By Rich Schefren

Today I’m going to show you a simple yet incredibly effective thinking tool. Actually, I like to think of it more as a game.
I was first introduced to this technique by Nathaniel Branden, a protégé of famed author Ayn Rand.
It only takes a few minutes to "play," but it will help you generate amazing ideas to solve problems, seize opportunities, and gain greater insight.
They’re called "Sentence Stems."
A sentence stem is a partially complete sentence. It contains your desired outcome… but leaves blank your method for achieving it. Here are three examples…
"I’d be more productive today if I…."
"I could conquer procrastination by…"
"Eating healthier would be easier if I…"
The concept is incredibly simple, but sentence stems can be extremely effective in helping you improve your performance and accomplish your goals.

The Rules of the Game…

You start with a sentence stem. The sentence stem should be based on the problem you want to solve, an area you want to improve, a goal you want to achieve, or anything else you might want to use this process for.
Every day for a full week, write 6 to 10 different endings to the sentence stem.
At the end of the week, review all your answers, select the best ones, and get rid of the rest. Prioritize the answers that are immediately actionable and begin taking action on them. Create your next sentence stem from the answers that need further exploring.
You need to adhere to a few rules in order to make this technique as effective as possible.
1) Do not look at what you’ve written previously before writing. You’ll review all your answers when you are done for the week. This way you don’t allow previous answers to guide your new answers.
2) Write your endings as quickly as possible – the first thing that comes to mind. Don’t worry about spelling. Don’t worry whether your sentence makes sense. This helps bypass your conscious mind and tap into the awesome awareness of your subconscious mind.
3) Strive to make each answer unique. In other words, don’t use the same ending twice.
4) Ideally you should do this exercise in the morning, and for at least seven days. For maximum results, complete it every day for 14 days.
When you’ve completed this exercise for the number of days you decided on, have a look at everything you have written. Naturally there will be some repetitions from day to day, but there will also be many new endings.
Take all your unique endings and consolidate them. Look through them and see if they trigger any additional ideas. If so, record them as well. Then look over your entire list of answers and decide what action you’re going to take. It might be just one of the ideas… or a combination of several.
If you’re unsure, you can repeat the process to gain greater clarity on your next move. You’d then use stems like: "If anything on my list is true, then it might be helpful if I…" or "I can use this list in my life by…" Then see what develops. (Find out where to get more cool thinking tools that will give you greater success and more freedom here.)

Let’s Walk Through An Example

Situation: Let’s say you’ve got to work on an important presentation that’s a month away. You’re stressed and a little overwhelmed with all the work you need to do. But you don’t want to do what you’ve done in the past, which is to wait until the last moment to prepare. So you decide to use sentence stems to help you move into action.
Sentence Stem: It would be easy to work on my presentation if…
Initial Answers:
…I didn’t watch any TV until I worked on my presentation for at least an hour.
…I started with the section that was easiest for me.
…I laid out everything I needed to work on the night before.
…I did a free-writing exercise pretending I was doing the presentation and writing the transcript.
…I doodled and diagrammed the presentation in my journal.
…I called a friend, recorded the conversation, and talked about what I wanted to present.
…I created an outline of the presentation.
…I assembled the images I wanted to use in my slides.
…I opened PowerPoint and simply started writing.
…I recorded myself giving an impromptu presentation.
And so on…
I guarantee that if you did this for an entire week, before the week was even over you’d have already started working on your presentation. That’s the power of sentence stems. They help you tap into your subconscious mind and brainstorm solutions… and at the same time, they bring important priorities into your conscious mind.

But That’s Not All That Sentence Stems Can Do For You

You can also use them to get greater clarity on important issues in your life. Here’s an example from my journal from about eight years ago…

You’ll notice I also listed my top 10 goals at the top. I do this quite often in my journal. I’ll write my top 10 goals from memory to make sure I remain conscious of them throughout the day.
As you can see, I was doing important self-development work with these sentence stems. I was reflecting on what (1) independence, (2) thinking for myself, and (3) trusting my own mind meant to me.
So you can appreciate how easy this is… and understand the impact it can have on your life… take a moment now to create your first stems.
1. Think through a challenge you are currently experiencing.
2. Construct your sentence stem with the outcome you desire.
3. Write down six endings to the stem.
See how easy that was?
To keep it up, follow the directions I laid out for you. And watch the magic happen!

Questions or Comments on this issue?
Click here to send them to Rich!

——————————————————————-

Got a small business?

We know how to get you to the top in a hurry. We are looking to help 3 or 4 small businesses with their online presence. If you want to know more about how we can help, let Wes know and we’ll show you just what it takes to succeed in your local area.

Check out www.TheLawnGuys.com and www.ShotcreteConsulting.com and see what we did for them.

Wes

www.SpidersMarketingWeb.com

If I told you that you could build your own iPhone, Android Smartphone, Windows Phone, or iPad “app” in under 5-minutes — WITHOUT SPENDING A PENNY — then you would probably ask me what I’d been smoking. But it’s entirely true.

The only catch is that you have to have a Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter account. It helps if you have your own website or blog. But that isn’t strictly necessary.  

Get the full story on the Magnetic Sponsoring blog here…

Before we begin

Keyword research is really the first step in getting traffic to your website. This is because you will building your traffic funnels around specific keywords. So you need to make sure the keywords you’re targeting are worth targeting.

A couple things to keep in mind when doing keyword research:

• Will you be able to rank for these keywords? Take a look at the “strength” of others websites (and how many) are already targeting these keywords.
• What kinds of visitors do these keywords bring? Some keywords will bring lots of traffic, but none of them will buy. What you want is buyers!
• Will these keywords bring affiliates? Generating your own customers is great – having other people do it for you is even better. So make sure you are also targeting keywords to attract affiliates.

Although this is an essential step, doing it all by hand can take a very long time. Hiring someone else to do it costs a lot of money. The upside is that these two factors keep most everyone from even doing their keyword research. The smartest marketers use website traffic software to automate this and other aspects of their business. This will not only speed it up. It will give you better results, as well.

OK, now we can talk about traffic…

Once you’ve done your properly keyword research, you’re now ready to start targeting these keywords to draw in visitors.

Powerful Traffic Tactics:

• Surveys
• “Answer” Sites
• Video Sharing Sites

Surveys

Here’s the thing – people love surveys. It’s human nature. And smart website owners know this, so they will include your survey on their site if you make a good one. And when they put your survey on their site, they will include a link back to your website. Think about that – you get website traffic for free just for making a survey! Using just this one extra idea will put you ahead of your competition . . . who think surveys are for gathering information! Just make the question interesting enough that people will want to share it with their own visitors.

“Answer” Sites

These sites, like answers.yahoo.com are filled with people asking and answering questions for each other. But, like the surveys, that’s not why you’re going to pay attention to these sites. You are going to generate traffic, leads and sales from them. Of course, the process of digging through these sites and pulling out the content info of leads for your business is very time consuming. The good news is that it’s easy to find website traffic software that can do this automatically. These tools put the whole thing on auto-pilot and just deliver the leads to you each day.

Video Websites

No doubt you’re aware of YouTube and other video websites. YouTube is one of the most highly traffic and search websites on the entire internet! So don’t miss out of this incredible source of free website traffic.

You don’t have to be able to make awesome videos for this to work. One super easy thing to do is take an article or website you’ve written. And use free screen capture software to record yourself reading it. I’ve even seen software that will automatically convert an article to a video!

In Closing

Getting traffic is not that difficult. Use your noodle and come up with things other people aren’t doing. Plus, there’s lots of great software out there to help you.

So, start right now and:

• Step 1 is researching your keywords
• Next, set up a survey or two with viral appeal
• Take advantage of the “help” sites
• Capitalize on video!

Every web site owner knows how important traffic is. If your site is not doing well traffic-wise, here are a couple of tips that could help boost the number of visitors coming to your site each day. And the best thing is, these simple techniques could increase or improve your website traffic without the need to spend money on advertising or promotion.

Step # 1: Provide beneficial and original content.

Aside from the attractiveness of your web site, you also need to provide quality content consistently in order to bring in lots visitors and page views.

Remember who your target audience is and write in such a way that would make them read your articles. If they enjoy – or benefit from – your articles, they would visit your website often and even tell their friends about it.

You would then have repeat visitors, and perhaps gain loyal fans. When people share the great information they’ve seen from your site, it will continue to grow and get more exposure.

Originality is one of the important factors in generating massive traffic for your web site. If your content is already available in many other places online, your webpage might not show up in the search engines, as other higher-ranking sites with the same content might dilute it.

It is also recommended to provide “evergreen” material. Evergreen content is something that never grows old, meaning the information is still relevant in the future. This can guarantee a flow of steady traffic to your site. Timeless material can make the readership grow over time.

Step # 2: Use appropriate keywords in your posts.

Search engine optimization (aka SEO) might sound like rocket science for beginners; but in reality, it is just using the right keywords at the right places. Keywords must be used in the post title, and sprinkled all throughout the start, middle, and the end of the content.

There is no hard and fast rule regarding the “ideal” keyword density, and various authorities on search engine optimization have differing views about this. To be on the safe side, try not to exceed 2%, but insert your keywords strategically while writing in a natural manner.
Use tags that are pertinent to your posts. These also act as keyword phrases that can assist in building traffic through search engines.

If your site has photos, image searches from search engines can be your ally in bringing traffic to your web site. Place the correct keywords in the alt attribute of the image. Be honest about the keywords you input. Don’t just write anything in it. Misleading others to click on your site is a major turn off.

Step # 3: “Advertise” your link on your emails and other sites.

When you hear the world advertising, the first thing that comes into mind is expense. But in reality, you can market your web site without shelling out any money. One of the simplest ways of doing so is by placing a link in your email signature.

Another way of promoting your website for free is by commenting on other sites, especially on those that are in the same niche as yours. This is one way of building your credibility and making people aware of your products or offer.

Step # 4: Use the Power of Web 2.0

Social bookmarking sites – such as Digg, Propeller and Stumbleupon – can help bring in targeted website traffic to your site. But make sure not to get overly promotional, as members of social bookmarking sites tend to discourage marketing activities.

Be an active member of the social networking sites you’ll be joining in. Make friends and grow your network. Contribute to the community and join the discussions. And most important of all, don’t just bookmark your own links. To get under the radar, bookmark around 4 to 6 times more non-self-serving links than your own.

Another powerful Web 2.0 tool that is taking the Internet by storm is Twitter. The aim is to build a solid number of followers. Then you can send them tweets about your website or update them whenever there’s a new post.

This can be quite effective as long as you’ve established good relationships with your Twitter followers and you provide helpful Tweeter posts that can help enhance their way of life. A little marketing is ok, but keep it subtle. Over promotion might discourage your followers from reading your posts, and might even cause them to unfollow you.

Step # 5: Trade links with other sites.

Look for similar sites and trade links with them. One way to do this is by searching for websites with similar topics or in the same niche as yours.

Contact the owner and ask for a link trade. You could post their link first in your site so they would be more willing to reciprocate. You could always remove the link if they don’t return the favor.

These are some of the free yet effective ways that can help you get significant traffic to your website. Follow these website traffic tips and you’ll be seeing great results in no time.

About the Author Want to reach Internet Marketing top gun status in no time? Now you can get a FREE 30-day test drive to eleven of the most popular and useful five-star home business membership sites at PrivilegedMemberships.com

Website URL http://www.privilegedmemberships.com