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Many webmasters dread Google penalty. But what exactly is a Google penalty?

A Google penalty refers to the negative impact on a site’s search based on the search algorithm updates by Google. The penalty is often a result of black-hat SEO techniques or a by-product of an algorithm update. Aside from the well-established bots, Google has teams of search engineers who are tasked to review different websites and penalize their rankings when necessary.

One of the most talked about event was the release of the Penguin update. Sites across the web have taken a rank hit called “Manual Action Penalty,” which means “if your site has been hit, it is now your job to fix the problem.” This penalty is often presented when the site appears to be manipulated unnaturally to rank high in the search results.

Once hit, you will receive a message describing the penalty which could either be Site-wide Match or Partial Match. The first penalty description means the entire site has been affected while the latter indicates there are only some pages that got penalized.

In you using an SEO agency to help determine the problem, here are the five main causes that they will look into to get your site fixed.

1. Unnatural Links

Google can detect patterns of unnatural, deceptive, manipulative or artificial links. If a site has participated in buying links and other link schemes to manipulate PageRank, then this could be the cause of the site’s Manual Action Penalty.

There is a way to reverse this penalty. Webmasters must first read the Webmaster Guidelines on linking. Next, he or she must identify the unnatural links that violated the guidelines and correct the problem by removing them or changing the link attribute to rel=”nofollow”.

2. User-Generated Spam

The user-generated spam is caused by users leaving comments, signing up to guestbook pages, creating user profiles and dropping links in a particular site that has not been maintained. That is a standard penalty among sites with forums.

It is imperative that you understand the guidelines on this penalty and follow the necessary steps to reverse the violation by identifying and correcting the following:

• The pages on your site where users have added some irrelevant content
• Gibberish texts, off-topic links and commercial usernames such as “discount cleaning home”
• Spam comments or forum posts with unrelated content
• Implement measures to prevent user-generated spamming

3. Hacked Site

Data theft, malware, abuse of user information and security compromise, some factors can lead to a Google penalty. Webmasters who encounter this problem will experience a significant setback of search engine ranking. When you receive this penalty from Google, you must request for a review to reverse the penalty. But before you do so, here are some of the prerequisites you need to take:

• Verify your ownership in the search console
• Clean your site and remove all traces of the hacker’s vandalism
• Check and correct your site vulnerability and security
• Publish your cleaned site again on the web

4. Cloaking and Sneaky Redirects

When you receive the manual action penalty, you need to check any sneaky redirects or cloaking on your site. That means your users may be seeing a different page than Google saw. Below is a recommended action provided by Google:

• Use the tool “Fetch as Google” in the Search Console to fetch pages from the affected area of your site
• Compare the fetched visuals by Google to the content users typically see by visiting the page
• Check the URLs on your site to see if there are any redirects

5. Thin Content

When a human reviewer from Google has determined that your site has not complied with their Quality Guidelines, your rank can seriously demote. The factors that caused this penalty are usually shallow pages automatically generated content, thin, affiliate pages or low-quality blog posts. You can follow the steps below to classify and fix the violation on your site:

• Check for thin content pages that contain affiliate links on your site
• Find the contents of your site that duplicates another content in the web
• Get rid of automatically generated content
• Improve the overall content

If you happen to get a Manual Action Penalty from Google, there is still an opportunity for you to clean up your site and fall back in line with the Webmaster Guidelines.

As long as you cautiously monitor the status of your site and follow the recommended course of action from Google, you can still fully recover from the sudden drop in your site rankings. Just pay close attention to the updates to avoid similar problems in the future.

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If you type the question, “Which is more important, diet or exercise?” in Google, you will most likely come across the arbitrary formula of 80/20. This formula is used for weight loss, stating that 80% of successful weight loss comes from eating a healthy diet while the remaining 20% comes from the efforts of working out. The question now is, why did this formula become so popular?

Despite the constant message that you should exercise at the gym to burn your body fat away, people who also eat less tend to lose more weight compared to those who only increased their physical activity.

A recent study published in the PeerJ journal found that people who incorporated 30-minute exercises everyday (with no diet alterations) tended to gain more weight compared to those who exercise less. This ultimately tells you cannot expect a weight loss miracle by just exercising and sweating out.

If you want to lose weight faster, you must control your nutrition!

Why Is Diet More Important?

According to fitness experts, you need to achieve a negative energy balance in order to lose weight. This means you have to take and eat less calories compared to the number of calories you burn during a usual day.

In fact, you need to realize a 3,5000 calorie deficit just to lose a single pound. If you follow the 80/20 formula, you will burn at least 750 calories a day. This totals to 3,750 calories of calorie deficit in a week.

The reason why this formula is more effective than exercising alone is because it requires more from you to actually burn off calories than simply avoiding them.

As per Holly Lofton, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine and director of the weight management program at Langone Medical Center, New York, you would have to run at least 7 miles a day just to lose weight every week. An average person cannot keep this exercise regimen up, especially without increasing their calorie intake to improve their fitness level.

It is not exactly a requirement that you follow the 80/20 formula. But it is primarily vital that people focus on their diet when they are trying to lose weight. After all, it is possible for you to shed those extra pounds without exercise, but you will not lose weight if the food you eat counteracts your workout energy expenditure.

Is Exercising Still Important?

It is indeed much easier to decrease 500 calories from your daily meals rather than exercising to burn 500 calories a day. But just because the 80/20 formula is effective does not mean you should trade your daily workout for meal preparations.

The essence of the 20 in the 80/20 formula is that you do not need to make dramatic changes to your lifestyle. For example, instead of slashing out 500 calories from your appetizers and dessert, you can simply exercise and burn 250 calories for you to enjoy that 250-calorie dessert.

Another important weight loss factor to remember is that your body will soon resist burning your stored fat when you start eating less. This may cause your weight loss rate to reach a plateau. Fitness and health experts call this the “starvation mode”.

It is expected that your metabolism will slow down when you try to lose weight, but you can speed up your weight loss once more by adding more cardio and incorporating strength training.

To counteract your body from going into starvation mode, you must eat small yet frequent meals. This will give your body the illusion that you are constantly eating and there is no shortage of food. Along with exercising, you will soon get out of the plateau phase and continue to lose additional weight.

In conclusion, the mechanics of weight loss could restrict the effectiveness of your exercise. It was highlighted and confirmed by the American Dietetic Association that it is impossible for obese or overweight people to produce the required daily deficit of 750 calories or more per day without eating less calories. This makes the 80/20 formula a fundamental rule to lose weight.

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In our modern society stress is playing a more and more important part in our lives and this has effects on our health. Life is ancient times was much simpler, but nowadays work, children, politics, social media and more create new additional levels of stress detrimental to our health. Medical scientists have demonstrated that stress alone has a negative effect and can lead to many problems such as coronary diseases including strokes. Here we focus on burnout, which can be a consequence of too much stress.

Burnout is one of the things we try to avoid at all cost. Though it is naturally occurring to most people, understanding its mechanics gives you an edge to address the situation better. Awareness of your stress level gives you the sensitivity to take proactive measures to prevent a burn out. Aside from personal care, you also help prevent the negative impact of your stress on your boss, friends, colleagues, and family.

Stress is stress, no matter how small or big it is. Our bodies do not discriminate what it is going through at the moment. On average, we experience dozens of little stresses per day and when accumulated, that can lead to bigger health issues. It is known that feeling stressed out sends a ripple effect and disturbs the biochemical processes in your body which leads to impaired cognitive functions, premature aging and an inefficient metabolism that causes weight gain.

Experts use the term “cortical inhibition” when denoting stress. This phenomenon explains why cognitive function is affected, making even the smartest people do dumb things. Since stress has an impact on a tiny portion of your brain, this can already lead to slight to major dysfunctions on the body. A coherent state of mind (where there is absence of stress) leads to cognitive sharpness, emotional clarity, and calmness. When your body is in this state of coherence, your heart, brain and the entire nervous system are in synergy.

When you are physiologically and psychologically stressed, your entire system gets accustomed to it. In a way, you become desensitized on what exactly stress feels like because you have grown accustomed to it, you may not realize that stress had accumulated so much so quickly that it completely impairs your emotional clarity and good judgment. You may not realize that it’s already taking its toll on you until it shows up as a bad diagnosis from your physician.

As much as stress is inevitable, there is a bright side to it. You can control your response to stress if you become sensitive to how it affects the body. Knowing the signs and assessing if you have it will help you prevent all the negative effects of stress before it starts to manifest in your mental, emotional and physical well-being.

Here are the early signs that you need to look out for:

1. Bad Humor / Gallows Humor – Making jokes about negative issues and topics is one determinant of stress. According the Association for Psychological Science, laughing about tough times or negative experiences is one biological response that reduces stress. So if you find yourself joking about death, you might want to take a serious look on how stressed you are.
2. Hair loss – Stress causes the arrector pili, the muscle holding your hair strands to go into resting phase. This leads to minor to severe hair loss. Bad nutrition can also another form of stress that leads to hair loss.
3. Bad Dreams – According to Dr. Oz, stress has an impact on our subconscious minds – which is responsible for the wild and crazy dreams we have while asleep. Stress impacts the health of our brains making it restless while we sleep.
4. Bathroom Irregularities – If you used to go to the bathroom regularly but are now having difficulties relieving yourself, it is a sign of stress. Unless, of course, you made changes on your diet.

The best way to address this issue is by catching it early and defining what needs to be done to prevent burn out. By taking action immediately and maintaining it sporadically, you avoid the unsuccessful method of binge-and-purge approach – a method that most people use to address their stress.

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Les Mills has taken the at home workout world by storm with his hardcore, intense, and highly effective exercise DVDs. With his combination of cardio and strength training, people end up blasting fat and turning their bodies into sleek and toned machines.

PUMP is known for only requiring three workouts a week to get a leaner and more fit body by basing at-home workouts on his extremely popular gym workout Body Pump. The workout series promises flat abs, toned legs, and trim arms. The key to the workout’s effectiveness is the “rep effect T” where lighter weights are used at a higher repetition rate to boost the heart rate and burn more calories in a shorter period of time.

The PUMP Revolution DVD brings the heart rate up with power presses and lunges to create lean muscle in a 55 minute workout. PUMP Extreme focuses solely on strength training with targeted movements designed to build muscle throughout the entire body. A 20 minute ab workout works every muscle in the core to burn fat and reveal the powerhouse of muscles hidden beneath it.

In Les Mills‘ Body Combat, Les Mills promises a stronger and slimmer body in only 60 days when dedicating themselves to the mixed martial arts regimen. They combined some of the toughest and most effective moves from seven different MMA disciplines in a workout that promises to burn up to 1,000 calories an hour.

The Extreme Cardio Fighter DVD uses a high repetition series of movements that quickly strengthens muscles while using cardio to blast fat away. The Ultimate Warrior’s Workout targets the entire body: legs, upper body, abs, and butt with muscle strengthening and cardio. Two different HIIT DVDs utilize high intensity interval training to maximize weight loss with short spurts of intense effort.

The Ultimate Warrior program targets four important parts of fitness: balance and flexibility, lower body definition, upper body strength, and the core. Core Attack uses isolated movements to specifically use each major muscle in the abs giving participants a trimmer back, a flatter stomach, and vanishing love handles. The Inner Warrior focuses on flexibility and balance with martial arts movements designed to round out fitness so people aren’t just toned and strong but also flexible and balanced.

The Upper Body Blow Out uses weighted exercises combined with body resistance to add major definition to triceps, biceps, shoulders, and the back. Finally, the Lower Body Lean Out creates an enviable butt and sculpted legs also using mixed martial arts movements. The entire lower body is targeted and also melts fat away while creating more lean muscle.

If you think you cannot do it because of joint problems, use turmeric curcumin supplements that have well-known anti-inflammation properties that will help you withstand the pressure from a program such as Body Pump.

Les Mills promises great results with all of his workouts when users are dedicated to the program and combine them with a healthy diet. People can go from a weak, out of shape body to a strong, athletic physique in just a few months’ time.

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With the introduction of technology, businesses have been trying to keep up with their customers who seem to be attracted to online everything. Ecommerce is the way that businesses have found that helps them keep their business in front of where their customers’ eyes are.

What exactly is ecommerce? Defined, ecommerce is the buying and selling of products to consumers electronically. Seems pretty simple right? A lot goes into ecommerce from having to design a website, get a payment gateway, to marketing and promotion. Ecommerce demands a lot of a business in order to be successful.

There are 3 different types of ecommerce: business to business [B2B], business to consumer [B2C], and consumer to consumer [C2C]. Business to business selling is different than other types of selling. Companies like Cisco sell businesses the things they need to make their consumers happy. Business to consumer selling is most common.

Businesses such as Amazon sell products directly to consumers. They have different types of advertising and pricing than business to business. Consumer to consumer selling is more of the individual selling items to people like them. A good example is EBay which is made up mostly of individuals not a part of an established business who sell products.
There are certain requirements that need to be met when starting with ecommerce.

A business needs to set up a website, have the ability to checkout, accept payments online, and a method of delivery. The first step to getting started with ecommerce is to build a website. This is where consumers will come and view all the products that are for sale. It needs all the things a physical store would have such as checkout and shopping cart methods. It is also helpful to have the website reflect the same themes and colors as the physical store, if there is one, so consumers can feel confident they are in the right place.

It is best to have shopping cart software that tracks your customer and helps them keep all their purchases in one place during their visit. Just as if they were in the store, consumers need somewhere to keep all their purchases and this is where the online shopping cart comes into play. It can also be used to help upsell items at checkout.

A business will have to setup a payment method in order to get paid for the items that consumers purchase. The easy way to accept payments online is with PayPal. It can integrate with a website or simply be a button that redirects to PayPal. There are other businesses such as Google and Amazon who offer similar things to PayPal.

Another payment method is to set up a merchant account. This type of account lets a business accept payments directly using an Internet merchant account. After checkout, the payment is put directly into a business’s bank account. The business has to contact its bank which will set up and make sure the payments are transferred secure through a payment gateway. The payment gateway keeps all customer data confidential and safe.

The final thing that a business will need to for ecommerce is a delivery method. For electronic media, there is not real need for shipping. However, for physical items, there will be shipping fees. This should be taken into account and it is a good idea to set up business accounts with shipping services like FedEx or UPS to be able to get certain discounts for large shipments or frequent shipping.

There are many benefits to having an online store; one of those being that it removes the distance factor between customer and seller. Brick and mortar stores have a set location that they can sell to. It is difficult for them to sell to people outside their geographic location. Ecommerce gives businesses a means of providing their products to a wide range of consumers in many areas.

It also has much lower operation costs for a business. Owning a business can be costly: employee salaries, rent, utilities, etc. The expenses add up quickly. With an online store there are limited costs and some expenses are even eliminated completely such as rent or utilities. It is also not as expensive to get an online store up and running as it is for a physical store.

Comparison shopping is also made easier with ecommerce. Consumers like to compare products when they are shopping. They look at many different attributes of the products which help them decide which one fits them. In a business, it is sometimes hard to compare all the options as some may be in a different store or out of stock. Online, consumers can easily compare different products and find the one that fits their needs quickly.

Ecommerce stores also have no real hours of operation. Physical locations need to have specific hours that they run because of employee availability and the money it costs to stay open. Online stores can be open all day every day. There is no one that is needed to run the website because it runs itself.

So what is the current state of ecommerce? In an article by the Huffington post on ecommerce they mentioned that “online shoppers spend a record-breaking 1.25 billion” on 2011 on Cyber Monday and “by 2015 annual ecommerce sales are projected to hit $278.9 billion.” Obviously ecommerce is alive and well in our modern technologically dependent society. With more and more people using mobile smartphones and tablets daily, stores are keeping up by creating online stores.

In the beginning times of ecommerce starting a website was not that easy, but not almost anyone can set up a website and start selling products. Consumers have the demand and businesses are supplying this growing demand. The future of ecommerce looks strong and is even taking a toll on the physical stores. One well known example is Borders going out of business because they were not able to keep up with online providers such as Amazon. It is possible that eventually most business will be online with no physical stores, but this is an extreme prediction.

Ecommerce is a valuable method of selling for businesses. Although the process can sometimes require more technical means, overall it is something just about anyone can achieve. Hopefully, consumers will continue to have demand for online stores and products and keep the ecommerce industry alive and well.

http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2010/06/02/getting-started-with-e-commerce-your-options-when-selling-online/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/23/ecommerce-5-things-you-need-to-know_n_1413544.html
http://ecommerce.about.com/od/eCommerce-Basics/tp/Advantages-Of-Ecommerce.htm

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Are you getting every deduction and credit you deserve?

A lot of people aren’t, because they either don’t care to look for them (which is a big mistake because they’re leaving their money on the table), or because they don’t have the right advice when it comes to preparing and filing their tax returns.

Here are some commonly overlooked tax deductions to keep in mind when filing your taxes:

1. Education expenses you paid to maintain or improve job skills
2. Required uniforms and work clothes not suitable for street wear
3. Union dues
4. Employment agency fees or commissions
5. Reservist and National Guard overnight travel expenses
6. Medical transportation expenses including tolls, parking, and mileage for trips to health facilities, doctor’s offices, laboratories, etc.
7. Hearing aids, eyeglasses, and contact lenses
8. Uniform cost and cleaning
9. Safety equipment
10. Tax return preparation fees
11. Safe deposit box charges for investments or business
12. Cell phones required for business
13. Employment/job seeking expenses
14. Employees moving expenses
15. Student loan interest
16. Business sales/entertainment expenses
17. Work travel, meals, and hotel expenses
18. At-home-office expenses
19. Vehicle use (auto, truck) miles for work
20. Home mortgage interest
21. Real estate and property tax
22. Points paid on a mortgage or refinancing
23. Donations to places of worship
24. Cash or property donations to a recognized charity

Tax preparation help

The tax filing deadline is fast approaching. Do you need help with preparing your taxes and filing them? Are you confused when it comes to which forms are applicable to your situations and which are not so that you know what to fill out? Do you have questions about which deductions you qualify for? Are you wondering whether or not you’ll get a refund this year? You can certainly get the answers to these questions if you use an online tax preparation program. These programs have evolved to the point where they can pretty much guide you every step of the way, from making sure you’re filling out the proper forms, to giving you much-needed information and guidance.

Federal and State tax forms

Preparing your taxes online makes it easy to find all the right tax forms you need, both for federal and state tax purposes. As mentioned previously, modern tax software is increasingly interactive, and provides one of the best ways to make sure that your taxes are done right.

Tips and calculators – help with deductions and credits

These are additional tools that you can use in your tax preparation process. You will be able to estimate your deductions beforehand, thanks to the various features that are built into the software: calculators to estimate your refund or tax bill, tools to help minimize how much tax you’re require to pay, and so on. Make sure that you get all the tax breaks that you qualify for!

Filing your tax return electronically

So you’re done with filling out all your tax return forms? Well you’ve done 99% of the work. You don’t even have to print it out and mail it, since modern tax software packages all offer the option to file electronically. The interface will even provide you with a notification that the IRS has indeed received your return. Using that option also allows you to get your refund faster, especially if you choose to have it deposited directly into a bank account. You can get your money in 10 to 16 days from the day you file.

Armed with this knowledge, you can certainly make sure that this year is the one where you get all the deductions you deserve and get your money as quickly as possible.

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On May 06th 2012, the first elections took place in Greece after the country was exposed to the major financial crisis we all know about. Not a single party could form the majority and the creation of a new government was unsuccessful. Therefore, a second election was called for on 17th June.

The two strong parties in the country are PASOK and New Democracy who have remained strong since 1974 after the fall of the military junta government. Smaller groups and party formation have taken place after the recession and it has been 2 years already. Backing this wracked condition of the country and taking advantage of the situation the Syriza party was aiming to shred the already existing austerity plan.

With political instability, the 2012 Greek elections have been marked as the most anxious elections of Europe in recent history. Political parties was completely damaged with the world markets and trade shares falling down desperately. Private investments in the country were slashed down even though several measures were taken for the restructuring of the debt encountered by Greece.

Austerity measures resulted in protests that turned out to be mere violence at the end. Making the situation even worst was the burning of buildings that took place in Athens. The suicide of 77 years old Dimitris Christoulas, a retired pharmacist at Central Athens ‘Syntagma Square’ in April shook the nation as a whole letting the world know about the grief in austerity measures.

The elections were finally scheduled on 17 June 2012, which was eagerly considered the turning point for the country. The focus was on the people, whether they will favour the conservative New Democracy party or the leftist Syriza party. Elections on this Sunday turned out to be a new day where the Greeks wilfully wanted to remain within the Euro zone thus holding hands with the European course. As the results were out, the euro started to get back into position where the stock markets also initiated to recognize the currency with the position of Greece not in doubt anymore.

With the pro-bail out parties winning the election, things are waiting to be changed for Greece within the expected time period. People have high expectations and the coalition government formed in the elections conducted lately is yet to prove how far they can take the country. Greece staying within the Eurozone has been confirmed and things are yet to take a U-turn for Greece as well as the European Union to get back into a framework of growth.

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Occupy Wall Street: Will The Change Be For the Benefit Of Human Kind?

Occupy Wall Street was called by few as the Tea Party of the Left. This is one of the most influential revolutions of the century. The members consist of the Generation Y with individuals born between 1982 and 2001. The revolution was started off by the Canadian group Adbusters on September 17, 2011 in Zuccotti Park in Wall Street. The specialty of this movement is that it was started by the people protesting against inequalities in social and economic status. They aim to change the regimen where the 1% of the rich class handles the decision making of the government.

The movement was begun for a general cause and the pin point reason cannot be stated. But the initial and major cause has been the rift that has been created between the rich investors and the rest of the population. This is the first time a revolution was started off on the internet without a single leader to lead it. This one differs from the earlier labor protests or marches in not having a particular end point goal and there is no set of long goals either. People demanded for equality in jobs, better income and to stop the profound influence of corporations on the state politics.

They have the strongest protest slogan “We are the 99%” which strongly claims that 99% of the common people have to abide by the rules and suffer the mistakes done by the 1% of corporates. The movement clearly brings into light the illegal powers of this 1% of income makers. This revolution by the youth had set a different outlook in themselves. They feared none, they believed that they could change the world and this started the Occupy Wall Street movement. Technological advancements have also be contributed to the success of the OWS.

The movement even spread to Asia and Europe. Occupy Wall Street after it initially began in US, there were similar movements all round the world in 950 cities and 80 countries. The revolution found several supporting statements and even a whole lot of criticisms. President Obama, tactically supported the Occupy Wall Street movement in one of his news conferences soon after. The revolution is bound to be a great success till it remains away from the corporate sponsors like Party Poker. Once political infiltrators come up with support and delve into the group, things might change for the worse.

This revolution has no cast, creed or color, rightly called as a world revolution. And the best part is that, there is no violence involved in any of the Occupy Wall Street revolts and it has taken its inspiration from the Arab Spring uprising of 2010. The youth have been revoked and enlightened and are up against politicians and their vows to build a better society. The group has been since then supporting several causes like Women’s Day, May 1st General Strike, March 1st national Day of Action in Defense of Education and other causes for the benefit of the society. It is the ‘People’s Assembly’ that makes the decision in the Occupy Wall Street Group.

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Use All the Public Relation Tools at Your Disposal to Create a Buzz about Your Product

All marketers know the importance of creating a buzz about the product they are launching in the market. As a matter of fact, it is virtually impossible to survive the initial period of a product’s launch unless there is sufficient momentum in the form of demand for the product. You need to have a proper marketing campaign that will propel your business to success, and it necessarily needs to use the right public relation tools.

Many people do not realize the importance of a good PR campaign, preferring instead to advertise their product. However, a public relations campaign reaches far more people than advertising. It is undoubtedly used to communicate a message to potential customers but it also helps influence vendors, borrowers, shareholders and even official bodies. In addition, it is more credible than advertising since it is not perceived as being paid for.

As the marketer of a product, you need to know how to use all the public relation tools at your disposal. This will enable you to achieve your business goals within the desired time frame and with the least possible expense. Some of the more conventional tools used by public relation professionals include Media Relations, Sponsorships and Community Relations.

Lots of businesses maintain good relations with members of the press corps so that they get positive coverage during product launches or promotional events. Having friendly relations with press people also helps to mitigate the damage that occurs if there is something negative about the company in the media. A PR professional would play with press releases and media kits in these circumstances. Similarly, many business entities get involved with community projects so that they are in people’s consciousness in a positive manner.

The changing way in which people communicate with each other has led to a shift in the public relations tools that are being used these days. This is true of all product types, from credit cards to online gambling, from computer software to pokerstars rakeback or airline bookings. Since the internet and social networking is such a big thing these days, companies have woken up to the fact that they need to use new methods in order to communicate with potential customers and other people who are important to its future prospects. In fact, if you do not make this change at the earliest your company and product will be left out in the cold.

Internet savvy companies use a variety of methods in order to get their message out to customers and that too practically for free. It has become essential to have a website, and especially a blog where customers can find out more about the product and also interact with the company. Companies need to know how to react quickly to different circumstances because information spreads very quickly these days thanks to the internet. You could play with Facebook or YouTube to spread the word about your gaming product and get an excellent response, especially if you can get it to go viral. It helps if you have the assistance of a PR specialist who knows the importance of using the latest media to promote a product.

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When we talk about public relations (PR), there will be some important aspects to consider. In particular, the PR department plays an important role in enhancing the reputation of a company. So, working as the PR staff will require someone to have the good capacity of a skilled publicist. In short, the PR department can be called as the protector of a company’s reputation. Here are the guidelines about some important qualifications and also some possible career opportunities of public relations.

The PR Qualifications

Public relations require some particular qualifications and those are truly absolute. The three major important qualifications are such as your education, personal characteristics and also training. So, even the PR professional will require some special certifications.  This inevitable need is actually based on the fact that the PR professional should be responsible to bring good reputation of the brand she represents. Surely, the product or service company should keep their reputations for some reasons, including keeping their existence among other competitors and getting the loyal customers for their products and services.

The most important qualification in public relations is the education. At least, someone should have a college degree before she enters the real PR world and becomes a new PR specialists. What major should someone take to enter the PR world? There are some possible alternatives, such as communications, marketing, journalism or even public relation as her subject or major. Surely, someone’s capability and capacity could be increased significantly by taking the advanced degree or education. This kind of consideration will not only make someone understand more about the public relations world, but also makes her to be more marketable.

Surely, experience becomes the next important aspect of public relations. Someone who wants to work in PR department should have some experiences to assess her quality and capacity. Actually, the experiences can be obtained before someone graduated from her college or university. Commonly, someone will be asked to follow an internship program and this will be a part of earning the credit for their degree. However, the informal or unofficial internship program will be a great thing too which can add the experience and add the reference of the student who really wishes to enter the PR department at a company.

The Career Opportunities

After talking about the qualifications which are commonly needed for public relations, you have to understand about the career opportunities too. Surely, there are many different kinds of PR career opportunities, for examples the representative, spokesperson and even the press secretaries. Basically, these jobs have the same mission and purpose, which is to represent the brands of products and services and build the good reputation which make the products and services become more reliable and more preferred by all customers.

Fortunately, the career opportunities for public relations are getting more diverse nowadays. People who have the great skill, capacity and education background in PR could be the owners or the directors of various kinds of business. They can be the accountants of a company too. In short, they have to be able to keep the business running and they have to find the good ideas to make the company run smoothly and thinking about the strategy to deal with customer complaints. Please remember that PR should protect their company’s reputation, thus they should be able to deal with many things, including solving the problems and claims from customers.

After reading the qualifications and career opportunities of public relations above, we can simply conclude that learning more about PR would be a great consideration which brings good chances to have a lucrative career.

Tags: PR staff, skilled publicist
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