These are frightening times for people trying to build or preserve their retirement accounts. The stock market has produced daily swings large enough to churn just about everyone's stomach. This landscape makes it easy to commit big mistakes and investment no no's. Credit markets have tightened such that no credit score is good enough to borrower money. Here are some of the worst maneuvers you can make during these crazy economic times.
DON'T FREAK OUT: During bear markets like today it's easy to freak out as we watch stock prices fall almost on a daily basis. Fear kicks in and we think, sell now and cut our losses. The worst thing to do is sell, hide the money in cash and wait for things to turn around. Why? Because more often than naught things turn around and all of a sudden we're back in after prices have raced back up.
Don't act on fear. If you have an investment account that is well diversified and designed with long term objectives in mind, chances are that your portfolio should be left alone.
EUPHORIA: Just the opposite of freaking out. During bull markets your portfolio is going through the roof. Everything you touch turns to gold, equities are surging and all common sense goes out the window.
As the equity markets rise, investors reason that the risk of a significant decline fades away. When the DOW hit 15,000 you could feel the Euphoria on Wall Street. I'd say a few people freaked out when it dropped below 10,000. As the market soars the potential for a drop is greater than before. Thus the market becomes riskier, not safer.
PUTTING ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET: Probably the worst investment mistake of all. Confining your portfolio with what's hot today makes you a sitting duck. Chasing the sector of the moment is a dangerous game. Look for a balanced group of investment vehicles that include stocks, bonds, mutual funds and a money market component.
Keep in mind that diversification does not assure against market loss and there is no guarantee that a diversified portfolio will outperform and undiversified one.
NOT HAVING A PLAN: You may have heard the old saying....if you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there. You must have a personal investment plan with specific goals and objectives. Whether it's retiring at age 60 or saving enough money for your children's college you need a plan.
A plan will help you adhere to a sound long term policy even when current market conditions are unsettling. Having a good plan and sticking to it is not near as fun as trying to time and beat the markets, but it will likely be more profitable in the long run.
BELIEVING THE HYPE There is almost nothing on financial news shows that can help you achieve your goals. News letters rarely offer anything of value and when they do, how do you identify them in advance? If there really was a secret formula to making big bucks do you really think someone would make a living telling others how to do it?
Spend less time watching financial news shows and reading newsletters. Spend more time sticking to your investment plan. No matter the market, sound investing principles will serve you in the long run.
It is no surprise that article marketing, whereby you submit articles to article directories, to get your site noticed is gaining much popularity. There are many tools that people can use to make the process of distributing their articles more easily. Though these tools are invaluable in getting the content more exposure, this is not enough.
In fact, you should first focus on getting your content right for article marketing. It is not just the mere use of creative writing skills. Let us take a look at the common mistakes made in the article content:
1. Failure to Educate. This happens when you become overly focused in selling your website or product, without providing some useful information to the readers of your article. In article writing, there are three key benefits why you are promoting them; branding, lead generation and promotion. These form part of your optimization efforts. But there is only one reason why you write an article, and that is to inform your audience. If the article is not focused on this primary and most important purpose, it will fail to achieve the three promotion benefits because no one will be interested in reading them. Do the pre-sell through information sharing and through your articles. And let the sales letter on your site do the hard sell.
2. Failing on Using Good Keywords. You may know already that your articles can help you generate additional links back to your site. But do you know that you can get more visitors and better search engine results by using good keywords? Just be sure not to overdo them. Some authors are even using anchor texts which is also an effective method. But it is important to know that majority of the directories are not able to support the use of achor text.
In addition, having the right keywords ensure that your articles get easily picked up by webmasters looking for reprint content. Part of doing well in your article marketing is having your articles picked up by publishers with a large number of audience.
3. Failure to Promote Effectively. It is funny how some authors can even fail to promote themselves properly in the content. You have authors that are overzealous in selling their websites and products but there are also some that do not know how to market themselves artfully in the content. Weaving your personal experiences in the content is a great way to let readers think that you are an expert and know what you are writing about. There is no blatant hard sell and you are viewed in a positive light.
4. Failure to Consider the Needs of the Publisher. You can double the number of sites you can submit to by writing articles that the directories want to share with other people. All it takes is one publisher with a hundred thousand readers to increase your potential audience overnight. Write the articles that publishers want in their publications if you want your article marketing to work the most effective way for you. This also means you have to obey the standard guidelines, spell checks and do proper research and writing.
In the end, it is all really a matter of choice on your part. You can get some exposure from the increased links back to your site. Or enjoy massive exposure from a little more effort in making quality content.
Both John Rasor & Evelyn Lim are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
John Rasor has sinced written about articles on various topics from Finances, Free Credit Report Score and Finances. is the one of the most unique on-line resources for free credit sco. John Rasor's top article generates over 74000 views. to your Favourites.
Evelyn Lim has sinced written about articles on various topics from Family, Disease & illness and Acid Reflux. Evelyn Lim is a writer and an online market strategist. Her article directory site is a growing database of content on health, business, internet marketing, finance, home, etc . To submit your articles, please visit. Evelyn Lim's top article generates over 49500 views. to your Favourites.