I created multiple marketing campaigns on google adwords about a week ago and had them on pause until I was ready to launch the site last friday. Well on friday I made them active and within 24 hours all of my campaign keywords (about 2,000) were "inactive for search". Arrrrggghhh!

Google has an ingenious way to score your keywords, ads relevance, landing page, & Click through rate, so you can't just get massive impressions without also getting a minimum numbers of click throughs. Which don't get me wrong I want people to visit the site... that is why we are here.

Optimization Time

Now, I am in the process of literally creating about 80 different campaigns (not getting to detailed) that are "Laser" targeted with fewer keywords in each campaign rather then 100-300 keywords per ad campaign, there is about 20-40... which means a lot more work, but in the long run it will pay off, because google is scoring everyone in their adwords campaign and if you have a higher score (based on keywords relevance, ads relevance, landing page, & Click through rate) you end up spending less per click and getting a better ROI.

Just my two cents

You could know everything that their is to know about money, business, and investing, but if you have a false belief that you somehow do not deserve to make a certain amount of money you will subconsciously end up making what you believe you are worth.

If you spend all of your time learning financial knowledge and pay no attention to your own personal psychology, you may be spinning your wheels. In the book "Secrets of a Millionaire Mind", by T. Harv Eker, he talks about the idea of a Money Blueprint. How we have been programmed or conditioned to think about money. Often our internal beliefs about money are disempowering beliefs, and are subconsciously sabotaging our road to success.

You may have heard of the terms "Law of Attraction" or the "Process of Manifestation", these are both similar psychological processes that basically state:

Our beliefs impact our thoughts...

Our thoughts affect our feelings...

Our thoughts and feelings lead us to our actions...

Our actions determine our results.

Where you are at financially in your life is a result of all of the choices you've made up to this point. The choices you made were based on your beliefs, thoughts, and feelings at the time. By understanding and controlling this process you are able to determine your results more effectively.

Take a psychological check up. Do you ever say, think, or feel anything bad about wealthy people. When you were younger did you hear sayings like "Money is the root of all evil", "Money doesn't make you happy", or "Money is not important". When you think of becoming wealthy do you have worries about people wanting a hand out, or thinking that you won't know if your friends are your true friends, or if they just like you because you have money. If you subconsciously believe that all rich people are greedy, are you really going to want to become like them. How can you become something you don't like?

I highly recommend reading "Secrets of a Millionaire Mind". It is a great book whether you are a beginner or a seasoned pro. You may find some parts a little "fruity", as he has you put your hand on your heart and repeat some sayings as well as putting your finger to your head and saying " I have a millionaire mind". I was surprised that he didn't explain more in depth why he has you do this. It has to do with the Anchoring principle in NLP (Neuro-Linquistic Programming). In plain English Anchoring is the association of a stimulus (touch, site, smell, sound or taste) and an emotional state. He is basically trying to strengthen the message he is communicating to you by having you anchor it to an action. I did it, but what can I say, I have never been afraid of being a little different.

Getting out of Debt seems to be something most Americans want to do these days. Especially after Christmas which is right around the corner. During this time of year a lot of people feel in the giving mood and they pull out those credit cards and rack up 2-3,000 in additional debt during the months of November and December.

If you would truly like to get out of debt the first thing you need to do is stop incurring more! Debt that is. When you do your holiday shopping this year keep your credit cards in a drawer somewhere out of reach.

Once you have stopped the flow of money out of your pocket. You can limit the amount of interest you pay on your current debt. You can transfer to a lower balance, but beware of the fees associated with transfering the balance. Read the fineprint. You can also ask your lender or credit card company to lower your interest rate. You may also benefit from doing a consolidation loan or a home equity loan. My friend recently consolidated some debt, his dump truck (he owns his own excavating business) and other miscellaneous credit card debt by doing a home equity loan that not only lowered his combined interest rates but allowed him to free up about $500 a month in cash flow which was an important factor to him. If he wanted to get out of debt quicker he could of just kept paying the same amount and he would have been out of debt about 3 years earlier.

In the above video the woman recommends that you have your bills set up to be automatically paid. Let me just say this... If you do not have your bills set up to be automatically paid you need to do it now. It lowers the chance of you missing a payment, you can set it up to pay more to the princiap every month automatically, and it reduces stress. There will be some bills that you have to remember to go into your online banking and send a check for, but it should only be a few.

She also recommends that you "Spend Smarter", which I whole heartedly agree with. I calculated how much I spent one year on my Hazelnut mocha addiction and it was sick (about $2,400). Needless to say these "Phantom Expense" can really add up. Phantom expenses are things like that soda pop you buy every morning, the pack of cigarettes, or that double half-calf decafinated no foam tepid caramel latte! I am not saying to stop treating yourself, but be aware of how much treating yourself costs, because those little expenses can really add up. I changed my drink to an Americano because it was better for me (less calories) and it saved me about $1,000 a year.

One other important tool I would like to add to your belt is a method called "Debt Stacking". Debt stacking basically allows you to use less money to pay off the same amount of debt quicker. The method of Debt Stacking generally states that you pay off the highest interest rate debt first, while making close to the minimum payments on the other credit cards. When you pay off that high interest rate credit card, you then transfer the amount that you were paying monthly on that card to the next highest interest rate credit card. Let's look at an example:

1. Credit Card: $5,000 at 24% APR, minimum payment $100
2. Credit Card: $5,000 at 18% APR, minimum payment $100
3. Credit Card: $4,000 at 12% APR, minimum payment $100

You are able to pay $400/month towards all credit cards

Using the Debt Stacking Method you would pay $200 dollars towards Credit Card #1 until it was paid off. Then you would add that $200 dollars to the $100 dollars equalling $300 that you would pay on Credit card #2 until it was paid off. Finally you would add the $300 you were paying on Credit Card #2 to #3 for a total of $400 dollars until the last one is paid off. Presto you are out of debt and you have paid less interest and got out of debt quicker than had you paid the same amount of money spread equally over the three credit cards! I know it is like Magic!

So, In conclusion we see you need to Stop Incurring more debt, Pay less interest on the debt you do have, Set up your bills for autopay, Spend Smarter and  if you find yourself in a situation with multiple credit cards and varying interest rates use the Debt Stacking Method. You'll be debt free much faster, and you will save a lot of money!

Having worked in the mortgage and banking industry for many years I know all to well how important ones' credit is and how your credit score can help you or hurt you. I am going to try to explain credit as if you know nothing about it, so I apologize for any redundancy. I will share with you what kind of factors influence your credit score as well as ways that you can improve your credit score.

There are three major credit bureaus: Equifax, transunion, and Experian. These Credit bureaus track everytime you apply for credit, your employment history (which is ususally not up to date), your social security number, name, date of birth, your physical address, any judgments or liens (i.e, breaking a lease or back child support) and they also compile a list of all of your credit accounts, what they often refer to as "tradelines". The lenders on these credit accounts report to the credit bureaus; the type of account (bankcard, auto loan, mortgage, etc), When you opened the account, your credit limit or loan amount, the account balance and your payment history.

Some commom misconceptions I have heard from people is that they think their credit report lists asset information such as their checking accounts or brokerage accounts. Your credit report also does not list information regarding your rent, utitlies (usually) or cell phone bills. Generally it only lists items with a balance that you make payments on, not ones that you pay off every month.

Here is a list of a few things that negatively affects your credit:

1. Payment History & Adverse public records (bankruptcy, judgements, suits, liens, collection items, and/or delinquencies.
2. High Credit Balances
3. Only having a short credit history
4. Applying for credit to often
5. The mix of credit you use (for instance all credit cards)

Your payment history is the number one thing that affect your credit! Late payments on your mortgage in the last calendar year can sometimes be an immediate disqualification for a home loan. I have unfortunately been the one that has had to tell people that they did not qualify for a certain type of loan due to their credit score or payment history. Sometimes it was only 1 point away from the credit score that they needed to qualify. This is why it is so important to understand what affects your credit.

When I was younger I thought I was going to do something really smart and I was going to pay off all of my credit cards and cancel them all and that this would definitely improve my credit score. I was very disappointed when my credit became worse. I was outraged, I decided at that point I was going to fix my credit score and hear is what I did.

1. You need to know what is on your credit report. You can get a free copy of your credit report once a year at www.annualcreditreport.com. It doesn't come with the credit score... you have to pay extra for that, but if you don't know what your credit is I suggest paying the extra to know where you are starting from so you can measure your improvement. Make sure you get your credit report from each credit bureau, this is very important as they don't always have the same information. You will also be able to dispute inacurate information that is on your credit report... which leads me to the next step.
   
2. Dispute!!!. You would be surprised at how many inaccuracies may be out there on your credit report. Companies sometimes change account numbers so an account may be reporting twice on your report. They may have mistakenly reported that you were late on a payment. I have seen many times that someone has an account on their credit report that they know nothing about. Their is a process for disputing potentially innacurate information. Follow the dispute process for all of your accounts that have innacuracies.
   
3. Manage your bills better. If your bank has online bill pay, use it. Set up recurring payments for the accounts that you can. One important thing if you are struglling to make payments, pay your mortgage first and pay at least ten dollars to each of the creditors and work with them to catch up.
   
4. Do not close all of your credit accounts! Learn from my mistake. The credit bureaus like to see that you have a long history and good payment history with different lenders.
   
5. Do not apply for credit to often. To have a valid credit score you generally need three tradelines. If you apply for every "10% off your purchase" offer on a store card or every credit card that comes in the mail, this can negatively impact your score.
   
6. Stay away from collections!!! A collection will generally stay on your credit report for 7 years, even after you have paid it off. (Bankruptcies stay on for ten years) Medical collections pop up on peoples credit all the time so pay attention to those medical bills that you can't tell whethet it is a bill or not... yeah those ones. Make sure it says somewhere on the sheet "This is not a bill".

These are just a few tips that can help you improve your credit. It does take time to improve your credit score, but with a little persistence you can eventually have an excellent (720+)credit score. This will allow you to more easily qualify for all types of loans as well as save money by getting more favourable financing options.

I hope this helps!!!

Kevin