If you are looking for a great Online Business Opportunity then my opinion is go with affiliate marketing and if you wanted to boil affiliate marketing down to its simplest, you are essentially trying to attract traffic to your website and then send them through to an affiliate program where if they buy anything, you make money.

It sounds simple enough. Set up a blog about fishing, dog training or mp3 players, plaster it with adverts from Commission Junction or Share a Sale and cross your fingers that you'll make money.

Some sites work, others don't but over time if you keep on building your profits slowly rise.

But the problem with this process is best described as "missed opportunity".

You see, you will often find that one affiliate program converts better than another, even for the same product. Send 100 visitors to each one and it's very likely that you will make considerably more money from one than the other. Strange but true.

Taking it another step, if you do some testing you will also normally find that some of the adverts on your website get far more clicks than others. And that adverts in certain places on your website get more clicks than adverts in other areas of your website.

So if you could find which affiliate program converts best, which advert converts best and where to place that advert on your website for best results, then got rid of everything that *didn't* work so well, as I'm sure you can imagine you're likely to significantly increase your affiliate marketing profits.

And remember that you don't have to write any more content, build loads more links or spend your life trying to build up visitor numbers.

All this extra money is simply as a result of some smart testing to reveal how best to monetize your affiliate sites. Surely this is leverage at its best.

By now I'm sure you can see the potential of this method and are wondering how best to actually go about the testing phase.

There are two ways to go about it. The first way is to simply make manual changes to your websites and see how the results change. However not only is this not exactly scientific, but it also takes quite a bit of time and effort to constantly move adverts around, keep an eye on clickthrough rates of adverts, affiliate profits and so on.

However Richard Adams just released a tool called WP split tester which will do most of this for you. It will make all the necessary changes to your website and track the results. Let the script do all the "heavy lifting" and you can just pull out the top-performers from the statistics area of the tool and make the necessary changes to maximize your profits.

I'm a stats and split testing junky, I test even the littlest button or graphic, I 'play' with titles and text to increase my search engine rankings and you're not doing any testing on your blog or sales page your missing out on profits.

WP Split Tester will make testing a whole lot easier and I highly recommend that you buy this plugin. If you buy this plugin and you have questions about it or you would like to request a new feature or something, catch me on Twitter. I'm planning on publishing more video's reviews and interviews and Richard will be on in a couple of weeks so be sure to try the plugin and send me your feedback in the comments or via Twitter.

When you read a book about productivity or management, or you talk to someone successful; there’s one thing they all have in common. They don’t talk about how much time they have but how much they can get out of their time.

You can have all the money in the world, but you can only have so much time. This means you have to leverage your time.

Leverage your time with these 10 tips.

Find a mentor: Someone to help you refine your ideas into practice. Some of your ideas will be able to put into practice easily, but others might need some fine-tuning. If you don’t know a ‘Guru’ or cannot get in contact with one; subscribe to a blog like Zen Habits. However, don’t fall into the trap of subscribing to more than one; you don’t want to read your feeds all day. Reading too many blogs works counterproductive. Select a good one and stick with that.

Invest your money: this especially goes for newbie entrepreneurs. If you’re just starting out, and you’re making your first dollars online, don’t waste them on booze. Don’t get me wrong; I love liquor as much as the next guy. But especially in the beginning of your online venture; invest in yourself and your business as much as you can.

Start with outsourcing your business: Outsourcing your business might very well be the most important tip in this list. You need to realize that you are the manager in your business, and you need to excel in this. If you don’t have the money to outsource everything, then start with the small things but start today!

Make use of your management talents or improve those that you lack in: I used to be a ‘though’ manager, I could be a real asshole. I already had this when I had a day job but now that I’m a business owner it’s even more important. I used to ask from the people that worked for me the same dedication and commitment as I have. This is of course impossible; it’s my business and not theirs. It wasn’t easy but I had to learn to be more easy going and to give them more space. Now that I stepped back (a bit) it seems that my team is more productive.

Are your skills outdated and they are not management or marketing related: Hire someone who will fill the gap! Find someone who is better than you.

Use the available online resources responsible: You have some great information sources but use them wisely. If you use twitter; don’t use it when you’re working. I already wrote about this in the first point; if you subscribe to a blog, no matter what kind of blog but don’t overdo it! If you really need to read a whole bunch of blogs; close your reader or Outlook. Only check your email and RSS twice a day.

Networking: Use social media to broaden your network (watch your time) and leverage existing ones that you meet throughout your life.

Make use of smart systems and tools: Not only tools like Skype and Roboform but use technology to assist you in achieving more. Especially online tools, the cloud computing world is exploding and that’s not for nothing. We use online time planners, online management systems and online CRM systems, and it works great! If you work on a project; assign your coworkers, they’ll be automatically notified, and you get a message when it’s finished and the time is automatically recorded. This is a must, especially when you run an online business or blog. Start with it today, even if you don’t have any employees. There’s no better time to start working with these systems. Learn it now, so you’ll be prepared when you have employees.

Make use of your knowledge: work with the things that work for you. Is there something making you money, is there something making you happy or is it making you more productive? Make use of it!

Realize what you’re doing: I use Rescue Time constantly to see what I’m doing. When I started using this service, I was blown away with the amount of hours that I spend on email. It’s a free service, and at the end of the week they’ll send you an email with a schedule with how much time you’ve spend on your sites, your apps and on your email. It’s a real productivity booster.

If you have any tips, be sure to leave them in the comments!

Even though it isn’t an online business opportunity and you won’t learn anything from this Infolinks review, it’s surely worth mentioning because Infolinks means easy money and it is an ideal opportunity to make some extra money as a blogger.

What is Infolinks?

Infolinks is a PPC In Text Advertising Solution and it works real simple. You insert the code into your theme and the code automatically finds keywords related to the ads. When you hover over these keywords you’ll see a floating informational bubble.

How to insert the Infolinks code to your blog.

If you know how to manually install Google Analytics than you’ll know how to do this too, in fact the Infolinks script code needs the be placed just before the Google Analytics code right before the closing HTML tag in your footer.php.

I was approached by someone from Infolinks with an invite to start using their ad network and I was a bit hesitant (since we receive those invites weekly) but I decided to give it a test run on one of my old blogs The World of Office. I mainly use this blog for testing now, we stopped posting their on a frequent basis but we still get a decent amount of traffic.

It took me 30 seconds to copy the line of code and inserting it into my footer. I can’t disclose any CTR or ad impressions but if you’re familiar with The World of Office you know that we don’t have these ads live for a while. Today I was checking my stats on the various networks and found that these 30 seconds resulted in a $223.67 profit. I expect a payment any day now via PayPal and I think I’ll drink a beer on them.

The advantages of Infolinks.

• Easy implementation with one line of code.
• Set and forget money making opportunity.
• Doesn’t take up any other ad space.
• Many categories to choose from to get the most relevant ads shown.
• Easily recognizable with the double underlines.
• Any desired color possible.
• Since their appearing floating bubbles you’ll get a high click trough rate (equals $$).

And one of the biggest advantages compared to other In Text Advertising Solutions for me was that they are easily disabled per individual post when you don’t want them displayed. You can do this with an easy piece of code <!–INFOLINKS_OFF–>.

One of the other advantages compared to other high paying networks is that you don’t need a million monthly pages. I think the only requirement is that the blog cannot be about adult or gambling stuff and the number of daily visitors isn’t important. Even if you just started your blog, Infolinks will accept you.

I hope you found this Infolinks review useful and if you sign up for an account be sure to let me know in the comments what you think of it. You can find more info here. I’m off now implementing it on all my other blogs.

If you want to make some money online then blogging is a great option. This is how I started my online adventure and as I’ve mentioned before on this blog; almost all our sites are based on WordPress except for our shops.

I’m not alone using WordPress for everything. WordPress is probably the most used platform amongst Internet marketers and Jason Gazaway is also one of those marketers.

This is the reason why I’m writing this short post. The story of Jason Gazaway is mind blowing. He’s a guy that lost everything; fights back and makes more than $200k in his first 6 months. He made in 1.5 year almost 2 million dollars.

Jason just released a course called Bloggers Payback and as a promotion he now offers a completely free ebook called Blogging Pitfalls and Solutions and this guide is awesome. You can get his free book here.

And here comes my cleverly disguised sales pitch for Bloggers Payback. Bloggers Payback is awesome and if you don’t buy it today; the sky will come crashing down on you and you’ll be doomed forever…

All kidding aside; Bloggers Payback is a great product and Jason Gazaway is the real deal. Blogging is one of the best make money online business opportunities and I highly recommended this product.

Just grab the free book and let me know in the comments what you think of it.

To start this review off with I first want to explain with what programs I compared it with and how I looked at the Howie’s Apprentice Program. There are a couple of other high end Internet Marketing courses and training materials I’ve purchased in the past and that I’m currently enrolled in. I purchased John Reese’s Reese report Collection and I recently signed up for the Mike Filsaime VIP Coaching Club. They are both high end couching programs (if you are looking for a $100 course this Apprentice Program is not for you) but all 3 courses are completely different. The Reese Report Collection is “static” information and the Mike Filsaime VIP Coaching Club is a customized program for each participant created for their own online business.

Who Is Howie Schwartz?

Howie Schwartz is one of the big guys who are making millions online. He is known as one of the aggressive marketers, if not the most aggressive online marketer. He often says; “What if the money you can make goes to your competitor instead of to you and your family. You need to crush your competitors!!” This is what me attracted to the course, I love what I’m doing but it’s not charity. Howie is also known as the marketer with the most released Make Money Online products. Howie’s Apprentice is the flagship of all his Make Money Online products.

Howie’s Apprentice Review

As I explained above, the Howie’s Apprentice program cannot be compared with any of the other big and valuable make money online courses and Howie’s Apprentice isn’t suited for everyone. So in short; what is Howie’s Apprentice then all about? Howie’s Apprentice is a 12 – 16 week training course where Howie and his group of project managers lay-out a blueprint with strategies of many different techniques in order take over a complete market. This taking over the market is done via an online collaboration system, 2 – 3 weekly webinars presented by Howie or his project managers and your own personal resource center.

Starting the Howie Apprentice Program.

The Howie Apprentice Program starts with determining your market. Each Apprentice program targets a specific market. We went in Howie Apprentice 2 for the Christmas market but this can very well be Clickbank, Halloween or something else. You will learn how to pick a profitable market and how to dominate it.

The next steps in the program.

You will learn each week a new aspect of Internet Marketing. Each week a new section will be opened in the resource section that accommodates the webinars that are held that week. You will learn how to position your money site and how to build one that converts. How to make use of Web 2.0 sites and how to create mini nets around your money sites. Howie’s project managers will teach you techniques how to get the most out of Bookmarking and RSS submissions, these techniques are mind blowing and I never seen them in any other of the Make Money Online ebooks and courses and we bought allot Make Money Online products.

Howie’s Apprentice program also teaches you to excel in article marketing and video marketing. You will be teached how to use tools that are often found for free and how to fit them into your IM strategy.

I hope you understand what I mean with Howie’s Apprentice isn’t suited for everyone and why it’s different from any of the other high end courses. Howie’s Apprentice isn’t about Article Marketing, how to easily create Marketing Video’s or how to use the numerous tools. Howie’s Apprentice program is a 12 – 16 week training program to dominate a complete market. It’s a blueprint of tools and techniques to destroy your competitors.

I’m a launch partner of Howie and there are a ton of extras for all subscribers and apprentices. The bonuses that you can expect are reports, videos, online tools and downloadable apps. Howie’s Apprentice program is an “earn while you learn” program and you will earn every dollar back before the end of the course even if you’ve never made a dollar online before.

If you are serious about making money online but only if you are really serious then I highly recommend joining his group of highly successful apprentices. The course comes with a no questions asked satisfaction guarantee but it’s not a cheap investment in yourself or in your business but if you are really serious about Making Money Online you will get so much more out of it then a blueprint or some techniques to take over a market.

Howie’s Apprentice program is a great business opportunity and it will take your online business to the next level. If you want to know more about the bonuses you can apply for the program here (not everyone is accepted).

Good luck with your online venture, it’s time to make 2010 your year.

Contrary to popular opinion, there are a few disadvantages of outsourcing which I am going to elucidate in this article. Some of the disadvantages of outsourcing are given below. First of all, I will start off with off shore risk factor. Before you take that decision of outsourcing your business processes to a particular outsourcing service provider, just consider these risk factors.

The first risk involves the knowledge transfer factors or technical and internal readiness.

The 2nd risk involves cultural factors, that is, working style and communication style etc. For e.g., the work culture in different countries will vary a lot. And this might create problems.

The countries which offer outsourcing services usually don’t boast of English as their mother tongue. The people in these countries find it difficult to understand your accent and vice versa.

There are also country risk factors such as legal factors, socioeconomic factors and political factors.

You have to remember that a huge difference is made through the internal factors within a company. 2 of the most influential factors are corporate culture and communication infrastructure.

There are many reasons why many of the outsourcing projects fail to yield the results expected of them. You cannot afford to forget everything about a business process, just because you have outsourced it.

When the environment changes, you also have to manage and modify the relationship accordingly. Outsourcing a problematic aspect doesn’t mean you are getting rid of it. You have to oversee the main process.

When you don’t do these very necessary things, it worsens the problem. You have to remember this point while outsourcing an aspect of your business off shore. Just because you are outsourcing, doesn’t mean you can break all ties with the project, and that you can forget all about it.

Most people opt for outsourcing because it brings down the operational costs drastically, reducing it to more than half. Outsourced labor is very cheap, you see. However, don’t get motivated only by cheap cost because cheap is often synonymous with poor or inferior quality.

Surely, you don’t want your service levels degrading? If it's an aspect very vital to your organization, that is, if it's a core project, then you should reconsider to outsource it. If you have the choice, it’s better to outsource the non core areas of your business.

Outsourcing projects also often fail because you cannot explain your needs properly to your supplier, nor do you take trouble to understand what or how much your supplier can actually deliver.

We outsource a lot. I’m a big fan of outsourcing and I almost always recommend to others that they outsource as many tasks as possible but please; before you outsource, consider these disadvantages of outsourcing.

1. Don't decide immediately on what you're going to sell.

Think backwards instead of selling your products to your customers; why not find customers to determine what product you’re going to sell. Find and join a discussion group and newsgroup and provide an answer to what the people want. Know the likes and dislikes of your potential customers and what they are looking for. After you known what they are actually lacking or looking for, find solutions that would give them what they want. You can join affiliate programs or joint venture with a company that is already established, or you can just create your own product that can satisfy your customer’s needs.

2. Stand out from the crowd by being unique.

You must develop a Unique Sales Position so that your product would be irresistible to your potential customers but in a novel way. Your potential competitors are out there and you you need to research the list of products that they have or don’t have. Check out their performance and find out how you can compete with them, make a list of your data and make a decision on what to do in order for your product to become unique.

3. Have a positive attitude.

Believing in your product without any doubt is more important than having an in demand product. You must always have a positive attitude when going into your ventures. Make people believe that you are giving all your energy and enthusiasm to the product that you are selling.

4. Never stop planning.

Are tactics and strategy the same? Don’t be confused, they are different. Tactics are day-to-day actions, while a strategy is an overall goal for the kind of business or website that gives accomplishments to you as well as your potential customers. A powerful strategy must be developed so that all your marketing efforts will both be guided and empowered.

5. Your Unique Sales Position must be designed with a content rich and a customer friendly site.

You must always realize that most of your prospects and customers are impatient because what they really want to know is; what's in it for them. Keep in mind that you only have a few seconds to make them interested in further exploring your site. Stick to the KISS (Keep it simple, stupid) principle. From the title to the ordering process of your site, it must always be simple and straight forward. Immediately explain Who, What, Why and What you are about, concentrate first on your content development rather than fancy designs. When you think about it, that’s really what your potential customers want.

6. Pick a domain name that is catchy and easy to remember.

You must pick a domain name that can easily be search by anyone, which is related to your business and preferbly holds your product name. Gaining market share is not so much the key factor as it is in gaining “mind share." This means the recognition of the brand. Your title must be catchy and meaningful so that it expresses a feeling or image in the mind of the consumer which will stick to them.

7. Don't save money when it comes to selecting a hosting service.

Your hosting service can make you look good, or it can make you look bad. Your service together with your computer is the key equipment to your business. Are you planning on being in the business for a period of time? Then choose one that offers secure server and tracking options. Do you want them to take you seriously? Then you must seriously consider all the aspects of your web business.

8. Make purchasing as easy as possible.

Do you want to make sales through the web?? If so, you must have a fully functional E-commerce system built into. With regards to your product or service, any time a visitor need to purchase a product, they must be able do this by just a click of a button. You must make sure that your site can make shopping a fast, fun and easy experience. Provide a simple yet effective shopping cart or ordering system to your impulse buyer.

9. Keep your site up-to-date for service and security.

One way to make sure that your customers return to your site is by updating it and regularly adding new products. Add valuable content that would make it difficult for your customer to get through it in a single visit. You must always revise and update your site and see it as an ongoing project so that more visitors would be interested in it. You must expand your product or service line regularly, and this is where affiliate programs come in handy.

10. Establish your online presence.

Use the internet to make different kinds of advertisements and promote your site so that people would know about your site or product. From affiliations and link exchanges. Furthermore, you must register to indexes, directories, guides and yellow pages. Make articles, classified ads, press releases, and participate in discussion forums and newsgroups; make use of the online promotional tools. If you have the money and can afford it advertise with flyers, posters, business cards, direct mailings and newspaper because they are too very effective ways of letting everyone know about your business.

11. Grow your own opt-in list.

Do whatever means possible to make your prospects leave their email addresses. If you have new products, you want to inform your buyers and previous visitors first. Give them your special report, product samples, free ads, or anything to get their email addresses so that you can mail them your newsletter. Your prospects will learn to trust you because of the relationship that you are building and trust will resolve in easy sales.

12. Be patient and consistent in your promotional efforts.

Patient is a factor in a business, and you must also think long term. Success won’t happen in just a matter of one night, it takes a lot of effort and hard work. Strategies your moves by planning ahead and developing the right moves for the right time. The more thought and energy you exert in promoting your business, the better your business will do. Make step by step plans with your business and eventually all your hard work will be rewarded. Attracting serious traffic as soon as possible in to your site will make your efforts and expense validated.

13. Your computer is your most important business tool, make sure it's reliable.

If you want to conduct your business online, then when it comes to your computer setup always choose for the best, even if it cost you extra. Choosing for the fastest modem, memory, processor and other computer gadgets is what I would suggest. And in the end you will be very grateful that you did.

14. Don't rest on your achievements.

In business there’s always a learning process and room for change, and you must always be prepared to do so. So, you must be up to date when it comes to your field of work and in general the world of online marketing. Without the knowledge on of all the above key factors no one can prosper in their business. How to improve your offering or product? Constantly evaluate what your competitors do, compare it with your own efforts.

15. Keep track of your successes and failures and reward yourself when you succeed.

Keep trying different kinds of advertisements, and track all your ads so that you know what worked or not. Use different techniques and approaches to uplift your business.

16. Consistently follow-up with all your customers.

Ask your customers on how they liked the way you served them or how they liked the products, and if there’s anything else they want from you. Always remember that selling a product to an old customer is better than with a new one. And having a good etiquette is a plus to your business. Make it a habit to check your e-mail several times a day, if you neglect your customer, they will not care for your business too. Never allow any e-mail inquiry or complaint to go un-addressed for more than 24 hours! You must be courteous and your responses must be on time, and all your correspondents must be addressed to your customer’s name because it’s all about customer service.

17. Even though it's home-based, it still work, run your business as your business.

If you have your own business, it's very hard to maintain the discipline or work motivation every day. Essential tasks that need to be done might be neglected if you are easily distracted. During work hours never stay up late or do things other than your work. Even though it’s very tempting, but in order for you to become successful with regards to your business, you must do this to accomplish your goals. Make a list of all the things you want to do. Set goals for the week.

18. Don’t give up!!!

Always have in mind what your goals are and never let discouragement slow you down. Remember, that having failures mean that you have the chance to improve as well as from success. If you want to have a reputable business and cultivate a customer you must be willing to wait because it takes time and effort, whether online or offline. In reality, a business often takes six months to a year before you can actually make a profit. The sooner the better but don’t expect it. Always do your best and never slack off too much when it is going your way. You will be successful once you tune all your effort into your business.

Pros and Cons of Outsourcing: a few necessary points every company should know to be on the safe side

It is very important for all companies with an inclination for outsourcing business processes to know the pros cons of outsourcing because this will help them make a better and more informed decision. To know what are the pros cons of outsourcing, please read on.

Pros and Cons of Outsourcing

Outsourcing has come under the media glare and this trend is being severely scrutinized by the media and workers alike in many of the developed nations. The main reason why companies and in particular Online business owners opt for outsourcing is because it helps in cutting costs, reducing operational expenditure and also helps a company to bear the competition and stay ahead in the race. You can enjoy better customer service and superior quality products at dirt cheap rates.

Pros of Outsourcing

• Outsourcing allows you to concentrate on the core competencies.
• Outsourcing results in increased productivity.
• Through outsourcing, you can get access to a host of better and more improved, cutting edge technologies at dirt cheap rates, as I have mentioned just above.
• In most cases there’s no need to spend anything on labor training cost, because these expenses will be covered by the outsourcing service provider.
• You will gain access to more efficient, skilled, better trained and cheaper labor without putting a hair out of place.
• Outsourcing will cut your operational costs by more than 50%.

It is true that in many cases, outsourcing is failing to appease companies and contracts are falling through, but in spite of such set backs and minor hiccups, most companies are going ahead with their outsourcing policies because of the abovementioned benefits.

Cons of Outsourcing

But the situation isn’t really all that green. There is a dark cloud behind the silvery glitter as well.

• When the outsourcing service provider suddenly becomes insolvent or bankrupt or cannot provide services due to labor problems or lack of funds, the company that is outsourcing the service will land in a real soup.
• It is very difficult to suddenly shift the business process in house just like that or find a replacement service provider who will be trustworthy enough.
• Since control of the business processes is transferred to the outsourcing service provider, your company will lose the control over the business processes.
• You cannot command single minded devotion and dedication from outsourcing service providers as you are not the only one who is receiving their services. They are offering their services to many other companies like yours.

With the knowledge on the pros cons of outsourcing that you have gained in this article, you can now decide whether outsourcing will be of any help to you or not. I suggest you start outsourcing as much as possible; it’s the key to growing your business.

It doesn’t matter if you use Wordpress as a blog, as a static site or as a sales page; you need to protect your online business and protecting your Wordpress site isn’t that difficult to do. At the most it would take you 20 minutes and if you make yours secure it can save you a big headache. Fixing a hacked site will take you much longer.

The first step is to make sure your Wordpress version is up to date. Same goes for your theme and plugins. Always update immediately to the latest release, almost every security hole is covered in the latest edition. Secondly you need to subscribe to the Wordpress development blog. Here you can find all the news about the security of Wordpress.

Now you need to install the most essential plugins. These are added to my best Wordpress plugins post too.

WP Back Up – WP back Up let’s you schedule your back up so you don’t have to think about it. We made a Gmail address for it and once a week all our Wordpress backups are send to that address. Don’t delete your backups. It’s wise to save them, if you see that your site is hacked it doesn’t mean that your site was hacked this week.

Login LockDown – Login LockDown records the IP address and timestamp of every failed Wordpress login attempt. You can set the max login retries and the time period in-between logins.

WP Security Scan – This plugin performs a scan of your files, folders and settings. The plugin will show you if your files and folders have the right permissions. He removes the WP ID Meta tag and WP version for you, so that your site can not be identified. It also turns of the DataBase errors so that hackers can see the flaws in your installation.

It’s most likely that you’ll get an error mentioning that your table prefix should not be WP_. If you don’t want to do this yourself because if can be tricky there’s an excellent plugin for this.

WP Prefix Table Changer – The WP Prefix Table Changer plugin helps you hide WP_ table prefix so that the hackers won’t find out that you manage a WP site.

IMPORTANT: make sure you have a complete backup of your site before you use this plugin.

AskApache Password Protection – I have another plugin for you. The plugin is called AskApache Password Protection. AskApache protects your directories with a password and works really simple.

These five plugins and keeping your site up to date are probably the most important steps that you can do to keep your Wordpress site secure but there are several other things you can do.

Remove the admin user. Use your own username with a good password, preferably a long one with letters and digits. And if you have multiple blogs, use variations. I use Roboform as my password manager and the software is absolutely fantastic. The software is downloaded more than 23 million times. They also have a free version and I highly recommended it.

Create an index.html file and place it into your plugins and theme folder. For if you don’t know how to do this; create a txt file called index.txt and upload it to your server and rename it to index.html. I mentioned in it “nothing to see here” but you can leave it blank if you want.

This next tip comes from Matt Cutts, who’s the head of Google’s Webspam team. I don’t use this because I’m online from many different places but you can allow the use of your /wp-admin/ directory per IP address.

This is what Matt Cutts’ .htaccess file looks like.

AuthUserFile /dev/null
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName “Access Control”
AuthType Basic
order deny,allow
deny from all
# whitelist home IP address
allow from 64.233.169.99
# whitelist work IP address
allow from 69.147.114.210
allow from 199.239.136.200
# IP while in Kentucky; delete when back
allow from 128.163.2.27

If you Google for “index wp-admin” you’ll be amazed how many people don’t have their directories protected for indexing. If this is the case for you should create a robots.txt file.

Save a text file with the content something like this. You should add additional directories too, like downloads etc.

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-content/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Disallow: /feed
Disallow: /*.php$
disallow: /*.pdf$

# Google Image
User-agent: Googlebot-Image
Disallow:
Allow: /*

# Google AdSense
User-agent: Mediapartners-Google*
Disallow:
Allow: /*

# Internet Archiver Wayback Machine
User-agent: ia_archiver
isallow: /

# digg mirror
User-agent: duggmirror
Disallow: /

And to close this post; if a hacker really wants to hack your blog they can. If any MS Windows version is hacked before they are sold in the stores, they can hack your blog too. It’s up to you to secure your Wordpress site and make it as difficult as possible. If you have any additions please share your thoughts or recommendations in the comments.

Mind mapping software can make such a huge difference to your productivity that you really should think about making it an essential component of your personal toolkit. I am a huge fan of mind mapping software and couldn’t live without it. Here are ten reasons why you should start using it:

1. It is very easy to customize
The greatest benefit of using mind mapping software is being able to easily control, manipulate and analyze ideas, knowledge and information. This software works by condensing ideas and information into containers that can be rearranged as required. 

2. It can dramatically improve productivity
Independent studies carried out by Mindjet and myself show an average increase in productivity of 20% when using mind mapping software. In other words, one day in five or 73 days per year! What could you achieve if you could save that kind of time? What effect would such an increase in efficiency produce?

3. It can help you become a better, more effective problem solver 
The human brain works by association and mapping information visually makes it easier to see connections between pieces of information that appear unrelated. Also, your brain hates anything being unfinished. So if your brain sees an undeveloped map branch, it kicks in and delivers the thoughts and ideas required to complete it.

4. It helps you to recognize gaps in your information
The brain works visually and by association, so when you begin mapping your ideas and knowledge visually, it is much easier to see where gaps exist in your information; which additional facts or knowledge you need to obtain and even to identify new ‘white space’ ideas that you couldn’t see previously.

5. It provides powerful tools to streamline your thinking
If you move a topic in a mind map, you change its context and by doing so, you change its meaning. This allows you to ‘think about how you think’ and to look at ideas and information from a more detached viewpoint. You can then rearrange and rethink your ideas until they make sense.

6. It helps you understand key issues faster
This was judged to be the most valuable benefit by mind mapping software users. You can quickly do a ‘brain dump’ into your favorite mind mapping software and rearrange topics and ideas until you are satisfied. Each time you rearrange a mind map you change the context of each topic. This is very powerful.

7. It helps you reach better decisions
Mind mapping allows you to record a detailed picture of a problem or opportunity, to brainstorm possible solutions, to assess the advantages and disadvantages of each one by assigning weights to them and to reach a more reasoned, considered decision – frequently faster than by other methods of decision making.

8. It helps you to be better organized
You can use mind maps project management tool. You can create agendas, to do lists, keep all the project information in one place. Mind maps can contain links to documents, folders, files and websites. You can use the time you save looking for documents to achieve great things!

9. It allows you to see the bigger picture
By utilizing the option to expand or contract a mind map, you can alternate between macro and micro views in the same document. This is especially useful in a large or complex project.

10. You can easily identify, prioritize and track key project tasks
Most mind mapping software offers many ways of prioritizing and tracking topics including categorizing by color or flag, adding task information to topics, including start and end dates, % complete and priority.

You can even create a personal dashboard to keep an eye on projects you have delegated and those that must be completed. If you use the Getting Things Done (GTD) management method, you’ll find that some mind mapping programs help you to manage your ‘next actions’ and ‘someday maybe’ tasks more efficiently.

If you are still not using mind mapping software to improve your business productivity, I strongly recommend that you consider it.