Online Surveys - Best Practices

"Creating an online survey might seem simple at first. The latest internet survey software makes it easy to construct an online questionnaire and chart the responses. But this process is not really as simple as it seems. To get the most useful results, you need to become familiar with online survey best practices.

What Do You Need to Know?
The first step in creating an online survey is to decide what you want to know. What is the main thing you want to discover? Start by brainstorming everything you hope to learn from the survey. Then prioritize the topics you have listed. This process will help you decide how much attention to devote to each item in your online questionnaire.

In deciding what you want to learn from your survey, you need to think about how you are going to use the data you collect. There is not much point in gathering information if you don't plan to do anything with it. What actions are you prepared to take to address the responses you receive? Will you create new procedures, start a new training program, and change your marketing plans? To make the most of a survey, you need to ask about subjects you can do something about.

In some rare cases, you might decide that the best response to what you learn from your online survey is to do nothing at all. For example, if you learned that all your employees were completely satisfied with their current health care benefits, you would probably decide to leave well enough alone. Unfortunately, such situations are rare. If you thought everyone was happy with the way things are, you probably wouldn't have bothered to conduct a survey in the first place.

Brief is Better
People have a limited attention span. Ideally, an online questionnaire should take no more than five minutes to complete. In a typical online survey, people answer an average of five multiple-choice questions a minute. This means that you should probably limit your survey to no more than twenty-five questions. (In building online surveys, remember that one open-ended question equals three multiple-choice questions.)

People are more likely to complete a lengthy survey if they are expecting some kind of reward for making it all the way to the end. For example, people might be willing to answer a long list of questions about their health if they expect to be told at the end how long they are likely to live.

To determine how long it will take to complete your survey, try it out on five or six people. Don't tell them they are being timed. If you do, they might run through the questions faster than they normally would. If some people take much longer than others, ask them if there were any questions they didn't understand.

Make Every Question Count
To get the most out of your survey, you have to make every question count. Don't be satisfied with your first draft. Once you have written a question, try asking the same thing in three or four different ways. This exercise forces you to decide if your first attempt is really the best way to get at the information you want to know.

Once you have written a few different versions of a question, you can either pick one or combine parts of several to create the best question possible.

Your questions should be clear, brief and easy to read. Avoid unusual vocabulary or jargon that some people might not understand. Keep sentences short and simple.



Beware of Bias
If you really want to know what people think, you need to be careful not to steer them in a particular direction with your questions.

The most obvious example of biased questionnaires is the ""push polls"" used in some political campaigns. A push poll question might ask, ""Do you think that Candidate X's plan to raise taxes will place an unfair burden on the middle class?"" The intent here is not to solicit anyone's opinion on the candidate's tax plans. The intent is to suggest that the candidate's plans are unfair.

Push polls are obviously slanted, but bias can sneak into your online questionnaire without you noticing it. Sometimes ""loaded"" words can have a strong influence on how people respond to a question. For example, if you ask people whether the check-in procedures at your hotel ""should be improved,"" they are likely to say yes. But wording the question this way doesn't really tell you how happy or unhappy people are with the current procedures. Instead, you might use a rating question, such as, ""Please rate the convenience of our check-in procedures."" Possible responses could range from (1) ""Inconvenient"" to (5) ""Very Convenient.""

Be Specific
Sometimes questions are so general that they are not really useful. For example, consider the question, ""Do you like salmon?"" What does this mean? Do you like the taste of salmon? Do you like the health properties of salmon? Do you like the price of salmon compared to the price of other fish? Do you like salmon more or less than other fish? The question is so general that the responses you get will not really tell you much.

Also be careful to avoid ""double-barreled"" questions, such as, Which of these vehicles do you consider to be the safest and most economical?"" Here you are really asking two questions. People might consider a particular vehicle safe but not economical, and vice versa.

Try Different Question Types
In building an online survey, don't limit yourself to a particular type of question. The types of questions you choose will depend on the subject and the kind of information you want to collect.

Multiple-choice questions are common in online questionnaires. They can be answered quickly and they make it easy to collect and compare data. But sometimes you don't want to limit responses to four or five choices. In those cases, you might ask an open-ended question, such as, ""How can we make visitors to our facility feel more welcome?""

Sometimes multiple choice questions allow the respondent to choose multiple answers. For example, ""Which of the following products are you likely to buy in the next year?"" These questions can give you more useful data for marketing purposes because they are a more accurate reflection of actual consumer behavior.

You might also try using ranking questions, such as, ""Rank the following five vehicles in terms of overall value."" These questions can give you a useful picture of how a product or service matches up with the competition.

Rating questions typically use a tool called a Likert Scale to create a picture of how people feel about something. For example, a Likert Scale question might ask, ""How important do you think it is to have a fingerprint security reader on your laptop?"" Possible responses might range from (1) ""Not Important at All"" to (7) ""Very Important.""

Matrix questions combine two or more variables. For example, a matrix question might ask people to rate five different online travel services on a scale from (1) ""Inconvenient"" to (5) ""Very Convenient.""

Basically, the type of questions you use will depend on what you want to know.

Question Branching
Question branching allows you to build flexibility into your survey. Here's how it works. A question might ask, ""Do you own your home?"" A ""yes"" response will take the person to a new set of questions about home ownership. A ""no"" response will take the person to a new set of questions about renting a house or an apartment.

Branching simplifies questionnaires because respondents don't see questions that are not relevant to them.

The Online Advantage
Online surveys offer a number of advantages over surveys done over the phone, by mail, or in person. They can include a larger sample size at a reasonable price. They make it easier to collect, analyze and present data. And they allow you to use video and images in a way that is just not practical in other types of surveys.

In recent years internet survey software has become very sophisticated. It can help determine proper sample size and evaluate the statistical significance of responses. It can also make it easy to write new questions or modify existing questions from a library of online questionnaires.

The best online survey software makes it easy to create attractive, user-friendly formats. You don't need a background in web design or graphic arts to create a polished, professional questionnaire.

What Kind of Response Can You Expect?
The response you get to your survey depends mainly on the type of survey you are doing and your target audience. For example, if you are doing a customer satisfaction survey, you are likely to get more responses from people at both ends of the satisfaction spectrum - people who are very satisfied and people who are very dissatisfied.

In surveys aimed at a broad population, your response profile will probably mirror the profile of internet users in general. In broad terms, internet users are younger, somewhat more affluent, and more tech savvy than the average adult. They are about evenly divided between men and women. In terms of residence, approximately 54% of internet users are suburban, 30% are urban and 16% are rural.

If you are interested in narrowing this profile, you can include in your survey a few simple questions about age, gender, residence, etc.

Analyzing Survey Responses
Internet survey software makes it easy to analyze responses. The best packages offer a broad range of statistical analysis tools that are simple and easy to use. Advanced users can customize the analysis by modifying the default options to suit their needs. Here are some of the analysis tools that are currently available.

Frequency Distribution simply tells you how many people chose particular responses to a multiple choice question.

Survey Cross-Tab Analysis allows you to see how responses to one question affect another. For example, you could see how what percentage of people who responded ""college graduate"" also responded ""employed at the same job for more than five years.""



Average by Category lets you compare the average response for different categories of people. For example, you could compare the average annual income range for men and women, or for high school graduates and college graduates.

Cross Tab Means is a more sophisticated measurement that allows you to see the relationship among three variables. For example, you could see how highly SAFETY is rated by WOMEN who own a FORD.

Post-Stratification allows you to adjust results to reflect the true population. For example, suppose that 25% of respondents say that they own more than one computer, but you know that the average age of the respondents is 27. Using Census data, post-stratification can give more weight to the responses of older people, so that your survey will be a more accurate reflection of the true population.

Segmentation identifies groups of customers who share similar needs and who demonstrate similar buyer behavior. This allows marketers to target different campaigns to different groups of customers based on their survey responses.

Gap Analysis allows a business to see how large a gap there is between what it is currently offering and what its customers want. For example, a survey might ask customers of an auto repair chain to rate four different things: service, quality, value, and reliability. Survey results show that ""service"" is consistently rated lower than the other factors, so this is the area that offers the greatest opportunity for improvement.

The results you obtain with these tools can be presented in tables, charts or graphs. These displays can be customized to present data in a way that will be most meaningful for everyone who needs to use it.

A Survey for Every Purpose
Online surveys are used extensively for marketing and market research. The online approach works particularly well for marketing surveys because it allows a business to reach a large number of respondents easily and economically. Market research software also makes it easy to analyze responses and adjust marketing plans accordingly.

Online questionnaires have also proved extremely effective for customer satisfaction surveys, advertisement effectiveness surveys, and product evaluation surveys. These tools give businesses a wealth of information about who their customers are, what they want, and how they decide what to buy.

Businesses also use online employee satisfaction surveys to learn how their employees feel about everything from pay grades to parking.

Online Survey Best Practices Yield Best Results
To get the most out of online surveys, follow the best practices outlined here.

Begin by giving some careful thought to what you need to learn from your survey.
Keep your survey brief; make every question count.
Beware of bias.
Experiment with different kinds of questions.
Utilize the powerful analysis tools available with online survey software.


In summary, always remember... online survey best practices yield best results."

Inflation Through Deflation

"It was July of 2008 and oil prices soared to a $147 per barrel. At that time grain prices were going through the roof, the Chinese economy was overheating, the general population of the undeveloped emerging economies were on the verge of revolt, US consumers were angry about having to pay $4.50 per gallon of gasoline, stocks were heading lower every time oil prices were making new highs, and to top it off inflation was the main concern for just about every economic policy maker. My my my, how quickly things have changed. Who'd a thunk it? Oil would drop down to as low as $32 a barrel, the DOW down to the 6000's, copper at less than $1.50 a pound; it appeared that the entire capital market structure was on the verge of collapsing. What a scary time it was not just for investors, but for anyone who had a bank account. I remember having conversations with my friends and family, wondering if their nest eggs would be safe in their 401 K's, IRA's, equity holdings and even in their savings accounts. Panic and fear ruled the world there for a few months.

Then with a few actions from the Federal Reserve, US treasury, revisions in the mark to market accounting rules, and a massive $850 Billion stimulus bill, VIOLA, Confidence was ""restored"". Banks balance sheets improved, toxic assets held by the banks suddenly disappeared (through accounting magic of mark to market), and artificial stimulus was provided through the America Recovery and Investment Act. Unprecedented global government spending was running rampant, 0% interest rates were provided for the banks, and furthermore $1.4 Trillion worth of Quantitative Easing through the purchase of mortgage bonds and US treasuries from the Federal Reserve was enacted. The Dow climbed from the 6443 to as high as 11,205. The CNBC stock cheerleaders were proclaiming a firm ""recovery"" was in place and that we could expect a V shaped recovery.

It never made sense to me. I told my clients that there wouldn't be a V shaped recovery and that I strongly advised them to not get fooled by the hype. Take everything that was said with a grain of salt and just remember who they are and what their functions are in their professional lives. I told my clients that the reason there wouldn't be anything resembling a V shaped recovery in any shape or form was that we had way too many structural headwinds for this to occur.

1. In the housing market the amount of foreclosures are continuing to climb while the Federal foreclosure plan enacted by the president so far has been a huge failure, according to Special inspector general for the financial bailouts, Neil Barofsky, who said the program has not ""put an appreciable dent in foreclosure filings"". Meanwhile Elizabeth Warren, who chairs a separate Congressional Oversight Panel on the bailouts, has said that Treasury's failure to act more quickly could certainly be hurting the recovery. A problem that once was just for subprime mortgages has recently morphed into the ALT A and prime mortgages, causing an even deeper predicament. Now that the $8000. tax credit program has expired in April, we have had the worst home sales numbers in the last two back to back home reports. Without a recovery in the housing market, people don't feel confident as they see in many cases the highest value asset they own deteriorating, therefore curtailing their normal spending habits. Former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, recently warned that a fall in house prices could derail the U.S. recovery and trigger a double-dip recession.

2. Credit, which is the life line for many businesses, is nowhere to be found. I've argued that it isn't so much a problem of lack of liquidity as much as it is a problem of lack of credit worthy borrowers and aggregate demand for domestic goods and services, and if you couple that with all the toxic debt that banks are still holding on their balance sheets coming to a standstill, this is what you get; a severe lack of issuance of credit. Until the labor market markedly improves and commercial and residential properties are on safer ground, banks simply won't lend, period.



3. A structurally damaged labor market. Many of the jobs that were lost during this downturn were in the construction and manufacturing base and many of those jobs won't be coming back for a very long time. The overhang in residential and commercial properties is enormous; the demand for goods was crushed, which in turn devastated manufacturing jobs. Even now, with prospects of the manufacturers slightly improving (mainly due to growth from emerging economies), jobs still aren't being offered, and a big reason for that has to do with technology and spending on equipment and software. As John Ryding, the chief economist at RDQ Economics stated, ""You can understand that businesses don't have to pay health care on equipment and software, and these get better tax treatment than you get for hiring people. If you can get away with upgrading capital spending and deferring hiring for a while, that makes economic sense, especially in this uncertain policy environment."" The growth from our economy simply isn't growing fast enough to meaningfully improve the unemployment rate, as even the chairwoman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer said, ""We need 2.5 percent growth just to keep the unemployment rate where it is. If you want to get it down quickly, you need substantially stronger growth than that. That's what I've been saying for the last several quarters, and that's why I've been hoping that we'll please pass the jobs measures just sitting on the floor of Congress.""

4. State and local budgets are looking horrendous, without federal aid over 500,000 jobs are going to be eliminated through 2011. In this political climate, the will to continue to spend and bail out state and local governments, much less anyone else just isn't there. It looks as if they will be going through their own very painful deleveraging process.

5. Uncertainty for corporations and small businesses due to tax hikes and burdensome regulations from the health care law and Wall Street Reform. There is a reason why corporations are sitting on $1.8 Trillion and why small businesses aren't hiring and if it wasn't already difficult enough for these entities to hire people as it is, government policies and their incessant need to demonize corporations and their profits are making it that much tougher for them to do so. The crew from PIMCO, who are the largest bonds dealers in the world, and home of the brightest economic minds, nailed it when they coined the term THE NEW NORMAL in 2009, which is defined as slower growth worldwide (more so in the G-3 than in emerging markets), higher unemployment, more de-leveraging, more regulation, and a weaker U.S. dollar over the next 3-5 years. I remember it was just last year when the president's top economic advisor Larry Summers disagreed with PIMCO's assessment of our economy entering into the ""New Normal"" period. It looks now as if Mr. Summers was dead wrong! El Erian, the man who coined the New Normal, compared Summers' view of the U.S. economy to a three-stage rocket ship attempting to escape the pull of Earth's gravity. The first stage is government spending, followed by inventory reductions and consumer demand.
Summers ""has this concept of escape velocity,"" El-Erian said Oct. 9 2009 at a meeting of financial-market professionals in Toronto. ""We don't have enough to achieve escape velocity.""

6. The 800 pound gorilla in the room is our National Debt risk. Look what happened when little old Greece had their problems; then it looked as if the entire European Union was going to come crashing down. People were talking about the Euro currency not surviving, and may I remind everyone that even though it appears that things are back in control again, that situation is far from over. It will re emerge again as all they did was buy some time and all these countries are now just beginning a very painful deleveraging process through austerity measures by cutting budgets, pensions, jobs and benefits that will certainly weigh on the entire Euro zone's growth prospects which means their ability to pay back their own debt will diminish. Considering that 30% of all of our exports go to Europe, and their economies will undoubtedly slow down markedly, this will have a direct impact on our exports.

One day, just the same way the bond vigilantes (bond holders) held these southern European economies accountable for their reckless spending binges; they will undoubtedly turn their ire towards us if we don't act in a timely manner. And who here has confidence that Congress or our president can do what it takes to get our fiscal house in order? Not me. I truly believe that many of our elected leaders, or for that matter many of the rest of us, know the consequences of this risk. Let's put it this way; it basically would be like a run on a bank, except it is a run on the United States. Rates would soar, it would punish consumers, corporations, small businesses, the dollar would plummet, global confidence would fall apart, and there would be a whole new round of systemic risk that would shut the capital markets out which would affect every single securitized investment on the planet. One of the few investments that would gain value would be gold, and it would most likely soar 3, 4, and 5 times its value in a relatively short period of time.

The point of the preceding really hasn't been to highlight the risks of sovereign default or the fear of one happening, but more so to give you an idea of where our economy stands and the challenges we face moving forward. The latest GDP growth figures for the second quarter shows that our economy has been slowing down for three consecutive quarters.

PIMCO's chief, Bill Gross (another one of my favorite economists by the way) said deficit spending by governments that seek to maintain artificial levels of consumption ""can be compared to flushing money down an economic toilet."" He went on to say, ""Deficit spending will be unsuccessful because under the ""new normal"" scenario, deleveraging, re-regulation and de- globalization produces structural headwinds that lead to slower growth and lower-than-average investment returns."" As I've noted, our problems with the labor market are structural, and the idea of spending to fill the gap just isn't working. I want you to think of the Stimulus Strategy as a bridge. On one side of the bridge is pre-recession on the other side is the recovery. The bridge is the stimulus and the idea was to build that bridge long enough to lead us to recovery. The problem is that the distance between the two is much further than most economists, and more importantly, the White house, had woefully anticipated, AND that we don't have the resources ($$) to build a bridge long enough to get us from one side to the other. Now that stimulus funds are dissipating and wearing off, and state and local government jobs will be laying off thousands of workers, there is a very good chance that over the next 2 quarters our GDP growth will be around the 1% -1.5% area which most likely means the real unemployment rate will go higher. So what will this administration or the Federal Reserve do to try to get this economy going in the right direction in a meaningful manner?

Congress and the White House have virtually spent all of their political capital and don't have the will to push through another stimulus bill, and if they do it will be very limited, and I am certain that it would be destined to fail simply because they just don't understand that there is no quick fix solution and their attempts of staving off this downturn are ill-conceived. So that leaves the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve has already stepped up in an enormous way by lowering the Fed funds rate to 0%-.25%, with $1.4 Trillion of Quantitative easing through the purchase of Mortgage bonds and US treasuries; essentially printing money to buy our own debt with the purpose of providing more liquidity to the capital markets and lower mortgage rates. In regards to its effectiveness, that can be debated, for both sides. It has brought down rates and it has provided liquidity, but it hasn't increased lending in an appreciable manner, and that folks, is what it's all about.



Here's what I believe what the Federal Reserve will do, and I believe it will happen sometime in the second half of the year. The options are:

1. Buy more assets. The Fed could buy more mortgage-backed securities, or since its holdings of MBS are so large, it could buy more long-term Treasury securities. Even James Bullard, a voting Federal Reserve board member and perennial inflation hawk, recently wrote a piece backing this idea if conditions continue to worsen.

2. Deepen its commitment to hold rates low for a long time. The Fed could rephrase that promise to provide additional guarantees or rock-bottom rates even when the recovery begins to take off.

3. Stop paying interest on excess reserves. The Fed could try to spark more lending by cutting the interest rate it pays banks on reserves they hold at the central bank from the current.25%.

4. Open a new lending facility. The Fed could open or keep open a lending facility to increase credit availability for any sector of the economy it wants to help out such things as commercial real estate.

5. Stop shrinking its huge balance sheet. It would be a more subtle approach as opposed to continuing more asset purchases.

6. The Fed could change its inflation target from 2% to 4%.

All these strategies carry heavy inflationary risks, but the fear of deflation is greater than that of inflation. When the Federal Reserve made their announcement of the $1.4 Trillion mortgage and Treasury purchases, the value of the dollar dropped 11% and the price of gold increased by 25% and silver 55% in a six month time period. Considering that we are now entering into the strongest time of the year for precious metals and we anticipate the dollar to get hammered because of these actions, we strongly advise our clients to increase their precious metal holdings.

I honestly don't see how these actions will help spur bank lending; as noted earlier the problem isn't liquidity or rates, it is confidence from the banking sector to lend. The risks of expanding the Fed's balance sheet are tremendous. The size of the Fed's balance sheet has exploded; it's never ever been as close to as large as it is today. Every time there has been a large expansion of the money supply from central banks, inflation has always followed. Now the whisper on the street is that it Federal Reserve could expand its balance sheet by another trillion dollars.

The money supply that was created can sit there for quite some time, with latent price inflation. If banks don't lend money, then it doesn't matter how much money was created, there will be very little inflation. In order for inflation to come about, the money that was printed has to circulate into the real economy. However, the more money that is out there being held by the banks, the more POTENTIAL inflationary implications and risks exist. Psychology from consumers and banks can suddenly change, and the ""velocity"" of that money can release its way into the economy at an alarming rate, catching policy makers off guard, allowing inflation to take hold.

To make things worse, we see this scenario unfolding within the next few years, WITH a high unemployment rate, most likely around 7-8%, with GDP growth in the 1-2% area. This would be a very bad development for the economy known as stagflation, which can be defined as low growth with high inflation. There wouldn't be too many investments that would thrive in this scenario other than precious metals. Investors should protect themselves by diversifying, and precious metals should be a part of your investment strategy. Once again, I thank you for the time you have taken to read this newsletter; I hope it helps."

Predictions + Commentary For the 2010 Financial Markets

"We're BACK! I hope everyone had a great Holiday... This year should be a great trading year and we will be adding more content, more trades, more educational tips + advice and other helpful items as the year goes on.

This week's report will be a special edition with our annual commentary intertwined with our weekly commentary below.

S&P 500 / DOW / NASDAQ: As we look at the rise off the bottom from the lows of March 2009, a period of pullback/profit taking will be coming. There is no way that the equity market can fundamentally keep going higher without a healthy profit taking pullback. We find it quite amazing that the market has managed to rise even though the country has had all the turmoil in the economy that the U.S. has seen over the past 18 months or so - perhaps a buy the rumor and sell the news situation??? Perhaps all the sellers left and only buyers with itchy fingers and wads of cash in their pocket were left hanging around...who knows... time will tell - it always does.

We do think that we have seen the bottom in the overall Stock Market from the lows of March of 2009 and that the economy will improve from the misery that we saw in 2008 + 2009 and perhaps the market reacted to that, however the market cannot continue its huge move higher without a major pause or a bubble larger than the one that developed 10 years ago will be put in place - which will end badly for the bullish cause. Keep in mind that the DOW moved about 4000 points in about 9 months.

With that being said, how would we handle this? On a short-term trading program - we would ride the Bull Train until the Bull shows us that he has no more horns left, however... we will take profits quicker than normal on our bullish plays and use relatively tighter stop losses. We wouldn't commit hugely to any long term bull trend setups. On a long term portfolio situation - we would start to move off any margin in our long term portfolios (starting now) and we would take profits on any ""iffy"" stocks or equity investments if we were in them. We then would seriously consider buying put options that would cover/help protect our total portfolio on any major weekly bearish signals/setups that showed up on the charts. If the weekly bearish setups start to form a solid bear setup on the monthly charts we would start going to cash (not to 100% cash but do some ""healthy trimming down) with continued protection from put options (or the equivalent derivative trade). We aren't talking a total capitulation as we don't think 2010 will be a total bear year and we would not be shocked if we ended the year marginally higher but the RISK is there AND there is a decent chance that the market will pullback some time in the 1st qtr and linger all year on the bearish side of things.

There is talk out there that if the economy continues its recovery, corporate profits improve and with other factors getting better that those items will continue to fuel the rise in the US stock markets... however, others say that has been priced in (possibly prematurely so) and that valuations can only get so high before stocks become too pricey. Another concern will be how will the markets react to a rising US Dollar? The Dollar has firmed up and it looks like the bear has been tamed or at least slowed down in that market.

The charts, experience and common sense tells us that the US Stock market will finish lower than 10500 on the DOW by this time next year (how far lower - depends on a lot of factors - too hard to tell at this point)... However - you shouldn't fight the BULL or major trends too aggressively... Play it smart and be agile and you should be OK!



Interest Rate Futures / Mortgage Interest Rates: The 10 year T-notes Futures are in a bearish trend on the Weekly Charts. We think that the 30 year fixed mortgage rate lows from 2009 will not be breached this year and if the 10 year T-Note Yield ($TNX) breaks 4.25 to the upside (the symbol $TNX and the 10 year T-Note Futures have an inverse relationship) that is a confirmation for the bearish cause in the mid and long side of the debt/interest rate futures market. The country is still mired in a national economic situation and the government's actions are still a wild card but we don't see 2009 highs being broke in 2010 on the 10 year T-Note or 30 year T-Bond Futures.

US DOLLAR (Symbol: DX): The Dollar's bottom looks like it's getting put into place. There is a higher low on the monthly charts and we are waiting for the Weekly charts as well as constructive daily action to give us a strong weekly signal before we declare that the bear is dead for this market... however, it has firmed up quite a bit and November's low must hold for us to consider this firming up to be a legitimate bottom forming action.

Foreign Currency (FOREX + Foreign Currency Futures): With the Dollar firming up the FOREX market will be interesting this year.

Quick NOTE: The commentary below will be talking about the actual FOREX currency... Keep in mind - Forex's symbol can have the USD listed first or second in the currency pair which is a major detail. Currency Futures have the symbol setup by having the Currency listed first against the US Dollar - at least the 6 that we trade do... keep in mind - when it comes to charts, trade direction, etc - there may be an inverse situation when comparing FOREX with Currency Futures. This situation occurs because of how the symbol is created and the implications of it.

In some currencies like the Swiss Franc... the Forex Market has it USD/CHF - ie. US Dollar over the Swiss Franc but the US Futures markets have it setup as CHF/USD - so the charts are inverse. The Canadian Dollar and Japanese Yen are also like that - where the charts on the Futures are ""flipped upside down"" in comparison to the FOREX Charts. However, the Australian Dollar, Euro and British Pound in the Forex market have charts which look nearly identical to their counterpart in the Futures market. Just keep this in mind as you may see at times that we may ""Go Short"" the Swiss FOREX and then post the futures equivalent trade which would be a LONG in the Swiss Futures. However, if it was the Euro - you could go long (or short) in either for the same trade - the FOREX pair and the Currency Futures contract trade in the same direction for the Euro, Aussie and BP. It's not as complicated as it may sound so email us if you have any questions. By the way, most traders don't trade both markets in the same currency at the same time... some traders trade currency futures and some trade in the FOREX market.

Australian Dollar: Looks Stable and Strong... May see some pullback in the recent uptrend but no major deterioration unless the US

British Pound: Looks Bearish - if the Lows of October 2009 break - the confirmation is in. Volatile markets are ahead.

Canadian Dollar: This looks Bearish and we don't see any let up in that... the best a bullish Canadian dollar player could hope for is choppy action at this point.

Euro: Tough to call at this point in time. Our take in this currency is that it's Nuetral and that feeling will turn moderately bearish if the December lows of 2009 are broken.

Japanese Yen: This market is in a bearish trend... We see an attempted firming up process starting to materialize but it's not there yet.

Swiss Franc: Much like the Yen, this market is in a bear trend, although unlike the Yen - we do see a decent formation of a bottom getting put in place. If the Swiss can break 2009's lows then all bets are off but this currency is trying to move higher.

Crude Oil: Tough call on this market. A bit volatile... The monthly charts look neutral to me with a bullish bias. The weekly charts point that another good upleg will begin if and when the highs of October of 2009 are broken. Push come to shove - this market probably moves higher.

Grains Futures: With the US Dollar firming up - this market may get a bit wild. I don't have a clear trend indication at this point on the Grain Future complex. The Weekly charts are slightly bullish and the Monthly Charts are neutral (with slight bearish feel) on Corn, Soybeans, Soybean Meal and Soybean Oil markets. Wheat looks weaker than Soybean or Corn at this moment in time. If December's lows break, I would lean towards the bearish side of the Wheat market. The weekly charts on Wheat are looking like this market is trying to get stronger but no confirmation yet.

If the grains continue to chop around in the ""neutral area"" and the Dollar heats up and starts really moving forward - the grain market will probably move lower. There is a lot of ""if"" in this complex so we would stick to short-term trading if we were you and play the market accordingly. If we get a confirmation through the year on a true Bull or Bear trend - we will obviously point it out in our weekly commentary.

Metals Futures:

Gold Futures:Will Gold continue to move higher? That is the trillion dollar question... Unlike the US Stock market where we feel that the highs for 2010 are probably in for the next 12 months or at the most - aren't far from their current levels... it's a tough call on Gold. The Monthly Charts tell us that this metal is due for a pullback however we can't say that it wont be higher this time next year. We do not see any major weakness, outside of ""normal"" profit taking in this market in the near future.

Silver Futures: Not as strong as Gold... Potential Double top on the Monthly Charts... We are neutral with a slight bullish bias on the Silver market for 2010. However, we only still hold a bullish bias as the trend is still in place and not because we see a chart that will continue higher with strong setups and constructive action.

Copper Futures: This market is in a super strong uptrend... one must think a pause is near but we wouldn't ""short"" this market at this point... you may eventually catch the top or a nice reactionary move lower but you are going to get beat up along the way.

Platinum Futures: Bullish Trend... We don't see any bearish indications... should trade in a ""normal"" bullish uptrend on the weekly charts for 2010 - which generally are 3 to 5 week up trends with an occasional 2 to 3 week pause/pullback. The last 13 months or so only saw 2 red bars on the monthly charts so one would think a profit taking period is near, but like copper - you may get hurt trying to find it.



Real Estate: The real estate market is bottoming out however interest rates are heading higher... The good news is that we don't feel that they will shoot up and mortgage rates are coming off a really low bottom - interest rates should still remain attractive to consumers this year.

2010 should be a decent real estate market and if you have the cash or credit to use - we would recommend looking for bargains to buy in the residential real estate market. How the summer real estate market performs will be a really good indicator on the overall health of the US Real estate markets. Many large markets across the country do well during the summer and many times it's a great indicator on the health of the overall real estate market.

Some regions of the country still have some additional room to move a bit lower and there are still many places with inventory issues due to the foreclosures that continue to hit the market but buyers are coming back and the lenders seem to be loosening a bit. HOWEVER, keep an eye on FHA mortgages - we wouldn't be surprised to see the FHA mortgage market seeing some major negative news coming out this year. Lenders did tighten up in 2009 but the FHA mortgage market picked up some of the slack of the type of mortgage clients that people said shouldn't have gotten a loan but got one anyways through Fannie Mae in past years... ie. FHA was giving loans in 2009 to people who may not be able to adequately afford the home if using the standards that people said Fannie should have been held to in previous years... if the job market doesn't improve and the economy has another major misstep (or the recover stalls badly) FHA may take some heat and FHA mortgage defaults may be the financial news of 2010! The good news for this FHA situation is that it looks like FHA/Lenders have taken steps to tighten up the guidelines in a fairly reasonable way over the last few months... will it be enough or done in time??? We shall see.

Bottom line - if you need to buy a home to live in and can afford it - we would buy in 2010. If you are looking into buying real estate as an investment - we would start looking for deals and if the price seems right, location is great and the deal seems good - we would go ahead and buy the rental house. We think that the worst is behind us... the market probably has 1 to 3 years left to fully be out of the woods but the national US Real Estate Market probably has bottomed out and if it hasn't... it's really close to it. The problem if you wait is that no one will waive a white flag and tell you its OK to buy a home... and by the time you realize it - the market will have moved higher... The risk of missing the move is higher than the possible loss of doing nothing in our opinion - so we think it's a cautious buy at this time - with the caution being that you need to buy the home right and in the price range that you can afford!

We will make this article Free for all, if you want to check out our normal weekly reports with specific trades using easy to follow entries and exits - sign up for our Free Trial at InsideTheMarket."

No Product? So What - You Can Still Make Money - Check This Out

"When looking to the Internet for ways to make money online, it doesn't take too long before you realize what a vast array of choices there are. Blogging for profit, pay per click advertising, article marketing as an affiliate, and CPA offers are only just a few business models out there for you to choose from.

How do you sort through it all? Where do you begin? It's overwhelming - even for the most focused individual.

Yet for those who are determined and have an entrepreneurial spirit, the Internet is wide open. All you really need is a product to promote in a niche with a demographic that's willing to pay for their consumables. The great thing is that you don't need to have your own product to make a very nice living online.

You do this through affiliate marketing programs. With affiliate marketing, you can choose from a vast array of products to promote online - all with a sales page already set up for you. All you need to do is find a way to drive traffic to that site using a specific hyperlink that gives you credit for a commission.

Affiliate Marketing - Explained

Affiliate marketing is when you generate targeted traffic to a particular website selling a product for which you get commission on each and every sale. You don't own the product (although later we'll discuss creating your own product or service and recruiting affiliates to sell for you), but you come up with creative ways to connect a prospective customer to the landing page.

Here's an example of how affiliate marketing works:

Bob the Marketer decides to sell a popular ""how to get a girl"" info product. He heads to the Internet, goes to the ClickBank Marketplace and looks up the dating topic. There, he is presented with a choice of maybe a dozen different products to sell and decides on one whose sales page and statistics prove it converts well.

He clicks ""get hop link,"" which incorporates his own unique ClickBank ID into the URL. He can then take the new URL and includes it somewhere in his sales funnel. When someone reads his sales material (an article, a pay per click ad, a YouTube video which pre-sells the product), and they click through to the sales page and buys it, Joe gets the affiliate commission - usually 50-80% of the price of the product.

Of course, Joe wasn't limited to selling products from ClickBank. There are other affiliate marketing programs out there. Commission Junction, PayDotCom.com and Share-a-Sale are just three of the many other companies that have an affiliate marketplace.

Large websites like Amazon.com and Wal-Mart and others have affiliate programs, too. Just about anything you can think of is available through an affiliate program, including:

• Thousands of eBooks and e-courses on hundreds of different subjects

• Software

• Internet services like autoresponders, keyword tools and hosting companies

• Membership sites

• Video rental (think Netflix)

• Tangible books, videos and music

• Electronics and computers

• Health and beauty items...and more

As you can see, affiliate sales offer an amazing opportunity for both the new and the seasoned Internet marketer alike.

Why Is Affiliate Marketing a Profitable Business?

Affiliate marketing has amazing profit potential. Think about it this way: everything is already set up for you - a great product with enormous profit potential. If you want to sell exercise equipment, you can earn a nice commission from Amazon.com or even Wal-Mart. That can add up very fast, depending on how you drive traffic to the main site.



There is plenty of opportunity to profit during the holiday time. You can take advantage of the shopper's need to find toys and other gifts by promoting them through a website or small ad. The customer gets what they want - convenient shopping - and you get what you want - a commission for leading them to the sale.

As discussed earlier, info products have great profit potential, because most affiliate programs pay upwards of 50 to 80% on the total sale. The average ClickBank product, for example, pays more than $25 per sale.

The beauty of info products is that they're digital and are easily downloaded within minutes - which is something that's very appealing to your potential customer - instant gratification. The sooner they can have the product, the more likely they are to spend money for the information.

Are you into the multi-billion dollar health niche? You can find just about any vitamin, supplement or tonic that fits. You know that the Internet Marketing niche is hot, but you're wondering how to break into it and grab a piece of the pie.

There are literally hundreds of top selling affiliate marketing programs on ClickBank. All you have to do is pick one and find a way to promote it. You don't have to be the guru people turn to in order to learn about Internet marketing - you can just provide links to solutions that would solve their problems.

What Does a Good Affiliate Program Offer You?

Affiliate marketing is ideal when you really want to get into a niche and start making profits sooner than it might take you to put together your own product and subsequently come up with sales copy. With affiliate marketing, the meaty part of the sales funnel is already mostly set up for you.

By sales funnel, I mean this: Starting from the time your potential customer finds your site via the search engines or through browsing the 'net - until he or she clicks the order button.

It looks something like this:

The customer types in his search terms in search engine (or is browsing and sees an ad) and clicks through. In the case of the search engine, this brings up a page of top ranking pages for the terms as well as paid for ads (PPC). The customer clicks on one or more of the choices until they find what they need.

In the case of an ad, he clicks through and he lands on either your squeeze page and signs up on your email list - or he lands on one of the other online pages you've set up to facilitate a sale.

From here, he may choose to click on any one of several affiliate links leading to the sales page. He decides to buy - you get a commission - he gets his product.

That is a rather general sales funnel. As you can see, with affiliate marketing, at the very least there is the sales page and product ready to fit into your plans. Those are two of the biggest hurdles for a marketer to face, and this part is done for you.

One of the most daunting tasks for an infopreneur is writing a cash-pulling sales letter. Creating a sales page is an art - and a well written one can make its owner thousands of dollars over its lifetime or in a single day.

They can cost many hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars to have written for you by someone who is an expert copywriter. That can be intimidating at best for some.

That fact, plus the task of coming up with a desirable product, is a big mountain to face. Creating an infoproduct is both a simple process and a huge responsibility. Writing may not be your first and best talent.

You might know that a particular niche is a great source of income, but don't want to take the time, right now, to put together a full blown report. A good info product with staying power in the marketplace has been well-researched and is thorough in its content.

With affiliate marketing, that issues is solved. Your only job is to complete the first part of the sales funnel (generating traffic) with one or more of the following steps:

• Capture the traffic though PPC advertising

• SEO optimized articles on ezine directories, Squidoo, Hub Pages, and other web 2.0 properties

• Classified ads

• Banner ads

• Blog posts

• Forum marketing

Then send the traffic to a squeeze page where you offer a nice 5-7 page report for free on the topic of your niche in exchange for their name and email address. This ensures you'll be able to market to them after the initial sale.

Or, you can send them to your website or blog where they can learn more about what you're selling if you feel they may need a more intense pre-sell regimen. This is often the case if you find a great product to promote as an affiliate, but the product owner's sales copy is weaker than expected.

As an affiliate marketer, your main focus is on getting the sales copy in front of the prospect's eyes. You have to get inside your potential buyer's mind and thinking process - what actually motivates them to seek your product in the first place? What words or phrases do they use in their search engine journey to find the information they need?

A good affiliate program has the materials provided by the owner of the product or service to make your job easier. It will have many of the pieces ready to fit into a the marketing funnel - including pre-made banner ads, a list of suggested keywords, a short report to offer as a viral freebie, PLR articles and a pack of ready to use email messages.

What You Need to Know to Begin Affiliate Marketing

While affiliate marketing does offer a shorter sales process for you, there are still some things you need to know before you can just slap up some site, drive traffic and get decent conversions.

For one, you need to know how to pick products. You'll need to do some homework. That involves deciding on the niche you wish to pursue and then researching where to find the product or service that you want to promote within the niche. Some do it in reverse and will look for a hot selling product and then find ways to get a piece of the niche profits.

A good affiliate marketer knows his or her market - and part of the way they get to know them is through visiting the niche forums and paying attention to the questions that keep coming up.

At some point, you'll want to do some keyword research, too. Get inside your prospect's mind so that you know what terms to focus your campaign on. A good affiliate program may have these listed for you to help make your job easier, but you can find words and phrases other affiliates aren't using and rank very high for those in search engines like Google.

Then, once you've chosen your product, you need to be signed up in the affiliate program. This is fairly simple for some companies like ClickBank or Amazon, but others have a more involved sign up process.

Next, you'll want to grab your unique affiliate hyperlink for the product, which ensures that you get paid on any sales made through your referrals.



Now the fun part - getting targeted traffic to the affiliate sales page! This involves writing articles to publish on ezine directories or Squidoo or having PPC ads pointing people directly to the main sales site.

For products or services that lend themselves well to ongoing sales, like weight loss, dating, make money online, etc., you'll certainly want to set up an email capture page (squeeze page) which will involve you getting an autoresponder service.

There are so many ways to catch and drive traffic that are beyond the scope of this report, so do your homework. With so many choices, you're sure to find the perfect product to promote - and the best traffic tactic to use with your niche prospects.

Would you like to be on the other side of the coin? A product owner who has an army of affiliates working to funnel traffic to you in exchange for a percentage of the sale? It's easy, once you know how.

Affiliate Marketing and Your Own Product

There are two sides to affiliate marketing: being an affiliate marketer as we have just discussed and selling a product that others can promote as affiliates for you.

You become the product creator.

You come up with a sales page.

You design an affiliate program that makes selling your product profitable to others.

Aside from having a top quality info product that caters to a hungry market, you also need to invest time or money into creating a sales letter that makes it impossible for visitors to pass by.

There is a two-fold benefit to having your own product: you profit from initial sales, plus you profit on the commissions from affiliate links strategically placed inside your own product.

If you want to make your affiliate program really shine and make it enticing for affiliates, then you need to offer the following:

• Review copy of the product

• Sales letter that you're testing, tracking and tweaking

• Banner ads of various sizes and color schemes

• Text link ads for them to embed on their blog or website

• Free viral report they can use to attract prospects for you

• A week's worth or more of autoresponder messages they can use to email their list

• Five or more articles that fit the niche and are ready to use in article directories and other hot spots online

• PPC ads that are ready for them to go live with

• Regular interaction and encouragement with affiliate marketers, including contests that offer prizes to top affiliates.

Also, when you price your product, make sure you set the commission so that it's generous to affiliates. Many affiliates are looking for at least a $20 affiliate commission. The higher the price point of the product, the lower the percentage you can offer to affiliates. For instance, they would love 10% of a $1,000 product ($100) over 50% of a $100 product ($50).

Affiliate marketing is a great way for online entrepreneurs to make a great income without shouldering the full burden of a marketer. It may take a little homework to find the right niche and the right product, but add to that your own determination to make it work and affiliate marketing could be the answer to putting your day job to rest - once and for all."

7 Internet Marketing Secrets That the Internet Marketing Guru's Will Not Share With You

"You know, it never ceases to amaze me how much people want there Home Business, MLM, AND Internet Business to succeed, but they will never seek out the proper expertise and Knowledge that will Turn there Business around and bring change to their lives.

Even when the world could be falling to pieces around them, because of there 'Old Ways' of doing things... humans will still continue to HANG ON for dear life, and to their ideas or habits, out of pure fear of the unknown.

The sad part is (for those who do that), the other side of that equation are usually $35,000 Per Month, Online Part Time"".

The fact of the matter is, if you are going to succeed in any business On-line, You must first be willing to do two Things:

1) Be willing to try New Thing and Tactic, if the one you have right now is not working.
2) At the beginning stages of your internet or Home based business, you must be willing to invest as much time as possible. You must be willing to research and find out what is out there that is working for other Internet Marketers in you Niche.

This Article is meant to help reduce your mistakes and stop you from wasting your Money, Time, AND Resources, buying Internet Marketing programs from Guru's that hardly know what Internet Marketing is all about. Before we continue, I want to take a little time, to thank you upfront for reading this ARTICLE. I'm sure you will enjoy it and find it beneficial to your business. But first, and foremost who am I? and Why should you even listen to me? What can I truly offer to help you and your business?

I was involved in Internet Marketing for a number of years barely making ends meets; in fact, my Expenditures outweighed my profits by a few thousand dollars over the course of three+ years. No matter what I was told at meetings, /trainings, from On-line Guru's I've Subscribed to or, from the company who's product am selling; nothing, was working. I was told to i.e. make a list of 100 people I know (family, friends, colleagues), maintain your company website, hand out 5 DVD's every day with sufficient brochures to supplement, business cards, etc., etc., etc. These techniques were fruitless and frustrating. Lots of time and energy was invested for little or no results. Nothing worked for me, and it hardly worked for anyone I knew. That's why I am providing this information today. I spent thousands of dollars on tools that always over-promised and under-delivered (and I have a closet full of souvenirs to remind me...ugh!). So I want to give you some great information to help you put some cash back in your pocket OR before you spend it unwisely. Beyond this article, I will be discussing many other subjects and strategies to help you grow you business. Things like:

-- A functional outline for the online marketing of your products and services

-- How to use the 3 greatest business growth tools that you have at your fingertips to your greatest advantage

-- How to position yourself as an expert in your product or service

-- How to find THOUSANDS of people that are demonstrating a need and desire for what you have

-- How to master copywriting skills that will have your prospects watering at the mouth

...But before I get ahead of myself, the first step is to Show you 7 thing you can do now to Place you Home Business, MLM, Network Marketing and Internet Marketing Business on the Fast Track. Enjoy it, and stay tuned for more great Knowledge information to turbo-charge your business.

""7 Simple No-Fail Methods To Earn Yourself Towering 5-Figure Monthly Commission Checks And Rake In Piles Of Cold Hard Cash...Marketing "" Whatever You Want!"" Does that sound impossible? At least a little unbelievable? It's not. It's more than realistic, even conservative. And I'm about to show you why.

1. Target Your Market! Since you can't rely on your warm market for long-term growth, who are you supposed to talk to about your business? The answer: Your target market. Who is your target market? It depends on what you are marketing. Your target market are those people who are most likely to buy from you. You have to resist the temptation to be too general in the hopes of getting a larger slice of the market. That's like firing 10 bullets in random directions instead of aiming just one dead center on the mark - expensive and dangerous if ignored, lucrative and rewarding if heeded. Here are some questions to get you started:

o Are your target customers male or female?
o How old are they?
o Where do they live? Is geography a limiting factor for any reason?
o What do they do for a living?
o How much money do they make? This is most significant if you're selling relatively expensive or high-end products. Most people can afford a $20 bottle of health juice. You can't say the same of a $500 anti-aging treatment.
o What other aspects of their lives matter? If you're marketing a telecom service, your target market probably already have some sort of phone service.
o What is important to them? What are their fears, hopes, desires? Once upon a time, business owners thought it was enough to market their products or services to ""18- to 49-year olds."" Those days are a thing of the past. These days, you have to be specific, and you have to understand what your market looking for.



2. Stop Selling -- Start Sorting It's easy to slip into the habit of convincing people that what we have is legit. We are taught that we have to ""sell"" everyone on our product and opportunity. We have to beg, plead, and follow up endlessly, until they finally relent and say ""yes"". That's a great way to burn out fast. Convincing and selling take a lot of time and energy. It's a painstaking process, and it's very uncomfortable for most people to try and ""sell"". I hate selling. I never sell. I sort. Here's the difference: Selling is trying to create demand, and convince people that they need what you have. Sorting is about finding people that are already interested, and simply creating the urgency to buy from you. Sorting is fun. And it pays much better than selling.

So how do you sort? You sort by filtering your prospects. In your Sales funnel, you design different ""check points"" that require a prospect to take an action before proceeding on to the next phase of the sales funnel. That process weeds out the people that are NOT interested, and leaves you with the people that are interested. When starting, the top of your sales funnel should be a prospecting script that screens and qualifies your prospects. If you design a script that sorts out people that are curious from people who are serious, then you can qualify your prospects, and put the odds in your favor that you are spending your time with a future associate. Really, prospecting is all about sorting, about qualifying, and about spending your time with people that truly want what you have. At this point, you've probably been taught to talk to anyone who will listen to you about your business opportunity, and that's the wrong mindset to have. You should never spend your time with someone unless you know that they are interested or have the tendency to purchase what you are offering. This is why your friends and family doesn't work -- you don't qualify them, and they don't respect your time.

Most of them don't have the heart to tell you flat out that they aren't interested, because they probably care about you. They just don't want anything to do with your business. That's a good thing! There are too many other qualified people to be speaking with that would like to do business with you. Besides, once you are successful, most friends and family members will actually approach you, and want to know how to get involved. Let's say you are marketing a travel service and business opportunity. You could use a very simple script that goes through, qualifies your prospect, and then you can ask them something like ""if I could show you a way where you could travel to Hawaii for free or even get paid to travel, would that be worth about 30 minutes of your time to learn how to do that?"" Then, you know that they have an interest in your business, and in your service.

3. Leverage The Internet OK -- so the Internet gets hyped up all the time about how amazing it is, how fast it can explode your business, blah blah blah. Well - it's true! Make no mistake about it -- the Internet has the ability to explode your business faster than any other tool on the planet. Before we even talk about the Internet, let's talk about your company. Many companies will tell you that they forbid you to advertise, that they have to approve of anything you do if you market on the Internet or anywhere else. This is absolutely true -- if you use their trademark names or the name of the company in your advertising.

That's how you market online without having to have everything run through the ""company"" -you just don't mention the company. You position YOURSELF first, and talk about the benefits that your product can offer. For example: Let's say John Doe is a distributor for XYZ company, and they offer a health juice that helps diabetes. John's natural inclination is to put up a website that says: ""Hi, I'm John Doe, and I'm a distributor with XYZ corporation. XYZ is a great company that is changing lives. They have a juice that cures diabetes! Call me for a presentation!"" This is bad. Really bad.

You might think that John would have to be an idiot to put this kind of stuff on a website or in an ad, but Major businesses have to prevent their distributors from doing this all the time. Their distributors get carried away, and make all kinds of crazy claims to market their product. Let's say John Doe has the good sense to talk to me before he publishes that ad or website. After we chat, he changes things so that it reads: ""Hi, I'm John Doe, and I provide people with powerful information that has been shown to dramatically reduce the chances of developing diabetes. If you are suffering from diabetes, and if you would like to know of a way that could drastically reduce or even eliminate the symptoms, then call me for a free needs-analysis report""

Now this is a totally different ballgame. First, John Doe is not speaking in the name of his company -- he is speaking in his own name. He's not making any crazy product claims, he uses words like ""has been shown to reduce"" and ""could reduce"". He's not blabbering about the company at all, which is good - people like to buy from expertise, and it does John no good to talk about how great his company is, because at this point, HIS PROSPECT DOESN'T CARE. Remember, his prospect is just thinking WIFM - what's in it for me? John is also offers a compelling reason to take action - he is giving a free needs analysis. This is 100% legit with any network marketing company or home-based business. So long as you don't mention your company and make claims in their name, you are protecting them from being sued and legal liability, which is why they publish their policies and procedures in the first place. Now let's talk about the Internet. There are two parts to succeeding with the internet -- the traffic, or your web visitors, and your website. Let's talk about traffic first.

The power of the internet is that it allows you to dramatically leverage the number of people that are exposed to what you are marketing. You can drive hundreds or thousands of visitors to a website every single day, and you can target it so that only people that are actively looking for what you have see your site. There are 3 primary ways to drive traffic: PPC -- or ""paid traffic"" SEO -- or ""organic traffic"" Social Media -- or Web 2.0good news is... First, PPC is one of the fastest and easiest ways to gain massive exposure and drive high quality visitors and prospects to your site. One of the key steps here is that you need to know how to buy your traffic wholesale. Paying full price on Google Ad words or Yahoo Sponsored search will drain your bank account. PPC is all about using their paid advertising networks to expose your ad to targeted visitors. The best part about pay per click is that only people who want what you have right now are exposed to your ad. That way, you can qualify your prospect before you ever pay a penny, and they have to respond to your message before you pay.

There are some very simple strategies you can use to master PPC, but you must know what you are doing, because you can also get hurt if you just start buying traffic ignorantly. The second way to drive targeted traffic is with SEO, or search engine optimization. This is powerful because it is free traffic, but you must have the technical skills to understand what a search engine is looking for when it ranks websites. Search engines have bots, or web crawlers, that go out and search the websites out on the internet. And if you know what these web crawlers are looking for, you can blow by your competition and get ranked at the top of the search engines. There really is a formula for this, and it works time and again. Finally, the third way to drive traffic is with Social Media, which is commonly called Web 2.0. These are popular websites such as Squidoo.com, MySpace.com, YouTube.com, and many others that have become popular online hubs. What is interesting is that social media traffic is some of the highest-quality traffic online today, but it is a very different kind of marketing.

In order to succeed with Web 2.0, you have to learn how to provide quality content, and build a loyal fan base with your material. If you do this right, you can have 200, 300, or even 500 people per day reaching out to you, asking for more information about what you have. This type of traffic can be presold, so that when they actually see your website or your web message, they are ready and eager to work with you personally. You are already positioned as an expert before you ever even speak with them. There is a downside to web 2.0 though - if you don't know what you are doing, and just start blasting advertising on these sites, then you will be shut down and lose your account. Like ppc and seo, there is an art and science to using these tools.

But the good News is... Anyone, with the right knowledge, can take these tools, dominate their market, and separate themselves from the competition.

4) I know you want your On-line Business to grow quickly, and one of the best way to do that is to start bogging. A blog is a website that you can update with quality content on your particular area of expertise. It is highly recommended that you update your blog regularly, whether that is once a day, once a week, or once a month. Whatever the case, we highly recommend that you are consistent with your updates. This is the KEY to success with the blog - consistency. On top of that, you can make money off your blog! If you host advertising on your blog, then advertising networks will pay you for it. So you can blog about the benefits of your product, service, and opportunity, generate leads that are reaching out to you, AND getting paid for advertising. It's a nice tool to have



Some of the best advertising networks: Google Ad Sense Ad Sense is a must have to make money from a blog. Google displays simple text and image ads on your blog that are targeted to what you're writing about. You can sign up for a free account at: AdSense.Google.com Bidvertiser Bidvertiser is one of the best ad networks. They sell text links that you see under ""Featured Sites"" on websites. Bidvertiser is a CPC ad network that competes with Google Ad Sense. The good thing about Bidvertiser is its low $10 payout. With AdSense, you will have to reach $100 in ad commissions before they will pay you - with Bidvertiser, you only have to hit $10 before they pay out. You can get an account at: bidvertiser.com NetKlix NetKlix is another great CPC ad network for publisher (bloggers) to get paid. They pay out each month directly into your checking account. You can get an account at: NetKlix.com Blogging can be very lucrative, and if you are able to build a fan base that frequently visits your blog, you can generate a significant income. I know bloggers who pull in $40,000 per month just from the advertising revenue of their blog. It's no joke, and it should be implemented if you hope to make money from home. Now there is one last thing I want to talk about - and it's the most important business growth tool you'll ever have. And that is -- a successful mindset.

5) ""Someday""? Do you know how to tell a successful person from an unsuccessful one? The easiest way is by how they talk. When you talk to a successful person about their goals and targets, they will tell you what they plan to do and when it will be done. When an unsuccessful person talks about their goals (assuming they even have any), you'll hear something along the lines of ""I hope to do this someday"" or ""I really wish this would happen"". Here's a clue for all you losers out there -- ""someday"" never comes. You know why someone with a loser's mentality always uses words like ""someday"", ""I hope"" or ""I wish""? They do it because it gives them an out, and allows them to not be accountable for their words. If they have to place a time limit on the goal and they don't do it, they fail, and a loser hates to fail. Winners have no fear of failing, because they know success is made from strings of failure. Everyone has dreams and goals. Do you know the only difference between a goal and a dream?

A goal is a dream + action. We all have dreams, becoming financially independent, having a family, helping charities, making an impact on the world, etc. Have you ever made a goal to achieve your dreams? If so, did you place a time limit on it, or did you just say ""I hope it happens someday""? Can you imagine buying a presale home and not knowing when it will be completed? Can you imagine if the developer just kept telling you ""I'll get it finished someday"". Don't be afraid to fail. Failure is required in order to succeed. You won't find a successful person who doesn't have a few stories to tell about their failure (I know I do). Making a tremendous income with your home-based business is something that lots of people would like to do. Something that many people dream of doing. The question is -Will It Happen ""Today"" or will it happen ""Someday""?

Are You Ready To Make It Happen -- Starting Today? If so, then You need to know something about the law of Attraction. I can only scram so many strategies into one Article. There are some basic laws of attraction that you have to follow and know to start making your dreams and goals a reality.

6) One of those laws is VISUALIZATION Visualize Your Goals Clearly If you consciously believe that you have the ability to be successful and achieve your goals and Dreams, then you need to hold a picture of those goals clearly in your mind long enough and hard enough, till eventually your outer world is correspond with your inner world.

7) Finally, guard your thoughts carefully. Whatever you think about, combined with the emotions of desire or fear, you will attract into your life. Be sure that you are attracting what you want by continuing to think only about what you want. keep feeding your mind with new information, ideas and pictures of the person you want to be and the life you want to live. By creating this inner attitude of mind, you change the outer aspects of your reality. The success of you business is dependent on you Positive mental State."

Become an Educated Hair Loss Consumer

"The hair loss industry has always been filled with a lot of hype and hollow promises. Many products arrive with great fanfare only to fade into obscurity when consumers don't see real results from the product. The end result is a huge waste of money on the part of the average consumer and even worse -- lost hair. If you are giving a worthless product time to work, then you are probably not using another product that could have potentially saved hair or even regrown it. In these days when there are multiple products that actually do work for many people to grow hair, it is even more critical to make wise decisions about what treatments to use.

Many consumers who first start learning about hair loss online and seeking treatments do so when they have reached a point of desperation and feel they are going bald fast. They frequently jump onto the first treatment with spectacular claims without taking time to properly evaluate whether it is the best treatment for them. It is critical to realize that even though you are scared about where your head of hair is going, you need to realize you are not going to go bald next week and that you can take a few days or weeks to pick the proper treatments for you and not waste time and money on things that either don't work at all or don't work for your lifestyle. This article will present a list of pointers and critical questions to ask yourself when choosing what treatments to use.

Steps to becoming an educated hair loss consumer

First, get educated! You can't make a good decision if you are making it without knowing what you are really doing. Take some time to read the articles and guides on this site and other websites about what causes hair loss and the different treatments available. Take some time to read forums posts and view profiles of people who are saving their hair -- don't be afraid to ask questions if you're not sure about something. There are a lot of people willing to help you in a community like this site. Learn about what the different options are so that you don't jump on the first one that feels good. Follow the remaining suggestions in this article when evaluating products.
Determine what treatments will fit with your lifestyle and goals. If two different treatments both really do work for a lot of people, that doesn't mean both treatments fit you. Different people have different lifestyles and things they are willing to do. Do you live a fast paced lifestyle without a lot of free time? If so you will want to focus on treatments that are quick and easy. Got extra time? Maybe you won't mind trying treatments that can take an hour or two out of the course of your week to do. Is your daily appearance critical for looking good at all times? Some treatments will make your hair look worse while they are in your hair -- some can almost be used as styling aids that improve the look of your hair. Some you can't tell they are in your hair at all. Some people don't care what their hair looks like while using something as long as they are sure they will grow hair in the long run. How committed are you to maintaining a treatment? Most treatments require a lifetime (or at least as long as you plan for them to retain your hair) commitment to work, but not all do. Options such as transplants can give permanent long term results and even some daily treatments provide longer lasting benefits if you stop than others. It is important to think about things such as these and whether a particular product you are thinking of buying will TRULY fit into your lifestyle.
Determine your budget. Some treatments are expensive, some are not. Most are at least a moderate monthly expense for most people. Figure out how much you are willing to spend per month and make sure all the potential treatments you want to use will fit in it over the long term for your finances. Stress is a hair killer -- don't cause yourself financial distress in order to save your hair -- the stress may kill more hair than you save.
Are you a risk taker, or do you go with tried and true? These days there are several scientifically proven products which will grow hair and save it in the majority of men. If you just want something that works and you don't want to mess with trying a bunch of things, you'll want to stick to proven treatments first. Some people are fascinated with trying the cutting edge new treatments that may have less proof for working. If your budget is limited, we recommend sticking to the tried and true to make sure you get results. If you have money that you can afford to not get a return on if a product doesn't work, you may want to experiment.
Evaluate the downside, not just the upside. ALL of the current treatments for hair loss have downsides and trade offs. Side effects are the most common downside. They can range from serious side effects such as sexual side effects for some treatments that block male hormones linked to hair loss to minor side effects such as irritation. What are you willing to put up with for your hair? Most people will not experience side effects for these treatments at all, but there is always a risk of experiencing them. If you study a lot and read reports from others about treatments, you can find out what these potential side effects and risks are before trying something rather than learning about it when they happen to you. One thing also to remember is not to be scared of trying every treatment because someone reported having a side effect. Just because one person had it doesn't mean it will happen to you -- and people who do experience side effects are most likely to discuss those problems on internet discussion forums rather than the person who is happy, growing hair and has no side effects -- most people who have that experience don't bother with posting online once they are happy with what they have.
Nothing works for everyone. There are no treatments currently that work for everyone to produce a nice full head of hair. In other words, there is no cure currently. Don't expect that whether you try the most proven treatments or the least, you are guaranteed of any results. Even in the treatments that have been scientifically proven that over 80% of men will keep or regrow hair, that leaves 20% (1 in 5) who will continue to lose hair. Once again, the person who a product doesn't work for is most likely to post online about that, so balance the scientific evidence with personal experiences before reading one or two people saying 'this product is worthless' before you decide it really is.
Tips for Evaluating Products
Companies have caught up to the internet era and are very savvy about marketing online, generating hype for a product, and even posting fake testimonials on websites. Below are some tips to help you wade through the hype and not buy into the bull.



Science RULES! For some people science is a bad word, but science has given us most of the conveniences and medical advances we enjoy in the world today. For hair loss, the golden standard of science is the double-blind, placebo controlled, independent clinical study. This means that a product was compared with a product that does not work to show the difference between a working treatment and a non-working one, and to avoid the ""placebo effect"" where people want to believe something works so they judge that it is. Double-blind means the people running the study don't know which people are on the real treatment and which are on the placebo, so that they can't bias the results toward the non-placebo treatment. Independent studies are conducted by medical organizations or higher learning institutions and not by companies making treatments. This helps to insure that the people conducting the study have no vested interested in whether the results of the study are positive or negative. These are the types of studies you should be looking for, in order of importance and level of 'proof' of something working:

Large scale, long term studies conducted by the National Institute of Health. The NIH is the only organization in the US capable of funding large scale, long term studies of treatments for different health problems. Although the NIH has never funded a study on hair loss, it has funded studies on the safety and other medical uses of products that are sometimes used in hair loss. For example, a recent study of Finasteride for the prevention of prostate cancer by the NIH showed that it was not only safe to use long term, but may help prevent prostate cancer in men with long term use.
Phase III FDA Approval Studies. These are large scale studies of hundreds to thousands of people at one time which show that something does or doesn't work in a large group of people, and also helps to determine the side effects in a large group of people. In a smaller group, you can get misleading results and not see side effects that may appear in a larger group. Large scale studies done for FDA approval are conducted by independent, professional organizations with no reason to bias results. These studies are the basis for whether a medicine is approved or not approved for treatment in the United States by the FDA. If a product is approved by the FDA based on these studies, you can be sure it will actually work closely in the % of people the studies claim. You can also generally know that a product is safe and know the side effects, although sometimes side effects are discovered after approval that are not known during the approval process.
Published University Studies. Science and medicine departments at Universities across the country regularly study the effects of both new and approved medicines as part of their scientific studies and research. These studies are usually not as large scale as NIH or FDA Phase III studies, but they are usually very good indicators of whether something works. If a study is published in a major medical journal, it means it has been ""peer-reviewed"" by a group of professionals in that field to determine if the study was properly conducted. Although these studies are very good indicators, since they are small scale you sometimes see later studies that show conflicting results.
Phase II FDA Approval Studies. These studies are small scale studies (usually of 40 - 100 people). Although these studies also show preliminary results for effectiveness, their primary purpose is showing that a product is safe enough to test in a large scale (Phase III) study. Phase II results should not be considered definitive, but are a good indicator.
Company Funded Studies. Companies sometimes conduct surveys of their customers or fund small studies to be conducted of their products which are not peer-reviewed and published. These studies have to be taken with a grain of salt and are the least reliable, because you have to trust the company's honesty as well as the fact that they are not as rigorously scientific as the above studies. Many are merely surveys of customers (not scientific at all since many people will think they are growing hair when they are not) or not placebo controlled. If you have no better information to go on for something, these are better than nothing at all. They could be completely true or completely unreliable. If many documented results and photos are provided, that helps lend credibility to these studies -- however even with photos, companies show the best results not the worst.
Seeing Through the Hype
Companies are great at overtly and stealthily marketing their products. If you are an uneducated consumer, it is easy to be duped by these marketing strategies and believe the hype.

Here are some good strategies for seeing through the hype:

Before you accept someone's results, judge the person. Many companies create fake profiles on online hair sites and then post as a regular member proclaiming the greatness of a product. The best way to judge how biased a person is is to look at what they think about other proven products and other products in general. If they are constantly bashing everything but one product, they are either a fake poster or someone who is so biased you can't necessarily trust their opinion. Some people will bash specific types of products. For example, FDA conspiracy buffs who think all approved medicines are bought and paid for by large companies and will say they are all worthless. Or people who say nothing that is natural ever works and always attack natural products. If a person has an obvious bias, it is important to take that into consideration when judging their words. Another useful tool is how long the person has been around and whether they are respected. People who have been around a long time trying different products for their own hair loss and trying to help others, contributing their opinions, etc are more likely to be good judges than someone who just joined last week and is already posting about the great product he's on.
Look out for the new member glorifying one product and posting links. This is the most obvious type of scammer to observe. The first thing they do is post about their good experience with something and provide links to someplace you can buy it. JUST WALK AWAY.
If it sounds too good to be true, it is!!! There is NO cure. When you see claims of 90%+ effectiveness or something that claims to work for everyone... don't walk, run from it. These are the products people buy into, try, and you never hear about again in a few months. Also some treatments claim to have faster and immediate results. Hair growth is a long term process (this is why becoming educated about that process is very important) -- no product is going to be growing hair for you next week. It takes months to see real results and for most current products, over a year to see maximal results. If a product has grand claims, make sure it has undeniable proof that it works.
One or two good results photos. You've seen the sites. Great claims, sounds awesome. Just one or two results photos showing nice results. A product that works well for a lot of people will usually have multiple customer/patient photos showing results. Some small and new companies may not have these kinds of photos, but if they are making serious claims they should. You should also find some real people in online forums using these products and be able to see that they are having good results as well. If you can't find any real people having real results from something, why should you think you will?
Surviving and Thriving in the Online Hair Loss Community



Although the internet is not a new place anymore, it is still a wild west frontier at times when it comes to bringing large groups of different people together in one place to discuss a topic. You get all kinds of different backgrounds, experiences, and personality types. Unfortunately you also get people with negative personality types who have nothing better to do with their time than attack others whom they don't like. Here are a few tips for surviving in the sometimes cold and brutal world of online hairloss forums.

Find a place where the moderators and owners are active. Active oversight of a forum means they are probably keeping away the more negative personality types and scammers. It also means there will be someone to help you if you do butt heads with a problem personality.
Find a place whose philosophy you agree with. Some people who run websites have very specific views on what works for hair loss and block any viewpoints they don't agree with. If the site you are on doesn't agree with the treatments you are interested in, you are going to be butting your head against a wall trying to get help there. There are several well done websites for hair loss on the internet with differing philosophies. Our philosophy is at Regrowth.com is that many things work for some people, and we want to help people find the right treatment for them and get results. We don't care what it is as long as it works!
Beware of the ""gang bang."" There are certain groups of people who have a very rigid outlook on what they want to see and what they believe in. They do not like to tolerate anyone who questions their philosophy, opinions, or experiences and will attack as a group any person who tries to present an opposing opinion. They frequently try to discredit any poster they do not agree with, call them a fake, a shill, a scammer or some other kind of attack to make the person look bad in the eyes of other visitors who are unaware of what is going on. This is one of the reasons to find the right place for discussing. Beware of people who are constantly posting negatively about certain other people, groups or sites. This is where being on a site with good moderating is of great benefit.
Relax, enjoy life, and don't take it too seriously. As I said before, stress is a hair loss killer. Don't let the antics of others you might see get you too worked up or take it too seriously. They are just words on a screen. Don't stress out over it if some jerk mouths off to you on an internet forum -- it's not worth losing your hair for.
Watch out for the big egos. Some people who are frequent posters on internet websites do so because they enjoy having a feeling of self-importance. Beware of the people who boast too much about themselves or their group of friends. These are the people most likely to attack those who they don't agree with. These people are usually easy to spot if you are looking for it.
As a final word, and I wish this didn't have to be said, but it does... never believe 100% something you read on the internet. Judge it and evaluate it based on what you know and what you've read in this article, but always know that many people you meet online have hidden motivations you may not know about. Don't become rigid due to something you read online. Be willing to change your opinion when you find out things may not be what they seem. Even things we believe as scientific fact sometimes change when we find out new knowledge. Be flexible. Be smart. Be educated. If you take these lessons to heart, you will have a good chance of finding something that will work for you and avoid the pitfalls of the hair loss world. See you online!"

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How To Provide Proper Pond Aeration Via An Air Pump or Pond Aerator

"So you've heard that if you have a pond no matter if it's a koi pond, fish pond, garden pond, water garden or lake, you should provide aeration to it. What exactly is pond aeration and how do you achieve it?

POND AERATION - WHAT IS IT?

Pond aeration is the process of providing air or oxygen to the body of water within a pond. This can predominantly be achieved by 3 different methods. They are:

A diffused aerator or air bubbler

A high volume surface aerator

A fountain aerator

Diffused Aerator

A diffused aerator (or air bubbler or air pump, as they're commonly called) consists of an air pump that is attached to a piece of air tubing with an air diffuser or air stone attached at the end. The air pump sits on the shore and pushes air into the pond via the tubing. The air stone or air diffuser breaks down the pressure from the air pump into tiny air bubbles that get dispersed throughout the pond. The smaller the air bubbles are the better, as the water molecules absorb some of the air molecules into it.

It's important to aerate the entire body of water, from the very bottom of the pond to the surface, as living creatures such as fish, turtles, etc. need this air to survive. Using a diffused pond aeration system also helps to provide air to the deep, stagnant areas within the pond or lake where unhealthy water conditions occur (and where your fish want to go for more consistent water temperatures).

High Volume Surface Aerator or Paddlewheel Aerator

A high volume surface aerator or paddlewheel aerator is a water pump (not an air pump) that floats on top of the water and rapidly churns the water thereby providing a lot of water agitation. Through this agitation, the water near the surface of the pond is aerated. This may be ideal for very shallow ponds around 3 - 4' deep. It is also ideal to use a surface aerator if you have problems with floating pond weeds such as duckweed or watermeal and want to divert these weeds closer to the shore where they can be scooped up or treated.

Fountain Aerator

A fountain aerator is a floating fountain that consists of a water pump, nozzle and long electrical cord (typically around 50 - 100' but custom lengths may be available.) The water pump sucks up water from a few inches to a few feet within the pond and shoots the water up through a fountain nozzle. Air molecules then attach themselves to the water droplets and fall back into the pond. This is how the pond gets aerated.

A fountain aerator can be beautiful to look at and some come with optional light kits that can be attached to the floating fountain assembly. This makes the floating fountain aerator have a pretty night time and day time display. A variety of fountain nozzles can be used with a fountain aerator too, which offers different spray patterns.

BENEFITS OF DIFFUSED AERATOR, SURFACE AERATOR AND FOUNTAIN AERATOR

Diffused Aerator

A diffused aerator or air pump is the most ideal aerator for ponds, lakes or tanks. If the correct size of diffused aerator is properly placed, it will provide aeration for the total volume of water within the pond, from the bottom, all the way up to the pond's surface. They can also be cheaper to operate as it requires less pressure to push air via an air pump or compressor than it does to push water through a water pump. However, a diffused aerator isn't anything pretty to look at and the air pump or compressor needs to be protected from the rain, snow, dirt blowing into it, etc.. This can easily be achieved by placing a vented fake rock cover over it, a bucket propped up over it or anything else to protect it from the elements.

Another benefit to using a diffused aerator is that the air pump can be plugged into an electrical outlet (available in 110 or 220 volts) in a nearby barn or garage (potentially hundreds of feet away) and the air tubing ran down to the pond's edge where the air diffusers would be attached. This makes it convenient to utilize the electricity you may already have available in a nearby barn instead of needing electricity installed near the pond's edge. For many folks, this can be a great distance and not practical. A diffused aerator should ideally be operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for optimal aeration. When used in the winter, a diffused aerator or air bubbler can also help keep an area on the surface of the pond from freezing over solid. This opening in the ice is vital to keeping the fish alive and healthy during the cold winter months.



Fountain Aerator

A fountain aerator can provide the water feature that one may be looking for in their backyard pond or subdivision, but doesn't provide aeration throughout the entire body of water. A fountain aerator is also more expensive to run as it requires more energy to push water through a water pump than it does air through an air pump. With the addition of optional fountain lights added on, there is also additional cost to operate. A fountain aerator will also have to be removed from the pond during the winter in areas where it gets freezing temperatures.

A floating fountain aerator however, typically does not aerate the entire body of water within a pond. The floating fountain pump can suck up water from a few inches to a few feet within the pond (depending on the kind) which in turn, gets aerated but it doesn't touch the deeper water within the pond where the water can become stagnant. This is where a diffused aerator beats a fountain aerator in providing total pond aeration.

Surface Aerator

A surface aerator such as a high volume surface aerator or paddlewheel aerator works at the surface of the pond constantly churning the water which provides 'some' pond aeration. They are designed for shallow water areas. If the proper size and quantities of surface aerators are used and properly placed, they 'can' provide total pond aeration. They can be the best choice for large ponds and lakes where the water is shallow, less than 6' deep or where there are floating pond weed problems that you want to divert towards the shoreline.

WHICH AERATOR IS RIGHT FOR YOU?

There are no two ponds or water gardens the same and each has its own needs. There are however, general rules of thumb to follow regarding aeration systems. As noted above, if you're wanting total pond aeration and your pond or lake is at least 6' deep, then the best choice of aeration for your pond would be a diffused aeration system. There are manufacturers who design these systems so each diffuser or air bubbler works optimally, allowing the greatest amount of air bubbles throughout your pond based on a specific size of air pump or compressor. These aeration kits make it easy for a customer to choose. Simply look at the size of pond the aeration system is designed for (usually tells you right in the product title or product description) and presto! You've gotten the right size of aerator for your pond. Now, your pond has excessive algae growth, a huge amount of fish or something out of the 'ordinary', then you may have to go with a larger size of aerator. If in doubt, just ask customer service.

If you're wanting to look at something pretty, then the best choice would be a fountain aerator but realize that your pond is not getting aerated from the very bottom to the top of the pond. Unhealthy conditions will occur if the pond is not totally aerated. No, it may not happen right away, but after a period of time, these unhealthy conditions can turn into smelly water, dying fish, etc.. Perhaps the best thing may be to have a diffused pond aerator in addition to a fountain aerator if you're wanting overall, good pond health and a pretty fountain to look at.

HELPFUL TIP WHEN PURCHASING YOUR AERATOR

Take advantage of the designed aeration kits available today instead of trying to 'piece-meal' your aeration kit together. Manufacturers have made all the calculations required so the air pump, air diffuser or air bubbler and a given length and diameter of air tubing work optimally and it can be a whole lot cheaper to buy a kit rather than buying each piece separately. So you've heard that if you have a pond no matter if it's a koi pond, fish pond, garden pond, water garden or lake, you should provide aeration to it. What exactly is pond aeration and how do you achieve it?

POND AERATION - WHAT IS IT?

Pond aeration is the process of providing air or oxygen to the body of water within a pond. This can predominantly be achieved by 3 different methods. They are:

A diffused aerator or air bubbler

A high volume surface aerator

A fountain aerator

Diffused Aerator

A diffused aerator (or air bubbler or air pump, as they're commonly called) consists of an air pump that is attached to a piece of air tubing with an air diffuser or air stone attached at the end. The air pump sits on the shore and pushes air into the pond via the tubing. The air stone or air diffuser breaks down the pressure from the air pump into tiny air bubbles that get dispersed throughout the pond. The smaller the air bubbles are the better, as the water molecules absorb some of the air molecules into it.

It's important to aerate the entire body of water, from the very bottom of the pond to the surface, as living creatures such as fish, turtles, etc. need this air to survive. Using a diffused pond aeration system also helps to provide air to the deep, stagnant areas within the pond or lake where unhealthy water conditions occur (and where your fish want to go for more consistent water temperatures).

High Volume Surface Aerator or Paddlewheel Aerator

A high volume surface aerator or paddlewheel aerator is a water pump (not an air pump) that floats on top of the water and rapidly churns the water thereby providing a lot of water agitation. Through this agitation, the water near the surface of the pond is aerated. This may be ideal for very shallow ponds around 3 - 4' deep. It is also ideal to use a surface aerator if you have problems with floating pond weeds such as duckweed or watermeal and want to divert these weeds closer to the shore where they can be scooped up or treated.

Fountain Aerator

A fountain aerator is a floating fountain that consists of a water pump, nozzle and long electrical cord (typically around 50 - 100' but custom lengths may be available.) The water pump sucks up water from a few inches to a few feet within the pond and shoots the water up through a fountain nozzle. Air molecules then attach themselves to the water droplets and fall back into the pond. This is how the pond gets aerated.

A fountain aerator can be beautiful to look at and some come with optional light kits that can be attached to the floating fountain assembly. This makes the floating fountain aerator have a pretty night time and day time display. A variety of fountain nozzles can be used with a fountain aerator too, which offers different spray patterns.

BENEFITS OF DIFFUSED AERATOR, SURFACE AERATOR AND FOUNTAIN AERATOR

Diffused Aerator

A diffused aerator or air pump is the most ideal aerator for ponds, lakes or tanks. If the correct size of diffused aerator is properly placed, it will provide aeration for the total volume of water within the pond, from the bottom, all the way up to the pond's surface. They can also be cheaper to operate as it requires less pressure to push air via an air pump or compressor than it does to push water through a water pump. However, a diffused aerator isn't anything pretty to look at and the air pump or compressor needs to be protected from the rain, snow, dirt blowing into it, etc.. This can easily be achieved by placing a vented fake rock cover over it, a bucket propped up over it or anything else to protect it from the elements.

Another benefit to using a diffused aerator is that the air pump can be plugged into an electrical outlet (available in 110 or 220 volts) in a nearby barn or garage (potentially hundreds of feet away) and the air tubing ran down to the pond's edge where the air diffusers would be attached. This makes it convenient to utilize the electricity you may already have available in a nearby barn instead of needing electricity installed near the pond's edge. For many folks, this can be a great distance and not practical. A diffused aerator should ideally be operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for optimal aeration. When used in the winter, a diffused aerator or air bubbler can also help keep an area on the surface of the pond from freezing over solid. This opening in the ice is vital to keeping the fish alive and healthy during the cold winter months.



Fountain Aerator

A fountain aerator can provide the water feature that one may be looking for in their backyard pond or subdivision, but doesn't provide aeration throughout the entire body of water. A fountain aerator is also more expensive to run as it requires more energy to push water through a water pump than it does air through an air pump. With the addition of optional fountain lights added on, there is also additional cost to operate. A fountain aerator will also have to be removed from the pond during the winter in areas where it gets freezing temperatures.

A floating fountain aerator however, typically does not aerate the entire body of water within a pond. The floating fountain pump can suck up water from a few inches to a few feet within the pond (depending on the kind) which in turn, gets aerated but it doesn't touch the deeper water within the pond where the water can become stagnant. This is where a diffused aerator beats a fountain aerator in providing total pond aeration.

Surface Aerator

A surface aerator such as a high volume surface aerator or paddlewheel aerator works at the surface of the pond constantly churning the water which provides 'some' pond aeration. They are designed for shallow water areas. If the proper size and quantities of surface aerators are used and properly placed, they 'can' provide total pond aeration. They can be the best choice for large ponds and lakes where the water is shallow, less than 6' deep or where there are floating pond weed problems that you want to divert towards the shoreline.

WHICH AERATOR IS RIGHT FOR YOU?

There are no two ponds or water gardens the same and each has its own needs. There are however, general rules of thumb to follow regarding aeration systems. As noted above, if you're wanting total pond aeration and your pond or lake is at least 6' deep, then the best choice of aeration for your pond would be a diffused aeration system. There are manufacturers who design these systems so each diffuser or air bubbler works optimally, allowing the greatest amount of air bubbles throughout your pond based on a specific size of air pump or compressor. These aeration kits make it easy for a customer to choose. Simply look at the size of pond the aeration system is designed for (usually tells you right in the product title or product description) and presto! You've gotten the right size of aerator for your pond. Now, your pond has excessive algae growth, a huge amount of fish or something out of the 'ordinary', then you may have to go with a larger size of aerator. If in doubt, just ask customer service.

If you're wanting to look at something pretty, then the best choice would be a fountain aerator but realize that your pond is not getting aerated from the very bottom to the top of the pond. Unhealthy conditions will occur if the pond is not totally aerated. No, it may not happen right away, but after a period of time, these unhealthy conditions can turn into smelly water, dying fish, etc.. Perhaps the best thing may be to have a diffused pond aerator in addition to a fountain aerator if you're wanting overall, good pond health and a pretty fountain to look at.

HELPFUL TIP WHEN PURCHASING YOUR AERATOR

Take advantage of the designed aeration kits available today instead of trying to 'piece-meal' your aeration kit together. Manufacturers have made all the calculations required so the air pump, air diffuser or air bubbler and a given length and diameter of air tubing work optimally and it can be a whole lot cheaper to buy a kit rather than buying each piece separately."

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