Bookmarking Tools - Choosing the Best For Your SEO Campaign

If you're making use of social bookmarking as part of your traffic generation technique then you should probably find a social bookmarking tool that creates the job much faster and easier than logging into each site individually. If you are using blogs it is also a good idea to have a social bookmark submitting plugin so your site visitors can easily bookmark your posts, or at the least it could remind them to bookmark your website using a bookmarklet for whatever social bookmarking site they use.

Social bookmarking is intended to provide an internet user with an online reference of webpages that they like. To help make it easier for them to save these webpages, social bookmarking tools have been created by these bookmarking sites which may be put in blogs and webpages to make it easy for visitors of their sites to immediately bookmark their page utilizing their own accounts among the bookmarking websites that are provided for. The landscape of social bookmarking tools is like the Wild West. New tools are appearing and disappearing rapidly and the popular features of particular tools are usually changing. Using the open nature, in terms of syndication of many of these tools, third party add-ons provide significant additional functionality. This means that the material within the article may become quickly outdated.

There are also services that offer free social bookmarking tools which give the website owner an opportunity to select some or almost all bookmarking websites to become contained in the tool that will be put in the webpage. Doing social bookmarking for your own page can help your webpage a lot, however others may also help you with it, if you provide your page with these tools which gives them with a hassle-free method to do social bookmarking. The good thing with this is absolutely free. The ideas of bookmarking sites are free so that it gives site owners the chance to promote their websites without spending a single penny.

Several bookmarking tool is an aggregator for a fair number of bookmarking sites. They provide a service that provides you just one login to bookmark to several websites. They're also excellent about adding new websites to their checklist depending on suggestions from customers. Through them you will find many great bookmarking sites you didn't know about. These websites are easy and simple to utilize. There's a listing of social bookmarking sites so you fill in your login details for each. There is a link to every site just in case you aren't currently a member, making it simple to sign up. After that, when you want to bookmark to any or all of these websites, all you've got to do is sign in to these bookmarking tool and submit the page you want to bookmark. They also have a bookmarklet that you can drag to the bookmarks toolbar of your browser, which makes it really quick and easy to bookmark pages from your browser. You may also add a button to your website thus any visitors may bookmark your pages to multiple providers also.

Social bookmarking tools are very effective aids for advertising your own webpage knowing how to use it to your advantage. Using it does not simply imply the simple process of using it to bookmark your page, but also using it to let others find out which sites you're bookmarking. So keep your bookmarks public and share it with other users.

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Speed Up Your Surfing with Bookmarks

Do you visit the same sites often? Do you, for example, log into your web-based email account, visit online forums / networks, visit blogs, etc. on a daily basis?

If so, and you aren't already using bookmarks to manage your online activities, this article will tell you how to speed up your surfing by using and managing bookmarks. If you're already using bookmarks, the article has useful tips on exporting your bookmarks and saving them on a website. This comes in handy when you're away from your computer - on a vacation, say - and still want to visit the sites you surf regularly.

1. First, the basics

1.1 What is a bookmark?

Bookmark is Netscape / Mozilla's term for a shortcut link to a website. Internet Explorer calls them "Favorites". When you bookmark a site, your browser places a link to it under the "Bookmark" or "Favorites" menu at the top. For the sake of brevity, we shall be using the term "bookmark" to mean bookmark or favorite site throughout this article.

1.2 Bookmarking a site:

Bookmarking a site is the essence of simplicity. When you visit a site that you'll be visiting regularly, simply press Ctrl+D (Hit the D key while keeping Ctrl pressed). Depending on your browser, this will add a link to the bookmarks straightaway or ask you to confirm that you'd like to add the site.

1.3 Using bookmarks:

Bookmarks offer a quick way to visit sites. Once you bookmark a site, you don't have to type the URL (address) of the site when you wish to visit it.

When you want to visit a site you've bookmarked, click the Bookmark or Favorites menu item. You will get a drop down list of all your bookmarks or your browser will open a new pane / frame with the list of sites. Some browsers add bookmarks on their own, so don't be surprised if you see links to sites you never bookmarked. Clicking on any of the bookmarks will take you directly to the site.

1.3.1 TIP:

If you're using Mozilla Firefox, right-click on the bookmark to get a context-sensitive menu that allows you to open the link in a new window or new tab. You can thus continue to work in the current window while the bookmarked site opens in the new window / tab.

2. Managing Bookmarks

If you bookmark a large number of sites, your list of bookmarks can get pretty unwieldy. You may need to manage or organise your bookmarks so that you can find them quickly.

Internet Explorer has an "Organize" button that opens a window with various options, such as "Create New Folder", "Move to Folder", etc. Mozilla Firefox / Netscape have a "Manage Bookmarks" link that similarly opens a window to manage your bookmarks.

2.1 What you can do to manage your Bookmarks

1. You can create folders that will contain similar bookmarks. This is useful when you have several sites of the same type in your bookmarks list. For example, you may create a MAIL folder and store links to Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, etc. there. You may create a NETWORKS folder to store links to online networks like Ryze, LinkedIn, Ecademy, etc. You may create a FORUMS folder to store links to discussion groups you frequent.

2. You can create separators, lines between bookmarks, so that you can see at a glance the groups of bookmarks. This is useful when you have too few bookmarks to store in folders, but too many to allow you to find the desired bookmark quickly.

3. You can move bookmarks up or down in the list or into folders. You'll need to do this in order to keep bookmarks to similar sites together. To move a bookmark, simply click-drag it to where you want it, up or down in the list.

4. You can change the properties of the bookmark, such as its name or description.

3. Export your Bookmarks

Both, IE and Mozilla Firefox allow you to export your bookmarks to an html file that you can store on your hard disk, floppy disk or CD. This provides a back up in case you lose your bookmarks (if you have to re-format your hard disk because of a virus, for example). You can import the bookmarks from the file at any time.

3.1 To Export your Bookmarks from Internet Explorer

Go to File-->Import and Export

This will start the Import and Export Wizard, which will guide you through the steps to export your bookmarks. Make sure you save the file to a drive other than C: so that it will remain available to you in case you have to re-format your C drive.

3.2 To Export your Bookmarks from Mozilla Firefox / Netscape

Open the Bookmarks Manager window by selecting Bookmarks-->Manage Bookmarks.

Click File-->Export in the Bookmarks Manager window (NOT the main browser window).

Navigate to the Drive / Folder where you want to store the file and click "Save". It is good practice to save the file on a drive other than C: so it remains available to you in case you have to re-format your C Drive.

4. Store your Bookmarks on the Web

There may be times when you're away from your computer, but still need to access your bookmarks. There are many free sites on the net that allow you to store your bookmarks so they are available to you no matter where you are.

If you google "Free Bookmark Managers" (with the quotes) you will get links to dozens of web-based Bookmark Managers that allow you to store your bookmarks on their servers. You may need to create an account with them to use the service.

To upload your bookmarks to your account you may first need to export them to a file (explained in "3. Export your Bookmarks" above). You may then upload the file to your account by following the directions given on the site.

So what are you waiting for? Start bookmarking sites now and enjoy hassle-free surfing.

Deepak Morris
http://www.freewebs.com/deepakmorris/

Search Engine Marketing Firm-Social Bookmarking Secrets Revealed

Anyone who's trying to market a product, or a website online knows what the biggest problem is... and that's traffic. Getting traffic is the number one problem that online marketers face. There are two reasons for this. One is that they simply do not know the best techniques for getting traffic. The other thing is that they don't know how to get targeted traffic without spending a ton of money on paid advertising, which by the way still doesn't mean that you're getting targeted traffic to your niche.

The fact is that there are just so many websites online, and everyone and their mother are trying to vie for the same traffic, and so unless you know certain techniques to get your site out there in front of eyeballs that matter, you're pretty much dead in the water.

It's sort of equivalent to having a store out in the desert. Sure you could build the nicest store in the world, and sell the best stuff there is, but if you're out in the middle of the desert nobody is going to come in and buy anything from you.

Many people feel that they can just build a website and put it online and the people will start flooding in, but that hope is quickly shot down however when they go to their website stats page and hear crickets chirping.

There are many different ways to get traffic yet all are not equal, and some are better than others - and that's that. In the beginning, when the search engines first started, it really was a lot easier. You could simply throw some good keywords onto your website, add some meta-tags, and the search engine spiders would come around and list your site.

What happened however is what always happens, which is that people began to realize that they could work the system and manipulate it, throwing up a bunch of junk on their websites and kind of suckered people onto their site. Of course the search engines recognized this and began to change their algorithms so that it wasn't quite as easy to spam them. Naturally however people always find a way around the system and did so.

The website that possibly changed all that was Google. Google didn't want to be just any old junky search engine where spam was more prevalent than actual sites. They wanted people to come back often to their search engine and knew that the way to do that was to make their surfing experience tremendous, and to get them exactly the information that they wanted, as quickly as possible. Their algorithms have changed the search wars drastically, and now you literally must have valid content on your site to achieve a good standing. It became more difficult at that point than ever to get traffic.

However a different kind of website has began to emerge where the users pretty much runs the show, and dictates what they wanted to see. Social bookmarking sites, or Web 2.0 as some people call them have helped change everything due to the fact that your own peers - other web users - pretty much control what's relevant and what's not by basically reviewing websites that they like for themselves and other users.

Sites like Digg, Delicious, Facebook and many others have now dominated the web and it's a trend that doesn't seem to be going anywhere soon. In fact many feel it's the perfect system, as does Google. Google, and the other major search engines and directories seem to love these sites more and more because they know that these are authority sites where the vast majority of the content has been basically voted for by web users as great content.

A few marketers have actually figured out how to use this to their benefit without spamming, one such marketer being the guy who wrote the book on the subject. Craig Desorcy has written a book that anybody who wants to get traffic on today's internet must read. The books title, "Social Bookmarking Secrets Revealed" pretty much says it all because Mr. Desorcy does just that, which is reveal all the secrets of Social Bookmarking, showing you exactly how to get massive amounts of traffic from people who have gotten to your site through the best medium ever... word of mouth.

To show you that Craig Desorcy is the real deal, a guy who loves helping people succeed online we've asked him a few questions about his book and Social Bookmarking on a whole. Here's what he had to say:

Q: What is Web 2.0 all about from a marketing perspective? What is social bookmarking and Tagging? What are the demographics of Social Bookmarkers and Taggers?

A: From a marketing perspective, web 2.0 is like a watering hole for your prospective customers. It's where they gather and share their needs and problems so that you can eavesdrop and pick up on clues for future product ideas that offer the solutions they're seeking. It gives you the chance to make it a peer-to-peer situation where you can appear as both the go-to expert and a genuine part of the community so that you build trust with your audience.

Social bookmarking is similar to keeping a favorite's list compiled on your computer. Only this time, you're sharing that list with other individuals and sending the links viral. Tagging is what happens when you have a link you want to share, but need to attach keywords or phrases to it to help identify the purpose of the link to others. For instance, a link to parenting.com might have tags like "parenting, kids, mom, dad," and so on. The great thing about social bookmarking and tagging is that it crosses all boundaries and is used by a wide range of demographics - from Baby Boomers wanting to share retirement links with friends to teenagers passing along links to funny viral video sites they find on the 'net.

Q: What is the difference between social networks and social bookmarks?

A: Social bookmarks are the actual links you're sharing. Social networks are the directories that you share them on. So if you go to socialbookmarktraffic.com and bookmark it, you might choose to bookmark it on Digg.com, Del.icio.us, or some other social network of your choice.

Q: What kind of businesses does bookmarking help?

A: Bookmarking benefits any business that's on the 'net. The intent is to have your links found and shared with as many people as possible, preferably targeted individuals who fit your customer profile. Tagging helps make that happen because when someone goes to del.icio.us and types in a keyword that relates to your domain's purpose, your link will come up in as many bookmarking lists as it's been shared.

Q: What are the top social network scenes? What are Del.icio.us, Furl, StumbleUpon, and Flickr? What is Digg and how do you get the public to Digg Your Domain?

A: The top social networking is a bit different from social bookmarking. A social network is a community like MySpace, Squidoo, Ning, Facebook, and others. Del.icio.us is one of the top social bookmarking sites. It's where you tag links and share your list with other like-minded individuals.

Furl and StumbleUpon are similar, only with StumbleUpon, people surf the web randomly, and users "Stumble" your site so that it goes into rotation. Flickr is a photo-sharing site where tags are used. If you went to Hawaii on vacation and took several pictures of the beautiful sunset, you could post them on Flickr and tag them with words like "sunset, Hawaii."

You can use Flickr photos on sites like Squidoo to make your lens look better. Digg is a social bookmarking site where people can share stories that are on the web and the community ranks it.

Once a story (like a post from your blog, for instance) is on Digg, others can Digg it too or vote it down. People can leave comments about the story, too. The best way to get the public to Digg your domain is to make it apparent to them. Make sure you have text that says, "Digg this story!" And have buttons and hyperlinks at the end of each blog post to make it easy and convenient for them.

Q: Which social bookmarking sites are the worth your time? How do you submit to them? What is tagging and how do you choose the best tags for your bookmarks? How do you determine what is hot on bookmarking sites?

I think Technorati, Del.icio.us, Digg, StumbleUpon, Furl, and Flickr are the top social bookmarking sites, but it's always wise to submit to as many as possible. To choose the best tags for your links, consider what words spring to mind about your site's purpose. It's not good etiquette to spam the community with irrelevant tags. You want to include the tags people will most likely use to find your domain, as well as those you hope to rank well for in the Google SERPs.

Q: How do you build up your traffic stream using bookmarking techniques? Does bookmarking help with you SERP results?

Determining what's hot on a social bookmarking site is usually as easy as looking at a tag cloud. A tag cloud is a cluster of words used to tag links recently in the community, and the more times it's been used, the bigger the word will appear. Lesser-used words will remain smaller in comparison. You can begin building up momentum with your traffic via bookmarking sites by submitting your links yourself. But always make sure you also bookmark other sites so it doesn't look like you're spamming. Bookmarking does help you with SERP results. Google likes to see how many other sites are pointing to your domain, and each time the link is shared, it's another nod in your direction.

Q: Explain the concept of "going viral"? How can you position your web site to go viral?

A: Going viral means it heats up on the web in a shared format. You can create a video, but if you're the only one watching it on YouTube, it's stagnant. It goes viral when you start seeing people share it in emails, on communities, and in social bookmarking sites. A viral website needs to have certain elements that make people want to share it with others. That may mean it's funny, shocking, or just extremely informative. Think of when you last shared a site link with someone - what was the purpose? Was it helpful? Did it have something you found unique and interesting?

Q: How important is your reputation on the social bookmarking scene? How do you build a reputation as a quality bookmarker?

A: Your reputation among die-hard bookmarkers is important. For instance, if you spam Digg with tons of your own links, they'll start down-voting every one of them and can be very harsh in the comments they post. A quality bookmarker shares a myriad of links that are truly helpful and relevant. They don't place a link about celebrities in the science category, and the links they do share aren't always their own.

Q: What are the best free bookmarking scripts and services?

A: One that comes to mind is http://addthis.com/ a good free resource.

Q: What social bookmark icons should you feature on your web site?

A: It really depends based on your content. Say you have a big time techie blog, then digg is a must image but if your blog or site is more general, stumble upon is better.

It's best for one to check out what's getting many bookmarks at these sites because each social bookmarking site kind of has its own demographics.

Q: Explain the concept of tag and ping? Are there any legitimate tools to automate the process of tagging and pinging to bookmarking sites?

A: Every time you post a new entry to your blog, you want to ping it. This means you're notifying the social bookmark sites that it's been updated with fresh content. You can set this up automatically in your blog so it does it for you each and every time. Wordpress blogs do this automatically for you and at this time, I can't really recommend any paid tools because I'm not 100% satisfied with what I've tested.

So it's clear that Mr. Desorcy knows exactly what he's talking about, and that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what he reveals in the book. What's also clear though is that to if you're going to succeed at getting traffic to your website these days, you have to make the mandatory changes along with the internet. Social Bookmarking Secrets Revealed teaches you exactly how to do that quicker than you could ever think possible, and one thing about Craig Desorcy is that he is a stand up guy who will answer any questions you have.

You need this product to succeed on the internet today, bottom-line!

Bruce Hunter is the CEO of CORE Magazine in Denver Colorado. Visit us now to learn more about how our search engine marketing firm can help you get the top ten rankings that will bring highly targeted visitors to your site who are actively seeking to buy exactly what you sell.

Social Bookmarking Tips

Social bookmarking sites are sites that allow users to store their favorite web pages so that they can access them in one place. The aim of the sites is to organize the bookmarks of the users so that they can refer back to them conveniently. In addition, social bookmarking sites allow people to submit news and articles so that they can share with the public.

Social bookmarking sites are commonly used by webmasters to promote their sites. Webmasters should not submit too many articles from the same site per day. In most sites, each new bookmark will rank at the top of the first page in the category. If you submit too many articles, they will fill the result of the first page. Consequently, people will not be able to browse information from other sites conveniently. If you frequently submit a lot of URLs from the same site, people will start to notice it and report you to the moderator. The moderator will delete all the bookmarks and suspend your account. If you open a new account and is persistent of doing it, the moderator will ban your IP address so that you can no longer access the site from the computer anymore. To prevent getting penalized, you should only submit a few pages each day. You can wait for 2 - 3 hours before submitting the next story. In this way, they will appear more natural and not easily noticeable by other users.

What Content to Write to Increase Social Bookmarking Vote

It is hard to predict the type of content that will has the highest performance rate on the social bookmarking sites. The interest of the users is always changing from time to time. Generally, newsworthy articles, podcasts and images will generate a lot of votes from the users. You must also know how to create a catchy title and description that will lure in the interest of users to your bookmark.

The top ten list can generate a lot of interest from the readers. You can write a top ten list of tips, books, movies and etc to get attention.

How to information are also popular on the internet. The how to topic should never have been published before on the internet. The article should be informational and interesting so that people will want to read it.

Offbeat and unusual content always attract attention. You can figure out a unique story to create the curiosity of people. The offbeat news should actually take place in reality and not fake.

Controversy news will create a stir in the public. You can write controversy content about the current trending news such as celebrity, sports and etc. People will want to comment on the controversial news. If it generates a lot of comments, it will also bring a significant amount of traffic to the article page on the site.

Humor news is very popular among users in social bookmarking sites. By using your creativity, you can write funny news. Most funny content are daily subjects that are presented in a ridiculous way. If it is well liked by the public, it will get a high vote and rank on the first page of the social bookmarking site. In this way, you can obtain a free high page rank one way link.

How to Benefit from Social Bookmarking

To enable the visitor to conveniently bookmark the page, you can add a bookmarking gadget to the page. Addthis.com offers free social bookmarking widget which you can add to your blog or site. You simply have to paste the code within the HTML code of the page in order for it to work. Other social bookmarking widgets which you can use include sociallist.org, and widgetbox.com.

You can bookmark your own pages. Before you can bookmark your site, you must have an account with them. If you don't have an account, you can create an account free of charge.

If you want to speed up the bookmarking process, you can use a mass social bookmarking tool such as socialmarker.com. Before using socialmarker.com, you will need to have an account with the social bookmarking sites. Socialmarker.com has already filter out the dofollow and nofollow sites. Dofollow links have higher SEO value than nofollow link. If the site is dofollow, the search engine spider will crawl the link and index the pages on the site. If the is nofollow, the search engine will not bother to visit the link. Hence, nofollow link produce zero benefit. However, if the site is popular, you can submit the URL there to create some referral traffic.

If you don't want to do the social bookmarking work yourself, you can outsource it to a SEO company. Besides, you can also outsource social bookmarking work to freelancers on internet marketing forum such as v7n.com forum, warriorforum.com, and netbuilders.org. Before buying a social bookmarking service, make sure you read the customer feedback reviews. If it has good reviews, you can proceed to place an order with the SEO company.

Yon can participate in the discussion at the social bookmarking sites. Some social bookmarking sites don't have such features. In Digg, users can create a friend list and comment on each other bookmarks. You can create a large friend's list so that you can ask them to vote for your bookmarks. In return, you will vote for their bookmarks. You can build your credibility in the community by being active and commenting on others' bookmarks.

Besides bookmarking your pages, you should also bookmark pages from other websites. The pages which you bookmark must be relevant to the niche of your site.

By providing a good content, people will take the initiative to bookmark your page. The content should be grammatically correct and without spelling error. The first paragraph should be interesting and able to grab the attention of the passerby visitor. If the first paragraph is interesting, they will want to read the rest of the article. Besides the first paragraph, the content must be outstanding too. In this way, you can increase the possibility of people bookmarking your web pages.

Mascar Rooney is the author of this article on Directory Submission. Mascar Rooney is the author of this article on Social Bookmarking [http://bookmarking-sites.blog.friendster.com/].

Bookmark Managers: Programs Vs. Web Services

This rapid expansion of web resources raises some new issues for all of us. How could you possibly remember, after a long search, the address of that crucial web page? How will you be able to return to the page without repeating a tedious web search through hundreds and thousands of pages?
The answer is obvious, you need a program that will allow you to easily create and manage a database of web resources. Of course, this database must be quick, intuitive and convenient to use.

One way to resolve this problem is to use your web browser's bookmarks feature. Bookmarks are a popular term for the lists of web page links stored in web browsers, although they are called "Favorites" in Internet Explorer. These web browser bookmark systems have some severe limitations. For example, each bookmark list will only be compatible with a specific web browser. If you use several different web browsers you will have to manage the bookmark system in each one. Web browser bookmark lists may become cumbersome to use when your bookmark list grows beyond a few items. Important features missing from web browser bookmark systems include:
- Powerful search functions;
- Synchronization of bookmarks between different computers;
- Detection and automatic deletion of duplicate bookmarks;
- Checks for availability of bookmarked web pages.

Specialist programs and web services that store and organize bookmarks are now available and they offer a comprehensive solution to these problems. They are called bookmark managers or bookmark organizers (in this article both terms have the same meaning). The difference between online (web-based) bookmark managers and standalone bookmark managers is in the location of the stored bookmark database and in the way that the database is accessed. Web services called "online bookmark managers" store the user's bookmarks on their remote servers and their bookmarks may be accessed from any browser. A standalone bookmark organizer is simply a program which runs on your local computer. It stores the bookmark database on a hard disk and allows access through its own built-in interface.

Here are some examples of web-based bookmark managers:

iKeepBookmarks.com - http://www.ikeepbookmarks.com

LinkaGoGo - http://www.linkagogo.com

Murl - http://murl.com

You can find more links to online bookmark managers here:
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/On_the_Web/Web_Applications/Bookmark_Managers/

Bookmark management software can be found here:

Link Commander - http://www.resortlabs.com/bookmark-manager/linkcommander.php

Linkman - http://www.outertech.com/index.php?_charisma_page=product&id=5

Powermarks - http://www.kaylon.com/power.html

Any software catalog will contain plenty of links to bookmark managers. For example: http://www.snapfiles.com/shareware/misctools/swurlorg.html

Offline and online bookmark managers each have relative advantages and disadvantages due to their differing methods of database storage and access.

An online bookmark manager does not depend on any particular computer. If you have an Internet connection you can access your bookmarks from any computer in the world. You don't need to synchronize the bookmarks on your home/work PC or notebook because they will all access the same bookmarks database. With an online bookmark manager you can access your bookmarks even when you are in an Internet café! Another advantage is that most of them are free. They will cost you time, though, because you access your bookmarks via an Internet connection. More importantly, most of the web interfaces are not as convenient as software based bookmark managers and don't have so many useful features. For example, they can't search for and delete duplicate database items. Here are some of the other potential disadvantages of using online bookmark managers:

1) You risk losing all your bookmarks if, for some reason, the web service closes down.

2) There is a danger of unauthorized access to your private bookmarks because your bookmark manager server may not be secure against hackers.

The advantages and disadvantages of offline bookmark managers are almost exactly opposite to those of online bookmark managers and will be discussed next.

Any offline bookmark manager is tied to the computer on which it is installed. It stores your bookmarks in a database (which usually has its own proprietary format) that is located on one of the hard drives. To use your bookmarks on several computers you will need to install the program on each computer and find a way to synchronize the bookmark databases. Most of the currently available bookmark organizers do have a database synchronization feature. Also, there are now devices with high data transfer speeds (e.g. flash drives) that can store an independent bookmark database and allow it to be shared between several computers.

Another disadvantage of bookmark manager software is the price. There are some free programs out there, but they don't have a great number of features and technical support is often weak or unavailable. The programs that require payment are inexpensive, though, usually costing from $20 to $40. The user licenses of such programs will normally allow you to install the programs on all of your computers.

In my opinion, the disadvantages of standalone bookmark managers are minimal compared to their advantages. The location of both the program and database on the same computer guarantees you fast access to your bookmarks and high security from hacker attacks. The convenience of the program interface and the number of useful features are limited only by the power of the computer and the skills of developers.

So, how should you organize your bookmarks? Should you use an online or offline bookmark manager? I don't think there is a definite answer. It all depends on your preferences and working habits. If mobility is your priority, if you travel often and wish to access your bookmarks no matter where you are and from any computer, then you should consider an online bookmark manager. If speed, ease of use, security and functionality is most important to you then an offline bookmark manager might be a better choice.

About the author:

Andrew Nemets is co-founder and CEO of Resort Labs ? http://www.resortlabs.com, the software development company specializing in developing human to computer interaction systems, user interface improvements and routine tasks automation software.

Online Bookmarking - Nothing Wrong With Having Favorites

Online bookmarking is already popular with many Internet users nowadays. The good thing with online bookmarking is that you can bookmark web pages that you frequently visit or those that you fancy. In addition, you get the chance to save your favorites websites or links so you can easily locate them later on. This is what online bookmarking is all about.

Other advantages of online bookmarking are:

1. Categorization capability.

You have the capability to categorize the web pages that you have bookmarked. By doing so, you get the chance to have links that will eventually lead back to your website.

By bookmarking, you also provide other web users with information they are looking for. This way, it will be easier for them to find answers to queries or information online.

2. Viral marketing.

Online bookmarking is just like marketing. In your bookmarks, you can add relevant comments for other people to see. This is one of the reason why online bookmarking has such relevant influence on any online business.

Once people search for certain keywords, there is a big possibility that they will come upon what you have bookmarked. In no time, you will notice that there is an increase in the traffic that is getting into your website.

3. Higher search engine ranking.

When you start getting more visitors into your website, you can expect to start ranking high in the search engines. You will see the difference the search engine ranking once you have established yourself as a website that is worth checking out.

It would also help you a lot if you try and bookmark high-ranking websites. This will surely complement your current position in the search engines.

With all these things up for grabs, what do you have to do to better enhance your online bookmarking capabilities?

Have lots of folders.

The purpose of online bookmarking will not be seen if you are not organizing them. So you and other people can access them easily, it is best to create as many folders as you can. The folders should have their specific category for faster search and access.

If you feel that the category is still too broad, try having subfolders in your main folder. There is no limit to the number of folders you can create just so you can keep everything in order.
Create your own name.

No one is stopping you from changing the default names of the web pages you have bookmarked. If you feel that you are not comfortable with the given name, then create your own.

Other people provide names of their own so it would be easy for them to remember what the bookmarked page is all about. Use your creativity to name your bookmark to what you think is best for them.

Opt for advanced online bookmarking features.

Online Bookmarking have already evolved from the time it was created. Today, there are features that you can take advantage of to make everything a little easier for you.

Advanced features can eliminate the hassles that other people find with bookmarking. Furthermore, they are intended to make it easy for you to synchronize both your offline and online bookmarks.

Having your own personal favorites and bookmarking them can be beneficial not only to you but to your online business as well. Take the time to get to know more about what online bookmarking is about so you will not anymore miss out on anything.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit: Outsource Online Bookmarking

The Buzz About the Term Social Bookmarking

You might have heard all the buzz about the term Social Bookmarking. Why is it so powerful and different from other web promotion tactics? Social Bookmarking websites are basically sites that categorize and store 'bookmark links' (links which take one to a specific website). Millions of visitors flood these Social Bookmarking sites to search for information. So the idea of bookmarking is to post links back to your web page from these Social Bookmarking websites. You need to specify some keywords (we call them TAGS) which categorize your bookmark. This allows others to search and even vote for your bookmark. Social Bookmarking is in a league of its own because of its ability to generate traffic by sharing links.

Let's see what some benefits of Social Bookmarking are .

*More Targeted Traffic Since your bookmarks are categorized into different TAGS, you will get very targeted traffic from people searching within a particular TAG. They will click on your bookmark link and visit your site.
*Faster Search Engine Indexing Most of these Social Bookmarking sites have high PR, ranging from 5PR to even 8PR! Therefore, search engine spiders visit these sites so often that your links will be crawled almost immediately!
*Higher Search Engine Ranking Getting quality one-way incoming links is the main factor to higher search engine ranking. With Social Bookmarking, you can get unlimited 'keyword' links to your site. Having more keyword links that are relevant to your site will result in higher ranking.
*Better PageRank Having high PR Social Bookmarking sites linked to your site will improve your site's PR. With a higher PR, you can link to your new/existing sites and improve their ranking too! You can even monetize on it by selling links from your site! It sounds almost too perfect but it is not without its downside. If you run a lot of sites, you might end up getting exhausted!

Social Bookmarking Is Time Consuming... In order to bookmark your sites, you need to manually create your accounts at Social Bookmarking sites. Creation of accounts doesn't take much time because you only need one account. So what is the problem? The problem lies in bookmarking your pages. You have to manually login to your account at each of these Social Bookmarking sites and add your page's url, keywords and descriptions. It will be crazy if you need to bookmark everyday! In my case, I needed some kind of automation real quick and I bought most of the Social Bookmarking tools out there. You know what? There are 3 big problems with these tools:

1) Most Are Spam Tools. Most of the tools are designed to spam the Social Bookmarking sites. These tools will auto-create random account login names and passwords. Their main function is to create multiple accounts and have them bookmark the same url. Having hundreds of accounts created from the same ip address and having terrible randomized usernames will raise a red flag. The Social Bookmarking sites will ban your accounts for sure. Worst of all, they might even ban your ip address!

2) Most Are Over Priced With Monthly Fees. Some of the tools are very limited. They are not designed to bookmark any sites. Some are only made for RSS feeds while others are just plugins for wordpress blogs. I have many landing pages selling affiliate products and they do not have RSS feeds or a blog. I cannot bookmark those pages with these limited tools.

3)Some Are Only Designed For Certain Sites. These tools are sold at cut-throat prices. They know most people are desperate for an automation solution and will pay almost anything to get them. Some even charge ridiculously steep monthly fees for easy upgrades. They make it sound complicated but it isn't! They just want your money!

All Have Duplicate Content Problem.

When you bookmark your sites, you will be bookmarking the same Title, Tags and Description across multiple bookmarking sites. This will create duplicate content issues which will result in the search engines ignoring your bookmarking links. I would not be honest if I said all of them are no good. Each tool has its very own unique feature and I have always wished I could have all those features combined in one software. there are tools out there, you just have to pick what you think will work for you, good luck! and thanks!

I have a good blog with some more info on blogging and other related topics such as social bookmarking. check out my blog here

Bookmark Management Software for a New Generation

Keeping all of our bookmarks organized and synchronized between computers can be difficult. A new generation of bookmark management software is on the horizon to make managing your bookmarks easier and more effective than ever.

Bookmarks are one of the most wonderful tools that Internet browsers have to offer. Keeping records of our favorite web sites and letting us get back to them with the click of a button. Bookmarking is easy to do in your web browser, just click a button (or hit Ctrl-d) and bam, the web page you are currently visiting is bookmarked.

If you're the type of person who likes to have organized bookmarks but also likes to use more than one browser or utilizes more than one computer, you might find bookmarking a little more difficult. How do you keep bookmarks synchronized between browsers or computers? A new generation of bookmark software designed to be your one stop bookmark source might just be the answer.

Rather than bookmarking your pages through a single web browser, these external bookmark management programs work separately from any browser. Once the software is installed bookmarking is often just as easy, but the bookmarks aren't just saved for a single browser. Instead they are saved into an external bookmarking program that then exports its bookmarks to whatever browser you happen to be using, whether it is Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Firefox or any other web browser.

Besides this sharing of data between different browsers that are located on the same computer, there are also software programs that allow you to synchronize bookmarks between computers, either using the same browsers or different browsers. Different software programs can attack the problem of computer synchronization in different ways.

If the computers you wish to synchronize your bookmarks on both reside on the same network, it is often a piece of cake to keep bookmarks synchronized with a program designed to transfer data over the LAN. You can set up automatic synchronization routines to operate once a day or once a week. You can also set it up to synchronize whenever you tell it to. There are many different possibilities for bookmark synchronization.

If your computers don't reside on the same network, other software available can work through the internet. Bookmarks are uploaded to a special server on the Internet, from which you can synchronize your bookmarks from one computer to the other through your internet connection. This is great, for example, for synchronizing bookmarks between your home and office computers that often times are not set up on a personal local area network.

These bookmark managers oftentimes also make the process of bookmark management in general even easier than software included with web browsers. Utilizing simple, intuitive and user-friendly interfaces, they allow you to organize your bookmarks as well as change bookmarks quickly and easily. If you're not satisfied with your current bookmark managing software, these sorts of bookmark management solutions could just be the answer you've been waiting for. Combining ease of use with functionality, they are a great way to keep your bookmarks up to date with ease and style.

Kevin Dark is an online marketer. Find out about bookmark manager [http://blog.bookmarkbase.net] on his new site.

Social Bookmarking For Beginners - How Does It Work?

Social bookmarking is a unique method for Internet users to store, organize, share and search bookmarks of web pages. In this system, users save links to Web pages that they want to remember and/or share.

These bookmarks are usually public, but depending on the service's features, may be saved privately, shared only with specific people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of publicness and privateness. The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, via a search engine, or even randomly.

To put it simply, social bookmarking is bookmarking in public. This accomplishes two things: first, your bookmarks are accessible not just from one computer, but from anywhere you can access the Web; and second, instead of having a huge list of disorganized bookmarks or favorites in your browser, you have a database of organized bookmarks where it's easy to locate what you need. Today, there are a lot of technology, and special interest sites that offer reviews, quick tutorials and overviews on the basics, as well as the advance aspects of social bookmarking .

Organizing Bookmarks With Informal Tags

Most social bookmarking services generally encourage users to organize their bookmarks with informal tags instead of the traditional browser-based system of folders, although some services feature categories/folders or a combination of folders and tags. They also enable viewing bookmarks associated with a chosen tag, and include information about the number of users who have bookmarked them.

Some social bookmarking services also draw inferences from the relationship of tags to create clusters of tags or bookmarks. In addition, many bookmarking services provide Web feeds for their lists of bookmarks, including lists organized by tags, as this allows subscribers to become aware of new bookmarks as they are saved, shared, and tagged by other users.

The Advantages Of Using Social Bookmarking Systems

Social bookmarking has several advantages over traditional resource location and classification software, such as search engine spiders. All tag-based sorting and classification of Internet Web sites, is done by human beings, who understand the content of the resource, whereas, a computer software electronically attempts to determine the meaning or value, of a resource or site.

Additionally, as people bookmark resources that they find useful, resources that are of more use are bookmarked by more users. As such, a system will "rank" a resource based on its perceived utility. This is arguably a more useful method for end users than other systems, which rank resources based on the number of external links pointing to it.

At present, there area a lot of bookmarking Web sites that help different levels of users and interests groups. There are sites that serve the bookmarking needs of students, university professors, doctors, Web programmers and designers, engineers, and others.

Many social bookmarking services provide web feeds for their lists of bookmarks, including lists organized by tags. This allows subscribers to be aware of new bookmarks as they are saved, shared, and tagged by other users.

As these services have improved and become more popular, they have added extra features such as ratings and comments on bookmarks, the ability to import and export bookmarks from browsers, emailing of bookmarks, web annotation, and groups or other social network features. Among the more popular sites are Digg, Furl, del.icio.us, Diggo, StumbleUpon, Newsvine, Reddit, Netvous, SiteBar and Thoof.

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Vanessa A. Doctor from Jump2Top - SEO Company

Running a Life Coaching Business

 1. Find your Niche or Specialisation

I'm not suggesting that you only take on clients in your particular niche, but when you market yourself, you should target a particular niche or specialisation - your 'hungry crowd'. The market is so crowded with Life Coaches that potential clients have little to go on when finding and choosing a life coach, if you can stand out to a potential client by offering them exactly what they are looking for you will attract more clients to your coaching business. 
Imagine if you were looking for a coach and the issue you motivating you to get help was, for example, 'working with difficult people'. If you found a coach advert of web site that:

Gave examples of that problem that you could relate to and identify with; Talked about how you can be helped and overcome your difficulty, and; Gave examples and client testimonials specifically about this problem. Would you be much more likely to approach this coach about your problem than other, more general coaches? If you answered yes, can you see how you could get more clients buy offering a specialty service that appeals to a particular niche?
It may be that your niche is obvious to you, but if it is not, how do you decide what your coaching niche is to be? It would be a good idea if your niche is an area you can be good at! Here are some questions you can ask yourself;

What particular problems or issues have I had to overcome in my own life? What areas of my life do I handle particularly well? What do people seek me out for? Is there something that my friends and family rely on me to do? Am I the 'money man' who sorts out the finances best, or the person always called on to deal with teenage boys issues, or anything else? What is it about me that makes me good at this? What, specifically, do I do that means I do this well? If you don't come up with anything yet, don't worry, there are plenty more options;

Ask other people - your friends, family, work colleagues. Ask them what they think you are particularly good at. Use a psychometric tool - like the Clifton Strengthsfinder from Gallup to uncover your inner talents.
2. Develop a Relationship with your Hungry Crowd
If you do steps 3 to 6 described below you will be making great progress developing relationships with people in your niche. One of the most important things you can do is to build a mailing list of clients and potential clients. This is a main means of persistent contact with your 'hungry crowd'. Remember that you ure unlikely to secure a client at the first contact. The chances that your timing is so spot on are slim. People will have other priorities and will be ready to come to coaching with you when the time is right for them. Think about it, if your one and only contact comes at a time when your prospect is not ready you've missed your chance. This is why you should set your marketing up in such as way that you have persistent contact with your list. In this way you are far more likely to get your message in front of a prospect when the time is right for them. How do you develop a mailing list? Thankfully, his area is well covered on the internet by a number of excellent experts and trainers. The one I like the most is Jimmy D Brown. I warn you, Jimmy is from Texas and his accent and style may put you off a little. Get past all that, and he's an absolute master of list building and other internet business development methods. And he's a very good trainer. Spend some time listening to Jimmy's free podcasts and reading his free reports and you can see for yourself how good he is.

3. Develop Services and Products
A good way to establish yourself in your niche and make some money is to develop saleable products from your knowledge and expertise. In your particular area, what do people want to know about? What do you do that you can describe so that people can do it to themselves? I know that it's always better to work face to face with people or groups, but that approach limits the reach of your work. Think of it this way: The maximum number of people you can reach face to face is limited by your time and ability to travel. It's not that many people, on a one to one basis. (Of course, if you are Anthony Robbins...). You can reach many more people with a book, an article, a course, a movie, a recording. I understand that the impact of one-to-one coaching can be deeper when one to one, but you can still do some good with a specific coaching process that you publish for sale in some way.

4. Establish Yourself as an Expert
Related to the notion of establishing and developing your niche, you can develop the idea and belief amongst your 'hungry crowd' that you are the expert in your field. Where do we go when we want to know about online marketing? One of the established experts. How do we know they are an expert? Usually because someone has recommended them and then we have tried them out for ourselves. If more than one person recommends them we almost certainly position them as an expert in our minds. SO how do you create the awareness in the marketplace that you are an expert? Do the things here! 

5. Write and Get Published
Write articles, and post them on article submission sites. A couple of the best are evancarmichael.com, and EzineArticles.com. When you put your articles on these sites, people pick them up and put them on their own web sites (because relevant content = traffic). Each article is accredited to you and has a link to your site. This is very powerful. You get more traffic from click-through's, and people see your name on other people's web sites. Also, the search engines rank your site higher because you have links back to it, so you will get more traffic from search results. 

6. Speak - Public Speaking
Speak at networking groups and, if you can get on the agenda, conferences. Volunteer to do free introductory talks on your niche subject. People will get to know you. You'll become associated with your subject. Before too long, people will be contacting you for your opinion, guidance, - or work.

7. Develop your Internet Marketing
It's a fact of life these days that you are likely to need to promote yourself, your business and find clients via the web. There are armies of people out there waiting to relieve you of (in some cases) large chunks opf cash in exchange for download courses, email courses, video courses - you name it, it's out there. I have spent more money than I care to admit to on courses from internet 'gurus' and the latest big thing. For the most part they are a flash in the pan. There are some good resources out there however, and the good news is that a lot of it is free. 

Soon I'll put here further details of the courses, programmes, and resources I have come across. There's a lot of it and I need a little time to pull my information - so please 'watch this space'!

8. Manage Your Business
I know this sounds obvious but, for me anyway, nothing gets in the way more than niggling admin things I haven't done or organised. Do your clients often ask for the same information (when I work for companies, I have to work through a Limited Company. I'm always always asked for a Certificate of Incorporation, a VAT Certificate, 2 References, a short Biography - usually 200 to 250 words - and proof of Professional Indemnity Insurance). Do you need to provide evidence of your qualifications? Keep them in a folder, with copies ready for when you need them.

Stay on top of record keeping, accounting, clients notes and records (if you keep them), and all the other documentation that can pile up and bog you down mentally and emotionally when you get behind with them. These things are energy sappers so keep a clear world as much as you reasonable can.

Do you have professional bodies and associations that you maintain membership with? If you do, stay up to date. These memberships are part of your professional credibility, keep them active as a valuable contrtibution to your standing in your professional community.

If you need to market yourself, set aside time every week to do this. Keep checklists of things that you need to do regularly and work through them. A really good book I read and followed some time ago was 'Getting Things Done: How to Achieve Stress-Free Productivity'. You might like to give it a try. 

9. Develop Yourself
It can be hard to find the time and money, but it's a good investment in yourself. Go on courses, workshops and attend seminars and conferences in your field. Keep your skills and capabilites current. Extend your knowledge. Learn and practice new areas. You'll become more and more accomplished, and confident in yourself. Aside from the developmental benefits, it gets you known, you meet people and opportunities come up.

10. Help Others to Succeed
The most important thing you can do. Focus on helping other people to achieve their desired outcomes. Whenever the phone rings and it's a prospective client, think "what can I do for this person?"; I will listen to their needs and respond to what they are telling me they want."

If you go to business networking meetings, don't wonder what the person who is talking has to offer you, or what they can do to help you to develop your business, ask yourself what you can do to help them to develop their business. Who do you know that you can connect them to? What experiences have you had that would help them?

When you focus on other people, their needs and wants, their desired outcomes, you connect to them, and to a higher purpose. When you are connected to the right intent, the right things happen, for your clients, and for you!

I know I said 10 Steps, but there is a - very important, 11th Step:

Insure Yourself
You should really have Professional Indemnity Insurance to operate as a Life Coach. This is really to protect yourself. It's not pleasant to think about, but a client, or someone close to them, could blame you for undesirable outcomes and there is always the possibility that you could end up in court. If that happens (and it is VERY unlikely), you'll need insurance to cover the legal costs and and award that may be made against you if you lose. 

About Robert Neely: I have been practising and earning a living as a Life Coach for over 5 years, and I'm happy to share my experiences and learnings are here for you. I have made mistakes, done good things, made good money and had periods when I couldn't find work. Becoming a Life Coach has been a journey of discovery, satisfaction, highs and hard knocks. I've met and worked with some great people, and some not so good.

You can get help to decide if Life Coaching is right for you, and what it can do for you. If you want to know about getting a life coach you can find out how. Perhaps you would prefer to learn more about what a life coach does and how life coaching works and coach yourself. My contact details, Life Coaching information and resources, to help you is on All-About-Life-Coaching [http://www.all-about-life-coaching.com/]

Many people are considering a change of career to become a life coach. If this is you, you can read more about the background, skills and experience that life coaches have, and see if training to be a life coach is for you. You can find out about life coach training, and other associated training that may help you. Information about coaching professional bodies, accreditations and qualifications is also available from All-About-Life-Coaching [http://www.all-about-life-coaching.com/]

Stress and Illness - The Mind-Body Connection and Its Implications in Life Coaching

For a very long time, people believed that stress can make you sick. But we had no way of scientific proof. With the development and progress of biomedical science we are now able to prove that there is a definite link between the state of mind and the state of health. The bridge that connects your mind and brain with the body and its overall health is the immune system. A properly functioning immune system protects the body from illness and when the immune system is malfunctioning, we get sick.

This research paper will explore the mind-body relationship and how it affects the immune system and overall health and the life coaching implications.

Immune system

The function of the immune system is to protect our body from infection and disease. The immune system accomplishes this by recognizing "self" from "nonself" cells. These "nonself" cells can be from the outside world (viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungi) or abnormal cells from within our body (cancer). These "nonself" cells are commonly called antigens.

Our immune system is comprised of bone marrow, spleen, tonsils, thymus, lymph nodes and lymph vessels. All of these organs and tissues are involved in production, maturation and activation of our white blood cells. White blood cells, also known as the lymphocytes, are "soldiers" that fight infection and disease. There are three main types of white blood cells: T-lymphocytes, B-lymphocytes and natural killer lymphocytes. There is a constant communication going on between lymphocytes - they chatter about antigens they encountered; stimulate or suppress each other and regulate how our immune system functions. This communication is facilitated by small bio-molecules produced by the cells of the immune system.

T and B-lymphocytes need to be sensitized by an antigen in order to be able to destroy it. In other words, the immune system must recognize the existence of an antigen, transmit the detailed information about the antigen to a particular T cell called "helper" which in turn will stimulate either a production of an antibody or sensitize the T or B lymphocyte directly. Once sensitized, the lymphocytes have "knowledge" about the antigen they are looking for. They know what it looks like and they seek it out and destroy it by engulfing it or bursting it using its biochemical warfare at hand.

Antibodies have a similar function. They also know the detailed information about the antigen and create anti-sequence on their own surface that will fit only with the sequence of the antigen they are looking for - like your car key that will fit only the lock of your car. Once antibodies bind to the antigen, they either neutralize it using its own biochemical set, or they become beacons for the other lymphocyte, telling them where the enemy is and helping them home in on it and engulf it. Imagine a missile that has received coordinates and is on its way to destroy the target.

Natural killer cells do not need to "know" an antigen in order to find it and destroy it. They have an innate knowledge, a library so to speak, of what is "self" i.e. normal in our body. Natural killer cells patrol our body and analyze cells they encounter. When they find a cell that does not match their library, they destroy it.

So how do we get sick? We get sick when the immune system is defeated by the challenger. This may happen either due to being challenged by a novel antigen that our body has never encountered before, or if the immune system is not functioning properly. In our lifetime we encounter a number of novel antigens and since our body does not have "knowledge" of its existence, it defeats the immune system. However, this victory is only temporary, and the immune system will identify the novel antigen and mount an immune response against it. A good example would be flu. Every number of years there is a new flu strain that will cause an epidemic. By receiving a flu shot we give our immune system a jump-start. We inoculate with a small particle of a flu antigen giving our body the knowledge it needs to mount an immune response to this novel flu strain and by doing so to protect us against it.

Our immune system gets turned on and off by a complex system and when this system malfunctions and doesn't turn immunity on or off, it manifests as illness.

Stress

Stress is the emotional and physical strain caused by our response to environmental demands. In general, when environmental demands exceed your ability to cope, it creates stress. Stress generally refers to two different things: situations that trigger physical and emotional reactions (stressors) and the reactions themselves (stress response).

The body responds to stress by what is called the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS). The GAS occurs in three stages - alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. The fight or flight response is the most common type of alarm stage. When our brain perceives something as threatening or challenging it signals an alarm and a series of events occur in the body: increasing heart rate, fast breathing, alertness, muscle response and increased metabolism rate. These actions get the body physically ready to confront a threat (fight) or escape from it (flight). During resistance, the body's systems return to normal, but remain alert. Following resistance, the body enters exhaustion, at which point it can no longer resist the stressor. Exhaustion state allows the body to recover from stress.

Stress affects the immune system in a very powerful way. There are two types of stress - acute (short term) and chronic (long term). Acute stress lasts for several minutes to a week. Acute stress, under most circumstances, boosts immunity. Chronic stress is caused by a long term stressor that lasts for a year or several years and does not have any clear end point (injury resulting in permanent disability, caring for spouse with dementia etc). Chronic stress could also be caused by the cumulative effect of prolonged serial instances of acute stressors. Chronic stress is unhealthy and it has harmful effects on our body. Chronic stress can suppress immunity and cause illness.

Negative thoughts and emotions, (anxiety, fear, anger, sadness, pessimism, feeling overwhelmed etc.) have the same effect on our health as stress so when we talk about stress and its effects we are also referring to those negative feelings as well.

Not everyone reacts the same way to a stressor. Some people have a more profound reaction when exposed to a stressor then others. Those who easily get physically and psychologically stressed are termed "high reactors" and they are significantly more affected by stress than those that are "low reactors".

Stress, brain and the immune system - what is the connection?

The pivotal player in communication between the brain and the immune system are hormones and biochemicals produced by the hypothalamus, pituitary gland and adrenal glands commonly referred to as hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis (HPA axis). The HPA axis coordinates a cascade of events between the brain and the immune system. This communication goes both ways: brain to immune system and the immune system to brain.

When the HPA axis is activated by an alarm sent by the brain a number of hormones and biochemicals are produced. Most of them are secreted by adrenal glands: glucocorticoids, catecholamines and peptides. The glucocorticoids and catecholamines are responsible for fight or flight reaction - they prepare our body to survive a threat. And they do the same when we encounter a stressor.

We will concentrate on the effects of cortisol - one of the corticosteroids produced by the adrenals. Cortisol has been known to have immunomodulatory effects. It is given post surgically to suppress the immune system and prevent rejection of transplanted tissues. However, cortisol at normal levels is essential for the proper functioning of the immune system. An optimal concentration of cortisol is necessary for normal recovery from infection. At normal (optimal) levels of cortisol our immune system is stimulated - this is how our immune system gets turned on. When immune response is no longer needed, the level of cortisol rises and it shuts off the immune system. On the other hand, if the level of cortisol is low, the immune system keeps on working. So cortisol affects the immune system in three ways, depending on its concentration in the body:

- Low concentration causes the immune system to keep on running even when not necessary and this can lead to an autoimmune inflammation disease such as rheumatoid arthritis
- Optimal concentration stimulates the immune system and the immune system functions well
- High concentration will shut off the immune system, which is good when we get over an illness and the immune system is no longer needed to be on high alert, but bad when it happens outside of this scenario.

It has been proven in a number of studies that stress causes cortisol levels to rise and this is one of the reasons why cortisol was named "the stress hormone". In acute stress, this rise is short lived where as in chronic stress this rise persists causing immune system suppression which increases our susceptibility to disease.

Scientific findings

The function of the immune system can be measured by quantitative analysis and so can the level of cortisol. Many studies have been done and they established the correlation between stress, cortisol and the immune system and its effects on overall health.

There are a number of viruses that live in our body but no longer cause any symptoms of the disease. They are called latent or dormant viruses. Studies have shown that individuals experiencing stress are significantly more likely to experience an onset of these dormant viruses - the virus will "wake up" and cause a disease. Several good examples of these dormant viruses are herpes virus (HV), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and herpes zoster virus (shingles). Many studies have also found consistently elevated cortisol levels just before or at the beginning of the onset of HV or shingles proving that cortisol at high levels suppresses the immune system and allows for dormant viruses to cause illness. [Pikel, JL. et al. Chronic life stress alters sympathetic, neuroendocrine, and immune responsivity to an acute psychological stressor in humans. PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE: 9251165]

In one study the levels of EBV were measured in a population with chronic stress (caregivers) and compared to that of a control (normal) population. The EBV levels were significantly elevated in the chronic stress group. This group also had lower amounts of T-lymphocyte and the lymphocytes' ability to multiply was greatly diminished. [Kiecolt-Glaser JK, Dura JR, Speicher CE, Trask OJ, Glaser R. Spousal caregivers of dementia victims: longitudinal changes in immunity and health. Psychosom Med 1991;53:345-362.]

In another study, prevalence of acute infectious respiratory illness was compared between the group that was exposed to chronic stress and the group that did not experience stress. It showed that stress was associated with the increased risk of illness and the association was dose-related i.e. the more stress the more chance of illness. [Cohen S, Tyrrell DA, Smith AP. Psychological stress and susceptibility to the common cold. New Engl J Med 1991;325(9):606-656]

In a study done by Frances Cohen et al. the effect of long term unemployment as a chronic stressor was examined. The unemployed group had significantly lower natural killer cell cytotoxicity (the ability of natural killer cells to neutralize antigen) as compared to that of the employed group. After some of the participants of the unemployed group gained employment, this new subgroup showed a recovery in their natural killer cell cytotoxicity as compared to their own unemployed period. This study successfully documented immune function recovery after the definable end of a chronic stressor. [Frances Cohen, PhD, Margaret E. Kemeny, PhD, Leonard S. Zegans, MD, Paul Johnson, MPhil, Kathleen A. Kearney, PhD and Daniel P. Stites, MD.

Immune Function Declines With Unemployment and Recovers After Stressor Termination. Psychosomatic Medicine 69:225-234 (2007)]

Boost your immune system - get a life coach!

From the studies examined above, it is clear that chronic stress and the prolonged negative predisposition adversely affect our immune system and by doing so we become prone to illness. The removal of the stressor improves the function of our immune system and positively affect our overall health.

Are there ways to put mind over matter? The answer can be found in life coaching. Life coaching is intended to help people manage their lives, get support they need, align values with goals and improve their outlook. So, life coaching can significantly lower the level of stress and improve health.

Due to the fact that life coaching is a partnership between the coach and the client, clients have a stable nurturing and supportive relationship. This type of relationship is essential in lowering stress in life. Clients become aware that they are no longer alone in their daily trials and tribulations, and this knowledge gives them the strength to move forward in life. A nurturing and supportive life coach is now just a phone call away. What a wonderful safety net!

The life coach also becomes the client's wise confidante. Dr. Charles Raison MD of Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta suggests that "People who have one person they can talk to are known to live longer. It doesn't have to be a health care professional. But if you can talk to someone about your emotional baggage, it can help your physical pain too." What a wonderful application and endorsement of life coaching.

In order to improve life and minimize stress, it is important to incorporate into ones life events and people that one enjoys. Life coaches help clients align their own goals with their own values. By identifying, incorporating and prioritizing goals and values connected to events and people that bring happiness, enjoyment and satisfaction to the client's life, life coaches help clients achieve better life balance and develop an optimistic, realistic and hopeful attitude which will improve the immune system function.

According to Robert Emmons, a psychology professor and researcher at the University of California, grateful people - those who perceive gratitude as a permanent trait rather than a temporary state of mind - do much better when it comes to health than not-so-grateful. By utilizing the life coaching technique of reframing we can help clients develop more positive attitude towards many life events and by doing so improve their overall health. By encouraging clients to keep a gratitude journal or a list of benefits in their life, we can help clients shift towards gratitude which will in turn improve their immune function and lower incidents of illness. Another tool in life coaching that will help develop gratitude is celebrating. Encouraging clients to always celebrate their milestones, victories and even failures will help them become grateful for good and not-so-good on their life journey.

During the life coaching journey, the coach helps clients develop self-awareness, become self-empowered and live within the boundaries of their own truth which enables clients to become realistic optimists. Researchers at Harvard found that this optimism seasoned by reality can substantially boost the immune system.

In a recent study two groups of cervical cancer patients were observed - a group that received weekly psychosocial telephone counseling (PTC) as a means of combating stress and the group that did not receive counseling. Quality of life (QOL) and immune function were compared between the two groups. The PTC group yielded significantly improved QOL. Improvements in QOL were significantly and consistently associated with a particular shift in T helper lymphocyte population resulting in stronger immunity. These findings suggest that PCT has a positive impact on QOL and in improvement of overall clinical outcome including survival. Dr. Esther Sternberg, director of INIM program at National Institute of Mental Health points out that women in support groups for their breast cancer have a longer life span than women without this type of support. These data strongly suggest that life coaching could be applied in cancer patients to help them overcome stress and negativity and improve their QOL and possibly overall survival.

The evidence is overwhelming that stress and our state of mind greatly influence the immune system and through this connection, overall health. Life coaching techniques and tools help manage life and minimize the effects of stress while at the same time it empowers clients to assume a realistically optimistic attitude. Coach-client partnership provides a strong support system that is most needed for successful stress management. For mentally healthy individuals who are looking to improve their physical health and well being, life coaching is a key to success. Life coaching is also affordable, works fast and it is extremely efficient. Boost your immune system - get a life coach!

Alex Piper is a Life Coach with a specialty in stress management and relationship mentoring. Alex has formal training as a Life Coach with International Coach Academy and is a member of International Coaching Federation. For more information please visit http://www.ArtOfLivingNYC.com

How Spiritual Life Coaching Works

Now that people are learning more about life coaching, it seems that more and more niche areas are emerging out of the coaching centers. Spiritual life coaching is one such specialty that has been gaining a lot of attention in the past few years. And while the proposition might sound a little iffy, spiritual life coaching offers much growth in an area that's often neglected.

Spiritual Life Coaching: Is It for You?

Do you often feel discontented with your life, as if there's always something missing? Or are you facing a radical change of religious and spiritual beliefs? Spiritual life coaching website might be a good idea for you.

A good number of the spiritual coaches you'll find focus only on a particular spirituality such as Christian tradition or spiritualist beliefs. There are some spiritual life coaches, though, that still stick to the general and more universal definition of the field. Such coaches will be your best bet, especially if you're unsure about the direction where your spirituality is going.

People who are hesitating to enter a new spiritual commitment or are having trouble sticking to an existing one will benefit the most from spiritual coaching. A spiritual life coach won't make the decision for you, but will instead help you make the spiritual decisions that you've so far been apprehensive about making.

Finding the Right Spiritual Coach

Spiritual life coaching is much more personal and intimate than your regular life coaching sessions. Your spirituality is probably something that you don't discuss with other people, so finding the right kind of coach is important for you to feel comfortable about your sessions. If you end up with a coach that you don't fully trust or connect with, your sessions won't be as productive as they should be.

A good spiritual life coach is someone who holds no biases for any single belief structure; you should immediately think twice of anyone who tries to sell you into some new religion. It's also important that your coach have a lot of exposure to many different beliefs. That way, he or she would be used to people like you who are in a spiritual flux or limbo. He or she'd also be able to tell you the subtle differences between beliefs.

What to Expect

The 'spiritual' term alone already suggests an air of mystery and secrecy, but real spiritual life coaching isn't as flamboyant as that. In fact, spiritual coaching sessions are very similar to regular ones for life coaching in terms of content and structure. Many life coaching techniques are even used for spiritual coaching sessions, albeit in a slightly modified form.

Your spiritual life coach won't be pushing you toward any decision, but he or she will be helping you find a decision for yourself. Typical activities include things like journal keeping and personal reflections, which are designed to bring out your personal insights on different things.

Unless you have a very strong spiritual foundation, you probably need spiritual coaching or will do so at some point in the future. With the right coach to help guide you on your path, you might just find it to be a very enlightening experience.

Finding a spiritual life coach can be the hardest part in getting spiritual life coaching.Project-Transform has a team of highly qualified coaches with diverse backgrounds that will help you find a path - even if you started the coaching sessions without one. Should you ever have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact a Project-Transform spiritual life coach today by sending an e-mail to coaching@project-transform.com or clicking at spiritual life coaching website.

Why Hire a Life Coach?

"What exactly is a life coach and why would I need one?" ...A question I hear quite regularly in my business and one that always catches me by surprise, even though I know it shouldn't!

Long, long ago...I remember back to my days of being a civil engineer (longer ago than I care to mention) when friends would come up to me and ask if I could help fix their car.

"But I haven't the first clue about cars' engines," I would protest, only to be confronted with a quizzical look...

"But you're an engineer, aren't you?"

When you get really close to a subject it's easy to forget how little other people know about something that you've learnt to take for granted.

I'm sure you know the feeling.

In fact, I have to keep slapping myself as a reminder that it was just a few short years ago that I first asked that very same question:

"What is life coaching - and what does a life coach do?"

From my experience, most uninitiated people have preconceived notions about life coaching that are derived from their understanding of disciplines that are more well known. Rabbiting on about what a life coach is, often does little to dispel these notions.

I find it useful, when introducing people to the unquestionable benefits of having a personal life coach, to start by explaining what life coaching is not... and gently expand from there.

Life coaching is not counselling.

First and foremost, life coaching is not a form of counselling or therapy.

Life Coaches aren't there to diagnose how past traumas may have contributed to your current condition, help fix personal problems, heal emotional wounds or slay past demons.

A life coach will encourage you to consider that you are where you are and what's happened has happened - that your unique tapestry of life experiences, whether you consider these to be good, bad or indifferent, is just that - a bunch of experiences.

Where you go from here does not have to be dictated by where you have come from, if you don't want it to.

With a life coach you will come to appreciate that, every moment of every day, you are presented with choices. You can continue on the path you are on - and in all likelihood get similar results - or you can choose a different path and, with the right approach and tools, get the results you truly desire... often spectacular results!

A life coach will help you to search within for an appreciation of your value rather than to look outwards for affirmations of your worth.

A life coach will introduce you to what I call The Great Trap, will help you to see it for what it is and will show you simple but powerful ways to avoid it or extricate yourself from it.

The Great Trap is an unfortunate side effect of the survival instinct that is built into all of us. It manifests, ultimately, as a life that feels meaningless, like a never-ending treadmill or a pointless rat race. It's caused by one's inability to embrace change, which, in turn comes from a fear of the consequences of change. That fear, in turn, is brought on by the belief that one has no control over change. And that belief comes from looking outwardly and not inwardly for strength and affirmation of value.

Life coaching is not consulting.

Secondly, a life coach is not a consultant.

A life coach will not run your life or your business for you and will not even show you how to run your life or your business. What the coach will do, is help you to liberate the untapped potential that lies dormant within you, so that you can run your life or business far more effectively.

Consultants are people who have skills, knowledge and resources about specialized areas of business that they will deploy, for a fee, to assist individuals or organizations perform better.

Life coaches are people who are skilled in helping individuals unlock their own capabilities and realize their potential so that they can live their lives in accordance with their desires.

Life coaches are not perfect!

And, finally, life coaches are not - and don't need to be - 'life experts' or perfect specimens of those who have mastered the complexity of life.

Someone I knew who had been persuaded to hire a life coach spent months looking for the right person for the job - and eventually gave up. Why? Because he was trying to find someone who didn't exist - a coach displaying outward signs of living the kind of idyllic, utopian life that he thought he wanted for himself.

"All these so-called coaches that I contacted seem like pretty regular people to me," he complained.

That's the point.

Life coaches are not glamorous celebrities, public icons or superheroes of some form! They are, by and large, 'regular people' like you and me. The difference is that they have a true passion for helping others be the best they can be and - if they have come through a reputable training programme - they will be adequately equipped with the tools, skills and techniques to make that happen.

Life coaches are special people.

Make no mistake. Good life coaches are very special people. They live and breathe the ups, downs, personal revelations, setbacks, achievements and breakthroughs of their clients. They offer a caring and supportive - yet challenging and inspiring - coaching environment that encourages their clients to flourish and prosper.

The good news.

Now here's some good news. You don't need to have some kind of 'problem' before you approach a life coach.

If you have a niggling knee injury, you go to a doctor. If your washing machine won't drain properly, you call a plumber. If you have subsidence problems with your house, you call a structural engineer. If someone sues you or your business, you find a good lawyer. These professions, like most, specialize in offering solutions to day-to-day problems.

The life coach, on the other hand, works best with 'whole' clients; people who have a desire to live to their true potential, who want to go beyond the normal, break out of boring routines and experience a purposeful and exciting life; people who know that they are capable of so much more yet don't know quite how to get there; people who choose to live life by making an impact on the world rather than sitting back and letting the world make an impact on them.

Does this describe you, dear reader? Very probably, is my guess!

Go on, just do it!

If so, go ahead and find yourself a good life coach. It's my bet that in just six months time you'll wonder how you could ever have doubted the value that a modest investment like this could add to your life.

Bill Burridge is owner and founder of New Insights Africa, a life coach training company dedicated to the development of a vibrant network of high quality, independent life coaches, inspired to bring personal freedom, confidence and growth to people from all walks of life in South Africa. The company's core product is a unique, high quality, home study certification program in life coaching. http://www.life-coach-training-sa.com