New Construction

The seller of that home you are about to purchase no doubt thought long and hard about how much to ask for it. She consulted with her real estate agent who spent some time poring over statistics and the prices of recently sold homes in the area to come to a rough estimate of the home’s value.

You made your offer based on what you felt the home was worth (hopefully based on your agent’s research). When all is said and done, however, neither your opinion nor that of the seller matter. The home is worth what the appraisal says it’s worth, at least as far as your lender is concerned.

Who is the appraiser?

A professional appraiser is an unbiased third-party that is trained to determine the value of a piece of property. While not all appraisers are state-licensed, federally regulated lenders are required by law to use only those who are. Like many real estate agents that belong to a national association that adheres to strict ethics, so do many appraisers.

Are appraisers always accurate in their evaluation of homes? Usually they are, but not always. It depends on the information available to them at the time they complete the appraisal.

What affects a home appraisal?

property-appraisal-buyer

Numerous factors can influence a home’s appraised value. Some of these include:

The national and local economies
The location of the home
Nearby foreclosures
The condition of the home
The value of other, similar homes that were recently sold in the area
The appearance of the home compared to those that have recently sold
Upgrades made to the home prior to the appraisal.
A day in the life of an appraisal

Let’s assume you’ve made a full-price offer on a house that is listed at $300,000. The lender will order the appraisal on the house before giving you the final decision on your loan application.

The appraiser visits the home and looks at every aspect of its exterior, from the roof to the soil. Then, she inspects the interior, from the ceiling to the floors. Finally, most appraisers measure the square footage of both the house and the lot prior to writing up the appraisal.

Back at her office, the appraiser uses the information she compiled to compare it against comparable sales nearby. She takes other facts into account as well, such as any problems with the house and any upgrades. She may also check local planning departments to ascertain if anything is planned in the nearby community that may impact the home’s future value. Finally, the appraisal is compiled and handed off to the lender.

The best news a buyer can receive is that the house appraised for more than he offered. The next best news, for both buyer and seller, is that it appraised at the offered price.

Then, there’s the worst news

A buyer typically has four choices when the appraisal comes in under the agreed-upon sale price: ask the seller to lower the price, increase the cash down payment, negotiate with the seller to pay half of the shortfall and you pay the other half, dispute the appraisal or walk away from the deal.

Sellers, on the other hand, have several choices as well. These include lowering the price of the house to meet the appraised value.

If you feel the appraisal was too low, work with your agent to find discrepancies in the report. Check that it accurately reflects the square footage, the age of the home (as well as those of comparable homes) and the number of bathrooms and bedrooms. Check the comps the appraiser used for errors regarding the home’s condition.

If you find errors, have your real estate agent contact the lender for a new appraisal. Most experienced real estate listing agents come close to the figure that the appraiser gives. Typically, it’s the homeowner that sets an unreasonably high home price and a buyer that either wants the home so much she is willing to overpay or a buyer that doesn’t do her homework and fails to research the sales prices of nearby homes.

It is becoming increasingly common for traditionally office-based employees to work from home for or all of their working time. Data from the Office for National Statistics show that 4.2 million people in the UK spent at least half their working time at home in 2014.

Some businesses maintain that they can only thrive if they have all of their employees under the same roof at the same time. On the other hand, others point to reduced costs, reduced office space, increased productivity that comes with a happier workforce, and the ability to adapt to what could otherwise be disruptive factors.

It is about finding a balance between what works for the employer and what is good for the employees. Assuming, as an employer, you are minded to agree to an employee or employees working from home, what should you consider before home working is agreed? Here are ten factors to consider:

#1. Is the job suitable?
Not all jobs can be done remotely. You will need to consider whether the role can be performed just as well away from the office by someone working on their own. You will also need to be satisfied that the employee will be happy spending long periods of time alone, and self-disciplined enough not to waste their time watching television or being unduly distracted by domestic matters.

#2. How will you manage employees who work from home?
You will need to determine what level of contact is expected between the manager, team members and the employee. Discussions may be required about working time, and whether the employee will be required to be in the office on certain days, or for team meetings, and whether office time will vary according to needs of the business.

If the arrangements are to work, it is essential that there is trust between the home-worker and their manager.

#3. Does the employee have somewhere suitable to work from?
The popular image of someone working from home is that they spend their time sitting on the sofa wearing their pyjamas with a laptop computer balanced precariously on their lap while they drink yet another mug of coffee. This is far from ideal and may soon cause health problems arising from poor posture.

So, it is important that the employee has somewhere suitable from which to work and that includes having a suitable chair and a table of the correct height. Not only that, it must not be used at the same time for a conflicting purpose.

Here is a real example from some years back from a company I then worked for. That company employed a number of document consultants who worked from home. One was married to a pub landlord whose inn provided hot and cold food that was prepared in the kitchen of the landlord’s flat above the pub. It was from there that my then colleague worked while the inn’s staff prepared food around her using the same table. There was also the inevitable electric cable for the laptop computer trailing across the floor of the busy kitchen. Needless to say, these working arrangements were stopped immediately when they became known. That leads us neatly to…

#4. Health and safety
By law, all employers are responsible for their employees’ welfare, health and safety at work “so far as is reasonably practicable”, and must carry out risk assessments. This includes homeworkers. Employers should risk assess the proposed home working arrangements before they start, and conduct regular re-assessments, which may include stress, isolation, workplace equipment, first aid, and accidents.

#5. Equipment
What equipment will be used by the homeworker and who will pay for it? Will he or she provide their own device such as a computer, laptop, or tablet computer, telephone, and Internet connection? If you are providing the equipment, can the employee (and members of their family) use it for other purposes?

Disabled employees may need special equipment, you are required to provide by way of making a reasonable adjustment for their condition just as you would have to have done had that person been office-based.

If the employee is using his or her own device, you will need to ensure that suitable maintenance arrangements are in place for when IT problems arise, as they inevitably will do. Are there any other duties they can perform from home in the event of their device not working? If there are none, will the employee be required to take leave while their device is being repaired or work from the office?

If you provide the equipment, does the employee know who to call if there is a fault or breakdown? Moreover, is it practicable for the company’s I.T. support to maintain equipment that may be physically located many miles away?

#6. Data security
Employees who work from home need to understand the procedures they must follow and what is, and what is not, an authorised use of data. For example, you should consider:

Who has access to the computer or device, and to any personal data stored on it?
How and when are backups of that data to be made? How and where are those backups to be stored?
Is the employee’s home regularly left empty? Is it properly secured?
Is the software password protected and is the data encrypted?
Will paperwork and other documents be stored securely?
How is work transported from home to office and vice versa?
How will confidential waste be disposed of?
Employers who are in regulated businesses, such as financial services, will need to pay close attention to whether allowing home working contravenes any regulatory requirement imposed on both the employer and the employee. This is especially so if the employee is using their own device.
#7. Flexible working
A request to work from home may form part of a flexible working request. Any employee with at least 26 weeks service may request flexible working. Employers must consider requests in a “reasonable manner”. The ACAS Code of Practice on the right to request flexible working provides guidance that employers are expected to follow.

There is, however, no right to to be allowed to work flexibly. All the employee is entitled to is to make a request to work flexibly and to have their request dealt with reasonably.

The assumption is that if the “ACAS code of Practice on handling in a reasonable manner requests to work flexibly” is followed, the request has been dealt with reasonably.

It should be remembered that home working is not a substitute for suitable care arrangements. Whilst working flexibly can make it easier to work around drop off and pick up times, employers should make clear to the employee when working time is and what is expected of them during working time.

#8. Trial period
Not all home working arrangements are totally successful from either the employer’s point of view of from that of the employee. Having a trial period of a suitable and agreed duration is a good way to see if it really is practicable for the employee to work from home during the times they want. At the end of the trial period, both parties should have a meeting to review how successful or otherwise the home working was and what lessons can be learned from it.

#9. Will everyone want to work from home?
That is unlikely for the following reasons:

Not all office based jobs successfully lend themselves to home working;
Even where home working is practicable, some people will need to be in the office, which means the opportunity to work from home will not be open to everyone with the qualifying service; and
Not everyone will want to work from home. There is an important social aspect of working with other people. Loneliness and isolation can be serious problems for home workers.
#10. Contractual provisions
The employee’s contract of employment will need to have some special provisions that are not normally found in a traditional office-based contract of employment. These additional provisions will include:
Notifying the employer in advance of any change of the employee’s home address so that a new risk assessment may be carried out before they start work there and so that insurance cover can be transferred to their new home address;
A right for the employer and their authorised personnel to enter the employee’s home at all reasonable times by prior arrangement to conduct a risk assessment and to install, inspect, maintain, and remove the employer’s property.
With the development of the “gig economy” some employees may choose to cease being employed and provide freelance services instead. This could be particularly attractive if the employee has skills he or she can provide to several firms. Employers should take care to ensure that the employee is genuinely a self-employed freelancer, not an employee or worker in disguise.

Tips and Tricks to Enjoy Cheap Home Insurance Quotes:

A few decades ago, who could have thought that shopping for homeowners insurance could become so easy? Gone are the days when one had to spend hours together roaming to different insurance companies, calling them over and over again just to compare a few quotes from two or more of them. Online insurance shopping has made it very much convenient for the shoppers to sit in the comfort of their homes and compare quotes from various companies to find cheap homeowners insurance. One can easily back away from all the hassle and get hundreds of quotes, both from local and national insurance companies by simply giving away a few details.

With this said, some people may not really like to give away information online to look for cheap home insurance, because some tools ask for personal credentials as well. But, one need not worry about this issue anymore, because online tools these days just ask for the shopper’s zip code and that’s it, a whole list of quotes from well-known insurance companies from over 50 States will appear on the screen. This method of online shopping to search for cheap home insurance quotes is easy, quick and above all it is free.

Getting the best and cheap home insurance is something that every online shopper looks for. But in search for cheaper home insurance quotes, one should not miss the actual benefit of having homeowners insurance. A full coverage home insurance is a protection for one’s home and the property within it. Hence, comparing insurance quotes simply based on their cheap rates is not worth it. One should be clever enough to identify affordable quotes that provide complete benefits of having a home insurance rather than just opting for some cheap homeowners insurance quotes that are not really worthy.

But one need not think that in order to avail a full coverage home insurance, one will have to pay too much of premiums. It is definitely possible to enjoy low cost homeowners insurance and at the same time get a decent coverage plan. In order to choose cheap homeowner insurance quotes, one must first be aware of what are the different types of coverage plans available and then finally decide on one that suits their needs the best.

What is Covered Under a Homeowners Insurance Policy?
According to Insurance Information Institute (III), homeowners insurance is divided into different categories, which are denoted as HO-1, HO-2, HO-3, HO-4, and so on until HO-8. Of all these policies the first type, i.e. HO-1 is no longer available as it provides very basic coverage scheme. The other policies are discussed below:
HO-2 and HO-3: These two policies are the most prevalent ones. The HO-2 policy is also known as ‘broad-form policy’ and HO-3 as ‘special-form policy’. People having these types of coverage can claim for money in any of the following 16 situations:
1. Damage caused due to current shocks generated artificially.
2. Unexpected damage caused due to aircraft
3. Vehicle rampages that damage the house
4. Damage due to falling objects
5. Damage to the house due to heavy snowfall, ice or due to the weight of sleet
6. Lightning or fire blasts
7. Damage due to Volcanoes
8. Windstorm damages
9. Unpredictable blasts
10. Damage caused due to excessive smoke
11. Malicious mischief
12. Loss of possessions due to stealth/theft
13. Damage to the house or other possessions due to riots or rallies
14. Accidental damage such as cracks or swollen appearance of appliances such as air conditioners, water heaters, and fire-protectors.
15. Damage caused to home appliances due to extreme cold weathers resulting in their freezing.
16. Damages due to steam or water leakage from water heaters, air conditioners, fire-protectors or other appliances.
While both HO-2 and HO-3 provide coverage for damages caused due to above 16 issues, but there is a small difference that makes one more advantageous over the other. The HO-2 policy does not provide coverage for damages apart from the above list. Whereas, the HO-3 policy not only covers the above-listed damages, but will also provide coverage for any other type of damage as well, except a few natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and other severe issues such as nuclear disasters, wars, and pests.
HO-5: This policy is similar to HO-3, but with an extension that it provides coverage for one’s possessions in the house as well.
Special Policies:
HO-4: This policy is special in the fact that it provides coverage for renters.
HO-6: Coverage for condo owners can be availed by opting for this policy.
HO-7: If one is in search of cheap mobile home insurance, then the HO-7 policy is the right choice.
HO-8: If the house one lives in is an old construction, then choosing HO-8 policy will help them to avail cheap home insurance.
What damages are not covered?
The following are the damages that are not covered by any type of home insurance and require separate policies for protection:
● Earthquakes
● Landslides
● Sinkholes
● Floods
● Sewage damages
● Damages due to negligence
● Damages due to pests
How to Calculate Home Insurance?
Another important element to finding affordable homeowners insurance is to know how much insurance one would actually need. This estimation will help the homeowner to have an idea of the cost for damages or loss of possession; he/she can face in case of any calamity and then appropriately judge the amount of home insurance one should avail. Here are the basic steps using which one can estimate one’s home insurance:
● The first step in order to calculate one’s homeowners insurance is to estimate the total cost of rebuilding one’s home after heavy damage. This calculation should be done by considering all the costs at the rates one has built the home.
● Secondly, one should estimate the total cost of all the possessions that one might think would be damaged in case of any disasters. Experts suggest that the cost of possessions or property should generally amount up to 50-75% of the rebuilding cost of one’s home. For instance, if one estimates the rebuilding cost as $250,000, then the cost for possessions should be estimated as $125,000. Also, expensive jewelry or artifacts will require additional coverage.
● The next step is to calculate the liability coverage, i.e. the amount one would be liable to pay if someone gets injured on the homeowner’s property. This amount could range between $100,000 and $500,000.
● The final step is to estimate the extra charges one might face. This includes damage due to natural disasters that are not covered by home insurance policies.

A nursing home (also known as a skilled nursing facility) is for older retirees who can no longer cope with the tasks of daily living. It is staffed by trained nurses and carers who are experienced in looking after the elderly.

The services provided by a nursing home are comprehensive and, besides nursing care, include: 24-hour supervision and assistance with everyday tasks, as well as all meals and recreational activities.

Some people enter a skilled nursing facility as a half-way step on their way home from a hospital stay. They are there for just a week or two until they recover fully from whatever surgical procedure they underwent.

These facilities are also used to give respite to family carers who are devoting their time to look after an aged parent. The parent spends a week or too in a safe, professional environment which the person caring for her in her own home enjoys a holiday.

However, most residents in a nursing home live there permanently because they have physical or mental infirmities that require constant care and supervision. This is the case with my mother.

Choosing a nursing home can be very stressful for any retiree as it was for my mother who, sadly, was both physically and mentally impaired.

As a skilled nursing facility is likely to be you last permanent home on this planet, you need to plan ahead and consider all your long-term actions first. This was not possible for my mother. She had always stated her opposition to entering a nursing home.

She had a fall, one of many, and ended up in hospital. Up to then she had refused to consider entering a nursing home. But her doctor would not discharge her back to her own home, so she had no choice.

Fortunately, myself and my siblings had done a lot of research during the previous years… as we knew from her failing physical health and her increasingly obvious dementia that going to a nursing home was inevitable.

We had already researched the local nursing homes and knew which one we wanted for Mum. As luck would have it, there was a vacancy.

This article is based on our experiences looking for a suitable home for our Mum.

Deciding on your best option

Becoming enfeebled is not a sudden thing. It’s happens gradually as we get older. We become less able to take care of ourselves or our homes.

It was heart-breaking to witness my mother’s slow 5-year transition from a vibrant, very sociable, highly energetic lady into a bent old woman who shuffled about.

Entering a nursing home only becomes necessary at the last stage of this process of enfeeblement. At the earlier stages you have several options. These include:

daily assistance from a carer who comes in several times a week or each day to help you do your daily tasks
having a live-in carer, often a retired nurse, who can help with getting in and out of bed, washing, dressing etc, as well as cooking, cleaning and keeping the home tidy
independent living communities in which you live in an apartment complex with on-site facilities such as banks, gyms, fitness programs, a beauty salon and barber’s shop, a communal dining room, and even a doctor who makes regular round
assisted living communities for older people who need more support than they can get living independently but who don’t need complex medical care on a daily basis… they usually offer meals, housekeeping, and planned activities, but not medical services.
Before choosing a nursing home, take time to consider whether any of these options might be more suitable for the time being.
My mother went through the first two of these stages for several years before her incapacities made it impossible for her to remain at home.

Steps in choosing a nursing home

When you are making the decision yourself, you need to have the support of your family and close friends in making your decision.

Bring them in on the option-weighing process to help you with making your final decision. Our whole family made the choice on behalf of our mother.

Consider your needs in the final years of your life – nursing care, physical therapy, special care needs, religious needs, physical decline, dementia care and so on – when weighing up your options.

Once you have finally decided that you wish to or must enter a nursing home, here are the three basic steps to follow:

Step one

Do an in-depth search on Google and made a list of all the nursing homes in our area. We asked for recommendations from other older persons you knew and trust.

Step two

Research the quality of the nursing homes you are considering:

check their websites for the facilities they offer
check the inspection reports made by the regulatory agency for nursing homes, which you can find on the nursing homes’ own websites or on the website of the regulatory agency.
type the name of individual nursing homes into Google and search for comments from residents or other persons.
Next list the homes in order of preference, ie create a short-list.
Step three

Visit the nursing homes on the short list.

If you are checking out the homes yourself, looking for a place to spend your last years, I’d suggest bringing along a family member or close friend.

Or have someone you trust undertake the visit on your behalf.

Visiting provides a chance to see the residents, staff and setting of the home.

Note:

Before your visit, consider and decide on what is important to you – nursing care, meals, therapy, a religious dimension, location near family and friends etc
Call ahead to ensure you’ll be received
Ask questions and make sure you get clear answers.
Ask staff to explain anything you don’t understand
Ask who you should call if you have further questions
Get a copy of their standard contract so later you can peruse it carefully.
Bring along the checklist that you’ll find below to help you.
Pay a second, surprise visit to the facility without calling ahead. On this visit try to arrive during late morning or midday, so you can see the residents when they are on their daily routines or mealtimes.

I hope you find these pointers useful.

Myself and my siblings undertook all these investigations on our mother’s behalf and, as my mother’s attorney, I made the final decision taking into account what I knew of her wishes.

I can tell you now it’s quite a job and fairly time consuming. Yet it must be done properly if the retiree is to be happy in his or her final home.

Here’s a checklist I devised to help you when visiting a nursing home.

Content marketing and SEO are two frequently used terms and broadly discussed topics in digital marketing. What eludes most is how they work together and the importance of it. First, let’s have a look at both of them separately.

SEO: It stands for Search Engine Optimization. It involves a series of approaches undertaken to improve the search visibility, the ranking and also the traffic coming into a page of a website. The ways to achieve this is by optimizing meta tags, title tags, building links, back linking, using strategic keywords and much more. Most of the website’s traffic begins with a search. Hence, it is important that a brand building strategy includes SEO.

Content Marketing: Firstly content can exist in various forms – blogs, infographic, podcasts, videos and much more. No matter the form, it has to attract, engage, and inform with valuable content. Content marketing is a bigger approach which with SEO forms a part of your digital marketing strategy.

A digital marketing agency should remember that planning a content strategy which effectively integrates SEO as a part of it works not only well for the targeted audience but also for Google and other search engines. Here are reasons why tightly coupling content strategy and SEO guarantees success for your inbound marketing strategy and also the brand strategy:

1. SEO asks. Content answers.

First off, link building – possibly the most important factor to consider in your SEO strategy. Simply put, getting other websites to link back to your website is called link building. How does it help? It drives referral traffic as well as increases the site’s authority and ranking. When a number of trusted backlinks are made to your website, major search engines rank the pages of your website higher. Effective backlinks are made by high quality content. What qualifies as high-quality content? Relevant, interesting content that is share-worthy and persuasive. When your content is compelling, the likelihood of other sites to link back to your website is more. The other strategy to improve your website’s ranking is to create guest posts. These posts are placed on external high-domain-authority sites along with a bio and must include a link back to your website.

2. SEO leads. Content follows.

Important words and phrases that allow people to find your content and your website through various search engines (including Google) are called keywords. They are the most significant component of SEO. Every business or site will have unique keywords specific to their business or field. Keyword strategy involves including keywords and groups of keywords in title tags, URLs and meta descriptions so that people can easily find the business by simply searching for it. Besides this, keywords must be incorporated in the content strategy as part of landing pages and blog posts. Essentially, SEO plans the keywords that are to be delivered and content provides them.

3. SEO is forever. Content continues delivering.

SEO is not a one-time, permanent process. It is an ongoing one. It requires consistent maintenance. This is because Google consistently demands content that is novel. The recently updated pages with quality content are constantly indexed and rate higher on SERPs (search engine results page). That is why most B2B marketers (close to 72%) and digital marketing agencies are producing more content than they had about year ago. The only way to target and engage your audience is to regularly post compelling content.

SEO (short for Search Engine Optimization) is a technique which is used by business, startups and website owners to rank their website on top of search engines and other popular web portals. The owner of a search engine like Google would certainly want the customers to find whatever they are looking for on the Google Search Results page itself, within the top three to four results that come up.

Let us go back in time when the Yahoo search engine used to be the most preferred and most widely used search engine, till the point came when the market acquisition was done by Google. Google had the brains and resources to optimize their products, make it simple. Yahoo had ads, emails and various other platforms and the options pertaining to them, while Google on the other hand has allocated the maximum space to the Google Search tab itself on a sole basis.

What is SEO?

SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. If you want your content to be featured on YouTube, Facebook and other top sites, you can try out Search Engine Optimization. Most of the Content Creators, be it a website or a YouTube channel, they prioritize on fulfilling targets like an increase in audience population and ranking towards the top of that particular website where they feature. This requires them to use certain suitable keyword which makes them perfect for being targeted by the audience. However, it is not quite simple as that, the procedure is quite complicated. SEO involves some basic tips in order to make your page rank on top of the Google Search web page.

Types of SEO?

SEO can be categorized into two types: On Page Optimization and Off Page Optimization. On Page Optimization means what content your website actually has. What do you get if you actually look into it? Google is well-equipped with its own crawlers which enable them to identify all of your social media handles and make you come up in search results as per the quality of your content. Google does not think on its own-rather it acts like a bot. Being a digital marketer, you have to be able to understand your needs very clearly. One very important aspect here is keyword research.

Choose Keywords Carefully

Say, you as a business are offering a digital marketing course, then you have to choose your keywords accordingly so that your web page or product pops up on the search result web page when a consumer searches for the same. When you are making a website or anything on social media, you must make sure it has enough visibility among the audience you are targeting, by the usage of the right keywords.

When you search anything on Google, first of all the Google ads will pop up, which are paid and have a certain forced presence because they might not have the content which actually has the content to stand on top. Below the ads comes all the websites which are ranked according to their merit, as per SEO.

Plagiarism is strictly not allowed by Google who will detect immediately whether your content is copy-pasted from any other website. If such a case arises, your authenticity as a site is over-you should say goodbye to your chances of ever being ranked on the first page of the search results-leave alone being at the top. Keep the content original so that the people get value addition after reading that.

Blogging is becoming very common in the online world as a majority of people either read or write articles online. The current generation of marketers has started incorporating blogging in the online marketing strategies of companies and businesses to attract the right visitors. Guest blogging is one such marketing strategy that has helped many businesses in expanding their customer base as it

offers mutual benefits to both the blogger and host website. just by featuring the posts of guest bloggers on your website you will not only be able to generate traffic but also help the blogger in expanding their readership.

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is also known as guest posting where a blogger writes content for another company’s website. A guest blogger creates content for host websites based on their requirement which might be a challenge for them. Both you and your host website benefit with this guest blogging strategy in the following ways:

1. Attracting traffic to a company’s website so that they might improve lead generation and get new subscribers.

2. SEO ranking improves as links are built from high-quality sites. This helps in improving your website’s position in various search engine results.

3. The credibility and brand awareness also increase due to the fact that a third-party, the guest blogger, has written about their experience with your company.

If implemented correctly, guest blogging can be a great asset to your digital marketing strategy and increase your brand’s reach out within no time. Let us now look at some of the tips and tricks that will help you in implementing an effective guest blogging strategy:

1. Define goals:

Make sure that you and your marketing team have clearly defined and understood the vision and the goal of your company or brand. You can even create sub-goals that you wish to achieve by implementing this strategy. Some of the goals can be increasing website traffic, improving SEO rating, increasing subscriber count, creating product awareness, etc. Having clarity on goals will help you in creating crisp blogging content so that your target audience gets the message that you wish to pass on. Clarity will help build trust with your potential customers.

2. Find the right website:

A simple way to find a website that accepts guest post is through an online search engine. You can use keywords like ‘write for us’, ‘guest article’, contribute for us’, etc. to search the websites. You can also find websites where your competitors are guest blogging and approach them for the same. Your competitor’s newsletter or social media account will give you the links to their blogs. Alltop lists top websites in multiple domains. You can even start your website search from here.

3. Discussions with site owners:

When you start your discussions with a website owner, make sure that your content is updated and conveys your thoughts accurately. Poor content and

irrelevant pitch formats will disengage the interest of the site owners. It would be good if your proposal is in sync with their website and the content that is being published on it. A well-researched work will help you in forming a genuine relationship with the site owner and achieve goals at a faster rate.

4. Choice of topic:

Research the website that would be posting your guest blog in. Study some insights related to the target audience that you plan to reach out with the post. Use all this research in deciding the topic for your blog. The more popular the topic is more the number of hits you will get on the blog. Generally, the posts that share life experiences and life hacks are more popular among readers. Buzzsumo is a good tool to get an idea about the potential topics that will generate good hits.

5. Content quality:

The content that you wish to publish should reflect value addition qualities

for the audience that sees it. While writing the articles make sure that the tone isn’t promotional, else the audience will lose interest in reading the blogs. Some of the below points will help you with the content quality:

a. Include one relevant internal link to any of your company’s blog posts.

b. Write a concise, crisp, and clear bio for the audience to engage with.

c. Include popular keywords to attract more traffic to your blog post.

d. End the post with a call-to-action which asks the readers to share their thoughts and comments.

e. Use various available analytic tools to track the traffic on the guest blogs to get insights on further improvements.

6. Be Engaging:

Try to subscribe to the comments section on your guest blog if the website

owner allows it. Once your blog is posted and has started to receive hits and comments, then make sure that you respond to these viewer interactions. This will help you in connecting with your new audience and in return, you might earn subscribers in them. If you are responsive, then the website owner would also feel positive about working with you and this long-lasting relationship will help you both in expanding your online audience.

7. Promote the guest blog:

Content promotion will help you in reaching out to a wider set of audience and even the website owner will benefit from the increased traffic. You can use

the same channels for promoting the guest blog as you use to promote your brand and products. You can also post links to your guest article on various social media websites. Keep writing and promoting guest posts to reach your aims and goals that you have defined in the marketing strategy.

If you’ve been looking for easy ways to make money online, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Don’t get me wrong. Easy ways to make money online do exist. However, they are not going to be found on any list you come across on the Internet. Why? Because most of those “easy” ways don’t really work.

Do they work in reality? Not really. Will you earn extra money doing it though? Sure, but you will also make more from your nine to five job. The hard truth is that there are only real easy ways to make money from home.

What are these easy ways to make money from home? Well, for starters, you could write blogs for other people. You could also use social media as a way to make money from home. In either case, you will have to set up your own blog or website.

You could also sign up with an affiliate program and sell other people’s products. If you’re selling someone else’s product, all you have to do is display the link on your site. From there, visitors to your site will click on the link and then make a purchase. That’s pretty simple, but if you can find a way to make extra earnings, your earnings could be very substantial.

However, what if you can’t find any extra tools to help others? That’s fine. You can still make extra money by selling your skills. There are plenty of individuals who are interested in selling their skills to others. You can teach them how to do something, and then once they’ve learned the technique, you charge them a fee. Some folks won’t mind paying a fee to learn something new, and if you can make your tutorial downloadable and easy to follow, you can have a booming internet business selling other peoples’ skills.

Finally, you can earn money from home by developing your own website. This is probably the easiest way to earn a side income from home. It won’t make you rich, but it will help you supplement your income. And it’s a great way to help your loved ones. If you’re looking for a fun way to make extra cash at home, you can’t go wrong by exploring all the possibilities.

The truth is that there are several different ways to make money from home. It’s important to explore all your options, as it varies greatly from person to person. That’s why it’s so crucial to have extra tools to use. However, if you can’t find any extra tools, you’ll have to develop some on your own. It varies wildly. And it will largely depend on what kind of skills you possess.

Extra tools for extra earnings are basically everywhere. You just need to be resourceful. But you should also realize that you won’t be paid an hourly rate by any means. The earning potential can be quite great, but it depends on your ability to market yourself. So as long as you have a product or service that people want, you could earn a side income with ease.

Carpet is an integral part of floor decor, uplifting the visual appeal of the space with its sleek texture. However, these carpets are prone to wear and tear due to daily foot traffic, dirt, dust mites and occasional spills. To ensure a clean and well-maintained carpet, periodic carpet cleaning using the right tools and equipment is of paramount importance. Cleaning with the standard home cleaning supplies simply does not produce the desired result.

Here are the five most widely used equipment used by professionals for a thorough carpet cleaning.

Portable Cleaning Tools
For smaller areas, carpet cleaning experts use portable equipment, which are relatively large machines but is easy to carry. These machines are available in various types depending on the purposes of their uses. The portable equipment is designed for various methods of carpet cleaning based on the kind of carpet and the customer’s preference like carpet shampooing, bonnet cleaning, encapsulation, hot water extraction or dry carpet cleaning. Professional companies carry most of these portable tools with them to perform cleaning, adopting various approaches with the machines for the different methods.

Some other portable types of equipment that professional services use are as follows:

Vacuum Cleaner: A vacuum cleaner is an essential carpet cleaning tool to tidy up the carpets and complete the cleaning procedure.

Defoamer: Foam can reduce the effectiveness of the cleaning process. Hence carpet cleaners use defoamer to remove the foam and speed up the drying process. These defoamers are a mixture of silicone or oils that are effective in removing the foam.

Air Scrubber: This device works as an air filtration system and is used during dry cleaning to get rid of airborne particulates, fungi, and foul odours from the carpet. The scrubber is used after a deep cleaning job to increase the air quality in the room.

Carpet Cleaning Wand: This is the primary tool in the cleaning process. The wand is used to spray the cleaning solution as water jets, which is then sucked back through the vacuum slot in the equipment. While rotary cleaners work best for shaggy carpets, wool carpets are best cleaned with wands to prevent any kind of damage to the carpet fibres. It is not possible to use a pro extractor without one.

Crevice Tools:These are special tools to clean crevices like those between the stairs, areas that are difficult to reach and upholstery cleaning.

Protective Tools: To protect furniture and other items from suffering any kind of damage while cleaning, professionals use these protective accessories like furniture protectors, caution signs, straps, corner guards, and chemical racks.

Ventilation Assister: On completion of wet cleaning methods, service providers may blow fans to expedite the drying of the carpet.

Truck-Mounted Cleaning Equipment
These are heavy-duty cleaners suitable for cleaning larger spaces. However, it must not be inferred that truck-mounted cleaners are only used for larger commercial workspaces. There are many homes that opt for them due to certain advantages like these powerful cleaners do not mess the area cleaned since the machines draw water out of the building as the cleaning process continues instead of draining them into the toilet or sink.

These are some of the vital equipment necessary for deep cleaning of the carpet. It needs mentioning that the use of tools depends on the nature of the carpet and the type of cleaning service chosen. Before hiring the services of professional cleaners, it makes sense to find out the kind of carpet cleaning your want and if the service provider has the right tools and equipment to perform the job successfully.

Even if you have an international business, there are many ways that you can benefit from locally based marketing. Local marketing can also be a key to catapulting you to global markets if you know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.

1. Vastly Improves Your Search Engine Rankings

Location-based marketing helps you get a higher search ranking because whenever anyone searches for you in that location, you’ll show up in some of the first pages of search. Even if people don’t type their location, the local businesses show up first for each search. This gives you a fantastic opportunity to attract your audience using local marketing.

2. It’s Inexpensive and Has a High ROI

Many aspects of local marketing are free. For example, putting up content that has location-based keywords, adding information to various platforms that include the right keywords for your location will improve your search results without spending a dime. Adding location-based information to advertisements will generate even more return.

3. Engage with Customers More

When you are more focused on the customer’s location, you can take advantage of some of the automatic trust you get by being focused on a location in your SEO and advertisements. You can use your actual location to get started, even if you want your business to be an international or national business. However, you don’t have to. You can focus on anyone’s location if you know you have an audience there.

4. Attract More Customers

Locally based marketing can help you attract new customers by placing the focus on one location at a time (you can do this simultaneously though) through your advertising and marketing methods. For example, if you know that you have a lot of clients in a region of Georgia in the USA focus your advertising and marketing there.

5. Become a Locally Renowned Expert

One fun and effective way to use local marketing to your benefit is to become a local expert. Start with your location or a major city near your location. Send out press releases, get interviews on local news stations, and submit articles in local publications. Then market each event that you do so that you soon become known as a local expert.

Local marketing can benefit any type of online business. It doesn’t matter if your business is only local or not. Of course, if your business is local, you’re going to benefit from local marketing even more. Ensuring that your business shows up in local search will attract more customers, ensure that you become more attractive yourself, and will enable you to become a local expert.