SEKITAR 80 persen otak anak berkembang pada periode yang disebut dengan "golden age", atau masa-masa keemasan, usia 0 hingga lima tahun. Pada masa-masa tersebut, peran orangtua sangat dibutuhkan dalam mengawasi tumbuh dan berkembangnya otak anak.
Menurut Psikolog Anak, Desni Yuniarni, masa "golden age" otak anak berkembang sangat cepat sehingga informasi apapun akan diserap, tanpa melihat baik atau buruk.
"Tugas orangtua yang mengarahkan anaknya lebih baik, dengan rasa cinta dan kasih sayang," ujarnya.
Selain berperan sebagai pengawas tumbuh dan berkembangnya anak-anak mereka, orangtua bertugas menambah pengetahuan, terutama seputar pertumbuhan anak. Namun, orangtua tidak bisa memaksakan pertumbuhan anak sesuai kemauannya, seperti menyuruh belajar di luar kemampuan anak dengan maksud agar anak mereka kelak menjadi pintar.
"Yang penting kita sebagai orangtua harus menunjukkan sikap dan perilaku yang baik karena anak suka meniru orang-orang terdekatnya," kata Desni.
Ia menambahkan, orangtua harus mengawasi anak mereka ketika menonton acara televisi. Karena saat ini banyak sekali program televisi yang tidak cocok bahkan tidak layak ditonton bagi anak-anak karena dikhawatirkan akan ditiru, seperti acara gosip yang menonjolkan isu-isu perceraian selebritis.
"Lebih baik televisi dimatikan saja agar anak tidak terkontaminasi dengan program-program televisi tersebut. Kalaupun harus menonton, usahakan kita juga ikut menonton sehingga bisa menjadi sensor acara televisi yang sedang ditonton anak kita," ujarnya.
Ia juga berpesan, bagi orangtua yang mempunyai waktu singkat untuk berkumpul dengan anak-anaknya, usahakan anak diasuh oleh orang yang tepat dan harus tetap meluangkan waktu untuk sang buah hati.
"Jika tidak memanfaatkan waktu senggang, maka anak tidak akan berkembang dengan optimal," katanya.
AC
Saturday, December 20, 2008
80 Persen Otak Anak Berkembang di Usia Emas
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
5 Free Ways to Increase Your Website’s Traffic
While it might be easy enough to build a website, it is often quite difficult to build meaningful traffic. In the past, many new website owners believed that by launching a website, they were guaranteed to be flooded with traffic. But with so many millions of website on the net, there is a lot of competition for traffic, and you might find it hard to get your piece of the pie without paying a fortune for it.
Fortunately, there are many free alternatives, which are often more effective:
1. Create a Press Release.
If you do a simple Google search, you will find many websites which allow you to create free press releases to advertise a new product or website. One great thing about these websites is that they’ll take your press release and distribute it throughout the internet, helping you to ‘get the word out’.
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2. Use Website to Directories.
You can also get lots of free links to your website by submitting your site to popular web directories. Be sure to write a compelling title and descriptive summary about your website to encourage web surfers to visit.
3. Submit a Website Feed.
If you have an RSS feed, submit it to syndication services. One service that we like is Ping-O-Matic. It enables you to submit your feed to multiple websites at once.
4. Leave a Trail Wherever You Go.
As a website owner, you probably participate in forums or subscribe and comment on blogs. To use this to your advantage, be sure to include a link to your website in your signature. Not only will this increase your website’s exposure, but it will also help you to get inbound links to your website.
5. Write free articles.
Another popular method for increasing traffic and generating links, is to write free articles. If you do a Google search for ‘free articles’, you will find many services which allow you to author articles for reprint on other websites. One great benefit is that websites which publish your article are required to include an ‘About the Author’ section, which you can use to describe your website and include a link.
If you have any other free-traffic-building suggestions that you’d like to share, please leave a comment and let us know about it.
15 Ways To Market Your Website
Believe it or not, there are many creative methods that you can employ to market your website and generate traffic. While some methods do require an investment, most effective methods do not. See our list below:
1. Article Marketing. Sign up for an account with EzineArticles or some other article database, write articles, and include a tagline about your website in the about the author section.
2. Write Classified Ads. Consider submitting ads about your service in a classifieds website such as Craigslist.
3. Blog Regularly. Be sure to notify (or ping) aggregators and search engines when you post new content.
4. Email At Your Domain. To get your domain name out there, create an email account at your domain. And if you still want to use gmail (or other free email services), consider forwarding your email.
5. Forum Posting. Include a signature for each of your forum posts containing your domain name along with a tagline.
6. Use Social Bookmarking Sites. This is probably one of the easiest ways to generate traffic. Simply create an account with Digg or StumbleUpon and begin submitting your own articles.
7. Business Cards. All of your marketing does not need to be done online. To supplement your web-based efforts, you should also consider placing your website’s address on your business cards.
8. Optimize For Search Engines. Organic search will bring you highly targetted traffic. If you do not have the skills to optimize your website, consider hiring an SEO expert; it will be worth the effort.
9. Submit Your Site To Directories. There are numerous free (and paid) directories to which you can submit your website for inclusion.
10. Pay-Per-Click. Unfortunately, this method is not free, however it does generate a lot of traffic quickly. Google’s AdWords will give you the most traffic, but you can also consider similar programs at other large search engines such as Yahoo or Ask.
11. Comment On Popular Blogs. Most blogs allow you to enter a url when you comment. Take advantage of this by writing a useful content and posting your domain.
12. Mailing List. By collecting visitor email addresses, you can easily send articles and advertisements directly to their inboxes, and encourage them to return to your website.
13.Submit Sitemaps. To ensure that search engines know about all of your website’s pages, create a sitemap in XML format and submit it to all of the large search engines. Some popular search engines that accept sitemaps include Google, Yahoo, MSN Live, and Ask.
14. Press Release. Similar to article marketing, creating and distributing a press release can result in a wide variety of inbound links. When drafting your press release, be sure to create an informative article about your business, what it offers, and why people should visit your website or use your services.
15. Social Networking Sites. There are a wide variety of social networking websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace. If you have an account, be sure to include your url in your portfolio, along with a brief blurb, if applicable. You can also opt to create an account or page to advertise your business. When doing so, do make sure that you are abiding by the terms of use.
Does Your Website Look Like An Amateur Built It?
For most of your visitors, your website will be their first point of contact with you or your business. As a result, it is important that your website makes a good first impression.
One way to make this good first impression is to have a well designed professional looking website. And regardless of whether or not you’ve hired someone to do do the job, it is important to verify that it does not look amateur.
Below we have listed a few things that your website should avoid.
1. Lots of Colors
There are a lot of beautiful colors out there. However, that does not mean that you should put them all on your website.
For a professional-looking website, colors should be kept to a minimum.
2. Centered Text
Centering might work well for certain headlines, images, or captions. However, you should avoid centering the bulk of your textual content. According to published research, users prefer to read from left to right. As a result, centering your text makes it more difficult for users to digest your content
3. Font Woes
There are many ways to convey amateurism by improperly using font. Here is what not to do:
* Use many different font faces
* Incorporate text of all sizes, as well as several variants or bold, italic, and underlined text
* Use multiple fonts colors
4. Excessive Use of Exclamation Points
There are better ways to convey excitement than by overusing punctuation. Remember, your website is not an infomercial.
5. Animation
Sometimes people include animated graphics to add excitement to a web page. Unfortunately, this conveys something very different. Sure, you might find your bouncing logo quite eye-catching, but you don’t want to distract users from your content or come across — once again — as an infomercial.
6. Too Much Content
While you might have a lot of things to say about your services or your company, it does not all need to be put on your website. Instead, try to find a concise way of summarizing your content and effectively describing what you can offer.
Additionally, if you have a lot of content which you feel should be included in your website, consider breaking it up into small pages, instead of cramming it all into one long slow-loading page.
In order for your website to be successful, it will have to inspire trust and confidence. As a result, you should keep these tips in mind when evaluating your website
'Four Steps to Promote Website'
"..... Search engines are the most common way for Internet surfers to search for something on the Net.....
.....SEO, SEO tools, website promotion, internet marketing....."
Having a Web site is great, but it is meaningless if nobody knows about it. Just like having a brilliantly designed product brochure does you little advantage if it sits in your sales manager’s desk drawer, a Web site does you little interest if your target market isn’t visiting it. It is the goal of this tome to help you take your Web site out of the desk drawer, into the spotlight, and into the hands of your target market. You will learn how to formulate an Internet marketing strategy> in keeping with your objectives, your product or service, and your target market.
Designing Your Site to Be Search Engine Friendly
Creating a site that is search engine fraternal should be an objective of every company that wants to do business on the Internet. Search engines are the most common way for Internet surfers to search for something on the Net. In fact, 85 percent of all people who use the Internet use search engines as their primary way to look for information. By using keywords relating to your company in appropriate places on your site, you can improve how search engines rank you. You want these chosen keywords in the keyword meta-tags as well as in each page’s report meta-tag. Some of the other places where you want to have these keywords are your domain name if possible, your page titles and page text, your Alt tags for graphics, and your page headers. Many search engines lieu a lot of emphasis on the number and quality of links to a site to determine its ranking. This ways and means that the more Web sites you can get to union to your site, the higher your site is shown in search engine results.
Search Engine and Directory Submissions
There are billions of Web pages on the World Wide Web, so how can you increase your chances of being found? One mode is submitting your Web site to the divers search engines and directories. Once you’ve optimized your Web site to be search engine friendly, you are ready to face the challenge of submitting it to the most important search engines. By “search engines,” I’m referring to the synthesis of search engines, directories, spiders and crawlers. You need to be within the first two pages of search results to ensure your best possible goal online.
The E-mail Advantage
E-mail is rapidly becoming one of the most crucial forms of communication you have with your clients, potential customers, suppliers, and colleagues. E-mail is now a widely accessible and generally accepted form of business communication. We are seeing a huge increase in barter e-mail volume. The reason for this significant increase is understandable given that e-mail is a very cost-effective, time-efficient tool that has a high response rate. E-mail is used to build your community online, sell products and make provision buying service, reinforce brand awareness, and encourage buying loyalty.
Add Value with Affiliate Programs
Another way of benefiting from links to your Web site is by developing an affiliate program. Affiliate programs (also called reseller or partnership or associate programs) are revenue-sharing arrangements set up by companies selling products and services. When another site agrees to additive in your affiliate program, it is rewarded for sending customers to your business. These customers are sent to your site through links on your associates’ or affiliates’ Web sites. By developing and this type of program, you generate additional business and additional links to your site and additional junction popularity for search engines.
"..... When another site agrees to participate in your affiliate program, it is rewarded for sending custo....."
_____________________________________________
Article Source: http://www.unique-ezine-articles.com
8 ways to promote new content on your website
After months of rebuilding your website - adding great content
filled with profitable, keyword-rich copy (all due to Dr Ken Evoy's
excellent 5-day Affiliate Masters e-mail course, no doubt) - your
site is now ready to be uploaded to the Internet!
But how do you go about promoting this new content?
Well, you need a plan!
WEBSITE PROMOTION PLAN
Yes, you need a website promotion plan! And you need a schedule
for that plan. And once that schedule's finished, you need another,
long-term plan - site promotion is never over! Some of the
activities that you should plan to do are listed below; you
can probably think of others, more relevant to your site: do!
1: TELL YOUR E-MAIL SUBSCRIBERS
Tell your e-mail subscribers! This is an easy first step to take,
to promote a site redesign (or new pages on your site). Subscribers
have been expecting an announcement, anyway, because you've been
referring to the redesign in earlier newsletters (haven't you?).
This is your best opportunity to really go into detail about all
the great ways your site has improved, and all the new benefits
your subscribers will find. You could even (cheekily!) run a
competition to encourage subscribers to visit your site, and
find those inevitable bugs, before the rest of the web does!!
2: TELL YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY, ANYONE
Tell friends, family and others who are (legitimately) in your
address book. Make your e-mail personal, and friendly. And better
still, just talk about how your site now benefits or involves them.
That is, just discuss:
* your new link to their site
* your promotion of their affiliate program
* their new article, now on your site
Even busy friends and family, need to be 'encouraged'! Always focus
on benefits, but *get them* to visit!
3: TELL THE NEWSGROUPS
Tell the newsgroups about your new site, but only do this if you
are a regular contributor. Simply announce your site - check
that site announcements are allowed, first! - with a few good
reasons why members should visit! Better still, contribute to the
newsgroup, and simply leave your URL as part of your 'signature'.
A great place to find suitable newsgroups is
- http://www.deja.com/usenet/ (now http://groups.google.com)
4: WHAT ABOUT SEARCH ENGINES?
DON'T just blast your new pages to all the search engines /
directories! This may seem like spam to them, and your new pages
(or even your whole site) may get banned. This is because some
search engines need to be told about new pages, others don't. And
directories generally just like to know about the main page on your
site (unless you've just added a lot of content on a completely
different theme).
Search engine policies change regularly, so find out from others by
visiting a search engine forum, or asking someone you consider to
be an expert. An excellent place to find search engine advice is
http://www.searchengineforums.com [HELP! and New Member Forum].
(So what did *I* do? I just submitted one new page to the major
search engines. This page has links to all of the other new pages,
too, so the search engine spiders should eventually index all of my
new content. I visited searchengineforums first, obviously!)
5: DON'T FORGET PAY-PER-CLICK SEARCH ENGINES!
Add more keywords to your various pay-per-click accounts. This is a
great way to make new content available, quickly. (You just have to
wait for keyword-approval by the pay-per-click administrators).
Choose profitable keywords (high demand, low supply), identified
when you began creating new content. But, as you pay for each
click, it's important that you only get clicks from your potential
customers; so choose your keywords, title & description carefully.
To learn much, much more about pay-per-click search engines visit
this excellent site: http://www.PayPerClickSearchEngines.com/
6: FIND OTHER PROMOTION SOURCES
Search engines are not the only way to promote your site. There are
webmaster resource sites, freebie sites, and even Britney Spears
fanclub sites, all of which depend on new content! You name it,
there's a site resource dedicated to it!
So use your favorite search engine to discover these resources,
and check out their linking policy. Then, if possible, get a link!
(You may even want to visit some of the links on the resource site,
and get links from those sites too!)
With some persistence, this should bring you a lot of well-targeted
traffic. (Free Sites, for example, get most of their traffic from
one such resource: The Free Site - http://www.thefreesite.com )
7: WRITE AN ARTICLE
Writing an article (like this one) is a great way to promote your
new content. There are so many sites willing to accept articles,
and so many editors willing to publish them in their newsletters.
Just write about your new content (but not about your site), making
it interesting and informative to a general audience. Then, in the
author-byline, refer to your new content, and provide a link to it.
For example, I found a great site, Find Sticky, just from reading
an interesting article about sticky content, written by the site's
webmaster. I enjoyed the article and checked the author bylines to
see who wrote it, then visited his site - http://www.findsticky.com
===== Side Bar =====
Don't know how to write an article? Just write about what you
actually do, and the sites that you visit. Then read a few good
articles on 'how to write an article', and compose away! It *isn't*
difficult, and it can be very rewarding (not least because of the
contacts you make with those that actually publish your articles!)
8: GET VIRAL
Viral marketing is that elusive creature that can literally,
*literally* create a STAMPEDE of traffic to your site; just on the
continued recommendation of others. Think Am-I-Hot-or-Not? or
Hotmail or Hampsterdance or ICQ or Napster...!
So how do you go achieve viral marketing?
Simple! Come up with a completely original, innovative, easy-to-
use, easy-to-talk-about Wow!-of-a website... OR
Try one of these more common easier-to-achieve approaches:
- allow visitors to create virtual greeting cards on your site
- create free ebooks that include content (or articles) from your
site, and then heavily promote the free ebooks
- put free e-mail on your site
- put 'recommend-this-site' links on your site
- etcetera
Back to the article from Find Sticky. I actually found that article
in a newsfeed from Moreover! It seems that if you write articles on
a weekly basis, then it's possible to get your articles syndicated
via Moreover. So, with no effort from you (apart from writing
regular articles) you can get a link to your site (and your
article) on hundreds, even thousands of other websites!
http://w.moreover.com/site/publishers/index.html
As for Moreover - the newsfeed company - a link to their site goes
on *all* syndicated content. Clever, eh!?
~ ~ ~
Viral marketing brings more traffic to your site than any other
method! But it's a lot easier talking about it than doing it!
BONUS: WRITE A PRESS RELEASE
Writing a press release is a good idea, but only if your site
redesign *is* newsworthy - and only you know that! - your release
will be pretty much ignored, otherwise. If you insist on writing a
release, why not submit it to PRWeb (http://www.prweb.com). They
check the releases before submitting them to interested parties.
They'll reject your release if it isn't properly written (or
newsworthy). They do all of this for free, too!
CONCLUSION:
You've worked so hard on developing your website further, with new
content or a site redesign. And now you need to work just as hard
to promote this new content! So get a promotion plan, and work
through it, and then continually promote, promote, promote!
Enjoy your journey
About the Author
Steve Nash is webmaster of http://shoptour.co.uk - a new-look UK
shopping directory: find shopping sites quickly AND save money. He
also edits a newsletter called Promote! Promote! Promote! Subscribe
by sending a blank e-mail to mailto:pppromote@getresponse.com
Friday, December 12, 2008
Tips Bisnis dan Mengelola Toko Online
Beberapa tips bagi kamu yang akan ataupun sudah membuka bisnis online khususnya TOKO ONLINE
1. Yang terpenting dalam usaha ini adalah menumbuhkan kepercayaan pada toko online kita. Ada dua hal yang harus dilakukan oleh para pelaku usaha online, pertama, tunjuk-kan indentitas dengan jelas. Sebaiknya mencantumkan nama, alamat lengkap bah-kan foto pelaku usaha dalam toko online-nya, Kedua, jadilah orang yang gaul di internet dengan cara aktif dalam mills ataupun blog-blog sehingga makin dikenal
2. Rajin memberi tips dan trik. Jangan hanya mengisi toko dengan pajangan produk jualan saja tetapi juga dengan newsletter unik dan bermanfaat yang berkaitan dengan produk jualan yang ditawarkan
3. Bergaul akrab dengan Google, dengan cara sering meng-up-date data-data dalam toko online kita. Dengan sering-nya mengupdate data, maka Google juga akan sering meng-update data kita secara otomatis.
4. Bangunlah kredibilitas dengan cara tidak hanya menjadi penjual produk tetapi juga seorang ahli dari produk kita. Contohnya bila toko online kita menjual baju maka se-baiknya juga menyediakan, newsletter yang berkaitan tips! memadumadankan baju.
5. Tampilkan testimoni dari pembeli, ada baiknya menampil kan testimoni pembeli untuk! menggambarkan bahwa banyak yang menyukai toko online kita.
6. Buatlah pengunjung dan permbeli toko online kita nyaman, dengan nilai lebih dari toko online seperti newsletter yang menarik, isi yang sering di-update dan situs yang interaktif terhadap pengunjung.
7. Bangunlah komunitas, karena dengan menciptakan pelanggan yang loyal, ke depan-nya bila menjual produk lain maka pembeli akan langsung percaya.
8. Membangun sistem afiliasi, dengan membiarkan orang lain menjadi salah satu agen kita.
9. Hindari spam yaitu mengirim email yang mengenalkan toko kita ke sembarangan email orang lain tanpa diminta. Hal ini hanya akan menurunkan kredibilitas toko online tersebut
10. Beriklan lewat artikel. Dalam arti buatlah bahasa iklan seperti membaca artikel karena tidak ada satu pun orang suka membaca iklan.
credit from : k*skus forum
http://websitetutorial.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/tips-bisnis-dan-mengelola-toko-online/