Link Popularity: The Stepping Stone For Greater Online Presence
What exactly is link popularity? It is not Page Rank. Link popularity is the measure of how popular your page is and how many links are directed to your site; and the quality of the sites that are directed to your site. Page Rank, on the other hand, is almost always confused with link popularity. Page Rank is normally a Google term, ranging from 1-10, and is used to classify the relevancy of a site based on keywords, description, and link popularity. Link popularity uses quality; page ranking uses quantity.Link popularity is a major stepping stone for any online presence. If no one knows about your site, then it does not exist. On the other hand, your site may also be extremely popular due to pop ups and campaigns on sites with a bad reputation; this is when quality comes into play when link popularity is determined.Apart from having the right keywords and good reputation, link popularity can be earned through link exchange. Link exchanges could greatly up your site on search engines, therefore, drive more traffic to your site. Note: that you should have the correct anchor text on your site in order to get page ranked accurately.Another great strategy in gaining link popularity is the overall content of your site. Do you have interesting material? Why should anyone bother linking to your site? Sometimes, sites with great content get linked by viewers on other sites. Some webmasters might stumble upon your site and request to use some of the content of your site with your permission and all links in place; this adds to your link popularity.For example, say your website sells and gives information on ‘tomatoes’. When you type in the word ‘tomato’ into a search engine, and your page isn’t in the top ten, your link is not optimized. Check the other sites that happen to be in the top ten lists. Some browsers may allow you to view the page source of such websites. How do you compare? How many links do you have on your site and how many sites are targeted to your site? Do you have the proper Meta tags? This is where you can use your competitors’ site to your own advantage and all these are important factors in gaining link popularity.Also, great content, such as keyword oriented articles and reviews can draw traffic to your site with little to no effort on your part. Good luck on promoting your tomatoes, remember that quality surpasses quantity!
The Technology of Nations
In 1776, Scottish economist and philosopher, Adam Smith wrote the masterpiece, ‘The Wealth of Nations’- actually ‘An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”. By coincidence, the United States Declaration of Independence was adopted the same year, making the American colonies independent and thus no longer a part of the British Empire.America has since evolved to dominate the old British Empire in virtually every aspect of human endeavors, except perhaps, social welfare. The Yankees figuratively were discipled by Dr. Smith who believed in free market and made his argument that ‘capitalism’ will benefit mankind than any other economic structure. He laid this foundation at the onset of industrial revolution and provided the basics for modern economics.Smith made his case about the ‘invisible hand’ and why monopoly and undue and unfettered government regulations or interference in market and industry must be discouraged. He was of the opinion that prudent allocation of resources cannot happen when states dominate and over interfere.In that old time, America farmers could grow cotton, but would not process it. It has to be sent to England where it would later be imported into U.S as a finished product. Understanding that this decision was not due to lack of processing ability, you will appreciate Smith’s argument that market must be free.His theses were clear and were very influential; they provided the same level of fulcrum to Economics as Isaac Newton’s Mathematica Prinicipia to Physics. Or in modern times, Bill Gates’ Windows to the information economy.While reading Smith’s book and understanding the time frame it was written, one cannot but appreciate the intellectual rigor in that piece. Before technology was penetrated in en mass across the regions of the world, he noted that all nations could compete at par in agricultural productivity. The reason was absence of division of labor in any subsistence farming system in the world. A farmer does everything in the farm and is not an expert in most.Discounting fertile land, rain and other factors that could help farmers, all the farmers, from Africa to plantations in Alabama, the level of productivity was similar. Why? No specialization was employed in farming business at the time.Fast track forward when the industrial revolution set forth. The British Empire became an engine of wealth creation through automation. It was a quintessential period of unrivalled human productivity which resulted to enormous wealth created in the empire. Technology not only helped speed process execution, it helped in division of labor.Interestingly, Dr Smith had noted that except agriculture where productivity was flat because of lack of division of labor, other industries were doing just fine. And in those industries, there were organized structures which enabled division of labor. For instance in the construction industry, there were bricklayers, carpenters, painters, and so on; but a farmer was a farmer.As you read through Wealth of Nations and observe the 21st century, it becomes evident that technology was so influential in the last few centuries. It has changed our structures and created a new business adaptation rules like outsourcing which is indeed a new breed of division of labor.From accumulation of stock and pricing, as explained by Dr. Smith, we see today a world where technology is shaping everything in very fundamental ways for wealth creation. In this era, it has become technology as technology translates to wealth. So, nations that focus on creating, diffusing and penetrating technology will do well.Why? It is about national technology DNA. The more passionate and innovative nations are triumphing at the global business scene. Give me Japan and I will give you electronics. Talk about United States, I will share biotechnology and pharmaceutical technologies, and indeed every major technology. Give me China, and I will give you green technologies.So, as nations continue to compete on the technology paradigm, we see at the highest level of success measurement an embodiment captured by technology capability. When nations are understood from the lens of their Technology Readiness Index, Knowledge Economic Index, we see that countries have become technology competing nodes. In some really poor countries with no (effectual) technology, they do not have a node and are unplugged in the sphere of global wealth creation.Simply, it will be difficult to separate the health of any modern economy from its technology. It goes beyond the wealth of that nation to its survivability. The most advanced nations are the technology juggernauts while the least developing economics barely record any technology penetration impact. For the latter, it is like still living in the pre-industrial age Dr. Smith discussed on agriculture and division of labor where processes were inefficient.Perhaps, this explains the efficiency in developed world in both the public and private arenas. The more technologies they diffuse, the more productive they become. In other words, show me the technology and I will tell you where the nation stands in the league of countries. Interestingly, the invention of steam engine changed the world and powered the industrial revolution. The invention of transistor transformed the 20th century and is fuelling the new innovation century.It seems that major scientific breakthroughs bring major great countries. Let me emphasize here that some old kingdoms that ruled the world such as the old Babylon, Roman Empire, and Pharaoh’s Egypt; there have been associated knowledge base that put them ahead. You cannot disassociate good crop production in River Nile to the mastery of Egyptians in inventing some sections of geometry for farming. Some of the old wars had been won by developing constructs that enabled efficient transportation of soldiers to battleground. There was science and nations were winning by using that knowledge.In conclusion, the world has been living on technology and it is indeed defining our competitive space. As nations compete, it is technology that shapes the world with wealth as the major byproducts, in some cases. I make this case because some of the best technologies had been invented for non-wealth reasons (yes, directly). Examples include Internet and radar technologies which have created wealth and spurred commercial innovations but have military origins.There could not be any more powerful way of examining national competitiveness than understanding the technology of nations. Yes, wealth has since morphed to technology and all competitions and wealth creation could as well be seen from technology viewpoint. And in this piece, I aptly replace Dr. Smith’s ‘wealth’ with ‘technology’ to have The Technology of Nations.
Cost and Budget Considerations for Project Management
Every project has a cost – that cost comes in the form of a budget. Budgetary overruns are the number one cause of project failure in all industries. Even if you manage to achieve the goals of the project, if you do so by going over your budget, you can’t consider it a success. Blowing your budget is never a good thing, but there are a few ways that you can keep an eye on costs and ensure that you stay within the bounds set for the project.
Know Your Budget
Obviously, the first step in staying within the bounds of your budget is to know what it is. This should be set during your planning and initiation stage, but there’s a problem here. Sometimes, project managers are not brought onboard until after this stage. This is particularly true in instances where the project was planned by upper management and then delegated out afterward. If you don’t know what your budget is, find out. You’ll need to communicate with upper management and the program’s sponsor to get this information. If they are unable to provide it, that should be a red flag – the project should go on hold until you have this data.
Tracking the Budget
In addition to knowing what your budget is set at, you also need to make sure that you’re tracking your budget at all times. This will require that you do some very specific things. First, make sure that there is someone responsible for tracking the budget at all times – that might be you, the project manager, or it might be a stakeholder, manager or even a team member. The point is, a very close eye needs to be kept on your budget, and how your project is faring in regards to it.
Constant Reporting
Yet another vital element here is that your team members all understand the importance of constant, accurate reporting where costs and time are concerned. This applies directly to the amount of time they spend working (the number of payable hours they’re racking up) each day. For team members that struggle with time management, this can be a challenge. Thankfully, there’s a whole host of time tracking software out there that can help make this more feasible. Make sure you have a solution in place for this and that your team members use it.
Project Your Costs
Finally, you need to be good at forecasting your costs in terms of the amount spent at the end of the project. How far over budget will you be if no changes are made in the meantime? Will you come in under budget? Is there a way to authorize more money? With accurate forecasting, you can take preemptive steps to ensure that you are able to remain within your budget, or get approved modifications to increase the funds available to you.
With a proactive stance and the right steps, you can avoid the most common failure to plague the world of project management.