Passwords. We have them everywhere now. Whether it’s the PIN (Personal Identification Number) for your ATM card, the password that logs you into your email account, or to set up your Internet Router, we have this need for security that our money, our personal details and our private information is kept away from people we’d rather not let near them.

However, your choice of password can let you down and even though you think you are safe, you could be leaving the doors wide open to unsavoury characters who don’t think twice about stealing your identity and looting your bank account and credit cards for as much as they can get their hands on.

There are thousands of websites that let you register and sign in with an account; each of which requires another password. It’s getting to the point where it’s difficult to remember which password you used where. And this leads you to disregard security to make your life easier.
It’s too tempting to choose a password that is easy to remember, or even use the one supplied by the manufacturer. Unfortunately, that often makes them easy for other people to guess.

Believe it or not, when faced with the pressure to choose a password, people are not very creative, and statistics show that many people choose the same ones as everyone else. Here’s a list of top-10 passwords:

1. password
2. 123456
3. qwerty
4. abc123
5. letmein
6. monkey
7. myspace1
8. password1
9. link182
10. (your first name)

When they say “Enter password”, it doesn’t mean enter the word “password”! It means choose one and enter it!

If you use any of those passwords, you’ve fallen into the same trap as everyone else.

Don’t Keep Default Passwords
Here’s an example. My wireless Internet router is made by D-Link. To log in to the set up page, the account name is set by D-Link to be Admin, with the password set to “password”. Very easy to remember, and most people don’t bother to change it.
Now, I take my wireless laptop or PDA and go somewhere and find an open wireless network. What if the router being used is also by D-Link? What if the owner didn’t bother to change the account name or password? I can now log in and change the password, thus locking out the owner from their own router setup.
I can now come back at any time and browse the computers on that network. Who knows what personal information I might find on there?
And if “password” doesn’t work, I might try any of the ones from the above list.

Don’t Use Familiar Words
Instead of using one of the common passwords, some people resort to using the name of someone or something close to them, such as the name of their spouse, child, pet or street.
Here’s another example. When I was at university, my room-mate was a huge fan of the UK football team, Manchester City (also known as Man City). Just for kicks I thought I’d try and log into his university computer account. I knew his username, but needed his password. So I tried “mancity”. That didn’t work, so I tried the names of their star player. That didn’t work, either. Then I remembered the name of the team manager, and tried that. I was in to his account in just 3 tries.

Don’t use familiar numbers
Just like family names, some people use birthdates. Again, these are too easy to guess.

Use a Strong Password
A strong password is one that is more difficult to guess. Here are some suggestions for creating a strong password.

Don’t use words that appear in a dictionary. If you really must use a word to help you remember (but it’s not recommended), you could try replacing some of the letters with numbers or symbols that resemble the letter. For example, let’s say you wanted to use the word GUITAR as part of your password. You could change the G to 6, the I to 1, and the A to @ to make 6U1T@R.

Use numbers as well as letters. Very often, this is a requirement that is enforced when you choose a password, but looking at the list of common passwords, people are still using simple ones such as abc123.

Use symbols. Using punctuation and symbols makes passwords much more difficult to guess than if you had simply used letters and numbers.

Use upper and lower case letters. Passwords are usually case sensitive to increase the pool of letters available when choosing the password. This makes it much more difficult to guess.

Use longer passwords. It is now recommended that the minimum length of password that you use is 12 characters, using a mixture of character types as mentioned above, and preferably a non-dictionary word.
Example: 4doFg*lf /Y7s

Remember your password.
So now that you have chosen a totally random password, how do you remember it? Some browsers can remember them for you, but what happens if your browser loses that data, or you are trying to log in from somebody else’s computer?

One technique is to choose a password that looks random but has some mnemonic attached to it.
Here’s one example I just thought of:
4&20bBbIaP
This fits in with many of our criteria; it’s what looks like a random mixture of letters, numbers and symbols, with upper and lower case.

The mnemonic for it is a line from a children’s song:
“Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie”.

After the 4 & 20, the remaining letters are the initials of the words, alternating lower and upper case.
(Please don’t use this example – now that I’ve mentioned it, hundreds of people will start using it!)

If you still can’t think of a good password, have a program generate one for you. There are a lot of free password generators on the Internet. Personally, I wouldn’t use one of the online ones – they might be logging my IP address and the passwords I generate.

So, think creatively about your choice of password. Somebody could be trying to hack your PayPal account right now!

I’ve just gotten an e-book copy of Mark Joyner’s classic book, “Mind Control Marketing”. I’ve wanted to buy this book for years, but I’ve never been able to get my hands on it.  Mark pulled it from print not long after it was released and until now… the only way to get access to this powerful marketing information was to buy a used copy on Amazon or eBay for several hundred dollars.

Seriously, the cheapest I saw it offered for was $249 on Amazon. As much as I wanted the book, and as much as I had been primed to want it, I just couldn’t justify paying that much for it.

Mark claims he took the book out of print because “money isn’t everything” and he didn’t want the information to fall into the “wrong hands”… So why is he “giving it away” for such a low price now? For me, purchasing Mind Control Marketing was an absolute “no brainer”. I expected to pay a lot more for it that I did.

So, is this the most powerful marketing book ever written or nothing more than a compelling title, excellent sales copy and a well orchestrated, long-term marketing plan?

Actually, I didn’t even read the sales copy… I just wanted this book so bad I scrolled right to the bottom of the page and paid… I was expecting to pay at least $97. In my opinion, he’s selling it way too cheap. I’ve paid more than $27 for 20 page ebooks. Mind Control Marketing is over 160 pages of powerful information. You even get the “secret chapter” - reputed to be more powerful than the rest of the e-book.

This chapter wasn’t even included in the print book. Mark took it out just before the book went to print because he thought it was too powerful. (I’ve read it, I know why he may have felt this way.)

The information in the book DOES live up to the hype… It’s basically step-by-step instructions on how to manipulate people and it COULD be used for ill will. Maybe it’s dangerous letting everyone know?

When it comes to releasing controversial information like this, I have always thought that it’s better out than in. The people who worry about it getting out are those who fear they will lose their own power if it does.

Once the information is in the public domain, the power of its dark side diminishes, but ethical use of the information remains unaffected. So, maybe the $27 price does show that Mark doesn’t think money is everything.  He has decided that this is something we should all know and made it affordable to the masses.

I think reading it will help you grow as a person, as well as making you a better marketer.

Click here to check out Mind Control Marketing By Mark Joyner for yourself.

Respectfully

Dan Blackburn

Make more sales

With complete control over 15 ad spots in your content, you can promote your own website(s) and affiliate recomendations, or sell the space direct to merchants and take ALL the money!

Revenue sharing is becoming more and more popular on the internet these days, several sites like Squidoo and hub pages will share the revenue your content generates with you. But that’s only a fraction of what the space is actually worth… a percentage of the percentage they receive from networks like Amazon. A tiny fraction of what the space is actually worth!

But here you get full control, just like it was your own blog and 100% of what the ad space actually worth! It’s dead easy to set the ads you want to appear in your articles. Just copy and paste the code.

We may not have the same traffic as Squidoo or Hub pages yet… but we are not going to change the rules later… You will always have full control over the ad space on your post pages. All 15 spots!.

Get More Traffic and back links

The articles you submit here are more often than not, republished on several other sites. “Niche” blogs, squidoo lenes, hub pages and social networking profiles and more. Each niche blog on the network is owned and operated by a dedicated individual working to drive traffic into YOUR articles.

Try it FREE for 30 days… If you don’t agree that this worth at least 10 times the cost of membership, just cancel your membership and never pay a penny. You will even keep all the ad space and back links we build for you while taking the trial.

Click here for more details.

Respectfully

Dan Blackburn

Article marketing is one of the most widely used methods of promoting a website and making money online. It’s not just those people submitting articles to article directories who should be considered to be an article marketer. Every hub on hubpages.com, every lens on Squidoo.com was put together by an article marketer. Whether they call themselves that or not.

Article marketing is changing rapidly with the advent of “Web 2.0″, Social Media and social networking sites. What worked back in 2006 isn’t so effective any more. But article marketing and marketing with articles will continue to grow in popularity and become even more powerful than it was back then.

Back in the day, you could submit an article to hundreds of article directories and everyone of them would give a reasonablly powerful “back link” to your site. For a time is was a marketers paradise, but you can see why the good times had to come to an end.

When something becomes “easy” it tends to become low quality. This is definately what happened to traditional “old style” article marketing.

What killed old style article marketing?

In my logical opinion, old style article marketing was killed by 3 things.

1. The proliferation of article directories on the Internet. So called “Internet Marketing Guru’s” made it too easy for “wanabees” to own their own directory. This in itself would not have been so much of a problem had it not been for….

2. Automatic article submission software. These were the real killer. With all that spammy content being submitted to all those spammy directories, Google had to do something. The changes they made hurt even the good quality content and top authors. (Traditional article marketing is less effective for everyone as a result of this).

3. All the hype about making easy money with “Google Adsense” that has been stuffed down the throat of everyone in Internet marketing circles since 2005. Without this hype they would have been less people wanting to own their own article directory.

With all that unmoderated, duplicate, “spammy” content filling up the article directories, the “Big G” had to do something. So they stopped passing link authority from all but a handful of article directory sites. You can no longer use Article Marketing alone to increase your Google Page Rank and SERP’s.

But that does not mean that you cannot get traffic from traditional article marketing or that it does not have it’s place in your overall online marketing strategy you just need to be more selective about where you submit your content and more importantly, the content that you submit.

Dan Blackburn is the owner of the popular article directory article content king.

(c) Dan Blackburn. This article may be republished as long as all links are left in tack.

1. The most obvious, they take all the money generated from the ad space directly. Having full control over the ad space, authors can even sell space within their articles privately.

The main business model of any article directory or “group content” site relies mainly on the revenue from ad space. Many sites are willing to share this revenue with the authors, but only one site (that I know of) gives full control over the ad space to the author… And ALL the revenue!

2. A less obvious benefit to the AdSpace articles model is the “elimination” of competing ads in your content. This is usually the biggest drawback of article marketing to the author. They submit their articles to other sites and within their content are targeted ads.

Yes TARGETED ads, unless you are PAYING to advertise on the site, those ads within your content will no doubt be promoting your competitions website. Your hard work is making sales for them! Sure you might be getting a piece of the pie if the site is sharing revenue with you, but it’s nothing compared to the money you would have made if the ad was making sales for you… or if you were the “broker” selling the traffic.

AdSpace articles give you full control over what does and what does not appear along side your content. You can even remove the ads completely if you so wish.

To get 3 free ad space articles visit here.

Join Cagora Here

Related posts:
Benefits of a Facebook Personal Profile
Benefits of Settting Up a Google Local Search Profile
Why Use Adsense For Your Content Sites and Publications
ICE (In Case of Emergency)

Categories: Business, Internet Business, Traffic Generation.

Permanent link: Benefits of a Facebook Organization Page (Write a comment).
Read more: Article Directory Blog.

The future of customer service is here. Technology has made seeking out support faster and easier than ever. But, has your digital age company sacrificed true service in the name of automation?

Today, finding customer support is as simple as writing an e-mail or picking up the phone. But, even though you’re not face-to-face with your customers, you still leave a lasting impression. Do you come across as caring and competent, or menacing and mechanical?

Offering stand-out service on the Internet isn’t as hard as it is rare. Take these simple steps towards old-style service in the digital age:

Give Each Customer a Personal Response
Be Clear, But Sincere
Offer Live Customer Support
Make Sure Your Support Reps Have All the Answers

Give Each Customer a Personal Response

When a customer sits down to e-mail your company, it’s because he needs help. He chooses e-mail because it’s quick, but his request still warrants a satisfying and personal response!Companies eager to save time and money often take automation too far in their customer support. Each customer has a unique question, and deserves a unique answer. Even if you save time by copying and pasting stock replies, change the opening and closing to make the message sound less robotic.

Be Clear, But Sincere

When responding to customers’ e-mail, be sincere and to the point. Before sending a message, try turning the tables. Ask yourself, “Would this answer satisfy me if I were the customer?”Take that extra moment to give your customer the help he deserves. It might mean the difference between a satisfied customer and a credit card chargeback!

Offer Live Customer Support

E-mail has become an acceptable form of communication. But, live customer support is still necessary. The plethora of information available online can be overwhelming to customers, especially those new to the Internet!Single your company out from the crowd by providing customers with a real person to talk to. Live phone support is an invaluable way to foster trust. When your customer has reached the end of his Internet rope, and just needs help, your toll free number is the answer he’s looking for.

Make Sure Your Support Reps Have All The Answers

The presence of phone support will do no good if your staff doesn’t know your product! Customer support reps should be warm and friendly, and willing to help with any aspect of your product.What a good feeling it is to talk to someone who feels confident in his product. It’s even better if he’s knowledgeable enough to solve your problem without transferring you all around the company!

Provide Stand-Out Service; Gain Lifelong Customers

Too many e-businesses skimp on customer service, hiding behind web sites and message boards. Customer support is an integral part of every company, even those operating solely online. Be one of the few to offer stellar service, and gain customers for life!

Customer Service is becoming a lost art, but Sean Cohen wants to make sure that never happens at AWeber Communications! Find out what service is meant to be.