and you’ll see just how individual we all are and that there are endless ways to create personal savory perfection. Thin base or thick? Order in or take out? More mozzarella… but hold the anchovies, thanks! Personalization allows us to add a touch of the pizza experience to eLearning through customizing content and features to the learner’s individual needs, preferences, and learning style.
Through applying personalization in eLearning, learning content can be presented to the individual rather than the group… and allow everyone to choose their own toppings!

6 Tips For Personalization In eLearning  

At PulseLearning we’ve taken a look at how personalization can create individualized, relatable learning to satisfy a healthy learner appetite:
  1. Allow for personal content customization.
    It’s not just pizza we’re particular about. Personalization allows the learner to customize their learning experience by offering choices as to how content is displayed. This could include selecting a chosen avatar character or guide to appear throughout the course, or providing a choice of visual themes. But it’s not just about appearance; personalization can allow for individual comfort and accessibility through enabling the learner to control volume and screen text font sizes.
  2. Offer device choices.
    Let’s face it: We are creatures of habit. Most people have a personal preference (or tech comfort zone) when it comes to the device they enjoy using, whether it’s a desktop computer, tablet, or smartphone. The learning experience can be further personalized by developing content that will allow learners to use their chosen device to access the course.
  3. Use the learner’s name.
    I’m sure you’ve felt that disappointment when receiving an email only to find it has been addressed to a group. Convenient, yes; heartwarming, no. We like to feel important and being addressed personally does just this. Make eLearning an individual experience by capturing the learner’s name during the registration process and dynamically populating it in a personalized welcome message or at appropriate moments throughout the course.
  4. Stream content to the individual.
    eLearning offers exciting opportunities for streaming content to create unique learner pathways. For example, the eLearning could begin with a short pre-test where questions are aligned to course topics. Content is then streamed to the learner for topics the pre-test indicated the learner is not yet competent. Personalization can also be used to create role-specific pathways to tailor content closely to job descriptions.
  5. Be inclusive.
    Using inclusive language is a simple way to increase personalization in eLearning. Write text that speaks directly to learners and allow an opportunity for personal reflection so learners can relate content back to their individual situation.
  6. Provide content access choices.
    Read, watch, or listen? Increase the personalized experience by providing choices for how content is accessed. For example, a learner could choose to watch a video, listen to audio, or download the PDF transcript. You’ll support the vast array of learning styles and boost accessibility at the same time.
When next considering developing content, take the time to look at introducing personalization to your eLearning!
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Why No One Knows How to Write a Check Anymore Follow these six steps to write a check the right way.








Someone writing a check.
Payments by check have fallen by more than 50 percent since 2000, according to the Federal Reserve.
By
Check writing has become a lost art. There used to be something official about writing a personal check that made even the most minor transactions feel more important when you had to physically write out the
recipient's name, dollar amount and sign your name in the bottom right corner.
In 2015, the personal check isn't what it used to be: Newer and more convenient payment methods have taken its place. According to a 2013 Federal Reserve study, payments by check have dropped more than 50 percent from 2000 to 2012, while electronic and card payments tripled. In a GOBankingRates poll last year, nearly 38 percent of 1,500 respondents admitted leaving their checkbooks completely unused.
At the same time, there's been a fivefold increase in the Google search term "how to write a check" over the last decade, according to an April article in The Washington Post. The Fed also reports that over 18 billion checks are written per year, which is proof they still have a place in this world.
So why have checks been on the decline? Here are a few reasons:
Mobile apps do the job faster and better. Checks are rendered nearly obsolete when peer-to-peer money exchanging and payment come into the picture. Smartphone apps such as Venmo, Apple Pay, Google Wallet and Tilt allow users to easily transfer money from one account to another. Venmo alone reported more than $1 billion in peer-to-peer payments in the first quarter of 2015. As for the mobile payment industry, a recent Business Insider analysis predicted Venmo will reach $86 billion in the next three years.
Retailers are phasing out checks with tech. Mobile technology has pushed out checks from the point of sale. Major brands such as Whole Foods Market, Old Navy, Gap and Lululemon Athletica have eschewed checks, while most online retailers (i.e. Amazon.com) don't offer checks at all as a payment option. Checks take time and money to process, so more stores and businesses are introducing tablet- and smartphone-based payment options at the cash register, such as Square Cash or LevelUp.
Online banking offers more incentives. Referred to as "eChecking" or "green checking," an increasing number of brick-and-mortar banks and credit unions are pushing paperless checking to save money and conserve trees. Customers might be swayed to make the switch with the added bonus of earning a higher interest rate on balances or zero fees for giving up traditional checking. Other online-only financial institutions – such as Ally Bank, Bank5 Connect and Barclays – don't deal in paper banking at all.
Checks haven't held up over the years. As consumers continue to embrace these new, convenient banking technologies, traditional check writing has naturally begun to die off with each passing generation. The 2014 GOBankingRates poll shed light on this pattern: Over 60 percent of respondents ages 18 to 24 said they never write checks, compared to roughly 75 percent of people ages 55 and up who still go the paper route.
Paper checks require mindfulness. While having a paper trail is great for documentation purposes, checks open up a host of potential security issues. A checkbook can be lost, giving anyone with a thieving urge to forge a payment with your account and routing numbers at their full disposal.
How to Write a Check
There may come a time when there's no Wi-Fi or Web access right when you need to complete a transaction, and writing a check is the best solution. You might also find yourself in a situation when a check is necessary, like making a rent payment. Despite the obvious benefits of electronic payments for tenants and landlords, 70 percent of U.S. renters still pay their monthly rent by paper check, according to PayLease, a company that collects rent payments for property managers.
Even if you never pay with a check for the rest of your life, you should always know how to fill one out the right way and be ready to do so. Here's a quick step-by-step guide:
1. Write the date in the top right corner.
Make sure you enter the complete month, day and year on the line labeled "Date." You can write out the date in full (i.e. June 11, 2015), or use numbers (6/1/15 or 06/01/15).
2. Enter the name of your recipient.
On the line labeled "Pay to the Order of," write the full name (first and last) of the person/group/company you're paying by check. Make sure to spell it right!
3. Enter the dollar amount.
To the right, on the line with the dollar sign, write out the exact amount the check is payable for. Don't round up or estimate. A check for $122.51 should be written in that amount, not for $123.00.
4. Repeat the dollar amount, written out.
On the line under your recipient's name, repeat the amount the check is for – but this time, write it out in full. For example, you should write $122.51 as "One Hundred Twenty-Two and 51/100" (with the change amount written as a fraction). If it's an even amount, you can simply write "Two Hundred" if the check is for $200. If there's empty line space remaining, take this safety precaution: Draw a single line to the end of the field to prevent someone from adding new digits and altering the amount.
5. Fill out the Memo space (optional).
The bottom left-hand corner of your check includes a space to tell the recipient what his or her payment is for. It could be "Air Conditioning Repair," "Pet Grooming," "Happy Graduation," etc. Take note that this space is optional, except when specified by the recipient; if it's a bill payment for cable, utilities or rent, the company or property manager may specify that you must enter your account number in the Memo field for ID purposes.
6. Sign your check.
Your check is invalid if you don't sign your name on the line in the bottom right-hand corner. Remember, don't sign your name on the back of the check – that space is meant for your recipient to sign when they receive it. When they do, and the check is cashed, its dollar amount will be deducted from your checking account.



Corrected on September 10, 2015: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported the amount of Venmo’s peer-to-peer payments.

8 Tips for Traveling Around the World for Less Have the urge to see a few countries? Here's how to afford the journey.

Young man looking out window of train at scenery
Don't let money stop you from seeing the world.

The idea of taking a trip around the world might sound like an impossible dream if you’re not rich, but there are practical ways to do it. You might have to live with fewer belongings and skip fancy hotels and meals. But who knows? That might just add to the adventure.

If you decide to take the challenge, consider these eight ways to reduce your costs as a world traveler.
1. Take advantage of credit cards.
You may find credit cards to be a handy tool for many of your travel needs, such as booking flights and, of course, paying merchants. Some cards let you earn airline miles to cut down the cost of air travel, whereas others have no foreign transaction fees. This lets you cut off what can be an extra 3 percent fee on your purchases, which can add up.
Before leaving the country, though, you should inform your bank about your trip. If you start making international purchases and your bank thinks you’re at home, it may suspect the transactions are fraudulent and freeze your accounts.
2. Buy one big plane ticket.
Instead of buying separate flights to each place, consider getting an around-the-world ticket, which can cost as little as a few thousand dollars. This can be a much cheaper option and keep you on an itinerary, but there are some restrictions. You may have to complete the trip within a year and move only in one direction, like eastward.
Once you’re in a country, you can search for shorter flights on search engines such as Expedia and Momondo and choose budget airlines such as Ryanair in Europe and Tiger Airways in Asia and Australia. Plan to spend more time in cheaper destinations such as Thailand and South Africa than in places that will cost you more.
3. Pack light.
Pack only what you can carry on your back, if possible. Consider getting a travel backpack designed to work as an airline carry-on bag. Not only can this help you avoid losing luggage between flights, but you won’t have to pay extra fees for checking bags or for overweight items. The cost for one bag is around $25 for many airlines, but that cost can go up to $250 if you take 10 flights during your time abroad. You might pay even more if you decide to take smaller trips within a country. Plus, if a checked bag is over the weight limit, it can easily cost you $100 per flight.
As you pack, focus on taking clothes for different climates and bring handy items such as a Swiss Army knife and reusable bottle for your carry-on luggage.
4. Eat locally.
Street markets let you taste the local food for cheap, but make sure you know how to avoid getting sick from unsanitary conditions. To avoid spending too much on restaurant meals, choose places that locals tend to frequent. If you have a kitchen where you’re staying, consider cooking to save money. You may also feel healthier by taking a break from constantly going out to eat.
5. Skip hotels.
If you’re traveling alone or in a small group, your cheapest option might be a hostel. You might think hostels only accommodate students, but international organizations such as Hostelling International and Youth Hostel Association welcome all ages. Hostels often offer amenities such as free Wi-Fi, and sometimes they offer free breakfast. Bigger rooms with 10 to 20 people tend to have the lowest prices, but if you want more personal space, private rooms may be available.
If you plan to stay a week or longer in one place, consider a peer-to-peer rental such as Airbnb or HomeAway so you can cook, have privacy and still spend less on lodging than at hotels.
6. Get travelers insurance.
This might be lower on your list of priorities at first, but having travelers insurance can be a lifesaver if you get any expensive items stolen or have a medical emergency. One popular travel insurance company is World Nomads, and you can also search for others at insuremytrip.com.
7. Explore on your own.
Instead of paying for tours, explore cities and towns on foot and use public transportation when necessary. Buy local maps and guidebooks so you don’t get lost. If you stay at hostels or other shared living spots, fellow travelers can often offer valuable insights.
8. Try a work exchange.
If you can’t finance your whole trip ahead of time, you may be able to work for a few days or weeks through organizations such as HelpX and Workaway. Their sites feature work exchange programs, which let you work a few hours at farms and other locations in return for a full day’s worth of food and sleeping accommodations.
Do your research ahead of time so you find the kind of job, work schedule, meals and sleeping accommodations that work for you. When you get in touch with hosts, it doesn’t hurt to ask about Wi-Fi or bikes, especially if you’re in a rural area where it’s hard to get to the nearest town.  
Traveling on the cheap can let you enjoy the foods, scenery and culture of other countries more authentically than you would from the comforts of hotel rooms and fine dining. As your trip progresses, you’ll learn how to live experiences as a savvy traveler rather than pay for them as a tourist.
NerdWallet staff writer Spencer Tierney contributed to this article.

17 Tips To Motivate Adult Learners by Christopher Pappas

The introduction of learning technology and the changing workplace recently increased the importance of adult learning. However, there comes the problem of motivating adult learners. There are a few things that stand in the way to motivating adults to start learning.

How To Motivate Adult Learners

Adults, unlike children, teenagers and students, in most cases, have a lot of things on their minds and your eLearning course is probably the last one of them. In addition, your adult learners don't see the rewards
of their efforts as soon as they would expect, and giving them candy doesn't work as it works with children. Also, academic habits, they once possessed are also long forgotten. Least but not last, a lot of the learners are often forced to take on your eLearning course to enhance their skills, keep their job, get a job, or continue further with their career plans. All this makes it difficult to motivate learners and make them active participants.
Here are 17 Tips To Motivate Adult Learners that you might try.
  1. Create useful and relevant learning experiences based on the age group and interests of your learners
    Emphasize on the practical knowledge. It is important to design a course that provides immediate relevancy. Learning materials that can be put into practice. Adult learners appreciate more practical knowledge, rather than extraneous facts and theories.
  2. Facilitate exploration
    Even though children are famous for their exploratory nature and curiosity, adult learners, too, sometimes like to take the opportunity to construct knowledge in a way that is meaningful to them. For this reason, you should have all sorts of materials, references, infographics, short videos, lectures, podcasts and free resources available.  In such a perfect learning environment learners are more likely to get inspired or find something that makes them want to learn more.
  3. Build community and integrate social media
    Keep in mind that social media websites are a powerful tool for collaboration, commenting and sharing. You can facilitate group discussions and communities. People will quickly start exchanging knowledge, and will also have fun, social media is fun!
  4. A voice behind the video is not enough
    Add a personal touch. Your course needs to have a face. Make yourself available to people, invite subject-matter experts, authors, professors and other specialists in live online discussions and question and answer sessions.
  5. Challenge through games
    Come up with different problem solving exercises and case studies. Make your learners look for and find solutions.
  6. Use humor
    Humor would work great even with the most demotivated learners on your course. When your students know you are funny, they will listen to your material carefully, cause they wouldn't want to miss on your witty sense of humor. You can never lose with that.
  7. Chunk information
    Chunking is essential, as it helps people remember and assimilate information. Small bits are easier to process.
  8. Add suspense
    Don't give out everything your course is about in the beginning. Yes, you need an overview, but keep some interesting points until the time is right. No one likes to read a book if they know what's about to happen.
  9. Accommodate individual interests and career goals
    Empower learners to work on these goals and individualize the training to suit their needs.
  10. Stimulate your learners
    Encourage them to think by either providing them with brain teasers, or by asking thought-provoking questions.
  11. Let learning occur through mistakes
    According to a German proverb "you will become clever through your mistakes". Have you heard the famous expression: "Practice makes perfect"? Of course you have! Henry Roediger who started a learning experiment divided his students in two groups. Group A studied natural sciences paper for 4 sessions, while group B studied the same paper for one session and was tested on it three times. According to the experimenter, one week later, students from group B performed 50% better than Group A, even though they studied the paper less. The results clearly support the argument that "practice makes perfect".
  12. Make it visually-compelling
    Did you know that 83% of learning occurs visually?
  13. Get Emotional
    If you don't sound inspiring, if your materials are not exciting, how will you motivate your learners? Get them emotionally involved too – come up with controversial statements, tap on memories, add real-life stories.
  14. Get examples of their workplace
    Your learners may not always remember to associate what is learned with its application at the workplace. Sometimes they might need reminders and a clue to help them make that connection.
  15. Be respectful to them 
  16. Ask for feedback: It is motivating to know that your opinion contributes to the course.
  17. Present the benefits of undertaking the course
    I don't know why I didn't start with this one. Sometimes outlining the benefits is all it takes.
You may also find valuable the 9 Tips To Apply Adult Learning Theory to eLearning. In this article I'll discuss how Knowles' 5 adult learning theory assumptions can be translated to modern day eLearning experiences, so that you can integrate the 4 principles of Andragogy into your eLearning course for maximum learner engagement and motivation.
What other tips do you believe that motivate adult learners? What motivates you as an adult learn?You may also find useful the

Highly recommended resources on How to Motivate Adult Learners

Motivating Adult Learners
I really like the following video by Ashley Odom. By wathing it you will be able to answer the following questions:
  • What is Motivation?
  • What is an Adult Learner?
  • What is the Importance of Motivation in Adult Learning? and
  • How to Motivate Adult Learners

THE MONEY SECRET OF THE WEALTHY

 A senior man sitting on a sofa smokes a cigar and holds a glass.



Earning a lot of money doesn't make you wealthy, but these strategies do.
By
Several years ago, New York Times Wealth Matters columnist Paul Sullivan opened up his finances to a group of high-powered, high-net worth investors known as Tiger 21. Members gather regularly to discuss investing strategies and at one meeting, Sullivan asked them to critique his own – relatively meager by their standards – financial life.

New York Times Wealth Matters columnist Paul Sullivan.
New York Times Wealth Matters columnist Paul Sullivan.
“Given what I do, I thought [my wife and I] had a handle on it, but what I learned from that meeting is that we hadn’t thought enough about the risks in life,” Sullivan says. Those risks include declining incomes and the unexpected death or disability of a household wage earner. As a result of that meeting, Sullivan and his wife took out life and disability insurance policies and sold off a condo in Florida that had been a vacation home for the family.
“They were so direct and harsh about that being a possible drain, if we weren’t able to sell it if something bad happened. That was a wake-up call,” Sullivan says.
The lessons he absorbed from that wealthy, exclusive group of over 300 members across the U.S. and Canada led Sullivan to write his new book, “The Thin Green Line: The Money Secrets of the Super Wealthy.” The title refers to the security that can come from knowing you’re prepared for a negative event, like a layoff, no matter how much money you have or earn. “The people in the book who I call wealthy, whether they’re a teacher or a hedge fund manager, are wealthy because they have security. They have behaviors around money that let them be in control of their lives when something bad happens,” he says.
Those behaviors, Sullivan says, can be learned or even adopted later in life. As someone who grew up without much money, he says it took him a long time to have a healthy relationship with it. He would avoid credit card debt and overspending so assiduously that he often wore threadbare clothing and skipped even affordable purchases he would have enjoyed. “You should be able to spend money on things you enjoy. If you love $4 Starbucks lattes, then buy it,” he says.
If you're looking to adopt some secrets of the wealthy, Sullivan suggests the following strategies:
1. Focus on the things you can control, not what you wish you did in the past. “Too many normal Americans think, ‘I wish I bought Apple stock 15 years ago' – that’s the wrong way to think. You can’t control that,” he says. But you can control how much money you save each month. So instead of fretting over specific stock picks, just put your money into a broadly diversified portfolio and forget about it while it grows slowly over time.
Columnist Paul Sullivan's new book, “The Thin Green Line: The Money Secrets of the Super Wealthy.”
Columnist Paul Sullivan's new book, “The Thin Green Line: The Money Secrets of the Super Wealthy.”
2. Load up on insurance. Term life insurance is very cheap, Sullivan points out. While there is a low probability of a family breadwinner dying early, it would be disastrous if that were to occur. Sullivan suggests asking, “How many years will the surviving spouse need to get back on his or her feet?” Paying around $400 to $500 a year for a basic policy can help alleviate that risk​.
3. Don’t worry so much about taxes. “People waste a lot of time obsessing about taxes,” Sullivan notes. Instead, he recommends sitting down with an accountant to figure out your tax rate – ​and then accept it.
4. Find a fee-only financial advisor. “A bad advisor is worse than no advisor, so find an advisor who is really going to act in your best interesting,” Sullivan says. Fee-only advisors are obligated to work in clients' best interest and are not paid based on products they sell to clients.
5. Get your 401(k) benefit. Take advantage of any 401(k) plan your workplace offers, Sullivan says. If you put in even a small percentage of your paycheck each month and your employer matches it, you’ll slowly build a nest egg for retirement.
6. Spend on what makes you happy. After the Tiger 21 meeting, Sullivan says he became mindful of the purchases that brought him joy​. “What I really like is to go out to dinner and have a nice bottle of wine once or twice a month,” Sullivan says, so that is what he and his wife do.
At the end of the day, Sullivan says, it’s not earning a lot of money that makes you wealthy. “There are people on the wrong side [of the thin green line] at the top of their earning potential,” he says. Even from where he sat at a tennis club near his home in Connecticut during the interview​​, he says, “there are people all around me who are in the process of making horrendous decisions every day. They have too many cars, giant homes. But it’s a house of cards. If the bonus doesn’t come in, they could be in a lot of trouble when they shouldn’t.”
In fact, he says, one of the wealthiest people he knows is his aunt, a retired schoolteacher who lives in Western Massachusetts. “She has a pension, some investments and she gets to do everything she wants. She volunteers at a church, spends time with her grandkids and goes on one big vacation a year,” he says. You’re truly wealthy, he adds, when you have enough money to do all the things you want to do.

Rankings & Advice News U.S. News Home money Facebook Twitter Money Rankings & Advice Home Retirement Personal Finance Credit Cards My Money The Frugal Shopper Alpha Consumer The Smarter Investor Reboot Your Finances Careers Investing Real Estate Important Money Tips for Older Adults Going Back to College Careful, or your finances will get an F.

How can you manage responsibilities and college costs later in life? Study up on these areas to learn how. By Geoff Williams

Returning to college, or going for the first time, can be harder than the course work itself, as Cliff Robertson, Jr., of Tyler, Texas, is discovering, in large part because he refuses to go into debt to pay for school.
"It's requiring every penny I can scrape up, applying for every program even remotely available. Then there are the bills of life that simply do not stop," says the 49-year-old, who attends the University of Texas–Tyler.
This is his second go-around with the university. Robertson graduated in 1991 with a communications and media degree. But he returned to his alma mater this summer to work toward a masters in clinical mental health counseling, while juggling a job in administration and sales for a local manufacturer and work as a part-time youth pastor.
"It's tough to balance," Robertson says, of all his commitments. He lost his first wife and little girl in a car accident 15 years ago, but has a 24-year-old son and now a grandson. Robertson also has an 8-year-old son from a second marriage that ended in divorce. "Going to see him while trying to stay on top of a 19-hour course load while working is tough. But I'm somehow managing … most of the time."
It isn't surprising that adults like Robertson are interested in going back to college, no matter the sacrifice or stress. After all, the more you learn, the more you earn. Plus, life is short, and you may really feel like you're missing out by not pursuing higher education.
"I chose this path because I am committed to helping people. It's my calling," Robertson says.
But returning to college is fraught with financial danger. It isn't only the expense; you have so many more responsibilities to juggle, much more than when you were young and naive and unappreciative of your freedom and flexibility. Toying with the idea of going back to school? Want the experience to go well? Study up on the following.
Understand that college degrees don't always mean big bucks. Yes, an advanced degree should help you earn more, but don't forget: Your success may depend on what you're studying. For instance, a 2012 census report concluded that engineering majors had the highest earnings of any bachelor's degree field, bringing in $92,000 a year in 2011. But if you were going to major in, say, education, psychology or communications, your median annual earnings would be $55,000 – or less.
Or you could have bad luck and not find a great job. This isn't to discourage anyone – there's a lot to be said for getting an education for the sake of an education – but if you're going to take this on, you want to do it right, especially if you are going to be steeped in the world of student loans.
"Older students should be more cautious about borrowing to pay for college," says Mark Kantrowitz, senior vice president and publisher at Edvisors.com, an informational website about college costs. He has also authored college-cost books, including, "Filing the FAFSA."
Research student debt. The rule of thumb, Kantrowitz says, is that "total student debt at graduation should be less than your expected annual starting salary."
If that's the case, he says, you should be able to repay your student loans in 10 years or less.
Kantrowitz also mentions that if you're 24 or older, as of December 31 of the academic year, you're automatically considered independent for federal student aid purposes.
"This may qualify them for more financial aid, since parent information is not required on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid," or FAFSA, he says.
He also advises older and nontraditional students to apply for financial aid just as dependent students would.
"Use a free scholarship matching service, such as StudentScholarshipSearch.com or Fastweb.com, to search for scholarships," Kantrowitz says.
Also consider going to a private college or university, says Alejandra Mojica, a 31-year-old public relations intern in San Francisco who is completing her Bachelor of Arts at the University of San Francisco.
"Although the tuition is higher, they often have better financial aid packages, and other tuition assistance can be much easier to access than with public universities," says Mojica.

Thursday 3 September 2015

Be the very best you can be

BE CAREFUL THAT YOU DON'T STEAL PEOPLE'S POWER! Friends, If you want to help people on your team to excel... The best thing you can do is to let them figure some stuff out on their own. Hand holding and babysitting breeds an attitude of expectancy and laziness. SERIOUSLY! You may think you're being the best leader in the world. But the fact is you're not. It's not good for you. And it's not good for them. Of course you should help your team. But there's a line. People come to me all the time with various kinds of questions and problems. "Vic, I'm broke. Can you lend me?" Vic, I'm stuck with this. Can you do it for me?" Usually, the same people asking these questions didn't watch the videos, didn't even attempt to solve the problem themselves... AND WERE OUT AT THE BAR POUNDING SHOTS ALL NIGHT! Do yourself a favour. Do them a favour and let them figure that shit out on their own. They may hate you for it now. But one day they will thank you for it. DON'T ROB THEM OF THEIR CHANCE TO BECOME A MORE POWERFUL AND CREATIVE HUMAN BEING!