Lying On The Couch Book Report - 1828 Words

Lying on the Couch Book Report In this report, I will be summarizing the book, Lying on the Couch by Irvin D. Yalom. I will also be giving my personal opinions on this book and its ethical implications. In addition, I will be giving examples from National Association of Social Workers code of ethics, National Association for Alcoholism Drug Abuse Counselors, and National Human Services ethics and how they were violated in this story by the characters. I will also touch on the importance of self-care and creating clear boundaries in the helping profession. Lying on the Couch tells us the stories of Ernest Lash, his supervisor Marshal Streider and their clients. Both Ernest and Marshal are psychoanalysts and they both have their own issues to deal with and ethical dilemmas that they run into. Marshall is envious of the wealthy, and Ernest is very eager to please and willing to do whatever he can to get to the top of the mountain. Another prominent character is Carolyn, who is a client; she is very interested in Ernest and he is interested in her even though this is not ethical for a counselor and client relationship. In my personal opinion, this book was very hard to read and follow. At certain times I had a hard time figuring out who was talking in the book. I really wanted to enjoy this book and it’s â€Å"case studies† but I simply could not get past the confusion and enjoy this like I would any other book. I feel like the author wrote a lot of the situations for shockShow MoreRelatedWhy Did I Am?1154 Words   |  5 PagesWas he going to report me now? I probably shouldn’t have revealed my plans, but for some reason I still couldn’t lie to him. I barely knew him, but I felt like he knew me. So very well. He would unravel my lies somehow. â€Å"I’m coming with you then,† he said as he started collecting things too. My first reaction was to say no, but how selfish to dump him here to live a life he certainly didn’t want either. So I closed my mouth and did one last grab for a kit containing materials to stitch wounds andRead MoreEthical Code Of The American Psychiatric Association Essay2617 Words   |  11 PagesThere are at least 10 significant struggles and/or ethical violations discussed in the book. Read the book, choose three ethical issues or violations, and cover: The nature of the ethical issue or violation Where the ACA ethical code (and other relevant codes) covers this action (cite the section and paragraph where the ACA code addresses the issue), understanding that most of the characters in the book would be held to the ethical code of the American Psychiatric Association. We will keep ourRead MoreSexual Assault Of School Settings2084 Words   |  9 Pagesresearch paper I will be arguing as to why I believe sexual assault should be taken more literal and why I believe that there needs to be more support from staff and other people when it comes to these serious types of things. I will be using articles, books, and music videos to help prove my argument. School is a place that a very young age you re made to attend on a daily basis to get good grades and learn new subject matter to have a bright future and a fulfilling lifestyle. School is also a placeRead MoreCredit Card Debt Nation : Notes2081 Words   |  9 Pagesyour teeth, brush your hair and get dressed. You let the dog in and walk into your kitchen. You feed the dog then make yourself something for breakfast. The dog lays on the couch without eating. Not thinking anything of it, you watch TV and throw a load of laundry in the washer. Noon comes around and still the dog is just lying there, sleeping. You check the bowl of food and notice it hasn’t been touched. You wonder why but disregard concern for the time being. You run errands in town then returnRead MoreEssay about The Destructive Nature of Technology2066 Words   |  9 Pageschildren. I can remember in the past decade hearing so many news report discussing how some worthless television program or movie influenc ed a child to commit some atrocity like lying in the middle of a busy highway, burning down a house, playing Russian Roulette with a gun, or even developing a potty mouth. And of course it would be wrong of me to neglect the fact that so many American children have found more interest in sitting on the couch than going out and moving their increasing body mass. So nowRead MoreWhen Mr Pirzada Came to Dine6518 Words   |  27 Pagessent comic books to each of his seven daughters, but the postal system, along with most everything else in Dacca, had collapsed, and he had not heard word of them in over six months. Mr. Pirzada, meanwhile, was in America for the year, for he had been awarded a grant from the government of Pakistan to study the foliage of New England. In spring and summer he had gathered data in Vermont and Maine, and in autumn he moved to a university north of Boston, where we lived, to write a short book about hisRead MoreTrial by Fire16438 Words   |  66 Pageswould h ave been crazy for anyone to try and go into the house,† he said. Willingham was taken to a hospital, where he was told that Amber—who had actually been found in the master bedroom—had died of smoke inhalation. Kameron and Karmon had been lying on the floor of the children’s bedroom, their bodies severely burned. According to the medical examiner, they, too, died from smoke inhalation. News of the tragedy, which took place on December 23, 1991, spread through Corsicana. A small city fifty-fiveRead MoreTrial by Fire16445 Words   |  66 Pagesit would have been crazy for anyone to try and go into the house,† he said. Willingham was taken to a hospital, where he was told that Amber—who had actually been found in the master bedroom—had died of smoke inhalation. Kameron and Karmon had been lying on the floor of the children’s bedroom, their bodies severely burned. According to the medical examiner, they, too, died from smoke inhalation. News of the tragedy, which took place on December 23, 1991, spread through Corsicana. A small city fifty-fiveRead MorePostmodernism and the Simpsons10775 Words   |  44 Pagespostmodernism than Lyotard’s. Baudrillard is most often associated with the postmodern â€Å"loss of the real†, which, he proposes, relates to the problem of representation and stems from the impact of mass media’s relentless play with signs and images. In his book Simulacra and Simulation, fully translated into English in 1994, Baudrillard describes the problems we are facing in contemporary reality in which the distinction between what is real and what is imagined is continually blurred and meaning is systematicallyRead MoreEssay on Virtual Child16751 Words   |  68 PagesPreslee learned to walk recently and you are very excited! She is also an efficient crawler, and is exploring her environment eagerly. When she does something potentially dangerous, such as walking out into the street or crawling up onto the back of the couch, you: A: say No!, remove Preslee from the situation, and encourage her to do something in a safe area. At nine months old, Preslee began to understand a few words and point to something she wanted. At twelve months old, Preslee now clearly understands

Cyber Bullying Outline And Thesis Free Essays

Actions that use information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group, that is intended to harm another or others. †¢use of communication technologies for the intention of harming another person †¢use of internet service and mobile technologies such as web pages and discussion groups as well as instant messaging or SMStext messaging with the intention of harming another person. Examples of what constitutes cyberbullying include communications that seek to intimidate, control, manipulate, put down, falsely discredit, or humiliate the recipient. We will write a custom essay sample on Cyber Bullying Outline And Thesis or any similar topic only for you Order Now The actions are deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior intended to harm another. Cyberbullying has been defined by The National Crime Prevention Council: â€Å"When the Internet, cell phones or other devices are used to send or post text or images intended to hurt or embarrass another person. † A cyberbully may be a person whom the target knows or an online stranger. A cyberbully may be anonymous and may solicit involvement of other people online who do not even know the target. This is known as a ‘digital pile-on. ‘ Cyberbullying vs. Cyberstalking Further information: Cyberstalking The practice of cyberbullying is not limited to children and, while the behavior is identified by the same definition when practiced by adults, the distinction in age groups sometimes refers to the abuse as cyberstalking or cyberharassment when perpetrated by adults toward adults.   Common tactics used by cyberstalkers are performed in public forums, social media or online information sites and are intended to threaten a victim’s earnings, employment, reputation, or safety. Behaviors may include encouraging others to harass the victim and trying to affect a victim’s online participation. Many cyberstalkers try to damage the reputation of their victim and turn other people against them. Cyberstalking may include false accusations, monitoring, making threats, identity theft, damage to data or equipment, the solicitation of minors for sex, or gathering information in order to harass.   A repeated pattern of such actions and harassment against a target by an adult constitutes cyberstalking. Cyberstalking often features linked patterns of online and offline behavior. There are consequences of law in offline stalking and online stalking, and cyber-stalkers can be put in jail. Cyberstalking is a form of cyberbullying.   Comparison to Traditional Bullying Certain characteristics inherent in online technologies increase the likelihood that they will be exploited for deviant purposes. Unlike physical bullying, electronic bullies can remain virtually anonymous using temporary email accounts, pseudonyms in chat rooms, instant messaging programs, cell-phone text messaging, and other Internet venues to mask their identity; this perhaps frees them from normative and social constraints on their behavior. Additionally, electronic forums often lack supervision. While chat hosts regularly observe the dialog in some chat rooms in an effort to police conversations and evict offensive individuals, personal messages sent between users (such as electronic mail or text messages) are viewable only by the sender and the recipient, thereby outside the regulatory reach of such authorities. In addition, when teenagers know more about computers and cellular phones than their parents or guardians, they are therefore able to operate the technologies without concern that a parent will discover their experience with bullying (whether as a victim or offender). Another factor is the inseparability of a cellular phone from its owner, making that person a perpetual target for victimization. Users often need to keep their phone turned on for legitimate purposes, which provides the opportunity for those with malicious intentions to engage in persistent unwelcome behavior such as harassing telephone calls or threatening and insulting statements via the cellular phone’s text messaging capabilities. Cyberbullying thus penetrates the walls of a home, traditionally a place where victims could seek refuge from other forms of bullying. Compounding this infiltration into the home life of the cyberbully victim is the unique way in which the internet can â€Å"create simultaneous sensations of exposure (the whole world is watching) and alienation (no one understands). â€Å"For youth who experience shame or self-hatred, this effect is dangerous because it can lead to extreme self isolation. One possible advantage for victims of cyberbullying over traditional bullying is that they may sometimes be able to avoid it simply by avoiding the site/chat room in question. Email addresses and phone numbers can be changed; in addition, most e-mail accounts now offer services that will automatically filter out messages from certain senders before they even reach the inbox, and phones offer similar caller ID functions. However, this does not protect against all forms of cyberbullying; publishing of defamatory material about a person on the internet is extremely difficult to prevent and once it is posted, many people or archiving services can potentially download and copy it, at which point it is almost impossible to remove from the Internet. Some perpetrators may post victims’ photos, or victims’ edited photos like defaming captions or pasting victims’ faces on nude bodies. Examples of famous forums for disclosing personal data or photos to â€Å"punish† the â€Å"enemies† include the Hong Kong Golden Forum, Live Journal, and more recently JuicyCampus. Despite policies that describe cyberbullying as a violation of the terms of service, many social networking Web sites have been used to that end. How to cite Cyber Bullying Outline And Thesis, Papers

A Lesson Before Dying Essay Prompts Example For Students

A Lesson Before Dying Essay Prompts A Lesson Before DyingA Lesson Before DyingI thought that the book A Lesson Before Dying was all right overall.I think Ernest Gaines did a good job with the plot but the idea of the book was not to interesting to me. A book about a black man becoming a man on his way to the electric chair is a very dull plot to me.I give Gaines credit for making the book semi-interesting even though the plot was terrible.Personally after reading Things Fall Apart and Song of Solomon I was looking for a little more action in this book.Those two books were ten times better than A Lesson Before Dying so I can say that I was probably expecting too much. A Lesson Before Dying has a superb depiction of the theme you cant judge a book by its cover.Grant went to help Jefferson with a notion that Jefferson was sewer trash and he would not learn anything from this situation.In the end Grant was wrong because he learned a lot from his short relationship with Jefferson.Grant had certain feelings for Jefferson he never had for a man before.They became real close friends and talked about a lot of things.I really like how they portrayed this theme throughout the book. In the book each character had their own characteristics and personality.There was something special about each character in the book.Each of them had their strong points and weak points for example Grant was always running away from his problems.There were a lot of things in his life that he could not handle and he just wanted to run away.He didnt know what to do about Jefferson at first and wondered why he had to teach him.He didnt really know how to handle his job as teacher in the Quarter.He couldnt make his mind up about God so he just decided to leave it alone.Aunt Emma was a very strong character in the book.She would do almost anything to help Jefferson before he died.She begged to the Guidrys on several occasion to help Jefferson feel more comfortable while he was in jail.She begged Grant for his help even though Grant did not want to help Jefferson.She got Mose Ambrose and Grant to finally work together to help Jefferson instead of always arguing.There were many strong char acters in the book but there were also weak ones.This individuality of each character made the book very interesting because you could watch how each characters personality would clash with the others. There were also some parts of A Lesson Before Dying that I did not like.They should have had more background on each of the characters.I never figured out where Tante Lou knew Aunt Emma from or where Grant met Vivian.These things are not necessary but they add to the story.I also think they could have gone into more detail about Grant and Lous relationship.I wanted to know what happened to Grants parents and just how close were they.There is a lot of background information in the book that remains a mystery to me. Overall I thought A Lesson Before Dying was an all right book.It reminded me how my people were treated in America during the late 1940s.It was a realistic story that might have happened to anyone caught in that situation at that time period.The book made me think about how hard my people fought for me to get where I am now.Jefferson had to stand like a man for the whole town not just himself.He had to rebuke the notion that black people were hogs by becoming a man again and showing that to the community.He died with dignity and pride like a man should.For these reasons I have stated here and above I believe A Lesson Before Dying was an above average book.

Simple Guide to Writing a Scientific Paper

How to Write a Scientific Paper Sometimes assignments of such a kind are unexpected but, anyway, you have to write them from time to time in college. If you have no idea how to write a scientific paper well, we suggest not worrying because this task is rather a little difficult than impossible to complete. Just follow the style guide and use good content — this will help you improve your writing skills and become a better scientific writer.First of all, think of your audience because it determines the best methods and style of writing. Consider the scientific background of your readers. Think how you can make your paper easier to read. Another important feature of scientific papers is the field you are writing about. If the topic of your work crosses different disciplines, you may need to provide your audience with more information so that they can get a grasp on the fundamentals of all considered fields.The Format of a Scientific PaperFirst of all, we suggest using active voice. Some journals require their authors to use active voice only, but this rule doesn’t apply to all the scientific journals. Thus, you have to clarify it before you start writing. Scientific papers often imply the use of specific terms, so you have to introduce all the terms at the very beginning. In addition, don’t use any slang words.Another important thing is the style of your paper. Many journals have their own style guides and other materials for authors. Get acquainted with the required style, necessary formatting, and other details, such as word count or font size.Once you’ve found all necessary information regarding the style, start organizing your paper in a proper order. Begin your paper with an abstract and then get to an introduction. The abstract provides a brief summary of the paper. A central part focuses on methods, materials used, and results. Below, we are going to consider the structure of a scientific paper in more detail.SectionsWe suggest starting with the Materials and Methods because this section won’t take a lot of time and effort. Describe used methods and make sure that your readers will easily understand all information from this section. The point is that data from this section must help anyone replicate your experiments. When describing materials, include necessary references to the manufacturer and specify catalog numbers.If your study requires certain ethical approvals, you have to address this issue after you describe the used methods.Create a specific section for the results of your study. Remember that you have to take a neutral position regarding results: don’t discuss any obtained data, just describe it and include charts or tables if necessary. You will have a particular section to express your opinion and draw conclusions.The Discussion section is a place where you have to interpret your results, considering them in the context of already existing materials on your subject. Here you can draw some conclusions and tell what experiments may become possible in the future. This part of the paper is aimed to persuade your readers that your study is important and useful. However, don’t make rhetoric your main goal. Avoid repeating yourself, and support all your claims by evidence.Once you’ve finished writing these sections, get to a literature review. The literature review is a part of the introduction. It is also focused on the importance of your work and gaps that it fills. End your introduction with a hypothesis and objectives. Don’t forget that the introduction must be short and comprehensive.Analyze your paper and write a brief summary. This is the Abstract. We suggest writing it when the entire paper is completed. The length of this section may vary depending on the requirements of a particular journal. However, usually, this section doesn’t exceed 250 words. The summary must provide your readers with a general idea of your study and acquaint them with the most import ant findings. Write a brief conclusion about findings. The most important thing about the abstract is that it must encourage your readers to read more.Final TouchesCreate a title for your scientific paper. Make sure that it’s specific and directly related to your study. Don’t make your title too long and avoid abbreviations or acronyms.You can add some tables or figures. Tables are usually used for raw data, while figures can be really useful for comparisons. However, if you can deliver your information in a couple sentences, there’s no need for any illustrations. Make sure that all images meet necessary requirements regarding their format.In the end, read the entire paper and fix all mistakes. Make sure that you have used the proper citation format and that your quotes reflect your statements correctly. Double-check your paper and ask for help if you need.

imperfect perfection essays

imperfect perfection essays When the President does it, that means that it's not illegal.(Nixon Quotes). These immortalized words were uttered by one of the most criticized presidents in United States history. Richard Nixon committed many crimes and believed that just because he was the Commander In Chief he should not be held accountable for his actions. However, this created much public backlash. People were upset over the Watergate issue for their views on what a president should be. A president should be a morally strong man. A president should be impeccable in his actions. A president should be a perfect man. On the other hand, a president should compromise his morals. A president should be forgiven for his actions that are any but impeccable. A president should not be a perfect man. These views on what a president should or should not be are often contradictory. What do people want out of a head figure? Generally, the public of the United States wants contradictory principals from the President. The pres ident is expected to be firm yet wavering, perfect yet have faults, and be dominating yet submissive. A strong president always dazzles the American Public. They love to be led to the ends of the earth as long as the president is in the front. Petty obstacles should not bind the president if they stand in his way. A commanding president has always had the masses at the end of his fingers. However, another notion that the American Public has is that the president should follow their rules. He needs to be submissive. He needs to follow suit. He needs to be controlled. Take for example a case from the Presidency of Andrew Jackson. This man, once a general and a man for the masses, was praised for his policies. People loved his initiative. When he made treaties with the Creek Indians, people rejoiced at that action. When the State of Mississippi began to make laws to reign over these tribes, the Supreme Court declared those actions unconstitutio...

Anabolic Steroids - Performance Enhancing Drugs

Anabolic Steroids - Performance Enhancing Drugs Anabolic steroids are a class of steroid hormones based on the androgen testosterone. Anabolic steroids are also known as anabolic-androgenic steroids or AAS or performance-enhancing drugs. What Do Anabolic Steroids Do? Anabolic steroids increase the rate of protein synthesis within cells. The building of cellular tissue (anabolism) is especially noticeable in muscles. Anabolic steroids also have androgenic and virilizing effects. They influence masculine characteristics such as the growth of the vocal cords and body hair. How Are Anabolic Steroids Used as Drugs? Anabolic steroids have been attractive to athletes and bodybuilders because they increase the size and strength of muscles. They also increase aggressiveness and competitiveness, which can be desirable traits in sports. Anabolic steroids may be prescribed to promote appetite, stimulate bone growth, induce male puberty, to lessen the effects of muscle wasting from chronic diseases, such as cancer or AIDS, and may show promise as a male contraceptive. The drugs are available as oral pills, injectable steroids, and skin patches. How Do Anabolic Steroids Work? Anabolic steroids change muscle mass and strength by two processes. First, the steroids lead to an increased production of proteins, which are the building blocks of muscle. The steroids also block the effect of the hormone cortisol on muscle tissue, so that existing muscle is broken down at a slower rate. Additionally, anabolic steroids lead to cells differentiating into muscle more readily than fat. What Are the Risks of Using Anabolic Steroids? In addition to increasing muscle strength and mass, the effects of taking anabolic steroids include harmful changes in cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, acne, liver damage, and changes to the structure of the left ventricle of the heart. Anabolic steroids have an androgenic or virilizing effect, meaning they affect male characteristics. Anabolic steroids affect the onset of puberty, the growth of the clitoris in females and the penis in male children (does not affect the size of the penis in adults), increased the size of the vocal chords and deepening of the voice, increased body hair, and premature baldness in people predisposed to it. Another side effect is decreased fertility and testicular atrophy. Why Are Anabolic Steroids Dangerous for Teens? Many of the side effects of taking performance-enhancing drugs can be countered by combining them with other drugs and exercise and are somewhat reversible in adults. However, anabolic steroid use can have permanent negative consequences if used by adolescents. One side effect can be the early onset of puberty. More significantly, the drugs can stunt growth by prematurely stopping the lengthening of the bones.

The Impact of Evolving Technologies Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

The Impact of Evolving Technologies - Assignment Example In addition, there is production of high-quality animations thereby improving the standards of animations. The costs of animation film production have been reduced by letting the computer carry out most of the technical aspects that would have otherwise been done by other people. Tasks such as preparation of miniatures and the use of other actors have been eliminated (Wright, 2013). For example, CGI has greatly contributed to the success of the animation Shrek. For example, the appearance of the diverse characters in the film was enhanced by CGI. The number of characters varied from normal-looking ones to weird-looking characters that are not normally seen in other films. The antics of the donkey have been greatly influenced by computer-generated imagery (Shrek, n.d.). The animation also appears bright and colorful due to the intricate balance of color, light and texture (Scaramozzino, 2010). That has been made possible with CGI. Without the advancement of CGI, such an animation may not have made the impact it did by appealing to large

Corporate crime Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Corporate crime - Essay Example Most media are operating in a competitive business environment, and they constantly have to balance a need for authenticity and fact with a strong pressure to provide commercially attractive copy which tempts the reader to buy newspapers or tune in to radio television and web outputs. This paper examines the way that corporate harm is reported in the media, and asks who decides which stories are worth reporting, who provides the information which forms the basis of that reporting, and what effect the media have on public perceptions of corporate crimes. Media â€Å"framing†: who decides which crimes are reported in the media? It is generally recognised that although violent crime is relatively rare compared to other kinds of crime, it nevertheless dominates the media. A recent Australian study demonstrated that the general public has a tendency to overestimate the incidence of violence and underestimate other kinds (Indermaur and Roberts: 2005, p. 143) This observation was fou nd to be the result partly of individual experience of crime, in high crime areas at least, but also to do with the way that people utilize different kinds of media sources. Local news, for example, is a source of information for most working class people, while more educated people tend to read highbrow newspapers or internet news for their information on crime. It seems that people choose to view media which echo their own views of crime, and this creates a growing tendency to focus on sensationalism and crime, rather than a more balanced and accurate range of offences. Similar results were found in an earlier American study of police, newspaper, television and public images of crime trends for the seven FBI index crimes in the United concludes that people are increasingly dependent on television, rather than newspapers, and that the condensed timescale of television news bulletins results in distortion: â€Å"Hence, there is an emphasis on soft (scheduled) news – the huma n interest story – rather than on hard news – crime events †¦ Therefore, there is a focus on homicides, fires and accidents.† (Sheley and Ashkins: 2009, p. 494) Corporate crime is rarely reported in local television and newspaper media, and it is likely that these media lack the resources to pursue major investigations, and these crimes are in any case deemed to be less newsworthy in culture that is seeking attention-grabbing drama rather than sober analysis. Some British analysis goes further than this and claims that there is an orchestrated effort going on to make sure that individuals who commit violent crime are more often reported than companies and their managers who commit white collar crime including all sorts of quite serious failings which can even result in death and injury to many people. Tombs and Whyte (2007: p. observe that corporate safety crimes are largely â€Å"invisible†, partly because they are not widely reported, but partly als o because governments and commentators so often redefine corporate safety crimes as â€Å"infringements† and many statistics do not formally record the deaths and injuries that occur in an occupational context as crimes. The vocabulary used to comment on this area of criminal activity reveals a downplaying of responsibility and a reference instead to â€Å"accidents†, which implies that no-one is to blame: â€Å"

Marketing plan Essay Example for Free

Marketing plan Essay Marketing Plan How to sell Vrd’s Executive Summary: Compact is a company that wants to be well known by marketing a new Voice Recognition Device (VRD). This company will be able to create, develop, and sell the product to many different customers. The product is used and operated by performing tasks without using keyboards, a mouse, or any buttons. Compact wants to serve as many customers as possible. We are flexible and are willing to work with any customer that comes our way. Our target market is essentially everyone. Specifically groups including mangers, assistants, creators, students, home users, and parents are the market segments. All of these customers will be able to take our business to the next level as we sell our products to them. †¢Managers need a product with many special commands and high error protection. The managers need the VRD product to do their work. †¢Assistants defiantly need a product that has a high ease of learning. The product will give them time to multitask with many projects at one time. †¢Creators need a product that is quick and able to get the job done. They don’t really need ease of learning or error protection. These people know how to fix a lot of things. Students want the best product at the cheapest price. The product will allow students to do homework on the go and communicate with teachers. †¢Home users can include everybody from kids to the elderly. For these people this product needs a high ease of learning. In addition, the special commands can be low for the home users because they are just getting started with technology. †¢The parents are caring and buying the product for their kids. They care about the education of their child and want them to be ahead of the game. They just want a product with a high ease of learning for their children. Our company is trying to serve everyone from the broke students to the high end mangers. We feel like our customers/consumers were willing to shop online and at stores. The major retail store will have the product like Wal-Mart and Target. Online shopping will be convenient for the managers, assistants, and creators. Most of these people are very good with computers. To support our decision with choosing this market, we were able to focus heavily on customer service, advertising, and special commands. Also, we felt since we were targeting everyone in the market that error protection, and ease of learning. This will give the ability for our company to sell more and maximize our profit. Our company was able to compete against three other companies selling Voice Recognition Device. And we were able to compete against one other company for the second item DVC. These companies were; Vocley, Voyz, and Echo. The other companies made us take a look at how we can improve our business. The company we competed against for DVC was Echo. We were able to use other companies’ choices to figure out some good business decisions. Also, we used other companies to see what mistakes that we shouldn’t make. To increase our profit we had to change and adjust things to fit the customers. The Compact Company was about profit but at the same time we wanted to sell a great amount of goods. This helped us to determine if our company should change advertising, or customer service, or decrease the price of the product. As the game went on we had to change our market to the higher market in order to make a better profit. This was allowed by watching and understanding the market. The two huge this to make profit was advertising and customer service. The advertising allowed us to promote the product. So with the more promotion we wanted to make sure was had good customer service. This would allow customers to depend on the company anytime they needed us. There were four types of advertising to choose from and they were; Direct, Indirect, Pioneering, and Reminder. For our company we were Direct for the first eight weeks. The dealers were able to target most of their sales face to face with people. But we soon realized that not everyone works like this and wants to buy. Changing to Reminder would inform the customer but give them the chance to come to us. We didn’t want to force their hand into buying something they didn’t want. For Compact this was the best decision we soon upped the profit and price. This had a major effect on the sales of the product for us. We found that the right type of advertising is vital. The distribution intensity is the percentage of time that the dealer is selling your product in each of the channels. You want to have the dealers working but don’t want to over work them. Compact’s dealer intensity was 50% in each channel. The dealers in each channel would have a great amount of time to work and personal time as well. They don’t want to go through a lot of steps to learn how to use the product. Home users are mainly using VRD for online shopping or communicating with other people. This is more of something for them to do while they are laid back. B. Preferences The home users want a good price not as low as students. Also, they want a product that is easy to learn and pick up on. C. Differences from other segments This category could include with a lot people like kids, adults, and elderly. As long as the product is user friendly with the home user anyone is able to use it. They just use the product for fun and games. It is nothing serious like the managers or creators use VRD for. D. Trends We as a group would say the trend of this market is many put into one. A lot more people are using throughout this market so it is offered to many. More people are working and planning on the go so this would be much help to them. Also, the kids doing homework they are forming groups also with the product. Assistants: A. Needs and wants Assistants need something that they can depend on all the time and VRD is that product. While at work they are always asked to do many tasks. VRD is the product that they are able to use with excellent software. Also, has a great ease of learning to pick up on things easier. This device will make the assistant work look better than it really is. B. Preferences The product needs to have to have a high ease of learning. Basically, the ease of learning needs to be on a kid’s level to use. You want the assistants to be able to do their jobs with low amount of stress. C. Differences from other segments The major difference with the assistants is most do not purchase they project. They are mostly purchased by the company that they work for because of the ease of learning. The VRD will be able to keep the assistants on task with their job. And be able to keep their bosses happy with them. D. Trends Once the major and high end companies started purchasing the VRD, they will need less and less assistants. The reason our group thinks this is because the ease of learning will allow less workers, to do more jobs effectively. Creators: A. Needs and wants These are the Market testers, designers, and Writers. This can also include some businessman and professional living. These people want the high speed and want things to want as fast as possible. They don’t worry much about the ease of learning. B. Preferences They just want the speed and high special commands. Price is not really a problem with this group of people. C. Differences from other segments The Creators use the VRD product for professional work. The creators are people who need a product and do not care how much it cost as long as it gets the job done. This group is willing to spend as much money as needed. D. Trends As long as this product works for the creators it will grow. Managers: A. Needs and wants Managers always in charge of other people they need a product that is able to multitask and help others. They need something that is high speed and functions well. Most managers are businessman who has special documents to send out and this product is a huge advantage. B. Preferences These people do not care how much the product is. They just want something that functions very well. Also, this group has the highest special commands at 15. 3. Also, this group wants a lot of error protection too. C. Differences from other segments The managers are people that are very knowledgeable and know a lot about computers and laptops. They do not need any instructions or label how to work VRD. They have been working with them long enough in their field that they will be able to figure it out easily.  D. Trends For this product to stay trending with the managers it will need to have updates all the time. The managers always will want the best product on the market and VRD is it. Parents: A. Needs and wants This group is getting the VRD product for either their kids or grandkids. This will have to have a great ease of learning for the kids. The special com mands don’t have to be high at all. Parents can use this as a teaching tool for their kids. B. Preferences The parents just need a product with a high ease of learning for their kids. C. Differences from other segments Vocley’s strengths seem to be their unit sales, which has led the industry. Other strengths are higher commission percentage for their sale representatives, which give more incentives to create business. Weaknesses can be found in the retail price in distribution channel 1, which is one of the highest of the four companies. With all their success they have maintained a low customer service budget as well as advertising dollars. The data shows that they are trying to promote more business in channel 2 with five more sales representatives than in channel 1. Voyz is targeting the market segments of assistants and managers. It appears that there is a large difference in preferences from the different market segments which makes it hard try and clump a group together. In channel 1 Voyz is carrying the lowest retail price which is good for those that shop in that distribution. Voyz strengths are that they offer low prices in both channels and have great advertising. A weakness would be their budget for sale promotions. Voyz had a big jump from week four to week five, with more than 2. 5 million dollars in sales. This could be caused by an increase in advertising as well as higher commission. In the later weeks they made an emphasis on increasing their sale promotions. Echo led the four companies in special commands as well as overall profit for the first couple of weeks. They are targeting high-end, well to do users that shop in distribution channel 1. Echo is looking to sell to managers, creators, and assistants. Echo has been profiting the most because of the higher prices. Channel 2 is higher than industry average as well, but with good promotional money and advertising they are getting customers to buy into the company. Technologically this product is evolving very quickly and new opportunities are readily available to try and compete with other competitors that are defining the industry. To be on top we need to predict the future of what the customer wants long term, ultimately being the key to success. If better opportunities arise to make our product in another country for less cost and the same technology is available that decision will be made by the head of the company and could put us at a strategic advantage, possibly opening new paths for consumers that didn’t even know about our product. A potentially global market will once again change the game and the product will see a phenomenal rate of growth. To introduce a product to other countries can be an enormous task with major spending but in doing so it will allow for greater profit in the future. Furthermore, producing our product in another country might bring down cost and ultimately lead to more profit. Production can occur in a country where there are low wages and lower cost for parts to make the end product. In addition, another country might have better tax incentives and other government funding to help the production of the VRD to become a more profitable product. Producing the VRD in another country will expand sales internationally as well because there will be more brand awareness in those markets. 2. Marketing Objectives: Compact’s marketing objectives focused on market segments that haven’t been utilized yet and customer satisfaction to retain as many customers as possible. If we can keep our customers happy and attract other consumers from different companies or market places we will gain an advantage. Our marketing type was direct for most of the game but to try and secure those other customers plus retain ours we switched to a reminder strategy. Ultimately, this didn’t turn out as well as we would have liked it to. In fact, in week 10 we had a major decline in profit. To gain an advantage our company needed to focus on high quality customer service and smart advertising to make the customer feel like they’re getting the knowledge and the most innovated type of product, with the company always supporting their product. Our budget for many weeks only allowed for a certain amount of money to be spent which cut into our customer service budget and our advertising. We also had to adjust our research and development since our company could not buy market reports. This was tough to do, but for a couple of weeks we saw a steady growth rate in profits, nothing compared to the leaders though. Our company was still producing profit, but in order to be at the top of our industry we decided on an approach to flood the customers with sales reps and create more advertising hopefully attracting customers that either didn’t know about our product or steal customers from our competitors. 3. Marketing Strategies: 3. 1 Target Market: After playing the game, we encountered different problems with our marketing strategy. Initially our group was doing well and we understood the features of the VRD. After receiving the reports in the first couple of weeks we realized that we had more special commands, ease of learning and the error protection then needed. We got different results from both channels so our strategy was to focus on one channel and put more of an emphasis to sell from that channel. We focused on channel 2 at first, and then gradually brought channel 1 into our strategy since our group was not doing well. Our group had some good competitors and they were doing really well in the business. In order to compete with them we had to change our strategy each week we gave our inputs. We analyzed our competitors and received as much information as we could. With a low budget we were unable to produce reports to determine where we needed to focus our dollars on. This hurt our overall plan because our group had to play a guessing game in order to try and figure out what the customers wanted. Initially we saw that students and the home users were more interested in our products. So we were giving our inputs accordingly. In order to make this an equal amongst all, we had to change some plans so that assistants and managers didn’t fall behind in buying our product. We tried incorporating a strategy to include these types of users and make them aware of our brand, but the other brands already established themselves which led us to have a hard time in the marketing mix. Our main focus was to make sure the customer was getting the special commands, error protection, and ease of learning that they wanted. Throughout the game we adjusted this several times. During one week we adjusted the commands down to better suit the customer’s needs, which we thought would possibly give us an advantage. 3. 2 Product Strategies: As we analyzed the market, we knew exactly what customers needed and what their field of interest was. We knew that we could extend the special commands to 20, ease of learning to 15 and error protection to 15. We could have increased our special commands very quickly but we knew that it’s a long run game and if we had increased our special commands rapidly we will not have any options in the future. We thought our plan was working very smoothly, but, our competitor’s strategy ended up becoming suitable for the market and dominating the industry. We decided to increase our special commands to try an put a product on the market comparable to the one of our competitors. Our biggest competitor ended up being ECHO because they also included the second device in their strategy. Another reason why we were competing with them was because we were the bottom two companies in our industry fighting for those last dollars whereas Vocley and Voyz both secured the top two spots and were fighting for the overall postiton. Initially we were making $800,000 but now we are making 1. 2m. As we changed the strategy and focused on different fields, we were back into business. We cut our cost in most of the things in order to concentrate more on customer support and advertisement. And the results were good enough. we were also spending a lot on our sales agents. We are gradually increasing our special commands, ease of learning and error protection and this was giving us leverage with the other companies but we couldn’t receive as much profit as them which led us to have an overall lower budget. As we said, there were lots of ups and dows in the business and that’s a reality. In real world we have these kinds of issues and its very normal because as time passes, lots of good companies and businesses come into picture and we have to think outside the box in order to compete with them. 3. 3 Promotion Strategies: Product promotion is important to target your segmented market. We strategized to develop the best method to promote our product. We needed to reach our consumers as effectively as possible. We saw different outcomes when we allocated our resources in different areas. Starting in period four we were allowed to determine how much money was going into our promotions. When we had more money to spend we were able to put more money into our promotions for both products. In turn we saw an increase in our units sold. Promotional dollars spent was direct correlated to the units sold, but with less revenue, we had less money to put into our promotion. 3. 3. 1 Customer Service: Customer service is essential to keep your customers happy. Customer service is the level of ease a customer can contact and reach the company. The customer should be able to contact the company in order ask for assistance in the product usage, discuss complaints that they may have, or re-order damaged or under warranty products. Customer service is very important to the customers and the more money that a company can set aside for customer service, the higher the levels of customer satisfaction with the company can be. This was difficult for our team to think how much to put into customer service, at first we spent less money on customer service and were still able to keep our customers satisfied. What our team found strikingly odd was that our customer service could continue to increase, but our customer service, was still not near the industry average. In the first three games we did not think that customer service levels would have the impact that they did on our sales. So we did not put high amounts of money into serving the customer’s needs. Then we realized the more our competitors spent in customer service, the more our customers where unsatisfied with the service levels that they were receiving. Our percentage was steadily decreasing and we needed to increase our percentage in respect to the industry average. On the y axis was the number of units sold and the x-axis the game period. In our findings we found that if you increased the customer service budget, you have happy returning customers. Our strategy was to stay with the industry average after finding the correlation between customer service and units sold. However, it is difficult to stay with the industry average, when sales are decreasing and revenue is dropping. 3. 3. 2 Advertising: Advertising is essential when targeting your market. A company can have the best idea in the world but without customer knowledge the product may never reach the market. Our team understood the importance of advertising our product and initially spent $280,000 in advertising alone. We knew that we had to reach our markets in order to sell our product, this strategy seemed to work very well for us and for the remainder of the game we contributed at the least $200,000 to advertising. In week four we were allowed to choose the type of advertising to market our product more effectively. In week four we went with the reminder, we choose reminder because we had the highest brand recognition out of all four of the competitors. Unfortunately, this did not work out in our favor, as our sales dropped dramatically. In week five we decided to choose pioneering, to show our market that we were the best in the market, if they wanted to quality and the most advanced product in the market. In week five this worked in our favor as our sales increased as well as our revenues. We typically kept with the direct market approach throughout the game except in period 5. We saw that we needed to have large amounts of money in each of the product advertising budgets in order to appeal to our target customers. We spent less money in advertising with product one, and did find that sales impact total units sold. With less and less money to spend in each product segment it was difficult to allocate which product should have the most advertising dollars to spend. In the long run we choose to try to compete with our competitors in the first product market. 3. 3. 3. Personal Selling: Understanding the significance of personal selling in marketing can help a company target their market. Personal selling is the most expensive form of advertisement, but it is the most effective. Selling at the personal level is a more direct approach in contacting your consumer. A person can better target a potential buy. Our team had to choose the appropriate amount of sales people and determine their commission to better influence the sale people to sale to the final consumer. Sales people are an incredibly important part of advertising, a sales person can influence the consumers to purchase the product. However a sales person needs the proper incentive to work their hardest to sell to the consumer. Initially we could only choose the number of sales representatives in each channel. First we equally divided them between the channels and found that the channels had different selling rates so we distrusted the sales representatives from then on. We put higher numbers of sales representatives in the channel that was in need of better sales. Later on in the game we were able to determine the work load of the sales representative and the commission that they could make. Initially, we thought that the higher we make the commission the harder the sales representative would work so in week four we increased the commission to a higher percent. We were also allowed to determine how much time the sales representative was supposed to have customer contact. We thought it was essential for the sales representative to send the most amount of time possible with the customers, without hindering their work performance. So we only made the sales representatives spend small amounts of time doing paper work and clerical duties. Although we were allowed to alter the sales person’s duties and commission so far the push percentage has been steady at of an average rate of . 38. We no longer purchase the reports to determine how well our sales representatives are pushing our products in each channel. Since the beginning we have increased our sales force, although it is the most expensive marketing tool, it is typically the most effective. The chart below shows that we have increased our sales force in each channel; additionally we have continued to raise their commission on the products they are selling. Keeping the number of sales representatives and their commission in mind we thought it would allow for a bigger push in each channel if we steadily increased both. † These methods can attract the consumer to use these products, sometimes it’s the consumers first time using the product and can affect their future purchases. If a customer is satisfied with a sample they can decide how much better the product is than the rest of your competitors and create brand loyalty to your product. We kept the sales promotion amounts pretty constant until period six and did not see an increase in the amount of sales. We did see an increase in our sales in period 7 as we spent almost double are typical spending on promotions but only had an increase of sales of about 5,000 units. Well the product was doing we were then able to order the appropriate amount of manufactured product for the next week. During the game we were able to keep manufacturing at similar levels as our sales were not increasing drastically. We did increase our production when our sales were increasing. 3. 5. Pricing Strategies: Consumers have always been very sensitive with price, and will be. Products that are priced incredibly high are sometimes seen as high quality or part of the social elite market. On the other hand products that are priced lower can been seen as high value or affordable. Price is one of the essential variables to reach your target market. Our team was able to understand our distribution channels and was able to determine that the people that tend to purchase our product in channel 2 were more price sensitive than those in channel 1. It didn’t occur to us that we should change the prices in the different channels until week four. After changing the prices in each channel we were able to target the different markets in each channel more effectively. Throughout the game we allocated our money different according to the resources that we had and what we needed to improve upon. Most of our money was allocated to our sales force in the first product segment. Combined from both product sectors and adding their salary and commission they were almost 75% of our total expenses. This does show that person to person selling is the most costly. Our next largest expense was advertising as we spent about 1/3 of our funds to advertise our product. The rest were very small amounts of our expenses throughout the game, we decided to spend less money in these areas as they had a smaller impact on our unit sales. Controls For the controls we wanted to see what worked best within our plan. We wanted to take a look at the controls every week and be able to monitor it. This would depend on want the customers’ wants and needs were. We knew and understood that we were here to serve them. Within the first three weeks we were able to reach our goal to serve the customers. We focused on ease of learning and special commands. We also were able to level off at error protection on the fourth week. But this was not enough as the weeks progressed we were always able to add more. During the fourth week we were able to purchase two more of each. That was ease of learning and special commands. The main reason that we raised those was because we seen other groups doing it to better serve their customers. We wanted to serve them as best as we could. Toward the end with extra money coming in we were able to increase all of them by two during the seventh week. Throughout the weeks we had to decide whether or not to buy the reports. We bought the reports in a later week to see if our preferences were in line with our target market. We made adjustments to our strategy and preferences so that we could meet the needs of our target market. Our objective for the remaining weeks was to make sure that overall we still had a profit and we were not losing money. This was attained and our objective was completed. In a real environment though, the company would have to consider strategic moves in order to stay competitive and survive in the long run. Our product was on a path towards the decline stage, if not already there. In the end, we still completed the game with a profit and had a product that certain groups of consumers relied upon.

Self Knowledge And Happiness In Pride And Prejudice, by Jane Austen Ess

Pride and Prejudice written by Jane Austen is centred on characters that either gain self awareness and knowledge or possess none at all. Happiness is found even when one has no understanding of selfhood but the most happy and satisfied people in the novel are those who have self knowledge. People that possess self knowledge understand their strengths and weaknesses and characters that gain self knowledge are able to decipher these characteristics and act upon them. As marriage was seen as a great achievement for women in their society, happiness in Pride and Prejudice relates to whether one is happy or unhappy in their marriage. Lydia, Mr WIckham and Lady Catherine de Bourg have no self awareness and are unhappy in the novel. The marriage of Lydia and Mr Wickham is one of the unhappy marriages. Mr Wickham and Lydia are both very similar and are both unaware of their faults; they are both careless with money and see no problem with asking their relatives for money. Lydia as the youngest daughter is well accustomed to having other people look after her and she is dependent on other people. Lydia’s lack of self awareness doesn’t affect her greatly; she is happy and claims that she loves Wickham. She is very fond of him but he is not fond of her and quickly loses interest, â€Å"Wickham’s affection for Lydia, was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it; not equal to Lydia’s for him.† Lady Catherine de Bourg has no self knowledge. She is full of herself and sees herself very highly; it is obvious she is lacks self knowledge. She makes discourteous comments about other people without thought to their opinions and she also enunciates comments about how she views herself. Lady Catherine de Bourg is unhappy because she is disappointed ... ...ejudice and realizes her faults she develops towards Darcy and is then prepared for a more fulfilling happy marriage. People with self awareness can be both happy and unhappy. Mr Bennet has self awareness but he is unhappy because he finds no satisfaction in his family. Elizabeth and Darcy come to know themselves and develop towards each other and so their marriage has the capacity to hold the greatest happiness. Also, happiness can be found when you have no self awareness. Charlotte has self awareness and knows what she wants and needs and so she is content in her marriage to Mr Collins. Mr Collins has no self awareness but is happy because he has a wife and this is what he aspired to. Ultimately, people who have the most self awareness and knowledge who can grow and learn their weaknesses and faults are the people who will have the most happiness in their lives.

Silver

It was fairly common believe in China that with arrival of large amounts of silver would bring prosperity; but with such an extreme amount of this precious metal coming into one are caused problems. The Ming Dynasty declared that all taxes must be payed in silver. This created great disruption in the economy since silver coins were scarce at this time many people were unable to pay their taxes. To suffice the demands of the government a great deal of people would get their silver through middle-men. This exchange for silver lowered the value of Ming goods (Doc3). Wang Xijue, a court official, foresees the possible problems the large amounts of silver that the Ming would have coming into it if they began to trade with Europeans (Doc7). Inflation was a large concern for Xijue. This fear soon became a reality and the uncontrolled flow of silver into Ming China hurt the economy. Ye Chunji, a county official during the Ming Dynasty, ordered a limit to wedding expenses in the 1570’s (Doc1). If these frugal ways would have been instilled in the Ming people, the economy wouldn’t have had such a downfall. Furthermore, now shops would send bills for work and â€Å"must be paid with silver obtained from a moneylender† (Doc5). During this time moneylenders thrived while the Chinese economy suffered. Initially the silver demand help Spain but long term weakened the empire. â€Å"High prices ruined Spain as the prices attracted Asian commodities and the silver currency flowed out to pay for them† (Doc2). Contrastingly, the middle-men were largely benefiting from the trade of silver. Ralph Fitch, a British merchant, stresses this point by saying that the Portuguese received luxurious goods in return for silver in China (Doc4). In Document 8 Charles D’Avenant, an English scholar describes the trade England would have with Spanish colonies of luxury goods for silver for gold (Doc8). He expresses this trade a profitable. In conclusion, the increase in silver production in Japan and the Spanish Empire from 1500 to 1750 benefits the middle man instead of the consumer and supplier. An additional document with numerical evidence of to what extreme the silver trade increased during this time period would be useful to further understand the extent in which this all took place.

Cohesion and Discipline of the Party in Government

Parties matter in part because they influence the actions of elected officials. But scholars also note that lawmakers from the same party may not vote together. Party cohesion has varied over time – sometimes party members stick together on many key votes, at other times they are no more likely to vote with fellow party members than with the opposition. Parties have various means at their disposal to encourage members to cooperate in achieving a party program. Sometimes these tools are sufficiently compelling that individual members may back the party program at the expense of their constituents' interest.However the case is quite different in European Parliamentary systems of government where party cohesion is essential for the implementing of government policies that the party in power wishes to impose. Although party cohesion in American government has risen because of intraparty heterogeneity and the realignment of the South (Hetherington and Larson), the party discipline and unity is not nearly as cohesive as those found in Parliamentary systems. This is in large part due to the fact that the tools of the party leaders in each system are different.In Parliamentary systems, because the risk of not voting in terms of party could lead to the collapse of the present regime and government system, party leaders tend to have more effective tools at their disposal to use in encouraging party cohesion/discipline. Party discipline or cohesion  is the ability of a  political party  to get its members to support the policies of their party leadership. Party discipline is essential for all systems of  government  that allow parties to hold  political power  because it determines the degree to which the governmental organization will be affected by the political processes.Party cohesion is closely related to party discipline (Aldrich). Distinctly, however, it is essentially â€Å"coordinated† behavior reflecting the interacting incentives of individual legislators, whereas party discipline is the outcome of a strategic game played within political parties, in which legislators who are party members respond to rewards and punishments determined by some internal party decision-making regime. In political systems other than American presidential democratic system, straying from the party lines can result in the fine and/or expulsion of members such as in the  People's Republic of China (Aldrich).Party discipline tends to be extremely strong in  Parliamentary systems such as in  European countries in which a vote by the legislature against their party is understood to cause the governmental â€Å"collapse† of the present regime (Huber). In these situations, it is extremely rare for a member to vote against the wishes of their party. Party leaders in such governments often have the authority to expel members of the party who violate the party line.Weak party discipline is usually more frequent in congressional s ystems  such as the  United States Congress where power within in the party is more democratic than the authoritarian system seen in parliamentary governments, with leaders dictating order to the members to follow suit. In these American legislatures, it is routine for members to cross party lines on a given vote, typically following the interests of their region (constituents) or following other members of a borderline group within their party.In America the risk is not that high, with party disagreement just results in the upsetting of the party elites without true damaging costs except for the withdrawal of their support. Party cohesion and party discipline are very distinctive under parliamentary government, where a lack of cohesion and/or indiscipline among parliamentarians belonging to government parties may jeopardize the very existence of the government. Certainly from the perspective of making and breaking governments, levels of party discipline are very high in Europea n parliamentary democracies.There are very few examples indeed of parties that have been â€Å"half-in, half-out† of government, in the sense that legislators from the same government party have voted in different ways on key legislative motions of confidence and/or investiture. In this sense parties do go into and come out of government in a unified manner. In the American democracy, this just isn’t the case. Politicians have more allegiance to their regions and constituents than to their party. Because of the way the nomination system works. Party nominations no longer rest in the hands of party elites but in those of the public.Thus it’s better for one’s political career to appeal to the public and not to party. According to other scholars enhance this opinion by adding â€Å"the main influence of party discipline is not on the votes on specific roll calls but on the choice ideologically of the party† (McCarty, Poole and Rosenthal). This suggest s that members will vote in line with their ideals rather than their leadership. To come to this conclusion they observed changing patterns of roll call voting among party-switchers and inferred that legislators appear o coordinate on roll calls because they change policy preferences to reflect those of their parties. Thus the question becomes, why do members of political parties even bother to behave in cohesive manners? Political scientists and elites have attributed this behavior to a trinity of solutions. Electoral incentives for legislators that arise from the value of a party label, strategic incentives within the legislature that reward legislators who behave in a coordinated fashion, and the ability of party leaders to implement a system of rewards and punishments are all attributed reasons (Hix and Simon).Political scientists argue that electoral incentives might generate emergent party cohesion. By creating a type or brand that politicos can blanket themselves under in ord er for voters to infer information about candidates in elections. Recognized legislators join political parties to signal policy positions to voters, doing this so long as it increases their chances of election or re-election. Voters make inferences about candidates’ policy preferences only by observing their party membership.Identifying candidates with their party and ignoring what candidates might actually say about their own policy preferences. Candidates in these models do have underlying policy preferences and thus prefer to join parties comprising like-minded colleagues (Krehbiel). This is because the party policy positions that are part of the brand with which each member is associated are influenced by the positions of all party members.In this system it benefits a candidate to vote along party lines in order to be associated with a specific regime policies, outcomes, and therefore successes. Party membership involves costs that arise from this incentive. There are co sts arising from associating with a party label indicating a unique policy position that differs from the ideal point of the member – and of being associated with a party that will actually implement this position if it is in a position to do so(Snyder and Ting).Since the primary focus of this type of work is on the electoral phase of the political game, and despite occasional references to â€Å"party discipline†, this approach involves no explicit model of intraparty politics– except for the assumption that the party policy platform is chosen by either a dictatorial leader or simple majority voting by party members (Snyder and Ting). In addition, this incentive assumes that politicians are allowed to join, and to remain within, any party they choose. The only â€Å"filter† on party entry in such odels is party policy itself which, combined with the deadweight costs of party membership, discourages legislators with very divergent policy positions from jo ining the party (Snyder and Ting 2002: 95) This means that the underlying process being modeled is a type of sorting or the partitioning of voters between parties, but the logical engine of this model could also be applied to explain the sorting of politicians between parties on the assumptions that party positions are some function of the positions of party members and that politicians want to affiliate to the party with the closest position.While this large body of work gives us useful intuitions about electoral incentives for legislators to affiliate to parties, the main lesson is that electoral incentives may well make a party label a valuable commodity. Thus, if a party’s decision-making regime can intensely threaten to withdraw the party label from party legislators if they fail to abide by party decisions about legislative behavior, then this will make those decisions easier to enforce.On this perspective, party discipline is about legislators responding to explicit or implicit threats by party leaders to impose electoral costs by withdrawing the party label, by casting votes in otherwise costly compliance with party policy. The resources party leaders in both parliamentary and US federal government and parliamentary government context can deploy to structure the incentives of legislatures in a way that ensures party discipline include control over electorally valuable party labels (party identity) and control over sought-after perquisites in the legislature.However, this incentive structure has an important new dimension under parliamentary government, arising from the fact that the legislature typically functions as a recruitment pool for the executive, and political ambition of its members are at the forefront. In Parliamentary governmental system, party leaders have the tools at their disposal to make or break candidates if they dissent, because the stakes are so high. If government parties cannot maintain firm party discipline, then they can not retain a secure hold upon office.When legislative parties do move into government, control over the allocation of important government jobs, whether these are cabinet or junior ministries or other key patronage appointments, typically rests in the hands of a very small number of senior party politicians, who can and do use these offices to reward loyal party members and who can and do punish mavericks by denying them the rewards of office. However, in American politics party leaders do not have the authority to simply dismiss a candidate.They may only throw their endorsement or support candidates with funds and become â€Å"king makers†. It is unrealistic to think that Nancy Pelosi can tell a conservative democrat to go away. She can allow withhold resources (money and her name recognition support). But this won’t be enough if the candidates’ constituents carry him through to victory. Legislative incentives also coexist which derives from improved expectatio ns in relation to a range of legislative payoffs that accrue to legislators who belong to larger rather than smaller cartels or coalitions of legislators.A large part of the relevant literature has been concerned with the role of party in the US Congress, and how the main concern of those elected is to pass legislature and having a single legislative party commands a majority position. The main legislative resource is the ability to capture a majority coalition of legislators. This is achieved by controlling the allocation between legislators of agenda setting legislative offices, such as committee chairs.On this argument, the power to make such allocations is delegated by party members to the party hierarchy, which can use this power to enhance party discipline, which in turn feeds back to enhance the value of the party label in the electoral game. This is important because the legislature is the main political arena in which legislators seek to fulfill their objectives, policy and otherwise. US parties impose discipline on their members by manipulating scarce agenda-control resources is in contrast an alternative influential argument, ( Krehbiel (1993, 1998).This holds that what looks like legislative party discipline is an essentially emergent phenomenon. US legislators choose which party to affiliate to on the basis of their intrinsic policy preferences – in effect joining a party of like-minded individuals and then quite voluntarily behaving in the same way as these on the floor of the House without the need for any â€Å"externally† imposed party effect. Legislators are voting the same way because they like the same policies, or because they are responding to the same non-policy incentive structure put in place by the party hierarchy.There are two roll calls put in place to ensure this outcome (Snyder and Groseclose). On one hand there are â€Å"lop sided† roll calls. In which first, legislators will treat these as a forgone conclusi on and, second, that party leaders will see them as offering no rationale for the (by assumption costly) deployment of party discipline. On the other hand there are â€Å"close† roll calls, for which coordinated legislator behavior makes the difference between winning and losing. There is strong evidence suggesting that the â€Å"party effect† is much higher for close than for lop-sided roll calls.They infer from this that US parties can and do influence the behavior of their legislative members when this makes a real difference, and do not attempt to do so when it does not. Cohesion seems to be closest when the party leadership has publicly identified as a priority, and find much more of a party effect on these than on issues that are not party priorities. Party cohesion in parliamentary government is important to the proper function of government because it essentially in lamest terms â€Å"makes or breaks government†.Under the constitutional regime of parliam entary government, that is pervasive in Europe, almost certainly the most important role for the legislature arises from the fact that the executive gains and retains office as long as it maintains the confidence of the legislature. This requirement is constitutionally manifested in the parliamentary vote of confidence/no confidence in the government (Huber 1996; Lijphart 1992, 1999). The executive under parliamentary government, furthermore, the â€Å"cabinet† of ministers bound together under the constitutionally embedded rule of collective cabinet responsibility.The stability and effectiveness of the government thus depends upon the ability of government parties to maintain disciplined behavior by party legislators. Effective party discipline means that a government is not defeated – either on votes of confidence/no confidence or on key pieces of legislation – because some legislators who belong to government parties vote against the government. Thus, while t he vote of no confidence is the constitutional foundation of parliamentary government, the behavioral foundation can be seen as party discipline.If the government parties maintain firm discipline on the part of their legislators, and if they control sufficient legislative support to take office in the first place, then they can maintain themselves in office, with firm control over the entire political process and facing few legislative impediments to the implementation of their policy and other objectives. Conversely, if government parties cannot maintain firm party discipline, then they cannot retain a secure hold upon office. The key point in all of his concerns the huge incentive in a parliamentary government system for senior party politicians – who themselves will often be members of the government – to maintain firm discipline over the members of their party. What is so striking about incentives for party cohesion and discipline under parliamentary government, as opposed to presidential government, is that these incentives cast the role of party leaders in a completely new light. â€Å"Party leaders† tend to play explicit and implicit roles. Party leaders tend to be seen as managers who essentially offer coordination and enforcement services to party members.As agents of their party, such party leaders have incentives to shirk. Imposing party discipline, by whatever means, is thus the fulfillment of obligation The reason such models of party discipline can look bizarre and unrealistic in the context of parliamentary government is that an â€Å"agency/expensive-discipline† model of party leadership (Cox McCubbins) seems implausible in a constitutional environment where party leaders are senior politicians who are the key players in a series of interlocking at the essence of the political process.Not only do party leaders make the really key decisions – about making and breaking governments, elections, but they also enjoy the benefits of office when this is achieved – whether these are perquisites such as the hefty check, the government jet, or the ministerial Mercedes, or opportunities to shift policy outputs in preferred directions as a result of controlling vetoes and agendas. In a nutshell, maintaining tight party discipline is highly incentive compatible for party leaders under parliamentary democracy.Indeed it is difficult to think of reasons why party leaders in a parliamentary government system would not want to maintain tight party discipline. Except in the matter of a voting on a highly divisive, sensitive, and cross-cutting issue, such as gay marriage or stem cell research for which it is against party interests to be identified with a single unambiguous position – then a legislative â€Å"free vote† can be declared on the matter and legislators can be allowed to vote with their â€Å"consciences†. But the orderly ability to switch free votes on and off is an i ndicator of firm party control over the behavior of party legislators (Aldrich).Parties are institutions in their own right. They are endogenous institutions, but parliamentary governmental parties are more deeply embedded into the constitutional rules of the political game of parliamentary government than a mere behavioral coalition of legislators. They are â€Å"political clubs† with their own set of rules to abide by. They are guided by their own system of rewards and punishment. In parliamentary government, membership of the party is completely dependent on the party label and the incentive of legislatives to be associated with the party brand or label. Cohesion and coordinated voting produce this benefit.In which individual members have an incentive to take part in coordinated behavior if they can get away with doing so. As mentioned before, if members choose not to act in this fashion, they can be exiled from the party and thereby denied access to the party label. Actin g in accordance to party can result in the placement of one’s name on the party ballot. Parties have the right to endorse particular candidates as official party candidates. Under the list-Proportional Representation electoral systems that are very common in parliamentary democracies, parties absolutely control access to and candidate placement on the party list.Therefore, parties in parliamentary democracies directly control access to the party label on the ballot. If denied this, a putative candidate must be admitted to and endorsed by another party, or must form a new party, or must run as an independent. In addition, access to legislative perquisites, whether these are physical office accommodation, speaking time on the floor of the house (perhaps to impress constituents at the next election), or paid positions with access to considerable resources, such as committee chairs.There are thus plenty of opportunities for party hierarchs to reward and punish individual legislat ive party members as they go about their daily lives. No doubt in the U. S. A. the movement towards the establishment of a disciplined and responsible party system is largely confined to the academic world. In the presidential system in US government rewards and punishment do indeed exist but not on the same level as in the parliamentary government (Cox and McCubbins). Party elites cannot simply cast away political hopefuls directly due to the constitution and the format of the political system.Power is not solely in the hands of elites, but the major American parties, national and state, are not based on mass memberships. â€Å"Only here and there in the United States are attempts made to fix a large-scale party membership on a regular dues-paying basis and thus to correspond to the European parliamentary scale (Jackson Moselle). † Party cohesion is absent even among the party workers and all the discipline that exists among party organizers before elections ceases to exist after elections. The problem stems from American attitudes about party.Most Americans identify themselves with a particular party but do not feel that they are obliged thereby to work actively for that party’s nominees (Laver). Anyone can legally qualify himself as a party member just by going through some registration procedure. Unlike the parliamentary system where you must pledge party allegiance before even having one’s name considered on the ballot. No state demands work on behalf of a party’s candidates or contributions to its campaign funds as prerequisites for becoming a legal party member (Giannetti and Laver).Structure of the American party has impact on party cohesion. The party structure in America consists of â€Å"a hierarchy of permanent party committees from precinct to national committee†. The National Committee which stands at the apex is made up of one man and one woman from each of the states picked by some kind of machinery within its State organization. The seemingly hierarchical structure does not produce party cohesion for power is decentralized and each unit is independent and needs not approval form the others.For example, the Chairman of the County Committee does not depend for his post on the State Committee and the latter hardly depends for its tenure or powers on the National Committee. To add to decentralization of power is the absence of uniformity in structure. The most striking feature in the party organization in the U. S. A. is that it is regulated by State laws while in all other democracies party structure is determined by the party itself. Diversity in State laws regarding party organizations naturally does not give scope for political discipline for the parties in America.In addition, primaries took the power of selection away from a band of leaders and activists and placed in by law in the hands of the voters. Unlike in Parliamentary systems where the local party organization selects the cand idates, the national party organization is finally obeyed. V. O. Key express the view that â€Å"by the adoption of the direct primary the organization was stripped of its most important function, that of nomination†. Every political party has two divisions, the organizational and legislative, and party discipline is as essential in the latter as in the former.If party cohesion is judged on the basis of the roll-call vote and the frequency with which members of a party differ among themselves, the index of cohesion in U. S. A. may be said to be very low. â€Å"The relatively low cohesion among Republican and among Democratic Congressmen† is mainly due to the non- parliamentary system of Government. The Congressman in U. S. A. need have no fear that division in the ranks of the party will lead to the dissolution of the legislature unlike in the Parliamentary system. So the significant feature with the roll-call vote in the American Congress is the absence of party cohes ion.Each of the two parties is divided into several factions and the factions in the two parties join or oppose one another irrespective of party labels, depending on the issue put for voting (Krehbiel). The decentralized structure of the parties makes a member depend for his success in elections more on his constituency than on his party. However, party cohesion in American government is not nonexistent, even though it is not as strong as those under the parliamentary democracies system. Each party selects a floor leader, whips and a Caucus Chairman creating a somewhat centralized structure that in practice increase party cohesion.Commonly, the party groups cohere more tightly on some party dividing issues than on others. For example 4,658 members of the House in 11 selected modern sessions only 181 or less than 41 per cent voted with the opposing party more often than with their own. The proportion was slightly higher in the Senate. Out of 847 senators in 9 sessions, 63 percent se cured their parties on a majority of the votes. (Jackson and Moselle)† For there is a tendency for most Republicans to be in voting opposition to most Democrats on controversial issues, showing strong party discipline.Indeed, American party cohesion is on the up rise. Realignment of the South played a role as the South has consistently voted conservatively since the Nixon years (Hetherington and Larson). Another key piece is the ideological differences among the two major parties (Democrats and Republicans) are greater today than they have been in years pass. Scholars have noted that the more ideologically extreme, the higher the cohesion. As parties have more interparty heterogeneity, each party has developed more intraparty homogeneity, which has given rise to roll-call voting (Hetherington and Larson).Strong party leaders also play a role in this phenomenon. Members in each party endow their respective party leaders with powers to advance the policy agenda. Ideological unit y in the 1970s with House Democrats, cause them to place the Rules Committee under the control of party leaders. Thus giving the house Democratic Caucus more power to oust wayward committee chairs who stood in the progress of the party’s initiatives. Demonstrating, American parties have been adjusting to their weak party model, and adapting in a way to influence party cohesive as exhibited so strongly in the American government.It is the clear consensus that Parliamentary government is indeed stronger in party discipline and cohesiveness than its American presidential system counterparts. The main reason for this phenomenon rests in the power of the political elites in each party system and the tools the system provides for their disposal-party label, patronage, etc.. In American politics, elites can only indirectly influence party-line voting as granted to the present political system. However, in parliamentary government, elites directly have the authority to dismiss or ele vate the position of their members, thus encouraging party cohesion.Bibliography Aldrich, John H. 1995. Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Political Parties in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cox,Gary, and Mathew McCubbins 1993. Legislative Leviathan. Berkeley: University of California Press. Cox, Gary, and Mathew McCubbins. 2005. Setting the Agenda: Responsible Party Government in the US House of Representatives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming. Gallagher, Michael, Michael Laver and Peter Mair. 2005. Representative Government in Modern Giannetti, Daniela and Michael Laver. 2005. Policy positions and jobs in the government.European Journal of Political Research. 44: 1-30. Hetherington and Larson. Parties, Politics, and Public Policy in America. 11th edition. 2009 Hix, Simon. 2001. Legislative behaviour and party competition in the European Parliament: an application of Nominate to the EU. Journal of Common Market Studies 39:4 (November 20 01), 663-688 Huber, John. 1996. Rationalizing parliament: legislative institutions and party politics in France. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jackson, Matthew O. and Boaz Moselle. 2002. Coalition and Party Formation in a Legislative Voting Game Journal of Economic Theory, Vol. 103, No. 1, pp 49-87.Kollman, Ken, John Miller and Scott Page. 1992. Adaptive parties in spatial elections. American Krehbiel, Keith. 1993. â€Å"Where’s the Party? † British Journal of Political Science 23 (1): 235–6 Political Science Review. 86 (December) 929-937. Laver, Michael. 2005. Policy and the dynamics of political competition. American Political Science Review, forthcoming. Snyder, James M. , Jr. , and Tim Groseclose. 2001. â€Å"Estimating Party Influence on Roll Call Voting: Regression Coefficients versus Classification Success † American Political Science Review. Vol. 95, No. 3, 689-698 V. O. Key:  Politics, Parties and Pressure Groups. p. 12.

How to Maximize Your On-Page SEO in 2017 With One Checklist

How to Maximize Your On-Page SEO in 2017 With One Checklist Let’s face it- there’s nothing sexy about on page SEO. It’s probably the most clinical part of the whole SEO process. Compared to scoring a great link from a top site like USAToday.com or CNN.com or having your content go viral  and hit the front page of Reddit, on-page SEO is downright boring. But if you don’t give make it a priority, your site will never reach its full potential. Now, you might be thinking on page SEO is all about keyword density [Editor’s note: hopefully, no one out there is still worried about keyword density] and meta tags and that you know everything there is to know about all that. But here’s the thing- Google’s algorithms are continuously evolving and what worked just a year or two ago might not work now as we head into 2017. Long gone are the days where shoving a keyword in your title and throughout the article was enough to land you on page one of the search results. Today, you have to consider things like  Google’s Hummingbird algorithm  that takes into account synonyms and context, the evolution of semantic search,  Google’s shift towards mobile-first indexing, user experience, and a whole lot more. In short, on-page SEO is more intricate than ever before. That’s why I’ve put together this checklist you can use when creating content to audit your page and make sure it’s primed to bring in as much organic search engine traffic as possible. How to Maximize Your On-Page SEO in 2017 With One Awesome ChecklistDownload Your Free On-Page SEO Checklist and Template Bundle Improve your SEO efforts with these free resources: An On-Page SEO Checklist to ensure every piece of content you publish is thoroughly optimized. A Keyword Research Template for storing keyword ideas and data. An SEO Rank Tracking Template for measuring your search engine ranking success. Start By Targeting the Right Keywords Keywords are still the foundation of on-page SEO. While stuffing a bunch of keywords into your content is no longer a tactic that yields optimal results, keywords do still matter. Keywords do still matter. #SEOThere are several great tools out now that make it easy to discover relevant keyword ideas and that offer a ton of useful metrics about those terms. Personally, I’ve used the keyword explorer tools from both  Ahrefs  and  Moz, and have found them each to be excellent at helping me generate blog ideas. You can learn more about other keyword research tools  here  in a previous post on this blog, so I won’t waste your time discussing all of the different tools out there. Quick Tips for Choosing the Right Keywords While I’m going to spend most of my time discussing the specifics of how to use keywords properly for better on page SEO, it’s important to make sure you’re actually choosing the right keywords that will attract the type of searchers you want. With that in mind, here are a few simple keyword research tips to guide you. Recommended Reading: How to Improve Your Keyword Research With Latent Semantic Indexing 1 ) Get Better Results By Using Multiple Tools I mentioned above that I’m a fan of both Ahrefs and Moz’s keyword research tools. Additionally, I’ll typically poke around on the Google AdWords  keyword planner  tool,  Ubersuggest, and other tools when doing my research. Why do I use multiple keyword research tools? Because they each have their own strengths and weaknesses and they each pull from different sources to come up with their keyword suggestions. By pulling from multiple sources, you can get a more rounded list of keywords to target, allowing you to better reach your target audience. #SEO Tip: Use multiple #keyword #research tools.2 ) Identify the Potential of a Keyword Not all keywords are created equal. You need to prioritize your keywords based on which ones have the most potential. To do this, you’ll have to consider a few different factors: What’s the search volume of the keyword? How competitive is the keyword? What’s the searcher’s intent (i.e. will this attract the type of person I want?)? How important is this keyword to my business’s and website’s success? 3 ) Group Keywords Together Based On Relevance and Intent Typically whenever I create a new page, I have three or four  keywords I’m trying to target. It’s hard to effectively target any more than that in a single blog post or landing page. The best way to group keywords is by relevance and searcher intent. The best way to group keywords is by relevance and searcher intent.What does that mean? It means the keywords need to be closely related to one another. For example, someone searching for â€Å"basketball highlights† might also search for things like â€Å"nba highlights† or â€Å"nba scores.† They’re all related. The keywords focus on the same topic, and they match a common intent of the searcher. 4 ) Understand That  Keyword Research is an Ongoing Process Keyword research for a page shouldn’t be treated as a one-time task. It’s something you should be regularly revisiting and tweaking to maximize results. Keyword research is an ongoing process.Using Google Search Console can help you see which queries people are searching that bring up your website in the search results. This is an excellent source of data for finding new keyword opportunities for existing pages on your site, so you can bolster your search engine presence. Know How To Use Keywords Appropriately Now, let’s talk about the different places you can use your keywords and some best practices for doing so. 1 ) Include Your Primary Keyword in the  URL In September 2012, Google rolled out its â€Å"EMD Update† that was designed to reduce the weight of exact match domain names that were ranking well simply because they had a keyword in the root domain name. While having an exact match domain isn’t necessarily a strong signal to Google anymore and you’re probably better off choosing a domain name that’s easy to brand, having keywords in the URL extension of content you publish on your site (e.g. www.yoursitename.com/target-keyword) is still a wise best practice. In an interview  at the beginning of 2016, Google’s John Mueller said that keywords in the URL are still a â€Å"very small ranking factor.† My advice? If you’re able to include the target keyword of the page in the URL without it being too long or looking spammy, go for it, but don’t force it. A good URL is one that’s descriptive, and in most cases, using your target keyword will fit the bill, quickly describing what the page is about. A good URL is one that’s descriptive.2 ) Include Keywords in Title Tags Title tags used to play a big role in determining search engine placement. In the old days, you could stuff your title tags with a few keywords and increase your page’s chance of ranking. While Google has obviously caught onto that trick and decreased the importance of exact match keywords in titles (they’ve even stopped bolding phrases in titles that match the search query), it’s still a best practice to include them in your title tags. They send another signal to Google as to what your page is about and can improve click through rates by letting searchers know your page is relevant. Generally, it’s a good idea to put the keyword at the beginning of your title.  Tests have shown  that placing the keyword at the front of the title could be beneficial for ranking better and getting more clicks. Tests show placing #keywords in the beginning of title tags can help rankings. #SEO3 )  Headline and Subheads (H1, H2, H3, etc.) Using your keyword in headlines and subheadings throughout the page is a smart SEO practice for a couple of reasons. First, when you use your keywords in headlines and subheadings, it helps Google better understand what your content is about so that it can classify it properly for relevant search queries. While it’s debatable exactly how much just adding your keyword to an H1 or H2 tag influences rankings on its own, there’s another important facet to consider. By building a great headline  around a target keyword you’ll naturally influence the anchor text (and surrounding text) other sites use when linking to that content, which absolutely can have a significant effect on your rankings. Recommended Reading: How to Boost Traffic With 34 SEO Tips You Need to Know (+ Free Kit) 4 ) Incorporate Keyword Phrases Directly Into Your  Content Optimizing the body of your page for your targeted keywords is a balancing act. Using a keyword too much leads to over-optimization, making your page look spammy and negatively affecting your rankings. On the other hand, it is a good idea to make sure your content has some mentions of your targeted keywords and synonyms since Google now recognizes synonyms. Many experts suggest having the first keyword occurrence within the first 100 words  of the content as a signal of relevancy. #SEO Tip: Include your primary keyword within your first 100 words of content.While I’m not an advocate of obsessing over keyword density (there’s no such thing as a major keyword density), it’s not a bad idea to use a plugin like Yoast  or a tool like Moz’s On-Page Grader  to get some useful analysis of your keyword usage. Both tools do a good job at digging through your text and offering feedback on whether you’ve used your keyword too little, too much, or an acceptable amount. Don't obsess over keyword density. #SEOOne more point to consider when it comes to your on-page content is page length. Numerous tests have found  that Google tends to prefer long-form content. In fact, a study by Backlinko found that the average word count of a Google first page result is a whopping 1,890 words. There are a few theories about why Google prefers longer content. One theory is that long, in-depth content shows Google that a lot of thought was put into your page and that it’s a detailed resource searchers will likely find useful. There’s also the idea that simply having that much text will naturally give Google the ability to better understand your content’s topic, allowing you to rank more effectively. And finally, long-form content tends to get more social shares, which can signal Google that your page is well-received and worth ranking highly. Did you know long-form content tends to drive more #social shares?5 ) Include Keywords Within Image  Alt Tags An â€Å"alt† tag is used to describe what an image depicts. A descriptive, keyword-rich alt tag can help that image rank better in Google Image Search, and some would argue that it could help the whole page rank better for the search term by better allowing the search engine to understand the topic of text surrounding the image. Google offers a great guide to using images  on your website, and suggests â€Å"creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context.† In other words, don’t just stuff keywords in your alt tags. Make them truly descriptive and helpful, while naturally integrating the target keyword. 6 ) Write Compelling  Meta Descriptions The meta description is the short snippet that search engines sometimes use in the search results to let users know what your page is about before they click it. I say â€Å"sometimes† because Google is increasingly ignoring meta descriptions and instead just displaying a short snippet of text from the actual content on the page. While meta description tags haven’t been a ranking factor for a long time, I still recommend filling them out when creating your pages and incorporating your keyword into them. Why? While this won’t improve the ranking of your page, it could help improve click through rates. In cases where Google actually displays your description tag, a visitor who sees a snippet that includes the exact term they were searching for, which will be bolded, may be likelier to click on your website as it will appear relevant to their needs. Recommended Reading: How to Attract an Audience With The Best Blog Photography Tips (+128 Free Images) Other Important On-Page SEO Factors Keywords aren’t the only thing you need to look at as on page SEO is concerned. Here are a few other important factors that may influence your rankings. 1 ) Test Your Page Load Speed As Google continues its mission to make the internet more user-friendly, it has begun factoring load time into its algorithm. In fact, page load time may end up being one of the biggest ranking factors (which is a main reason why Google is instituting Accelerated Mobile Pages,  or AMP†¦ more on that later). So what can you do to increase load time on page? Here are a few things to get you started. Use a CDN.  Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) cache your site in data centers across the world. It then serves the site to visitors from the location closest to them. The result? Ultra fast load times and less bandwidth usage. This is a bit technical and requires third party help. Check out a company like Cloudflare  to get started. Reduce the size of   images.  A while back, one of our posts hit the front page of Reddit. The influx of traffic really started to affect site performance around the time about 1000 people were on site. So I called my hosting provider and they pointed out that the featured image on the post was massive and was taking up quite a bit of resources to load for each visitor. So I deleted the image and things sped up considerably. For a more permanent solution, I recommend optimizing images throughout your site using something like EWWW Image Optimizer. Look at your plugins.  If you’re using WordPress, plugins can make your life pretty easy. There are so many useful plugins that you can pretty much build a top-tier site without knowing jack squat about coding. However, some of those fancy plugins, such as sliders and social counters, can load Javascript libraries and CSS files across your site or can hit the database every time a page loads. The result? Things slow down considerably. Try something like P3  to learn which of your plugins are using the most resources. To check your page speed, I recommend you use Google’s PageSpeed Insights Tool. Not only does it show you how fast your pages load on both mobile and desktop, but it also gives you detailed recommendations on how to increase performance. Recommended Reading: How to Make an SEO Content Strategy That Will Improve Your Results By 248% 2 ) Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly Now that more people are searching with mobile devices, Google is moving to a mobile-first index, meaning it will primarily look at the mobile version of your page to rank it. The good news is that if you’ve built a mobile version of your site, or use a responsive theme, then you’re already on the right path. And if you’re following best practices for on-page SEO, you’re well on your way to properly optimizing your mobile pages, especially if your site loads quickly. #SEO Tip: Make sure your site is mobile-friendly.However, there are a few additional steps you need to take to make sure your pages are friendly to mobile users. Consider implementing AMP.  When it comes to speed, Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages are as fast as it gets. And while implementing AMP won’t guarantee you higher rankings, it can give you the edge against other sites. And if nothing else, it could get you in the AMP carousel at the top of mobile results, which can get you more clicks. Of course, the full AMP discussion would take more than a little bullet point here, so I recommend you spend some time  reading up  before trying to implement them. Lose the pop-ups. While pop-up opt-in forms are a great way  to increase signups for your email lists, they’re brutal for mobile users on tiny screens (have you tried clicking one of those tiny X’s?). That’s why Google says it will begin penalizing sites using these pop-ups after the New Year. I recommend disabling them on mobile devices Think â€Å"easy to click.†Ã‚  Those X buttons on pop-up forms aren’t the only thing that’s difficult to press on a mobile screen. So make sure your page is put together in a way where everything is easy to click. For example, make sure your buttons render large enough to click. Don’t use Flash. And finally, for the love of all things holy, if you’re still using Flash, stop. Not only does it load terribly slow, but it won’t work on all mobile devices. If special effects are necessary, opt for HTML5. Is your blog or website optimized for mobile #SEO?3 ) Understand Internal Linking Best Practices If you’re not linking properly in your posts, then you’re missing out. The perfectly optimized page will have a good mix of both inbound and outbound links. Inbound links are important to make your site both easy to navigate, and easy for Google to crawl. And according to Moz, it’s great for â€Å"spreading link juice† across your site. I recommend linking internally whenever relevant, within reason of course. For a good example of internal linking, check out one of my sites, CutCableToday.com, a resource for finding legal ways to watch television without cable. Notice how, while we link out to deals on the home page, we also internally link to relevant pages when the opportunity presents itself. Recommended Reading: The Simple 10-Step Guide to Better Search Engine Ranking for Writers For example, when the page mentions watching a specific channel like ESPN, which we happen to have a landing page for, then we link to that page internally. This helps Google find our â€Å"Watch ESPN† page,  and gets users to click deeper into the site- all great for SEO and usability. However, internal links are only part of the equation. You also want to periodically link out to other sites, as they help search engines determine the theme of your page and help you build relationships with other sites. More importantly, outgoing links can have positive effects on SEO, as it increases your authority when done properly. A few things to keep in mind as you do this: Link out to reputable pages. That means high domain authority and page authority. Consider contacting sites to let them know you linked. This is a great way to network and get backlinks and social shares. Don’t go overboard. Doing so can send traffic away and frustrate your readers. Nofollow outbound affiliate links. Affiliate links, especially in excess, can make your site seem spammy to search engines. By nofollowing these links (add rel=†nofollow† to the code) you’ll prevent Google from crawling the links, in effect making them seem invisible and negating their effects on SEO. And a final word on linking: make sure you routinely check for broken links. Broken links send your users to 404 error pages. This  results in poor user experience, which can make users bounce and ultimately hurt your search rankings. Screaming Frog's SEO Spider is a popular freemium SEO tool that can help with this task. #SEO Tip: fix your broken links!4 )  Understand Page Age and Authority How long your page has been around can affect how high it ranks. There are a lot of factors here, such as higher page authority over time, more backlinks, etc. With that in mind, it’s important to note that sometimes you might want to revamp an older page rather than create a new one. Doing so can potentially push older pages up the search results faster than newer versions. So how can you revamp old content? Change the date.  I’ve personally seen old pages rise in search rankings simply by changing the â€Å"last updated† or â€Å"publish† date. This is the quickest change you can make, hands down. Refresh the content.  This can be adding new info, rewriting the introduction, adding new sections ... whatever makes the most sense to bring that old page up to date. Think about why people are searching.  Look at the current top ranked pages and ensure that your page matches the intent of the searcher even better than those. Recommended Reading: The Skyscraper Technique May Actually Improve Your Content Marketing 5 ) Optimize Images for Search Engines If you’ve read up to this point, you already know that any images you include on your page need to have descriptive, keyword-rich anchor text. But did you know that simply including images on your pages can generate more shares and more page views? The result? Increased social shares and traffic could make your page more valuable and trustworthy in the eyes of Google, leading to improved rankings. Just make sure that every image you include serves a purpose, enhances the user experience, and loads quickly. 6 ) Keep Your Bounce Rate Low For years, SEO experts have been debating whether or not bounce rate affects a website’s ranking. In other words, if someone comes to a page on your website through Google and clicks away from your website without going deeper into it, does that send a signal to Google that your page is providing a poor user experience? Some tests  have said high bounce rates don’t necessarily impact Google rankings, while  others have found  that â€Å"low bounce rates are strongly associated with higher Google rankings.† How can we make sense of it all? It’s important to remember that correlation does not imply causation. Just because pages that rank well tend to have lower bounce rates, doesn’t necessarily mean that bounce rate is a ranking factor. However, we do know that Google wants to provide searchers with the most relevant, useful, and engaging content available. #SEO Tip: remember that correlation does not imply causation.So, at the very least, you should do what you can to lower your bounce rate, keep visitors on site longer, and provide the best possible user experience. Make On-Page SEO a Priority Every Time With so many factors that go into on page SEO, it can be tempting to neglect certain key tasks or to cut corners. But never forget that moving up even a single spot in the search results can drastically increase your clicks. My hope is you'll use this on page SEO checklist as a guide to optimize every piece of content you put on your site so you can put yourself in the best position for success.