Using Opt-In Email Marketing For Your Website

If you're into opt-in email marketing, then you are taking a big step in the right direction towards making money with your product. You can do all kinds of things with an email list, and it's something that you should seriously consider if you want to blow the lid off your sales and profits.

Now when building up your email list, you need traffic. I generally recommend my clients to test the niche out by using some cheap pay per click marketing (PPC), and see if their squeeze page is collecting subscribers. If it isn't, then I recommend going into a different niche where the opt-in rate is high.

What is a good opt-in rate? Well in my opinion, anything between 20% and 40% are good rates. You can easily achieve this with advertising and free marketing - especially if you're in a small niche. You could takeover the niche and be perceived as the obvious expert in your market.

One of the things that you will want to do once you start building up your list is to keep them engaged. Offer them immense amounts of content that can help them achieve a goal or solve a problem. A few ways to keep them engaged is by offering them a blog, a forum, some articles on your site... and even encourage them to email you back in each email that you send out.

People will definitely email you back and engage in communications with you. They want to know some answers to the basic questions that they have. And sometimes, your answer will be so complex that you will just have to recommend that they purchase your course to get all of the answers that they are looking for.

Now to do all of these things, you need traffic... lots of targeted website traffic. Now this is an easy thing to do. There's always advertising, I'm sure you already know that. And there's also free marketing. There are a ton of free marketing strategies that you can use to take your business to the next level. A few of my favorite are blogging, article marketing, forum marketing, and video marketing.

You will have to test and see which options work best for your business. All of these ways can bring you the traffic you need to grow your list exponentially. The only drawback of free marketing is that it can take a while for it to really come into fruition for you.

However, the allure of earning 100% free profits is something that is enticing also. But this 100% free profits can be used to offset the costs of acquiring a new customer. So I highly recommend doing it. And they don't take a lot of time to implement.

Hopefully you will use opt-in email marketing in your business, because it can be a source of guaranteed profits for you. And this is especially true when it comes to backend marketing - but I'll reserve that topic for another day.

Good luck with using email marketing to earn more money in your online business today.

Identity Theft: What Is It?

Identity Theft. What do you think about when you see those two words? Possibly it makes chills go down your spine if you have been a victim, or know someone else who has been. Possibly you have heard the phrase, but don't really know what it is. Maybe both of the above apply, or maybe neither apply. This article is for anyone who wants to know what identity theft really is and what types of identity theft there are. There are many different types of identity theft to learn about and from which to protect yourself.

First of all, what really IS identity theft? Simply put, it's when someone gets your personal information and tries to pretend to be you for their personal gain. It is when someone tries to pretend to be you in some circumstance for some reason. It is a crime that is everywhere and continues to be on the rise. You can't guarantee that your personal information is safe. There is always the potential of someone watching long enough and being savvy enough to get your personal information. Without getting too much into it, people steal others' identities because there is something they want that they can't get with their own identities.

I don't know if you realized that there are five main types of identity theft. The first identity theft that people often think about is financial. This can include: credit card, child support, government benefits and charity, just to name a few. This type of identity theft is all about getting money, in whatever form the thieves can get. A common way to get this information of late is either e-mails or phone calls phishing for your personal information. Chances are, the credit card companies and banks/credit unions with which you have accounts won't need to send an e-mail or phone call to get your personal information again. These are definitely easy ways to protect yourself. If in doubt, don't give out any information until you speak directly with the financial institutions with which you have accounts. However, this form of identity theft only makes up less than 18% of all of the identity thefts in the world today.

What do you mean? There's more? Yes, in fact, one of the identity theft crimes on the rise today is medical identity theft. Some thieves like to take others' medical records to use as their own. They might do this because their own personal records are lacking and they need a medical identity with better health than their own. They also might want to hurt another by giving the wrong information so others will suffer. Whatever the reason, medical identity theft is rising as a form of identity theft in the nation.

Another form of identity theft is Social Security identity theft. There are many people who are immigrating from other countries into this country that don't have their own social security number of their own, so they like to steal ours. Many places in the nation, you can't even get a job or an apartment without a social security number. Think about all that you use your social security number for. What could you do without it? What can you NOT do without it? It's a pretty important set of numbers that identify you in a way you couldn't otherwise be identified.

However, maybe you don't want to be identified if you're a criminal. Criminals are looking for other peoples' identities, since they've messed up their own. They're looking for ways to pin the blame on someone else, and what a better person than a hard-working taxpayer, a good person like you. If you get a knock on the door in the middle of the night with a warrant for your arrest or a demand to take your children away, wouldn't you like to have a defense- someone to go to? How could you prove that you aren't the criminal the police may think you are? What a challenging situation in which you don't want to be involved.

Another challenging situation in which you might find yourself is having your driver's license stolen. What another important piece of identity THAT is. If someone stole that, what kind of damage could they do? Again, you might use your driver's license for a job or a place to live. You might use it to identify you in other circumstances. You might even have to go to court for some tickets you didn't earn. How devastating and humiliating THAT would be. Court is not a popular place to hang out for most people. It's probably some place you avoid at all costs, right? The courthouse is generally a stressful place for all involved.

What a stressful thing all of these types of identity theft can be in your life. Many people who are victims of identity theft spend hundreds of hours and hundreds of dollars trying to fix their identity. Why try to simply FIX something when you can easily RESTORE your identity back to the way it was BEFORE your identity was stolen? It's simple to do, once you know where to look. What a WONDERFUL way to protect yourself and your family against the most invasive crime in America!

Driving Down Risk for Younger Motorists

Younger drivers aged 17 to 21 are more at risk of accidents than any other age group. There are more penalties for speeding than ever before and insurance premiums are becoming more expensive each year. This article looks at the management of risk whilst driving.

The risk factor can never be fully eradicated from driving. Every time we get into a car and move away we are taking a risk as we cannot foresee what will happen next. Risk is an important part of human development and we all react to it in different ways depending upon our personality and the situation we find ourselves in. the secret to safe driving relies on the control of risk rather than ignoring it or simply shrinking away and avoiding it altogether.

The younger age group are more willing to take risks as they are at a developmental stage where they are trying to find out where their limits are. This can translate into reckless driving and carelessness with the inevitable consequences. I have seen former pupils speeding around and going against everything they were taught during their driving lessons. They listened at the time and were successful in passing their test but the message did not stick. The sense of freedom and self identity which goes hand in hand with gaining a driving licence overrides any previous teaching. It seems rules and advice are ineffective against our natural impulses to seek excitement and danger.

At the other end of the scale we see younger drivers who fear risk and will do almost anything to avoid it. Fear of emerging at junctions or even of moving off on a hill in case they roll backwards are symptoms of an inability to control risk. A dependence on being warned in advance or denying the element of risk altogether play a part in making a driver unsafe on the road. The timid driver is unpredictable and slow which can be a danger to other motorists. This can be seen on the road when drivers hold up traffic and invite others who are impatient into dangerous overtaking. Knowing there is risk involved in a task and managing it helps us to function well and gain a sense of self control. This is the middle ground we are looking for when it comes to good driving.

Younger drivers need to be taught active risk management from the very beginning of their driving career. When risk is neither feared nor embraced it can be controlled and decision making made all the more easier. Peer pressure will always be a factor for younger drivers especially males and this can be hard to account for as they are willing to allow others to tell them what level of risk is acceptable for fear of ridicule. Younger drivers need to have an idea of personal responsibility and this could be instilled if traffic education was on the school syllabus and they were taught about attitudes to driving from a young age.

What Evolution Is

The Theory of Evolution began with Charles Darwin and his book, Origin of Species. Interestingly, he did not conclude that evolution began billions of years ago in a chance combination of just the right chemicals. He simply observed that many species were similar enough that they appeared to come from a common ancestor. Despite its "evolution" into what it is today, it has become the default scientific explanation of the origin of life.

To understand evolution, one must understand the difference between the origin of life and the tiny changes that we do see happen and are clearly happening. The origin of life is thought to have taken place billions of years ago when the earth was rather young and was bathed in water and a plethora of simple molecules that included carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, chlorine, etc. In other words, the ingredients of life. It is believed that with the aid of energy from the sun, these chemicals combined in various combinations and every once in a while, or maybe just once, the one in a million chance (so to speak) would cause a combination that could be classified as primitive life giving molecules. Eventually these combined to make more complex molecules until they formed into what would be considered a very simple cell of come sort.

Now of course it is thought that even basic molecules were very uncommon, and the more complex they became the lesser and lesser chance they had of forming, but that the one in a billion billion billion billion, etc. ended up as a cell. Of course this took place over millions of years, it is not supposed to have happened in a short time. However, for some random reason, a tiny fraction, or perhaps even just one of these few primitive cells, through pure chance, happened to have the ability to divide, which it began doing. Soon there were lots of these cells and as they filled the ocean, natural selection began to take effect and most of them died off, but every once in a while, one would have a mutation that allowed it to adapt a little better and therefore reproduce.

It is this natural selection that we see every day. We know for example that wolves were the original ancestors of dogs. This is an example of evolution, just evolution that humans forced. Every once in a while, a wolf was a little tamer than normal and then bred to produce offspring that were also tame. Over many generations, they became what we call dogs today. There are also clear similarities between animals in different places because their environments demanded slightly different survival properties.

These distinctions are important because no one is positing that species can't change over time, but many deny that life could have come from a pool of non-living molecules purely by chance. So when you say that you don't buy into evolution, you don't usually mean that minor attributes of species cannot change over time, you mean that you don't think life originated with a pool of slime. Not understanding the difference can make it seem that you do not know what is evolution.

How to Play Links Golf

When sheep huddled in hollows of sandy linksland to shelter from freezing North Sea winds off the coast of Scotland, the first golf bunkers were created. When roaming livestock grazed on the tough links grasses man saw an opportunity to mark out hard running greens and fairways for a new sport called golf.

To this day, playing links golf - in Scotland and Ireland - or at one of the prestigious venues for the Open Championship, is the dream golf tour. Many golfers travel from all over the world on a pilgrimage to the world's best links golf courses.

If you've never battled strong sea breezes, or aimed down a fairway lined by gorse bushes you'll probably feel you are playing a different game.

Global Golfer's editor Matthew Moore, a one handicap golfer, lived in St Andrews for four years and devoted himself to learning the art of links golf.

Here is a practical guide to playing links golf.

Learn to knuckle the ball off the tee

Fairways at links courses can be narrow and lined by gorse (a hard dense prickly shrub), pot bunkers and thick tall rough fescue grasses.

When the wind blows hard, it's difficult to keep the ball in play and out of trouble, especially if you are used to driving the ball high through the air with a lot of spin and shape.

To play links courses well you need to drive the ball low and straight, under the wind, with less spin so that it lands and runs down the fairways.

You can do this by hitting the "knuckle ball" with your driver. This shot creates a low top spinning flight that releases and runs on landing.

Here's how:

· Tee the ball low, quite tight to the turf

· Choke right down on the grip

· Address the ball out of the middle of your stance

· Stack 60% of your weight on your left side

· Swing with a three quarter length at a smooth tempo, resisting the temptation to hit the ball hard and focusing on making a sweet strike

Remember, as with all full shots in the wind, the harder you hit the ball the more spin you create and the higher you will hit it, exposing it to the wind.

The knuckle ball drive will be shorter than your usual drives, but will make up for it by running on the hard links fairways. Best of all, it's accurate and great for beating the wind and keeping the ball on short grass rather than in the gorse - which almost certainly equals a penalty drop.

Play with Punch not Ego

It's not unusual to find yourself facing a shot of 125 yards into a tiny raised up green with a gale force wind blowing into your face. This is when you have to leave your ego behind, forget you hit gap wedge 130 yards if you swing full out, and play smart by choosing a much longer club and punching it to keep the flight down and reduce spin.

To play links golf well, you have to accept you will sometimes hit a 4-iron from 140 yards or an 8-iron when you only have 85 yards left. You do this by playing the punch shot - the links golfer's best friend.

To punch the shot means to play with a shorter backswing, de-lofting the club for a lower flight and using your forearms and body together to shorten your follow through and punch aggressively through the ball at impact.

Top tips for punch shots:

· Grip down the shaft

· Position the ball further back in your stance towards your right foot

· Move your hands slightly further ahead of the ball

· Shift 65% of your weight onto your left side

· Swing ¾ length and punch through the shot with a shortened follow through below shoulder height

The lower the flight the less likely it is to be affected by the wind.

Make adjustments for the ball flying in lower and aim to land it short of the flagstick and allow it to run out towards the hole.

Practical Putting

If you usually play on inland golf courses or at golf resorts, you probably use your lob wedge and your sand wedge most when chipping around the green, throwing the ball high and landing it soft.

At a links courses the strong winds can buffet the ball from the shortest of distances and make accurate chipping difficult. Also, it's rare to find thick rough around a links green, the most common hazards are bunkers, run offs, bank sides and hollows, which makes it possible to put the wedge away and use the putter from off the green.

At The Open Championship you will have seen top professionals putting from 25 yards off the green with great results. This is because putting from off the green is one of the best short game choices you can make on a links. The fairways are usually extremely tight making nipping the ball off the hard turf a precise skill - and it's easy to thin, blade or skull the shot.

Your worst putt will always be better than your worse chip, so look at the slope and undulation of the land, be practical and use your putter to get the ball up and down.

Bump and Run makes the game fun

You will have heard about the Scottish bump and run or seen it played. This low flying shot lands short of the green or just on the green and rolls out towards the hole like a putt.

If you have nothing between yourself and the flag then the bump and run is a brilliant option because once it lands it starts to behave like a putt and can track towards the hole. Links greens can be undulating and sloping and so landing a high chip or pitch onto a hard downslope can cause inconsistent bounces and erratic results.

How to bump and run:

· Address the ball off the right foot

· Use anything from a five iron to a 9-iron

· Weight 70% on the left side

· Sternum ahead of the ball

· Heads ahead of the ball, club sitting upright

· Make a putting stroke and hit crisply down into the back off the ball

· Pick a spot just on the green to land it and let it run towards the hole

Lie of the land

A caddie at The Old Course at St Andrews, Turnberry or Troon would tell you that it takes time to get to know the subtleties and nuances of links land and learn the bounce of the ball. Often slopes and natural features can funnel the ball towards the hole, squeeze extra yards from a drive or prevent a ball from going in a hazard.

Buying a yardage chart and studying the contours and slopes of each hole is a good idea but you can't beat being alert and observant when you are playing the course. Watch how partners balls bounce, look at sloping fairways and anticipate if you need to play to the right for a kick to the left.

Sometimes on a links the last place you will aim is the flag, because you might need to hit it 30 yards right to catch a shoot that funnels the ball left to the hole.

Hybrid Heaven

The worst thing you can do when playing links golf in a wind is hit hard onto the back of the ball with a steep swing squeezing the ball up into the air and applying backspin to it. The shot will balloon and the wind will exaggerate the spin forcing it into trouble.

A good way to get around this is to have a number of hybrid clubs or utility clubs to pick from. By using a hybrid with a shallower flatter swing you can pick the ball off the top of the grass and sweep it towards the target.

It's easier to hit lower shots that have less spin and are more accurate by hitting hybrids rather than trying to drive down hard on long irons.

Make the wind your friend

The chances are that it will be windy on your links golf tour. It's vital you make the wind your friend not your foe. The easiest way is to play with the wind rather than against it. Instead of trying to cut a three iron into a right to left wind, take a 5-iron and aim further right allowing the ball to ride the wind. It's the same with a driver, cutting a ball into a right to left wind can take fully 80-yards off your tee shot, but, set up for a right to left draw and aim further right can result in big drives and simpler second shots.

Use the wind to your advantage and remember the harder you hit, the higher it flies and the stronger the effect on the ball and its spin.

Take your medicine in Bunkers

Our final tip for playing links golf is to be able to take your medicine and play safe when you find yourself in bunkers. Have you heard of the "Sands of Nakijima"?, more commonly called the "Road Hole" bunker at the 17th on The Old Course at St Andrews.

It's typical of the deep pot bunkers with riveted faces common on the links courses of Scotland, Ireland and Wales. I mention it here because it's a classic example of how a round can come unstuck when a golfer tries to execute a miracle recovery from a deep bunker. If you aren't at least 90% certain you can clear the lip don't risk duffing it into a riveted face and having it drop straight down into an even worse spot.

It's no shame to play out sideways or even backwards from a links pot bunker if it means you can save a bogey or even better stop yourself making a quad or scoring in double figures.

Opt for the conservative shot that will guarantee you have at least a chance of a reasonable score - if you don't you might find a bunker named after you.

Once again, here's the short version of Global Golfer's top-tips for playing Links Golf.

· Knuckle ball your drives

· Play with punch not ego

· Be practical putt from off the green

· Bump and run to make the game fun

· Learn the lie of the land

· Hybrids are heavenly on the links

· Make the wind your friend

· Take your medicine in the bunkers

4 Home Inspection Tips for a Buyer's Peace of Mind

Buying a home is a major event for most people. Since we do it so infrequently, there are many facets of the process which are not familiar to the average buyer. One very important aspect of the home buying process is getting a professional home inspection.

Home inspections can uncover hidden flaws an untrained person would not notice. Sometimes the inspectors discover defects that could cost hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars to correct. Even when they discover minor flaws, you can add to your contract that the seller will correct them. Alternatively, you will have some ammunition to possibly negotiate a lower price. Here are a few inspection tips:

Home Inspection Tip No. 1

Be sure to select an inspector who has had training and a lot of experience in inspection. An experienced inspector will be familiar with good construction methods, and will recognize any visible defects in the structure, or in the installation of ancillary systems such as electrical, plumbing, and HVAC systems. He or she will likely be aware of current recalls of various appliances and what options are available to owners.

Home Inspection Tip No. 2

Choose an inspector from the local area. An inspector from the area will be familiar with local building codes. He or she will also be familiar with common problems associated with the neighborhood, and with individual home builders in the area.

Home Inspection Tip No. 3

Be sure you are present and tag along with the inspector while he or she inspects your potential purchase. Most inspectors prefer you to be there so they can point out specific defects, as well as the good features of your prospective purchase. This will give you a much better understanding of the items in his or her report. Ask questions about anything you see or don't understand.

Home Inspection Tip No. 4

Don't plan on doing your own inspection. There are hundreds of items that need to be inspected. Without formal training or years in the home construction trades, the average person will not be able to recognize many potential defects. A professional home inspection only costs a few hundred dollars to protect your investment of more than 500 times as much. This is no time to be penny wise and pound foolish.

You will get an unbiased evaluation from your inspector. You should expect to get a detailed report, with a description of both good and bad findings, along with appropriate diagrams and photos as necessary to document those findings.

Following the tips above will make you aware of any potential problems, and allow you to proceed with your transaction with the confidence that you are buying a sound property, or will be once any potential defects are addressed. A thorough inspection takes the emotion out of the equation, and gives you peace of mind knowing you are making your decision based on the facts.