For the first several years of my working life, I found myself drawn to start ups. Perhaps it was not by choice. Perhaps it was simply because I got really good opportunities with start ups at that time. And I have to say, I really learned a lot during those years. If there is one thing that really stuck with me, however, it is that any business – no matter how big or small it may be – should have clear policies at the outset. Without clear policies, you might be able to get by for the first couple of years. Once you start expanding, however, you will see that having no policies spells disaster. Here are some tips that you can consider when coming up with policies for your business.

Have foresight.
While you may be content to run your business at the pace and scale that you started out at, expansion is inevitable at some point. As such, you have to bear in mind what can happen and what you will do in case these things happen. Planning ahead is always a good thing and having a solution to an event that has not occurred yet can save you a lot of time, money, and headaches.

Know what policies you will need, even from the start.
There are some things that you cannot do without. If you have employees, then you need an employee handbook. You have to establish policies regarding compensation, leaves, performance evaluation, and so on.

Make sure there is a concrete venue by which you can communicate your policies to everyone involved.
One of the worst things is having policies without anyone in the company being aware of them. When you spring a “rule” on your employees without the proper process, it might very well backfire on you.

I was doing some reading on niche blogging and looking for tips from other people. I was a bit surprised at something I read at OpTempo. In a post titled Niche Blog Beginner Tips, jfc wrote:

Update Frequency Isn’t That Important
The common train of social blogging thought is that you have to be constantly updating your content, usually on a daily or at least weekly frequency, or else you’ll lose traffic. With a niche blog, updating daily isn’t needed after the site has gained a degree of search engine traction. In fact, you may find that if you’ve done things right by accident or design that your traffic will actually increase over time rather than decline even though you’re no longer actively updating it.

I know it seems counterintuitive to those who’ve been doing social blogging. The thing is that over time Google begins to consider your site, due to the way your keywords are constructed and your link building exercises are done, an authority site on your topic. This, in turn, means you’ll get an increasing number of valuable search engine visitors even though your core articles haven’t been updated in a year and may be of limited utility.

I understand that your blog can gain search engine traction over time and that even if you do not regularly update your blog anymore, you will still get a lot of hits because you are already well established up in the SERPs. However, I think that this defeats the purpose of providing your readers with something new to read. In my mind, one creates a niche blog in order to address a need for information in that certain niche. If the most recent content was published a year ago, do you think that your old readers would keep coming back for more? I really don’t think so.

What is your take on this?

Way back when I was writing the posts on getting started on niche blogging, I overlooked a very important thing – your domain name. Now we all know that you can create a blog on Blogger, Typepad, Wordpress, etc. for free. Then again, if you are really serious about your blog, then you would want to have your own domain. Choosing a domain name for your niche blog is essential in making it. So how do you go about it?

I am assuming here that you already have chosen your niche – we have already talked about this in detail. Once you have that down pat, you have to generate some domain names that would fit with your overall niche blog strategy. One good thing to do is to choose a domain name that has keywords. This is especially important if you are aiming to get a lot of search engine hits.

So for example, if your niche blog is focused on the Wii, you should choose a domain name that has Wii in it. Of course, Wii.com is already taken so you have to add some other keywords in your domain name. You can try wiijunkie, wiienthusiast, everythingwii, and so on. You would have to check if your chosen domain name is available – that is why you need to come up with several in order to have other options.

There are many domain name checkers on the Internet but I personally prefer typing www.domainname.com (or whatever extension you want) on Google to see if it is parked, taken, or available. Once you have decided on an available domain name, do not waste time – register it at once!

Profiting through ads is no new concept. When targeted ads entered the scene though ads became a whole lot more profitable both for the advertisers and publishers. What’s even better is that anyone can now become a “publisher”. Bloggers are a prime example of ordinary people cashing in on ads. There are lots of opportunities out there for bloggers but only if you know where to look or at least how to look for them.

To help you get started making cash here are some ad opportunities you might want to check out.

Advertising Programs

• Google Adsense – They paved the way for contextual ads. Since veryone knows about Google Adsense there really isn’t any need to say more. You can also try Yahoo! Publisher Network and MSN Adcenter, which are both still in Beta.
• BlogAds – BlogAds blggers realy do make money. Right now the average blogger earns $50 a month although there are some that do earn up to $5000 a month! The problem with joining BlogAds is that it is by invite only. Of course, you can squeeze out an invite from one of your online friends.

Consumer Generated Ads

Consumer generated ads are ads made by the bloggers. Instead of depending on the advertiser to make a pitch, YOU will be the one to make the pitch and add a link to the website of the company or product you are promoting. If you are interested in this highly controversial ad technique then the best place to start is PayPerPost. Other consumer generated ad sites include LoudLaunch, Blogitive, and Blogsvertise.

After the celebrated resignation of former World Bank head Paul Wolfowitz who will be stepping down by June 30 due to his involvement in creating a compensation package for girlfriend Shaha Riza, US President Bush will be naming Robert Zoellick as his successor. His selection of Zoellick is expected to be approved by the World Bank’s 24 member board soon.

Zoellick is a logical choice, owing to the fact that has garnered the moniker of establishing contacts in most parts of the world as President Bush’ trade chief. Considering the situation that the World Bank is in right now, Zoellick has his work cut out for him.

But basing it on Zoellick’s credentials, he seems to be fit for the job. With his experience in building stronger ties and relations from all parts of the world, his designation is expected to be formalized soon so that the World Bank can get back on the right track.

[tags]world bank, president bush, robert zoellick, shaha riza, paul wolfowitz[/tags]

With nothing but war and combat on their minds, it is only fitting that the US soldiers should be looked after with care especially on the mental aspect of things. It is not surprising to note that most of the soldiers are being attacked mentally as well, seeing nothing but blood and mass destruction in their war plagued countries to which they were assigned.

Barack Obama has observed such a breach in the efforts to uphold the overall well-being of these soldiers and has vouched for such aid in an effort to help the US troops to enjoy some mental benefits rather than spending them on ammunition and other necessary things in line with the impending war in Iraq and Baghdad.

“We cannot expect our young men and women to serve in our armed forces, if we are not making sure they get the treatment they deserve,” Barack Obama, Obama: Improve mental health care

After all the disputes that included Congress and the Democratic front, all seems to be a circus of delaying the spending bill for the Iraq war. The bill was finally passed and approved and will be signed by Bush after months of ill-advised finger pointing and bickering that were obviously for no good reason or intent.

A lot of jousting and question were raised and with regards for the hope being wooed by the families of the casualties of war, it seems like a hopeless case. The war will go on and further lives will surely be claimed. It is just so sad since after all the debate done, it seems everything was just a means of delaying tactics and the issue being used as a campaign tool for presidential candidates on the upcoming elections. For Bush, he gets his wish. Hopefully it would be the right one and for the best of the United States.

Anywhere we go, the rampant growth of terrorist issues has obviously been a cause for alarm and much has been connected to most of the recent events. The United States, the acclaimed world leader, has been the hardest hit by the standing issue. A lot has to do with the so called belief that the US is invincible, making it in its inhabitants sitting targets by countries craving for power. Of course we all know that among these countries include that of Iran and Iraq.

The war on terror has not been restricted towards armies and democratic fronts. It has gone beyond bounds which have gone as far as victimizing local folks who are plainly living their lives and working for survival. Sadly, they have become the unlikely targets, making the country very much vulnerable towards security overall. But hopefully, the US governing bodies can continue their security measures if only to protect the safety of innocent lives who are being caught in the crossfire.

[tags]war on terror, us troops, terrorism, civilians, iran, iraq[/tags]

Iraq has been long in the headlines and to date, the Iraq war policy shall be put under close scrutiny soon and President Bush knows it all too well. Among the expected highlights would be that of placing the blame on Osama Bin Laden for defense of the said policy, something that is perhaps seen to come in automatically to justify the claims.

The Iraq-US war seems to be endless and despite such policies which mostly states offensive strategies and security measures among such, will definitely be storming the headlines in the politics section of most newspapers and publications in the next couple of weeks.

President Bush has solicited the tag of putting the entire issue on a personal level. While many can understand why, the issue of using the US troops as his pawns with nothing relevant to gain has been questioned time and again. At this stage, it will not be surprising if such an address would solicit the same reactions as well.

[tags]iraq, osama bin laden, president busy, iraq policy, us troops[/tags]

7 soldiers including a translator were killed in Baghdad during separate attacks, further adding the death toll count of casualties that have been claimed by the ongoing Iraq war crisis. It seems that whenever anything is associated with Iraq, the returned phrase would either be bombs or killed soldiers. Ironically, most of the soldiers are Americans and this will obviously be another headliner in the news for the American society.

Many steps have been taken to try and remedy the situation but unless the United States group starts to fix its act, the death toll will continue to rise. Internal conflicts of the US government have been the obvious cause for delay of resolving the problem, with President Bush among the key figures that are among the stumbling figures regarding the matter.

Unless they get their act together, more lives will be taken. Hopefully it will all be put to a stop. Considering the squabbling and unstable method of resolving the issue, it is still unlikely to happen at the moment.

[tags]iraq, baghdad, us troops, iraq war [/tags]