Be it your pregnancy, hosting a dinner, or just your outfit, planning can always make you aware of what you are actually getting into and what the possible consequences might be.

For instance, when it comes to planning your pregnancy, you can plan about when to have a baby, which doctor(s) can help you, what possible expenses you might incur and the like; thus preparing you mentally as well as financially for the new member in your family.

On the other hand, if the pregnancy is unplanned, you are rushed to make these decisions, which might ultimately upset your mental and financial peace of mind.

Planning is an integral part of your life. We start the day with planning our outfits to make the right impression (well.. most of us do!), then planning the best traffic route to the office while avoiding the rush hour, and you get the gist.

So here’s a short checklist for your planning:

Set your goal(s)

This is fairly simple. What do you want as the result of your planning? For instance, if you are planning an outfit for a business meeting, your goal should be to project a strong professional image.

Check the constraints

Taking the same example from above, if your goal is projecting a strong professional image, your constraints might be that you don’t really have any business attire options in your wardrobe currently.

Be realistic about your course of action

Just in case you don’t have any “nice” business attire for that particular meeting, try to work with the options in your current wardrobe. Maybe you can mix and match some casual wear to resemble your vision of business attire.

Prepare for the worst

Be prepared that the business attire that you ultimately come up with might not be effective in projecting a strong professional image. In such a scenario, you have to rely extra on your soft skills and business expertise to complement your look and achieve your goal.

Just do it

Too much planning can completely psyche you out, so stay away from planning too much. Once you’ve decided something, don’t second-guess yourself. Simply do it.

The above checklist will keep you in check. So, happy planning!

Drop me a line right hereand feel free to visit my website at http://www.anksimage.com for your image consulting needs.

There are a lot of excellent bloggers and publishers doing fantastic work, and those who stand out deserve to have their work recognized, relate with each other, and see their readerships grow. That’s why the World Media Awards exist- to recognize and reward great contributions to media from bloggers and publishers.

In my own career, I’ve learned and benefited so much from others that I wanted to help build some way to give back to an industry I love show appreciation to the up-and-coming leaders. The World Media Awards will culminate in a 1 day event in San Francisco that will celebrate the best in blogging, forums, publishing and media from around the world.

So if you are a world-class blogger, why should you enter?

1. 1. Get Recognized- You Deserve It

You put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into making your blog amazing. You know it and your readers know it. The World Media Awards is a way for you to get authoritative recognition from other bloggers and industry experts. That recognition will help you develop your readership, make new collaborative connections, and hopefully have great moments that make all the late nights even more worthwhile.

1. 2. Meet Other Bloggers Who Care

Blogging, forums and most other on-line media is about conversation and interaction, but sometimes it’s easy to end up pecking away behind a screen in your office or home all alone. Meeting other bloggers and publishers keeps the fire lit and the conversation going. When you enter the World Media Awards, you’ll be listed alongside other bloggers and publishers who put the same level of pleasure, attention and effort into making their blog world class.

1. 3. Expose Yourself to New Partners

If your blog or forum is part of your organization, being part of the World Media Awards will increase your exposure by putting your name in front of countless visitors to our site and the award ceremony. That means you can find out who else is doing great work, strut your own stuff, and expand your network of contacts and collaborators.

1. 4. Make Yourself Irresistible to Clients

What helps your chances at being victorious that next pitch more than increasing your network? Telling that network that you just won a World Media Award. Winning an award shines a light on your achievements, and it serves as an example of the commitment, engagement and exacting standards you apply to your work.

1. 5. Be Part of the Beginning of Something Big

Because 2012 is the first year for these awards, you have the one-time opportunity to be the inaugural winner and set the standard for the World Media Awards in your category. Getting in on the ground floor of these awards will open opportunities for you as a blogger and a publisher.

The bottom line is, the World Media Awards will shine a spotlight on the year’s most prosperous bloggers and publishers, and on the organizations that serve and interact with them.

Now is your chance to be one of them.

The sponsors include Growmap, Pace Lattin, VigLink and Trancos.

World Media Award judges include Steve Hall, Sarah Austin, Chang Kim, Julie Wohlberg, Pierre Zarokian, Ivka Adam, Cheryl Contee, Krystyl Baldwin, Adrian Harris, Jeremy Wright, Rob Bloggeries, Dave Duarte, Tanya Alvarez, Dana Oshiro, Tom Foremski, and Judith Lewis. hashtag #wmads on Twitter.

Media partners include Adrants, Bloggeries, MediaVision, The Affiliate Marketing Awards, Read Write Web, My Blog Guest, Web Traffic Control and FeedBlitz.

About The Guest Author:
Murray Newlands is author of How to Make a Blog Book and Online Marketing; a User Guide. He is also founder of the Affiliate Marketing Awards. Born in the UK, he now spends his time in San Francisco and New York. Murray works for Audience Mindshare and consults for Trancos Ins as well as being an advisor for VigLink. Actually he is working on his new book: The Email Marketing Book.
 

No, I’m not complaining about SpiceJet. There are so many airlines in India and USA that I’ve experienced, where the sad commonality is – bored expressions of the cabin crew, good flight experience reserved for business class or first class passengers only, and worse, no help even if you’re screaming for it.

And don’t even get me started on the ground crew!

I know for a fact airline companies invest a lot in etiquette and customer service training, so why is it that none of that etiquette or customer service skills are evident in real life??

For instance, there is this really obnoxious group of people right in front of me, who are simply NOT switching off their phones, even though the steward has prompted them at least twice so far. But I noticed, every time the steward or the other air hostess requested or prompted some passenger, it was done in very curt manner.

I understand it can be difficult to keep on smiling while repeating your request, but what about the first time? When the steward requested the economy class passengers the first time, why wasn’t it said in a nice manner, or at least with a smile?

No wonder the group didn’t comply – it sounded more like an order, rather than a request!

Even in the international flights, there is huge lack of etiquette and customer service skills in the economy section. Oh yes, the communication skills are there, but definitely there is no service with a smile.

But funny enough, the business class or first class passengers are never exposed to this kind of curt or rude service. I usually travel non-economy on international flights, so I see and feel a marked difference in the attitude and service of the cabin crew for premier class passengers.

In the premier class, you’re literally treated like the King. The cabin crew just stops short of putting you in their laps, and cajoling you to sleep!

Paying thousands of rupees extra for a good experience in an international flight might seem reasonable sometimes, but for a couple of hours of flight time, no one wants to dish out the extra dough. Especially when most of the airlines advertise the benefits of economy travel so much nowadays.

The flight experience in India has definitely degraded over the last decade, or so. The tickets are hugely expensive because you’re paying more in taxes nowadays. And what’s worse – you have to BUY your food. Food that can hardly be called edible! Plus in most airlines, only the first bottle of water is free – you have to buy the next ones yourself. Funny, isn’t it?

Again, I’m not complaining about any particular airline. I’m simply directing your attention to the fact that it’s not about service with a smile, it’s more about service with a price tag! If you’ve got money to splurge, go for premier class. But if you’re going for economy, be prepared to get disgusted by the service, food, and don’t forget – cramped up leg space!!

I specialize in many image consulting solutions, and most times, clients are interested in combinations of these solutions, rather than taking one at a time. That’s fine by me. But yes, the stakes get higher, and of course my efforts have to be even more better to make sure clients have a well-rounded healthy experience at Anks Image. And avoiding to stereotype clients helps me achieve just that.

For instance, if you come in for a fashion style session, I’m not going to let any prejudice stereotype you as someone with no knowledge of fashion based on your background information, or whatsoever.

While I might want to clarify the difference between fashion and style for you, depending on whatever background information I have on you, it’s most likely I’ll start the session with an open mind. I want to know you as a person to help you achieve your goals. And for that, your individuality matters, nothing else.

And that’s basically how I don’t stereotype my clients.

Now it’s my turn – I get stereotyped a lot.

Some TV shows and celebrity image consultants or personal stylists have incredibly wrecked the image of an image consultant.

Every image consultant is unique. They have their own set of unique skills to help their clients. And so do I. Sure, I might get annoyed during sessions. But that’s pretty much the extent of ill behavior I might have, as far as my image consulting is concerned. At most, I’ll try to reason with you to make you understand my point of view. That’s all.

And for the record, let’s bust some other stereotypes about me:

• I’m not a rude, highly opinionated person, simply because I’m an image consultant.
• I do specialize in Weight Loss training but I’m not size zero.
• I won’t bombard you with service recommendations to keep you on as a paying customer, just because I run a business.
• Yes, I was trained in the USA, but contrary to popular belief, my services are affordable, not in the least bit expensive

When you come to me with your questions, I’ll simply concentrate on you and your needs. I’ll never stereotype you. And now that you know a little bit more about me, maybe you’ll also meet me with an open mind. Nevertheless, I’m always ready to face the next stereotype, and bust it yet again!

Having said that, I’d also like to mention that if your website is new, or hasn’t been listed in Google search results as yet, then it’s going to take at least 3 months to see the results of any SEO plan you adopt from now.

I’m assuming your website is up and running, and there’s nothing wrong with the technical aspects of your website. So, in order to pull up your website in the Top 10 spots in Google (or any other major search engine like Yahoo, or Bing), I’d plan the following:

(1) Add fresh and unique content to the website through blog posts, pages, etc.
(2) Blog post syndication through article directories for link building.
(3) Increase online presence of your website through Twitter and Facebook Fan Page.
(4) Design better landing pages to increase lead conversion.
(5) Build an Ads campaign to increase online visibility through paid and free marketing options available.

Like I mentioned earlier, SEO is an ongoing process. In the first month, there would be at least 40 hrs of work to get everything set up as per this SEO plan. After the initial set up, the number of hours will significantly come down to at least 10 hrs per week. So for three months of aggressive SEO work, it would take at least 240 hrs to achieve desired results, provided your website has not been penalized or banned by Google ever.

After the 3 months period, it’s a matter of simple tasks, no complicated technical skills are required. Your website will require at most 1 hr per day.

Do keep in mind the SEO plan I’ve mentioned might change depending on the current status of your website. If additional installations and set-ups are required to start the SEO process, then achieving desired results may take more than 3 months.

And finally, I’d also like to point out that new technologies, and optimization tactics are being discovered and invented almost every hour. Your SEO plan will never be complete if you don’t adapt to the new changes. So do dedicate a few minutes every day to check what’s happening in the tech world. Doing this will help you remove any outdated routines from your SEO plan, as well as adapt to more efficient SEO strategies for more online success.

The SEO plan I’ve described above is simply a sample of what can be done to optimize your website for search engines, either for more traffic, more links, or both.

You can definitely choose one of the free templates available online. However, “free” in this context usually means the designer’s name, or the designer’s company name will be displayed quite prominently on the custom background you choose. And that means the original designer, or the design company, is going to enjoy free marketing through you.

Why bother with all that? Just follow my easy steps to design the perfect Twitter background and customize your Twitter account absolutely FREE:

(1) Pre-Design Stuff

Twitter currently accepts images in GIF, JPG and PNG formats only, plus the image size should be less than 800k.

Also, screen size differs from computer to computer. While someone is comfortable with 1600×900 screen resolution, someone else might need a 800×600 screen size. Usually, most people are in the 1280×720 category, but you never know who’s going to view your Twitter profile page using what screen size. Therefore, it’s best to design your Twitter background that fits most of the screen sizes available.

And finally, which software are you going to use? I prefer working in Adobe Photoshop. You can download a free 30-day product evaluation copy from the Adobe website.

(2) Design Stuff

Online, you don’t need to invent, you just have to discover. Since you want a custom Twitter background, you do have an idea how it should look like. Maybe some abstract art, flowers, cartoons, even babies! Just type out what you want in Google Images and you’ll get more than a million variations of what you want. Choose a few, after making sure it’s free for commercial use, and save it to your Desktop.

Open Adobe Photoshop. Create a new image with width 2048 pixels, and height 1024 pixels. Sounds large, but remember, we need this image to be large enough to fit most screens. Don’t worry about the size though – with Adobe Photoshop, it’s definitely going to be less than 800k in JPG format.

Now add the wallpaper you chose online into the Photoshop file as a layer. Tweak it, if you must. Add the text you want to be displayed on your Twitter account – about you, your company, contact information, etc. Keep your text top and left aligned. The entire text box area should be around 200×500 pixels for optimum display.

Experiment with different layers and styles to achieve the perfect Twitter background look. Save off the final image as JPG (or GIF, PNG, whichever you want).

(3) Upload And Enjoy

Upload the JPG image in the Design tab of Settings in your Twitter account. Since this image is large enough, you don’t need to select “tile image”.

And that’s it! You can tweak your work to perfect it the way you want. And just in case you end up uploading and re-uploading more than a few times, and finally you can’t see the changes you’ve made, try clearing out the cache in your Internet browser.

Check out my Twitter page to look at the custom Twitter background I created using these simple steps. Visit my website at http://www.anksimage.com for more business consulting solutions like these.

Now consider your SEO struggle.

When you launch your website, or blog, you pour in your SEO efforts just to find your site links on any of the major search engines – Google, Yahoo, and Bing. SEO is search engine optimization. Most times, you feel you’re done with all the SEO in the world for the brief moment when you experience euphoria by seeing even one of your site links in the search results for any particular keyword you’ve been working on. But sadly enough, this is just the beginning of your SEO struggle.

Now similarly to workout routines, there are many SEO routines you can use to get your site listed in the top of Google Search Results, or any other search engine for that matter. I prefer Google because most SEO tools I use are designed with Google optimization in mind. Plus I’ve been using Google much earlier than I started launching websites. So I’m partial to Google.

Coming back to SEO, there is article marketing, social networking, video marketing, podcast marketing, and many other techniques you can use for a guaranteed spot on the top of Google Search results. Just like weight loss results, SEO results also take anywhere from 3 to 6 months to see actual results from these techniques. And of course, you have to really hold onto your patience for at least a year to see desired results. I can’t count the number of times I got frustrated and was ready to give up all my SEO or weight loss efforts. But the key here is persistence.

There are, of course, several quick fixes available for both your SEO and weight loss struggles. But the downside is the moment you stop using these quick fixes, or choose the wrong quick fix, you’ll be in bad shape.

For instance, choose the wrong fat burning pill, you’ll lose weight only when you’re on the pill. The moment you stop, your lost pounds will come rushing back. Same goes for your SEO. Choose an unethical SEO technique like paying for high PR links, keyword masking, and so on, your site will definitely jump ahead to the top of the search results. But when you’re found out (trust me, you’ll be caught!), you’ll be penalized, even banned from the major search engines.

So let’s be wise.

Let’s end our weight loss and SEO struggles with patience and persistence. Spend at least 60 minutes a day on your SEO, and you’re guaranteed a spot on the first page of search engine results. Similarly, workout for at least 60 minutes a day, and you’re guaranteed to lose those inches bothering your body frame.