a2’s secret weapon in the milk wars

THE a2 Milk Company has just posted a massive increase in revenue, and it’s largely thanks to a new product which is flying off the shelves.

Source NEWS.com.au | Business http://ift.tt/1EE8oXW

Nevada retains high rank in foreclosures

The Silver State ranked No. 4 for foreclosure activity in the month, with one in every 587 homes in some stage of the default process, California research firm RealtyTrac reported Wednesday.

Source Business http://ift.tt/1Mz9ef7

Price war pays off for Coles

DOWN, down — for Woolworths, that is. Lower food and grocery prices have pushed up earnings for Coles, which is well and truly wiping the floor with its rival.

Source NEWS.com.au | Business http://ift.tt/1MEOxQG

Time to end the milkshake madness

IT’S over. You can all go home now. This photographer is taking a stand against the extreme milkshake trend with these hilarious parodies.

Source NEWS.com.au | Business http://ift.tt/1NGjQHW

Apple issues first Kangaroo bonds

APPLE has launched its first Australian dollar corporate bond issue, raising $1.2 billion within two hours as investors jump on the ‘ultra-safe’ investment.

Source NEWS.com.au | Business http://ift.tt/1WFZIvt

Is it worth it to donate your used car to charity?

Is donating your used car to charity worth the tax break or is it better to just sell it? Find out at HowStuffWorks.

Source Business & Money - HowStuffWorks http://ift.tt/1MyPKaA

Is it worth it to donate your used car to charity?

Is donating your used car to charity worth the tax break or is it better to just sell it? Find out at HowStuffWorks.

Source Business & Money - HowStuffWorks http://ift.tt/1MyPKaA

Police smash illegal cheese ring

MEMBERS of a criminal gang behind a $41 million illegal cheese ring have been served up to police on a platter. Authorities hailed it as a “Gouda result”.

Source NEWS.com.au | Business http://ift.tt/1K7cmia

Sale of Summerlin home for $11M highest since 2011

It's hard to say what's most remarkable about the Wednesday sale of a high-end home in Summerlin's The Ridges neighborhood. Maybe it's the sale price — at $11 million, the highest in the local market since 2011.

Source Business http://ift.tt/1LlGdVt

Pew: Facebook Dominant But Flat, Instagram, Pinterest Have Doubled Users

Almost half (49 percent) of those 18 to 29 in the US are users of messaging apps according to new survey data from the Pew Research Center. While 36 percent of the total US smartphone population uses them. Those findings come from the latest study on Americans’ use of social media. The data...

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

Source Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips http://ift.tt/1hqkS0A

‘The younger the girl, the better’

SICKENING details have emerged regarding millionaire and former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle’s alleged taste for sex with minors.

Source NEWS.com.au | Business http://ift.tt/1E582iD

‘The younger, the better’

SHOCKING details involving millionaire ex-Subway spruiker Jared Fogle’s alleged taste for sex with minors emerge as wife files for divorce.

Source NEWS.com.au | Business http://ift.tt/1NFFgF3

Ride & Drive: 2015 Dodge Durango

The Chrysler group has absolutely been on fire the past few years, turning out one exceptional product after another.Until this week, it had been a few years since I’ve been inside a Dodge Durango. I was expecting something special.What I’ve been driving this week has been truly exceptional — absolutely, truly exceptional in every regard.In the crowded, highly competitive mid-size sport utility segment, the 2015 Dodge Durango is among the [...]

Source Business - poconorecord.com http://ift.tt/1J5rsAw

Marketing Day: Facebook Global Guide, Spredfast Acquires Shoutlet & An Instagram Wish List

Here's our recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

Source Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips http://ift.tt/1MDVS2Y

How being lazy costs you money

There's nothing wrong with a little laziness. After all, someone has to make the overachievers of the world look good. When your lazy tendencies begin to have a negative impact on your finances, however, it's time to change your behavior.

Source Business http://ift.tt/1E4EOR1

4 Simple Ways to Save Money Without Thinking About It

Saving money is hard. Kids, food, gadgets and any number of expensive habits all vie for that extra money you may have in your account throughout the month.

It’s difficult to make a conscious effort to take that hard-earned money and save it for a rainy day. It’s even harder if you possess little self-control (my “vices” include exploring the world of whiskies and scotches, and an ever-expanding collection of baseball cards).

From my experience, the best way to set aside money each month is to take the decision completely out of your hands. From scheduled transfers between accounts to convenient apps that save for you, automation can help you save money without thinking about it.

Here are some of the best ways to automate your savings.

1. Take Advantage of Direct Deposit

The best way to save money is to pretend you never had it in the first place.

If your employer offers direct deposit, send a chunk of your paycheck to a savings account each time you get paid.

Most companies will allow you to set up direct deposit to multiple accounts. This way, you never “see” that chunk of money, because it doesn’t come out of your checking account each month — it was never there in the first place. When I started my new job, I chose to deposit $100 from each check into my online savings account.

It’s best to start using this strategy when you begin a new job or get a raise, because as it was explained to me, “If you learn to make your budget work without that money each month, you’ll never even know it’s gone.”

Look at that money as “extra,” and budget for what you actually bring home into your checking account, rather than budgeting for your full income and then trying to squeeze out anything left over — because there might not be anything left.

2. Make the Most of Pre-Tax Money

If you’re lucky enough to get retirement benefits from your employer, make sure to take full advantage.

Pre-tax contributions to a 401(k) or 403(b) are great because not paying taxes at the time of deposit means you’re getting more from your earnings. For example, if you contribute $500 gross into a 401(k), you’re depositing the full $500, whereas on your regular paycheck, you’d take home $425 or less, depending on your tax bracket.

Most employers that offer a 401(k) option will also offer some sort of match, meaning for every dollar you put in, the company will contribute, too. I’m lucky to get a 2-to-1 match up to 4.5%, which means if I contribute 4.5% of my salary each month, the company will put in 9%. That’s a huge amount of money on top of my salary! While my company’s match is at the high end, look at what your employer offers.

Some companies won’t start matching contributions until you’ve been working there for six months or a year, but make sure to set aside your part of the match as soon as possible. If you get used to living on your full salary, it’ll be harder to tweak your budget later, when the match kicks in.

Start setting aside your part from the beginning and when the match kicks in, the only difference you’ll see is the size of your retirement savings. To see the potential growth of your 401(k), check out this calculator:

3. Schedule Automatic Transfers to a Separate Savings Account

Open a savings account that is separate from your checking account — maybe even at a different bank.

Why? One of the hardest parts of saving is not touching your money after you’ve saved it. If you can easily see your savings account balance and transfer it to your checking account, you’ll be more likely to do so when you find something you want to spend it on.

I recommend a savings account with an online bank like Ally, Synchrony or Capital One. They make it easy to bank online and set up automatic transfers.

Start with a small amount that won’t affect your cash flow much and set up transfers that match up with how you get paid. For example, if you get paid biweekly, set up an automatic transfer every other week.

I automatically transfer $75 a week into my Ally savings account. This way I save a good chunk of money without making a huge deposit from my monthly paycheck. You could also do it as often as $10 every few days. It would add up quickly, and it’s easy to make sure you always have at least $10 in your account.

4. Use Apps to Make Saving Easier

Being a techy, this has been my favorite way to save. Here are a few tools that make saving automatic.

Acorns is an app that rounds up your purchases to the nearest dollar, then puts the “spare change” in an investment account. You almost don’t notice it happening. Choose from aggressive, moderate or conservative preset “funds” for your investments.

I’ve had my Acorns account for a few months now and have accumulated more than $200 in savings without really noticing. The returns are low (5% on average) but better than the interest on your savings account. When you’re ready to withdraw your money, it’s in your account within a few days.

Acorns costs $1 a month if you have less than $5,000 invested, or 0.25% a year for larger accounts. If you’re a student or under 24 years old, though, you can use it for free!

Another tool, Digit, monitors your spending and cash flow to find out how much you can “actually” save each month. Then the tool withdraws that amount from your checking account and puts it into a saving account. Digit sends you a daily digest of your transactions from the day before.

Once you sign up online, you interact with the system completely through text messages, which is actually pretty cool. You can choose to deposit more into the savings account by texting “Save $XX” or withdraw from the account with a simple text. It all happens very quickly and seamlessly.

I’ve been using Digit for a few weeks now and it hasn’t taken much out of my account, but I think it’s still “learning” my spending habits.

Taking an hour to set up some automated savings efforts can go a long way to getting your savings to grow without having to manage them on your own. If you struggle with setting money aside, try one of these methods and start on your way to financial well-being. Good luck!

Your Turn: Do you use any of the strategies to save automatically? Do you have any other tips to share?

Disclosure: We have a serious Taco Bell addiction around here. The affiliate links in this post help us order off the dollar menu. Thanks for your support!

David Wright is a 26-year-old father of two trying to save for the future, pay off the past and enjoy the present.

The post 4 Simple Ways to Save Money Without Thinking About It appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

source The Penny Hoarder http://ift.tt/1J4zLPa

Marin Software & SocialPro Launch 2nd Annual Biggest Social Geek Contest

Grand prize winner will receive an all-expense-paid trip to SocialPro 2015 and their choice of an Apple iPad Mini, Xbox One, or Sony PlayStation 4

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

Source Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips http://ift.tt/1J4ms1f

Nevada's jobless rate drops to 6.8 percent in July

Nevada's unemployment rate ticked down in July. Joblessness was 6.8 percent in the month, down from 6.9 percent a month earlier, the state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation reported Wednesday.

Source Business http://ift.tt/1K6f3R0

This Guy Makes $1,380 a Month Renting Out a Backyard Tent on Airbnb

Everyone knows Silicon Valley is an expensive place to live. Renting a two-bedroom apartment will set you back an average of $2,900 per month!

But one man rents out a more affordable, innovative space: a tent in his parents’ backyard. And it’s helping him make a ton of money.

Renting Out a Bankyard Tent

John Potter set up a nine-by-seven-foot, four-person tent in his parents’ backyard in Mountain View, California, just a block from Google’s headquarters, and listed it on Airbnb.

The idea was originally just a joke, Potter told ABC News, but he was soon flooded with responses. At least half the people who contacted him are tech industry professionals relocating to the area and looking for more permanent housing, or those in town for tech-related business.

Potter originally listed the tent for only $20 a night, then raised the price to $31, and then $46. Renters can take a shower once a day and eat inside if they choose to. There’s a queen-size airbed in the tent and a hammock for those who prefer to sleep outside. Rental includes access to the family’s Wifi and an extension cord for charging electronics.

Due to the overwhelming number of responses he’s received and his father’s poor health, Potter has temporarily taken down his listing, but he plans on putting it back up on Airbnb soon. But he isn’t the only enterprising Airbnb host who is cashing in on tent space.

Can You Really Rent Out Your Backyard?

Look on Airbnb and you’ll see plenty of hosts offering tenting options. Many of these hosts live in California, likely due to its favorable climate, but you’ll find options available throughout the world.

If you have space for a tent in your backyard, consider renting it out on Airbnb or other sites to make some extra income. If you also have a room to rent in your house, even better.

Of course, be sure to check all rules and regulations in your area and make sure this kind of short-term rental is legal. You don’t want to run afoul of the law and have to cough up your hard-earned hosting cash to pay fines and legal fees.

And be sure to keep safety in mind anytime you’re inviting strangers into your home (or your backyard).

Here are a few options for starting your own backyard rental:

If You Just Have a Bit of Outdoor Space

Have a bit of land in a scenic spot — or just a backya? Consider renting out a place for people to pitch a tent, as one California host does.

The listing offers a place to pitch a tent on a “minimalistic homestead” in Big Sur for $30 a night. Guests have to bring their own tent, bedroll and bedding, so there’s minimal upkeep for the host.

If You Have a Tent to Rent

If you’d like to offer a slightly more upscale option, consider pitching a tent for your guests.

One Berkeley woman advertises her backyard guest tent as “the perfect stopping place for the outdoorsy traveler.” This tent costs $28 per night and features an airbed, flannel sheets, warm blankets, a down comforter, towels and a battery-operated lantern.

Guests can use the house’s kitchen, Wifi, cable TV and more, as well as do laundry or rent a bicycle for a small fee. The weekly rental price is $180, with a four-day minimum and a 10-day maximum stay, though she does allow a few exceptions.

And guests don’t have to fret about going all the way into the house for nighttime bathroom business since, “A chamber pot for pee is provided so you don’t have to trek to the house at night.”

If You Can Create a “Glamping” Setup

If you have a truly special space to share with people, you can charge quite a bit more for a full-fledged “glamping” (“glamorous camping”) experience.

In the redwoods near Healdsburg, California, one Airbnb host lets people rent “air tents” for $118 per night. These special rock-climbing tents perch in 200-foot-tall redwood trees and offer a one-of-a-kind overnight experience complete with sleeping bags, pillows and flashlights in the tents, and hot showers and full restrooms below.

If You Already Run a Hospitality Business

If you already rent out indoor space on Airbnb, consider offering additional outdoor space for campers.

One South Lake Tahoe Airbnb listing lets people camp in the backyard of the Euro-style guesthouse for $39 per night. The guesthouse provides a space for tents and will loan guests a mattress. If you don’t have a tent, you’re welcome to sleep on the patio furniture, but you have to wait until other guesthouse users have headed in for the night.

The weekly price is $120, and monthly is $325. Backyard guests have “frugal use” of shared spaces, including the bathroom, kitchen and living room, but are encouraged to stay outdoors as much as possible.

Your Turn: Would you rent out your outdoor space on Airbnb?

Kristen Pope is a freelance writer and editor in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

The post This Guy Makes $1,380 a Month Renting Out a Backyard Tent on Airbnb appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

source The Penny Hoarder http://ift.tt/1E4cDBy

Uncle Sam Wants YOU… to Retire?

Image: Library of Congress

When I meet with investors, most believe health care will be their single largest expense during retirement. They’re surprised when I tell them if I were a betting man I’d bet that taxes will be.

Yes, the T-word—everyone’s favorite topic. In fact, taxes are the single largest expense for many working people, especially when you factor in property taxes from home ownership in addition to federal income taxes, state income taxes (where applicable), and Social Security and Medicare taxes.

I find most investors never grow accustomed to thinking about taxes as a household expense item, because taxes are silently deducted from paychecks throughout the year. This thinking is especially common among folks who are used to getting a refund at tax season and feeling like some bonus income just came their way — instead of realizing the government had interest-free use of money they didn’t owe.

When you hit retirement, however, you quickly notice how large your tax expense is because you, rather than your employer, are writing the tax checks to the government. Here we’ll take a closer look at why taxes will be such a significant problem for many retired investors, and then discuss one potential solution to ease that burden if you’re still a few years from retirement.

Tax-Deferred Accounts Create Big Tax Liabilities in Retirement

The primary reason taxes will be the single largest expense item for so many retirees is that many Americans now have the bulk of their retirement money in tax-deferred accounts. Unfortunately, very few of those investors realize how much of those accounts will be lost to taxes.

First, what is a tax-deferred account? Classic examples are a 401(k) or traditional IRA. In a tax-deferred account, the money grows without incurring taxes along the way, regardless of how many times you buy or sell investments in that account, but . . . once you begin withdrawing the money, every single dollar is taxed at your ordinary income tax rate. It’s important for investors to realize a withdrawal from a tax-deferred account equals taxable income.

One of the first questions I ask folks when I do presentations on this topic is how many people in the room have done an estimate of where their tax bracket is going to fall in retirement versus where it falls today. Typically the room gives me a blank stare, or perhaps one hand will go up.

This is a critical question that must be estimated as part of prudent retirement planning. Some people tell me it’s impossible to estimate with accuracy because of various unknowns about retirement expenses, rates of return, and how tax rates may change.

I like to borrow one of Warren Buffett’s one-liners in response: “I’d rather be approximately right than precisely wrong.” By not doing an estimate, you’ve chosen to be precisely wrong. Let’s go through an example.

You Could Lose More Than 25% of Your 401(k) to Taxes During Retirement

Suppose you and your spouse both have 401(k) accounts that have grown to $500,000 at the time you retire ($1,000,000 in total). Suppose further you are drawing Social Security and working on a part-time basis as you ease into retirement, and need to withdraw $50,000 per year in total from your 401(k) accounts to support your lifestyle.

Because of the way marginal tax brackets work, those withdrawals will often be taxed at a higher rate than the rest of your income. In fact, it’s very conceivable that some or all of your 401(k) withdrawals will be taxed in the 25% federal tax bracket.

Why? For married couples filing jointly, the 25% federal bracket represents taxable income between $74,900 and $151,200 in 2015. So if your combined Social Security checks and part-time incomes add up to $75,000 a year, any additional income — such as your IRA or 401(k) withdrawals — will be taxed at the 25% rate or more.

(Note that if your only income is the average Social Security payout of $26,000 a year for a retired couple, most or all of that $50,000 withdrawal will fall into the more benign 15% tax bracket — it’s only income above $74,900 that gets hit with the higher rate. If you’re confused about how tax brackets work, read this primer.)

The bottom line is your $500,000 401(k) account is not worth $500,000 to you. After a 25% haircut as you make withdrawals, federal taxes may wipe out $125,000 of the account value, leaving you with only $375,000 in your pocket.

(By the way, many middle-income investors are also rudely awakened to learn that up to 85% of their Social Security earnings may be considered taxable income — but that’s another topic for another day.)

But wait . . . unfortunately it gets even worse for some of us.

All but seven states also impose a state income tax, and the states have not received their tax share of this 401(k) money yet. I happen to live in Wisconsin where many middle-income retirees will pay another 6% in taxes on these withdrawals. That’s another $30,000 haircut on a $500,000 account, potentially leaving a retired Wisconsinite with only $345,000 for their consumption after federal and state taxes. You will need to understand the tax structure in your particular state.

Before we shed some light on this depressing problem, let’s first go even further into the dark side and examine another issue that will affect tax-deferred accounts: predicting what tax rates are going to do in the future.

Do You Believe Future Tax Rates Will Go Higher or Lower?

I haven’t met a person yet that believes tax rates will be lower 10 years from now than they are today. And for good reason. As Americans we tend to be poor historians, but historically speaking, we are in a very low-tax environment today when compared to the past 100 years.

The top federal tax rate today is 39.6%, with most middle-income Americans falling in the 25% bracket or below. To find dramatically higher rates, we only need to look back to the mid-1980s, when the top federal tax rate was 50%, or to the early 1980s, when it went all the way up to 70%, or to the 1960s, when the top federal tax rates went all the way north of 90%!

We all know that federal budget deficits in the hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars are unsustainable. Spain and now Greece have provided us a roadmap in recent years of what the outcome looks like if we do not get our deficits and debts under control.

We also know that mandatory federal spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and interest on the federal debt will be increasing at a rate of more than 7% per year over the next 10 years, from just under $2 trillion in 2014 to more than $4 trillion by 2025 (see the Congressional Budget Office’s January 2015 baseline report). I also personally believe the CBO is underestimating what could happen to the interest on the federal debt.

The only way to close the gap on these ballooning mandatory obligations is to increase tax revenues. (I suppose technically the government can also cut Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid benefits, but that would essentially have the same effect as a tax increase on retirees and would also likely get many politicians voted out of office. I suspect they will increase taxes on the entire population first before targeting benefit cuts for one of the largest voting blocs.)

Tax revenues can be increased either by raising tax rates or by broadening the wage base on which taxes are levied. If you’ve been following the news the past several years, you know that wages are not increasing anywhere near that 7% annual level that mandatory federal spending is projected to increase. That leaves increasing federal tax rates as a likely option.

And don’t forget about state tax rates—those could very well increase too. Wisconsin just faced a more than $2 billion budget deficit in its biennial budget this year. This time around it was balanced through spending cuts. Next time around it could be an increase in taxes. Other states all around the country are in the same boat.

The bottom line is the data are telling us 25% of a middle-class American’s 401(k) is likely going to be eaten by federal taxes, and an additional piece of the pie will be eaten by state taxes in the 43 states that impose them. Plus, there’s a reasonable probability that federal and/or state tax rates will have to increase during the next 10 to 15 years.

This is depressing news, but it’s important to get a dose of reality before it actually hits. And the great news is there are actions you can take to counteract this problem. I am only going to focus on one today. This particular solution is primarily for those of you who are still working. So, what is it?

You Can Convert Tax-Deferred Money to Tax-Free Money Now

You should consider converting a portion of your portfolio from tax-deferred status to tax-free status via a process called a Roth conversion.

A Roth conversion is when you convert a tax-deferred account, such as a traditional IRA, into a Roth IRA, which is then tax-free from that point forward. The kicker is you pay taxes on the money in the year you convert the account — but once the conversion is complete, the money is tax-free the rest of your life.

Roth conversions used to be off limits to a large number of investors due to income limits. However, those restrictions were lifted in the past few years, making this option available to millions of investors previously prohibited by the income limits.

Reasons to Consider a Roth IRA Conversion

What are some reasons you should consider doing a conversion now? First, as we discussed above, income tax rates are at historical lows. If you fall in the 15% bracket or even the 25% or 28% brackets, you should consider what amounts to locking in those historically low tax rates now.

Second, as we also discussed above, there is a reasonable probability the federal government and/or your state government will need to increase taxes before or during your retirement, which leaves all of your tax-deferred money susceptible to significant tax increases in the future. By converting to a tax-free Roth IRA now, you replace an unpredictable tax future with a known tax bill today.

Third, you will likely have fewer tax deductions during retirement than you do now — which could leave you in a higher tax bracket than you expect during retirement. For example, retirees typically no longer have deductions for children, mortgage interest, or business expenses they once had during their working years.

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, you can pay the taxes from your current earnings without draining your retirement account, and therefore preserve the retirement money you have saved. After you stop working and need to pay a tax bill on a withdrawal from a tax-deferred account, where is the money going to come from to pay the tax? It will likely come from further withdrawals from your retirement savings or from your Social Security income, both of which you had planned to use to support your retirement, not to be allocated to tax bills.

Reasons Not to Do a Roth Conversion

To be clear, I am not trying to force this strategy on anyone. I am merely trying to get you to think about some tax issues that you may have been entirely unaware of.

Let’s look at the other side of the coin. What are some reasons you may not want to do any Roth conversions?

First, if you need this money in the next five years, then a Roth conversion is not a good option. You face a withdrawal penalty for any withdrawals made within the first five years after the conversion.

Second, if the five-year waiting period for this portion of your money is not a problem, then it boils down to whether you are confident your tax rates while taking withdrawals during retirement will be lower than your tax rates today. That will depend on two things:

1. your current income vs. your income and withdrawals during retirement (remember, withdrawals from tax-deferred accounts are considered income), and
2. whether federal and state tax rates during your retirement stay the same or change.

The second factor is unpredictable, but you should absolutely sit down and try to estimate the first factor with your tax advisor.

Consider Hedging Some of Your Risk

The bottom line is, the future is unpredictable — so why not hedge a portion of your tax risk and convert part of your tax-deferred portfolio?

You are not required to do an all-or-nothing conversion. You can convert only a portion of a tax-deferred account. That way you can create an ample source of tax-free funds to withdraw from during retirement, in addition to your tax-deferred funds, and can regulate the amount of your tax-deferred withdrawals to keep yourself in the lowest tax bracket possible.

Either way, most investors need to give the tax issue a lot more thought than they currently do. Taxes are a large enough expense category already — you don’t want them to become an even larger surprise when you’re trying to enjoy the golden years of your life.

Related Articles:

• The Basics of a Roth IRA
• Roth vs. Traditional IRA: Retirement Showdown
• A Roth IRA and the Future of Taxes

Tim Van Pelt is a financial advisor and registered investment advisor representative of Steele Capital Management, Inc. The views expressed in this article are solely his and do not necessarily reflect the views of Steele Capital or its management. Mr. Van Pelt specializes in advanced financial planning techniques to help clients advantageously utilize the tax and estate planning code along with smart portfolio planning to maximize retirement income. He helps his clients assemble financial plans that properly fit together with their retirement planning, tax planning and estate planning. You can reach him at tjvanpelt@gmail.com or (608) 577-9877. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal and accounting advisors before engaging in any transaction.

The post Uncle Sam Wants YOU… to Retire? appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Source The Simple Dollar The Simple Dollar http://ift.tt/1NuSV3Y

Axe Continues Shift From Sex-Sells Advertising With #Selfmaker Career-Focused Video Campaign

The Unilever brand's marketing grows up, celebrating men's confidence in business as it has previously extolled their confidence with women.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

Source Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips http://ift.tt/1fpfRUb

6 Reasons to Work With a Financial Advisor in Retirement

An advisor can keep your finances in order when you are no longer able to.

Source U.S. News - Money http://ift.tt/1WEVnsv

8 Ways Millennials Can Build Leadership Skills

Learn to lead by observing, studying and putting yourself out there.

Source U.S. News - Money http://ift.tt/1WEPSKu

5 Things Your Résumé Is Not

Your résumé is a marketing document – not your autobiography or a list of job responsibilities.

Source U.S. News - Money http://ift.tt/1Jisbld

A Step by Step Guide to Modern Broken Link Building

The Internet is broken…

…literally.

Millions of links become broken every day as hosting expires, sites mess up when they migrate, and typing mistakes occur.

All of those events create one of the most consistent opportunities for SEO link building.

Broken link building isn’t new; in fact, it’s been around for years.

It’s a tactic that will never be exhausted because the Internet will always have new broken links. 

Here’s what broken link building is in a nutshell:

If you find a broken link on a website, you can contact the owner. Since you did him/her a small favor of pointing out a broken link, they might do you the favor of including a link to your website. You can even offer a replacement link when appropriate.

It’s very simple: finding broken links is your in.

This tactic relies on the principle of reciprocity—one of the six principles of influence, according to Cialdini:

The principle of reciprocity states that when you do something nice for another person, they are much more likely to pay it back by doing you a favor of a similar size.

There are a few guides to broken link building available, and I even covered the topic in my advanced guide to link building. But most of those guides are at least a few years old, so I wanted to give you an up-to-date guide with modern twists on the old tactic.

Bulk is better

There is one key to broken link building that you must keep in mind if you’re going to use this tactic successfully: broken link building must be scaled.

Unlike tactics like email outreach or some other types of promotion, broken link building doesn’t get an amazing success rate. In most niches, you’ll get around 5 to 10 links for every 100 emails you send.

It’s decent but not great.

If you’re only sending a few emails here and there, you won’t ever see real results from this tactic.

You need to approach it the way I’m going to show you in this article and use the right tools to scale it.

It’s possible, and necessary, to find hundreds of broken link opportunities at once as well as to minimize your time spent emailing site owners.

This way, you can feasibly send over 100 link requests a day (without spamming) and acquire a decent number of links. If you do this on a fairly regular basis, this tactic alone can be very effective in your overall link building campaign.

Tools that will help you

As I said, you will need tools for this tactic.

Out of many available options, including a few paid ones, I’ve picked four that can provide you with everything you need.

Tool #1 – Check My Links Chrome extension: If you’re ever in need of a tool that can quickly check a page for broken links, this is it.

Once installed, it will appear as a little checkmark icon beside your address bar. When you click it, it will start scanning all links on the page. If a link is broken, it will be highlighted in red, and the error will be shown right beside the text (e.g., “404”).

The one drawback of this tool is that you still need to scroll through the page to find the red highlighted links. If you could simply copy all the broken links by clicking a button, it would be perfect.

Tool #2 – Domain hunter plus: This extension is an alternative to Check My Links. It works similarly. You click the icon, and the tool scans the links on the page.

The difference is that this extension doesn’t stop at just finding broken links. It also checks to see if the broken link domain is available for registration as well as how many links point to that domain.

If you do find a domain available to register, you could register it and then redirect the pages with links to them however you wish.

Alternatively, you could email everyone who links to that domain (could be hundreds or thousands of sites) and ask them to link to you instead.

One warning: I’ve found this plugin to be hit and miss. On occasion, it will say that a link is broken, but when you actually test it, it works. Just be sure to double check your results once in a while.

Tool #3 – Canned responses Gmail feature: A huge component of broken link building is emailing website owners. In order to do that efficiently, you will need to make use of templates.

Gmail has a great built-in feature called “Canned Responses.” It’s just not activated by default.

To activate it, click the little gear icon at the top right of your mail box, and click “Settings”:

Now, click on the “Labs” menu option.

This will bring up several experimental features Google has released. Some of them are pretty useful.

The Canned Responses Lab should be on the list of recommended labs, fairly high up.

Once you find it, click on the radio button to enable it:

Make sure that you scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “save changes.” After you do, Gmail will automatically reload with the feature enabled.

The next time you type in an outreach email/template into a blank email, you have the option of clicking the little down arrow in the bottom right-hand corner (shown below) and choosing“Canned responses”.

Then, click on “New canned response,” which will prompt you to enter a name:

Once you’ve done that, you’ve saved that template.

When you open a new blank email, you can click that same arrow in the bottom right and highlight the Canned Responses option. You’ll see the name of the template you just entered.

When you click it, it will paste that previously written message with the name of the template in the subject line:

I’ll go into more detail on sending emails later, but this, or any other template extension, is very useful.

Tool #4 – Xenu’s Link Sleuth: If you’re going to do broken link building at scale, you need this tool. It’s a free and amazingly robust tool that allows you to check all the links of up to hundreds of pages, all at once.

You’ll need to know how to use the basic functions of the tool before moving on in this article, so let me quickly show you the main features before we get started.

The “File” menu option is what you’ll use the most.

You can either check a single URL (“Check URL”), or you can check a large list of URLs all at once (“Check URL List”). There are times and places for both features. If you use the list option, you’ll need to upload a text file of URLs, with one on each line.

The results you’ll get will depend heavily on the settings you choose.

When you go to “Options > Preferences”, you’ll see the following window:

You can play around with the settings under “Report,” but you should have at least the first four settings checked.

The most important setting is the “maximum level” setting.

Say you were checking Quicksprout.com for broken links. If you just wanted to scan the links on the homepage, you would put a maximum level of “1”. They are “1” click away.

If you also wanted to check the links on all the pages that the homepage is linked to, you would set the level to “2”. Clearly, the higher the maximum level, the more URLs it will scan.

If you’re looking for links on a specific page (because it’s highly authoritative/relevant), you’ll want to keep this number low.

If you’re looking for all sorts of opportunities, you can set it high (999 is the highest).

If you’re a bit confused, don’t worry. I’ll give you more detail about this feature later in this post.

Finally, there’s the parallel threads option. The higher it is, the more of your computer resources the software will use, but it will run the query faster. I recommend running at least 20 threads.

Once you run a report (status in bottom right), you’ll see a list of results. Green results are working links, while red ones are errors of some kind.

There are different “status” labels for different error codes (see them here):

You can also use the “Export” option under the “File” menu to generate a spreadsheet of the results. If you have thousands of results, this makes it much easier to sort through them.

Step 1: It starts with your targets

The first step in broken link building is to find broken links.

There are many ways to do this, but I’m going to show you three of the most effective.

Tactic #1 – Pick a particular domain: Chances are there’re a few authority sites in your niche that you’re dying to get a link from, but maybe you can’t find your “in.” This is a perfect opportunity for broken link building.

Let’s say you wanted to find broken links on Quick Sprout.

Open Xenu, pick the “Check URL…” option in the file menu, and enter either quicksprout.com or quicksprout.com/blog as the starting point in the text box.

There are a few other things you also need to do…

Check the “check external links” box. Now Xenu will check both internal and external links.

Then, click “More options…” in the bottom left, which will bring up the same panel I showed you before.

For this purpose, you want to crawl as many pages on the site as possible, so pick a high “maximum depth.”

Once you’re ready, click “OK” twice to start the scan.

After a few minutes (depending on your computer speed), you’ll get a report.

I recommend sorting the results by “level.” The lower the level, the closer the dead link is to the starting point. If you email someone about a page on their site from 10 years ago, they probably won’t care. But if it’s only a few months old, they probably want to keep it updated.

Then you need to find the link on the page and verify that it’s actually broken (Xenu is wrong sometimes).

Right-click on any of the broken URLs, and choose “URL Properties.” This will bring up a small window (shown above), where you can see which pages have the dead link on them in the bottom section of the pop-up.

Tactic #2 – Find sites in your niche: This tactic is mainly for finding relevant broken links on sites in your niche.

Combine keywords in your niche with search strings in order to find pages that have lots of links on them. The more links on a page, the more likely you are to find broken ones.

Here are some search strings you can use, but you’re free to get creative as well:

• keyword + “resources”
• keyword + intitle:resources
• keyword + intitle:blogroll
• keyword + “blogroll”
• site:.gov keyword + “links”
• site:.edu keyword + “recommended sites”
• keyword + “related links”

You can proceed from here in two different ways.

The first method is labor-intensive.

Click promising results from your searches, and check each page for broken links using one of the extensions I showed you before.

For example, if I had a design site, I could search for:

intitle:blogroll design

One of the first pages I clicked had several dead links according to a quick Domain Hunter scan:

You could either contact the site owner right away or just add this URL and its broken links to a spreadsheet.

While that method will work, it’s slow.

The better way to do it is to use Scrapebox. It allows you to scrape hundreds or thousands of URLs from search results based on different footprints (search strings) all at once. However, it is a paid tool, and you’ll also need to buy proxies.

Obviously, I’m in favor of the bulk method for finding broken links, but it’s up to you.

When you get massive list of URLs that you want to check for broken links, plug the entire list into Xenu. However, this time you want to limit the link depth to 1 or 2, so you only find broken links on those pages that you found (or closely related ones).

If you set the depth to 3, you’ll get many more links, but you’ll notice that they won’t all be relevant to your initial keyword.

Tactic #3 – Search by keyword: The final option is to search for a specific keyword that you’re targeting.

For example, say I created a post on the top podcasting tools. Now, I want to build links to it using broken link building.

I can search Google for “top podcasting tools,” and then visit all the top results:

The top results usually have the highest number of links pointing to them, which is important.

Next, plug in any of these URLs, one at a time, into a link database tool such as Ahrefs:

Hover over “inbound links,” and then click on “links,” which will bring up a massive list of pages that linked to those articles about podcasting tools.

You will need a paid account to get any real results using this method.

Now, scan all of the pages that link to the article for broken links. If they do have a broken link, let them know about it and suggest also adding a link to your article.

If your new article is great, you have a decent shot at getting a link.

Again, you can check these one at a time with a free extension:

Or you can export them into Xenu. Again, use a shallow link depth of 1 or 2.

In the case above, there are several similar broken links because the author forgot the “http://” part of the link. Since it’s a fairly recent article, and there are several broken links, your chances of getting a link go way up (because you helped out more).

Step 2: Methodical broken link building involves content creation

Depending on which of the tactics from step 1 you choose to use (you can use more than one), you will need some content.

Method 1 – Create content first: The most basic option is to create content according to your content schedule and then go hunting for relevant pages that have broken backlinks.

This is what I showed you with tactic #3 of step 1.

It’s a good method but not the best because you’re making a somewhat unrelated request.

You’re finding dead links and then basically saying: “My article is also related to your page’s topic, so do you mind adding a link?”

Some will go for this, of course, but there’s an alternative option.

What if you could instead email them saying: “This link is broken on your page, but luckily, I have a better version of it on my site. Here’s the link…”

All of a sudden, it makes a ton of sense for them to add your link instead of having to track down a replacement.

The only problem is that your article won’t always be a perfect replacement. That’s where method 2 comes in…

Method 2 – See how many sites link to a broken URL: If one site has linked to a broken URL, chances are that others have as well.

So when you come across a broken link, check how many backlinks point to the page.

For example, while looking at a few podcasting articles, I found a broken link on this page that pointed to: http://ift.tt/1Nuw6gE

That site is clearly dead, and it was flagged by Check My Links for me.

When I plugged that broken URL into Ahrefs, I saw that it has 12 linking domains for 45 total backlinks:

Honestly, that’s not great, but it will do for the purposes of this example.

Once you find a broken URL that has many links, look it up using archive.org. Just type in the URL into the search bar, and you can see what the page used to look like when it was active.

Now, re-create the page (same topic), but make it better so that the linker has a good incentive to link to your new page.

Creating content that is a perfect substitute for a broken page will obviously take more time, but it will get you a higher conversion rate.

Step 3: Engage targets and get your links

After the first two steps, you should have a large list of URLs with broken links as well as at least a somewhat relevant link on your site that you can offer as a replacement.

The last major part is to contact the webmasters and let them know about the dead links.

Find the right contact information: Some sites make it easier to find contact information than others. Avoid sending emails to generic “support” email addresses or using generic contact forms. In my experience, those have the lowest conversion rate.

If it’s a blog that has the broken link, the best way by far is to sign up for their email list. That way, you’ll immediately get an email from an email address that is actively monitored.

Most blogs have signup forms in the header or sidebar of the blog:

Blogs are the easiest to find contact information for.

The hardest ones are .edu and .gov sites.

There are no rules that apply 100% of the time. Finding the right contact information is a process that you will have to learn through experience.

For example, let’s say I was looking for a link on this podcast page on wvu.edu:

The first place where I would look is a department specific email. Usually you can find this by scrolling down to the bottom:

If you’re comfortable on the phone, that’s also a very good option.

But not all sites or sections of sites will have that. Next, look at the About page for the section, which is usually located near the top:

We can see only three names there.

To try to find their contact information, check the school’s directory, which will be at the very top or bottom:

Then, search for each name.

If there are many people listed, try to find a project manager or someone who is likely to update web pages.

In my case, I actually couldn’t find any matches for those three staff members. But if I did, I would use the email and telephone number from the search.

As the last resort, look at the footer for the websites for a feedback form link:

This usually sends an email to the IT department. You can ask them to forward your email to the appropriate department if they can’t help you.

Keys to a successful outreach email: Once you have your contact information, it’s time to craft your outreach email.

In general, there are four things to keep in mind:

1. Personalization - Whenever possible, start your email with a name (no “Dear Sir”). If you can’t find a name, just start with “Hi” or “Hello.” While we will be using a template, try to add a line or two at the start that is customized for each site (e.g., I loved your article on X last month).
2. Keep it short - The shorter your email, the more likely that your target will read the whole thing and understand what you’re asking for. Be as concise as possible.
3. Be professional - Write with proper grammar, and don’t be too pushy. While it’s okay to follow up once or twice, don’t spam anyone.
4. Be polite – Politeness goes a long way. Understand that you’re asking for a favor (albeit a small one), so don’t make demands or insult anyone.

Here’s a template you can use:

Subject: Quick feedback – dead resource on your site

Hi [name],

I was recently researching (topic) for an article I was writing and came across this page on your site: (URL).

I found it very useful, but there are a few dead links on the page:

• (link #1)

• (link #2)

• …

I came across a few other great resources during my research, which you could put in their place:

• (link #1)

• (link #2)

• …

I think they would help anyone in the future looking for more information about (topic).

If you do update the page, I’d appreciate it if you would consider including a link to my article. It’s about (description). I think your visitors would also appreciate it. Here’s the link if you’re interested:

(Your URL)

Thank you for your time,

(Your name)

Once you have your template, pop it into canned responses like I showed you earlier so that you can quickly put it into a new email.

A final note: While templates are needed for efficiency, customize them as much as you can for each email you send. If you can add a sentence about the site you’re emailing about, it will improve your conversion rates.

Step 4: Track your results

Now you know how broken link building works and how you can use it to acquire some pretty nice links to your content.

It’s important to stay organized and track your results for three reasons:

• So you don’t waste time emailing the same sites
• So you can calculate ROI
• So you can improve your success rate (track which templates do better than others)

Sometimes, you will get an email response saying that your link has been added. However, sometimes you won’t, and it’s up to you to find out if the link has been added.

If you do get an email back, just highlight the URL or make a note of it on your spreadsheet. But first, make sure you check to see that the link is actually there and has been added correctly.

Monitoring method #1 – Confirm links by visiting the page manually: While you could create a custom tool to check pages for your links if you have programming skills, you can always use this basic method.

Go to the page that is supposed to have your link on it. Right-click anywhere on the page and select “View page source”:

This will bring up a new tab with all the HTML code of the page.

If your link is anywhere on the page, a link tag with your URL will be in the code (e.g., “<a href=”yourURL.com”>…”).

To find it, press “ctrl + f” on this source code tab to bring up the Find tool, and type in your domain name:

If your link is on the page, you’ll get at least one match (shown above).

If your link isn’t on the page, the tool will show you 0 results:

Monitoring method #2 – Check link database occasionally: The main way to find links when you don’t receive any email is to use a link database (Ahrefs, Majestic, etc.).

They won’t necessarily find all of them, but they’ll get most.

First, type in your domain name. Then hover over “Inbound Links,” and click on “New”:

You can pick how fresh you want the links to be:

If you have a free account, you’ll only be able to see a few results, so you can restrict the results to “Yesterday” or “7 days” so that there aren’t too many.

Continue to scroll down that page, and look to see if any of the new links match the sites you have sent your emails to:

If you see one, mark it down on your spreadsheet.

Track your time, and calculate ROI: Like with any link building strategy, you should track your return on investment (ROI).

With broken link building, you won’t be spending too much directly, but you will be spending your time, which has value.

ROI = (# of links) / (time spent * hourly rate)

This formula will give you a result in links per dollar spent. You can also invert it (flip it) to get a cost per link. In general, any high quality link under $100 is good, and under $50 is great.

The better you get at broken link building, the better your ROI will be.

Step 5 (Optional): Power up your results – Combine broken link building with other tactics

The most powerful thing you can take from broken link building is that it can be incorporated as part of a bigger link building strategy.

Pointing out broken links is your entry point for a relationship with a site owner. You don’t necessarily have to ask for a link on that page if you have a better alternative.

Start reading about other link building tactics to see if you can combine broken link building with one of them.

For example, broken link building can just about double your success rate with the Skyscraper technique. Not only do you have an amazing piece of content to pitch, but if you’re pointing out broken links, you’re adding even more value (always a good thing).

Conclusion

Broken link building is a powerful scalable tactic you can use to get high quality links in almost any niche.

I’ll warn you, however: it will take some trial and error the first few times you use it, but once you get efficient with it, it’s a great weapon to have in your SEO arsenal.

Decide how you’re going to incorporate broken link building into your overall SEO strategy, and then give it a try.

I know that it’s not the easiest tactic, so if you have any questions, leave me a comment below, and I’ll help you out.

Source Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/1J4bxT3