With the digital way the world manages money and bank account balances, banking has never been easier. Budgeting has never been easier.

I remember a time in my life when money was tight. Extremely tight! So tight that I started seeing overdraft fees plaguing my bank account. It got so bad that I simply decided that I wasn’t going to pay the overdraft fees any longer. Heck, I really had no choice. I had a choice to pay the overdraft fees and keep my bank account, or pay my bills. So I walked away.

Phew! I feel much better now that I’ve gotten that off my chest!

This was before the days of Dave Ramsey and all the financial guru’s in this world started introducing budgeting programs. Since then, I’ve learned that even if I’m on a tight budget, I can still live a great lifestyle.

It does take more discipline, but it’s discipline that creates success stories.

Back in the day, every overdraft fee I received was $40 a pop. Two or three of those in a week can hurt someone who’s living on a tight budget. I probably could have avoided nearly every overdraft fee with the right budgeting program.

eccount Money

I ran across a website today that specializes in this exact thing. For obvious reasons, people usually only want to spend only what they can afford. Yet, for most, it’s easier said than done. For many, it’s extremely difficult to manage their finances.

Well, basically what eccount does, is they help you manage your money so that it stretches further.

For instance, with a traditional bank, you’re given one spending account, which is your checking account. You might also get a savings account or something similar. With eccount, you get two spending accounts. One account dubbed as your “bills” account, while the other is your spending account. Your spending account is connected to a debit card and is credited with “non-bills” money which you can spend on whatever without dipping into the funds needed to make the bills.

Brilliant. Problem solved for so many with this one simple concept.

The Problem

If you’re anything like me, you’ll be the last one to admit that you have budgeting problems. No man on earth wants to be known as the “guy who can’t manage his money!” Admitting it doesn’t mean that you have to broadcast it. If you’ve tried other things in the past that didn’t quite do the trick, maybe eccount is your answer.

Their website: http://www.eccount.com

I recently received a “How-to” request from my team within the Empower Network asking for instructions on adding an image to their broadcast email from Photobucket.

So, instead of explaining it through an email or a Skype desk share, I decided to record a quick tutorial video and make a blog post out of it.

Here’s the written word (instructions), followed by my quick video tutorial.

1. Upload photo to Photobucket by clicking on the ‘Upload” button within your account.
2. Click on uploaded photo once upload is complete.
3. Look to the right of the image and click on the URL to the right of the ‘direct” label. It will automatically copy to your notepad.
4. In AWeber, I like to use the ‘Previous Editor’ to compose my broadcasts. Click in the text box so that your cursor shows. Click on the little square image above the text area called ‘Insert/Edit Image.’
5. Paste the URL from Photobucket in the space labeled ‘URL.’ Click ‘Insert.’
6. Size the image that fits your needs by, in Firefox, dragging the corner of the image.
7. To link the image to another URL, click the image, click on the hyperlink icon, type or past URL in the space labeled ‘URL.’ Click ‘Insert.’

Three Blogs, a YouTube Video and Social Networks Equals First Page Domination

If you take a look at the image I’ve posted within the content here, you’ll notice that I have claimed all the search engine listings above the fold, which are typically the first five or six listings. And when I use the term “above the fold,” it simply means everything you immediately see when you land on a web page. Everything that can only be seen by scrolling is considered to be below the fold.

My properties being listed are three blogs: one from my Empower Network business, my wife’s blog and this blog. I also have a YouTube video in the listings as well as some social profile linking throughout the rest of the results below the fold. The YouTube video ranked number two in the SERP’s within a few minutes of uploading it to my YouTube channel.

Given, my key phrase is “Cattail sword fight.” Not a lot of people search for sword fighting with cattails, but some do. And when they do, I am pretty much guaranteed to get their clicks. Agreed!

So what if I were to do this exact thing for other key phrases that aren’t the most popular phrases on the internet, yet, were still searched for? I could dominate above the fold for every one of those phrases and guarantee myself that traffic instead of competing against everyone else for the high traffic phrases.

I am willing to bet, that over time, dominating several long-tail, less searched for phrases, will prove to be more profitable than trying to dominate a few, more searched for phrases.

Reverse SEO, or Online Reputation Management

This is also a popular tactic used by SEO companies around the globe. When a client has received some negative press through a forum or complaint board, those listings can often be pushed off the first page results by simply dominating all the positions on the first page.

Just as you see here, I have three blogs and a video in the top five spots. If I threw in a Tumblr post, promoted my social profiles and one or two more other properties, I’d own everything on the first page of Google.

So if you’ve recently found yourself on a complaint forum, instead of worrying about what they’re saying about you or trying to combat them, simply rank them off the first page by dominating the search results with positive media.

What SEO Tactics Should You Know?

Like I said, a basic knowledge of on site SEO can assist you in gaining this sort of ranking results. One of the cool things about my opportunity, the Empower Network, is their blogging platform is already search engine optimized. It comes equipped with SEO tools to let you know how your blog post is measuring up. It will tell you exactly what you need to add to your content in order to get more ranking juice.

The basic membership for the Empower Network blogging system is a mere $25 per month. In addition to the basic membership, they offer marketing courses designed to teach you how to get results online. Highly recommended!

With that said, basic SEO knowledge includes proper titles, heading tags, keyword density, anchor tags for images and a basic knowledge of HTML.

In conclusion, sometimes, the best strategy to large amounts of SEO traffic online is to rank for more long-tail, less searched for phrases rather than compete for the big ones.

Obviously, in order to utilize YouTube, you’ve got to produce videos, and if you want to be seen as a professional, you’ll want to make sure those videos are recorded in HD, or high definition. Most newer computers come pre-intalled with HD cameras and most cell phones do as well. If your computer is a few years old, check the resolution of the video just to be sure.

The reason you want your videos in HD, you can tell the difference, especially on YouTube, when a video is recorded with an HD camera. It fills the entire video frame, where a video that isn’t HD, has all that black area on the sides and isn’t as vibrant. So if you want to look like a pro, you can do that with an HD camera. And if your computer, cell phone or camcorder isn’t HD, you can pick up a decent HD camcorder for your computer on Ebay or at a local electronics store for around $40 to $50 bucks. I recently purchased the Logitech C615 and it works perfectly.

The Immediate Marketing Power of YouTube

Yesterday, I uploaded a video to YouTube, and within minutes, it was ranked first page in Google search results! Not only was it first page, it was in the second position for the key phrase I wanted it to be found for. It didn’t take days or even hours, it was there within minutes of uploading that video.

If someone were to type “sword fighting with cattails,” I’d surely get the click for it over all the other search results. The reason….people love videos. Most people are visual searchers, meaning, even when reading magazines, they’ll scroll through the pages with their eyes until they find an image they like. They’ll then stop and start reading. The same applies online for search results and blog posts.

Content, without images or videos, is dull….er.

A Few Tips to get Your YouTube Videos Ranked Higher

YouTube is a video search engine, and just like any search engine, there are tricks to getting your videos to rank higher in both the YouTube search engine as well as on Google and Bing.

Here’s are my YouTube Tips:

1. Video Title: The most important thing you can do is include the key words and phrases you’d like your video to be found for in your title. When you first upload your video, YouTube will place the name of your video file as the title, change that into your key phrases. NOTE: Generally, the shorter the key phrase, the more difficult it will be to rank high for it. It’s always better to use “long tail” phrases, such as, “sword fighting with cattails,” instead of “cattails.”
2. Description: I have a few tips for the description. The first is to also include your key phrases with the description, as well as a brief explanation of what your video is about. This is also a good place to include a call to action and a link to the page you’d like your video traffic to be sent to. To make a link in the your YouTube video description, simply type the URL of your web page, including “http://.” If you don’t include a URL and a call to action, all the traffic your video receives won’t have a place to go once the video ends. Make sure they have a place to go by adding the URL to a splash page of some sort.
3. Tags: YouTube gives you an opportunity to add tags to your video, which also helps searchers find your video. Include as many tags as you possibly can that are relevant to the content of your video. “Sword fighting with cattails” was one of the tags I used with my video.
4. Privacy Settings: Make sure, if you want your video to be found at all, to set this option to “Public.”

Hopefully these tips will be of use to you. Again, of you aren’t using YouTube, begin as soon as you can. YouTube is the number two search engine on the web, only second to Google. So if you have been avoiding it because you feel uncomfortable in front of a camera, it’s time to get over it and join the “in crowd” on YouTube.

If you have any YouTube marketing tips or tricks, we’d love to hear them in the comments section below.

Every year we harvest these pecans and sell them to local markets, who then turn around and resell them to their customers at a higher price. The market, or reseller, is the middle man. And the middle man almost always makes the most profit, and I’ll explain why.

The process we use for the pecan harvest

To get ready for the pecan harvest, there’s a little work to be done which requires some man hours, a little sweat and maybe a few blisters. The main thing to be done is the clearing of the ground around the pecan trees. So that involves raking up the leaves and any remaining pecans from the previous year and mowing the grass real low. It’s easier to see and pick up the pecans without all that junk getting in the way.

Several people here own large orchards with dozens of pecan trees on them and are constantly at war with the crows. A crow will eat anywhere in between 15 to 25 pecans per day. So a swarm of fifty crows, each eating twenty pecans per day, adds up to a lot of lost nuts! That’s money out of pocket. So what they do is purchase what they call a popper. It’s basically a device that shoots blanks every so often to scare away the crows. Others invest in high powered pellet guns and turn into sharp shooters during certain months of the year.

Once the first few freezes sweep across the valley, the pecans are ready to harvest. At that point, we call the “Tree Shaker.” He comes over with his own creation of a tree shaker, which is basically half Dodge and half hydraulic robot, and he shakes the trees. He charges $12 per tree at the moment.

Once the nuts are on the ground, we use hand held pecan rollers to pick them up off the ground. Those with larger orchards use larger “steam roller” pecan rollers or large tarps. The nuts are then placed in bags.

Most pecan harvesters haul their nuts all the way to Las Cruces New Mexico for the biggest payout. Smaller harvesters, such as myself, drive our nuts and sell them to local markets in Gilbert and Mesa Arizona.

Here’s the part where you learn about why the middle man almost always makes the most profit. After learning of the pecan harvest process, with all the man hours, fuel, tools, blanks, pellet guns, water for the trees and equipment to manage acreage, you know that the costs add up!

Last I heard, pecan harvesters were getting paid between $1.60 to $2.60 per pound, for their unshelled pecans. That’s for the nut meat, not the shells. The middle man at a local market, can sell a one pound bag of pecans for anywhere between $12 to $16. The middle man makes the most money. He has much less invested, yet, yields the most profit!

This isn’t just true for the pecan harvesters. It’s true in general.

Take my business for example. I’m an affiliate with the Empower network. What that means is the Empower Network is the one that has produced the product, much like the pecan harvester. They’ve created the website, the blogging platform, the training, setup the merchant accounts, and so forth. All I have to do is fork out a little bit of money to get started, much like the middle man who purchases the unshelled pecans.

From there, I have the potential to resell their products. And here’s what separates the Empower Network from all other business opportunities out there. I resell their products, not for 40%, 50% or even 60% commissions…but for a 100% commission. Empower Network is the harvester, and I’m the middle man who makes ALL of the profit.

So you see, it pays to be the middle man. Don’t eat yourself up over creating your own product. Jump in as the middle man! It’s much more fun!