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Prime Sarmiento
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Posts by Prime Sarmiento
9 Tips to Ensure Your Child’s Safety
Apr 17th
By now, you may already have read or heard about the countless children who are harmed, kidnapped, killed, or those who remain missing to this day. You may have shuddered at the thought that there are people who are really capable of harming innocent children. More often than not, criminals pick their targets at random. Their victims just happened to be at the right place and at the right time — or wrong place at the wrong time. The child may be lounging around in an empty parking lot or was walking all alone.
No matter what you think, child safety is a real issue. There are a number of things you can do to ensure that your child is safe in and out of school. Here are 9 tips which you can impart to your kids:
1. Make him memorize important numbers and addresses
For preschoolers, this is very important. You need to make him memorize your phone number at home and if possible, your home address. This will make it easier for authorities to track you down should he happen to get lost in a mall or in the park.
2. Tell him not go with strangers
Preschoolers should be taught that “strangers” mean those who are not related to him. Tell him that he should only go with mom and dad (or approved family members and friends).
3. Make him understand that the school can be his sanctuary
It’s good if your child rides the school bus. But if you’re the one who picks up your child at school, be firm about telling your child to remain inside the school while you are not yet around.
4. Teach him to observe his surroundings
If your child walks home from school alone, instruct him to observe his surroundings while walking. He may look over his shoulder from time to time or look at parked cars.
5. Get him a whistle
Buy him a whistle that is similar to those being used by cops. Teach your child to blow the whistle repeatedly if a suspicious looking person tries to approach them. This will somehow help in catching the attention of other people. For older kids, you may consider buying them a pepper spray.
6. Teach him self-defense techniques
You may consider giving your child karate lessons. He doesn’t have to become a karate expert; all he needs to know are techniques that could help him get away from potential offenders or criminals. One mother always tells her child to scratch or gouge the eyes of the person who grabs him.
7. Monitor his Internet usage
Criminals such as sex offenders have turned to the Internet to hunt for their next victim. Make sure that you take the time to monitor your child’s Internet usage. Discourage him from giving his personal information (such as his home address, cellphone number, and school) to everybody online. If he has a Facebook account, you should teach him to make his profile private so not everybody can access it.
8. Tell him it’s okay to tell his teacher if he finds something strange in school
Sad to say, even schools are not spared from the reach of criminals. In Denver, a sex offender was suspected photos from a day care center. Instruct your child to go to his teacher immediately if he finds something or someone suspicious.
9. Encourage your child to hang out with friends in your own home
Invite your kid’s friends to your home so you can get to know them better. You can encourage them to hang out in your own home by preparing snacks for them. It will be better if you can reach out to the parents of his friends so you can create a support network.
These tips are not meant to turn your kids into paranoid adults. It’s all about instilling in them the importance of self-preservation. The idea is to make them realize that they also need to look after themselves since you will not be by their side at all times.
(Photo credit: Swing via Shutterstock)
About the author: Prime Sarmiento is a long time journalist and content marketing strategist for online tutorial company Ahead Interactive - provider of live, real-time, video-powered tutorials. You can follow her writing tips in twitter.
9 Tips to Ensure Your Child’s Safety
Apr 17th
By now, you may already have read or heard about the countless children who are harmed, kidnapped, killed, or those who remain missing to this day. You may have shuddered at the thought that there are people who are really capable of harming innocent children. More often than not, criminals pick their targets at random. Their victims just happened to be at the right place and at the right time — or wrong place at the wrong time. The child may be lounging around in an empty parking lot or was walking all alone.
No matter what you think, child safety is a real issue. There are a number of things you can do to ensure that your child is safe in and out of school. Here are 9 tips which you can impart to your kids:
1. Make him memorize important numbers and addresses
For preschoolers, this is very important. You need to make him memorize your phone number at home and if possible, your home address. This will make it easier for authorities to track you down should he happen to get lost in a mall or in the park.
2. Tell him not go with strangers
Preschoolers should be taught that “strangers” mean those who are not related to him. Tell him that he should only go with mom and dad (or approved family members and friends).
3. Make him understand that the school can be his sanctuary
It’s good if your child rides the school bus. But if you’re the one who picks up your child at school, be firm about telling your child to remain inside the school while you are not yet around.
4. Teach him to observe his surroundings
If your child walks home from school alone, instruct him to observe his surroundings while walking. He may look over his shoulder from time to time or look at parked cars.
5. Get him a whistle
Buy him a whistle that is similar to those being used by cops. Teach your child to blow the whistle repeatedly if a suspicious looking person tries to approach them. This will somehow help in catching the attention of other people. For older kids, you may consider buying them a pepper spray.
6. Teach him self-defense techniques
You may consider giving your child karate lessons. He doesn’t have to become a karate expert; all he needs to know are techniques that could help him get away from potential offenders or criminals. One mother always tells her child to scratch or gouge the eyes of the person who grabs him.
7. Monitor his Internet usage
Criminals such as sex offenders have turned to the Internet to hunt for their next victim. Make sure that you take the time to monitor your child’s Internet usage. Discourage him from giving his personal information (such as his home address, cellphone number, and school) to everybody online. If he has a Facebook account, you should teach him to make his profile private so not everybody can access it.
8. Tell him it’s okay to tell his teacher if he finds something strange in school
Sad to say, even schools are not spared from the reach of criminals. In Denver, a sex offender was suspected photos from a day care center. Instruct your child to go to his teacher immediately if he finds something or someone suspicious.
9. Encourage your child to hang out with friends in your own home
Invite your kid’s friends to your home so you can get to know them better. You can encourage them to hang out in your own home by preparing snacks for them. It will be better if you can reach out to the parents of his friends so you can create a support network.
These tips are not meant to turn your kids into paranoid adults. It’s all about instilling in them the importance of self-preservation. The idea is to make them realize that they also need to look after themselves since you will not be by their side at all times.
(Photo credit: Swing via Shutterstock)
About the author: Prime Sarmiento is a long time journalist and content marketing strategist for online tutorial company Ahead Interactive - provider of live, real-time, video-powered tutorials. You can follow her writing tips in twitter.
How to Help Your Child Ace School Exams
Mar 1st
Children are most likely to say that they want to just lounge around or rest for a while after spending hours listening to lecture after lecture from their teachers. There is nothing wrong with this if they had a rough day.
What’s disturbing, is if they deliberately stay away from schoolwork or procrastinate when it comes to reviewing for their tests or completing an important science project.
When it seems that it is becoming a habit for your child to put off school work, it’s time for you to step in and help your child develop good study habits to get better grades. It is important for you to emphasize to your child the importance of setting priorities early in life. Don’t wait for them to flunk their tests, or worse, fail in their subjects before you talk to them about it.
You can help your children hurdle their tests with these 7 tips:
1. Help them set targets
Ask your child what they want to achieve for that particular school year. Tell them to set a specific goal or target. If they say, “I want to get better grades,” tell them to be more specific. It will be better if they say they want to get a GPA of 2.5 or higher. Having a definite target will make it easier for them to undertake a series of actions to achieve their goals, instead of just “shooting for the moon.”
2. Preparation is key
At the start of the school year, teachers provide an outline of a subject’s scope along with a reading list and other course requirements. Make sure that your child has all the materials they need for these course requirements. Having these materials on hand will make sure that your child will have no reason to procrastinate and give them the opportunity to study in advance.
3. Teach them to mark important dates
You may opt to give them a small notebook where they can jot down important dates or a planner that has dates where they can list their schedule. Ask them to show this to you so you can give them “gentle reminders” to block off the whole week before the dates of an exam. During this week, advise your child to not schedule any social activity so they can concentrate on studying.
4. Schedule regular study time
Encourage your child to set aside at least two hours every day to go through their lessons. This will help them remember the lectures for the day and understand the concepts they were taught. They should be encouraged to spend more time on subjects or concepts that they do not understand.
5. Get help
Some kids find it hard to digest or absorb mathematical or scientific concepts. Ask your child if they are having difficulties with their subjects and if they would like to seek the help of a tutor. There is nothing wrong in asking for the assistance of a tutor who can explain complex subjects.
6. Schedule some “downtime”
Your child needs to relax from time to time. During his break, you can consider bringing your child to the nearest mall or grocery store and get them a treat. You may play board games with them during their downtime. The idea is to take his mind off studying for a limited period of time.
7. Reward your child
If your child achieves their goals for the school year, you may give them a reward such as buying them the gadget they have always wanted or allowing them to vacation wherever they want. By doing this, you are telling your child that hard work does pay off.
Conclusion
You need to take the time to monitor your child’s performance in school. Your guidance is essential to helping your child realize the need to prioritize their school activities. As a parent, your ultimate goal is to expose your child to habits that will lay down the groundwork for their future success.
(Photo credit: Portrait of a lovely girl drawing via Shutterstock)
About the author: Prime Sarmiento is a long time journalist and content marketing strategist for online tutorial company Ahead Interactive - provider of live, real-time, video-powered tutorials. You can follow her writing tips in twitter.
How to Choose a Private Tutor for Your Child
Jan 24th
A tutor can help in improving your child’s academic standing, improve his confidence and retain his focus. But this will only be possible if you can find the tutor that can fit your child’s temperament and learning style.
Before you hire a private tutor, ask yourself these three important questions:
1. Is the tutor approachable?
One of the most common problems for a student who’s having difficulty with a certain subject is the “fear” of the subject and the subject teacher herself. Rossana Llenado. founder of online tutorial firm Ahead Interactive, notes that one of the main reasons why students can’t keep up with schoolwork is because they’re afraid of their very strict teacher. Fear rattles the child and keeps him from focusing on the subject.
Indeed, a study issued by Unicef about corporal punishment has established a correlation between child learning and fear. The study notes:
“A common effect of corporal punishment is a growing fear of teachers among school children and therefore a dislike of school. When driven by fear of punishment, children learn simply to please the teacher and not to acquire skills and knowledge for their own development. Physical punishment thus distorts a student’s motivation and learning is influenced by fear. Children who are physically and emotionally abused develop anxiety that causes loss of concentration and poor learning.”
You need to look for a private tutor who can ease these fears and renew the student’s interest. Someone who’s approachable enough so that your child won’t equate learning with being punished or ridiculed. The tutor must have a thorough understanding of the child psychology in order to develop a fearless, healthy and communicative relationship with her student.
2. Does the tutor have the ability to teach the subject matter?
There are tutors who are excellent at a certain subject matter but may not have the ability to teach it. Some have the knack for teaching; they have the gift to explain tough concepts without intimidating their students.
But for most people, the ability to teach is something that needs to be honed and developed for several years. And this can only be possible if the teacher has the inclination and years of experience teaching school aged children.
Llenado, an educational manager who has trained several tutors for her chain of tutorial centers in Manila, has discovered that her best tutors are the ones who are not only knowledgeable (she only hires the best from top universities) but also those who can make learning quick and fun!
Hence, hiring a math genius is not a surefire way of boosting your child’s grades in algebra. He may understand the theory but is that math genius capable of breaking down a complicated theory so that even a 12-year old child can understand it and even excel on the subject?
Check the tutor’s academic credentials and teaching experience by asking for referrals and transcript of records. Also interview other parents who hired the tutor for their children – you want to know if the tutor indeed helped in boosting a child’s academic performance.
If you already have a prospective tutor in mind, then ask her for her teaching method and syllabus.
Keep in mind that a tutor who hasn’t planned out her methodology of covering a subject or isn’t sure of the syllabus or the topics that require extra attention might not be able to help your child.
3. Should I consider using an online tutor?
This is one option that you might want to consider if you want a more flexible learning schedule for your child.
You can select an online tutor from reputable companies that employ top-notch tutors who can help your child anytime. This will also fit your busy schedule as you can always check on your child’s progress by simply checking it online via your smartphone or computer.
A good learning center will generally have orientation programs for parents and the tutors to present an overview of its teaching methods. The learning center must be able to ‘diagnose’ your child’s problem areas and devise a study plan that will address these problems.
Conclusion
But more than your prospective tutor’s credentials and qualifications, the most important thing for you to do is to discuss your child’s concerns with the tutor. It is said that it takes a village to raise a child. Educating your child involves a community of learners and educators in which you and the tutor belong.
(Photo credit: A Plus Student via Shutterstock)
About the author: Prime Sarmiento is a long time journalist and content marketing strategist for online tutorial company Ahead Interactive - provider of live, real-time, video-powered tutorials. You can follow her writing tips in twitter.
The Art of Nurturing Your Writing Ideas
Nov 14th
Photo credit: J. Paxon Reyes (CC BY-NC 2.0)
In my previous post at Lifehack, I wrote about the different means of finding writing ideas. But what if you already have a lot of great ideas? How will you nurture these ideas so that they will blossom into a fantastic blog post or great content?
The key here is you need to know how to organize disparate ideas to write useful and well-written pieces.
1. Store and classify your ideas:
There are so many ways to gather ideas – books, blog posts, newsletters, suggestions from friends. With so many ideas swirling around, you need to find a way to file them and classify them based on categories and themes.
I highly recommend tools such as Evernote where you can store all your ideas and put tags on them for reference and/or inspiration for writing.
2. Draft an outline
Some writers don’t recommend this method as it is too linear – which doesn’t reflect how the human brain works.
That said, as a journalist who needs to beat the daily deadlines, I have to write quick and to the point. Hence, I draft an outline as a guide. I usually start with a thesis statement – the lead – to sum up the most important point of my story. I will then write down sub-leads – statements that will support the thesis and gather evidence (data, research papers and interviews with analysts) to put some meat in the sub-leads.
3. Use mind maps
Our ideas don’t usually come in a sequential patterns. Sometimes as we get insights they may or may not be related to the topic at hand. To see connections of what seem to be diverse collections of ideas, try using a mind map.
Get a paper and pencil and draw a box at the center of the page. This box will serve as a starting point. Write down any idea inside this box and then link the “center” to other ideas come to mind. You will gradually see a pattern emerging, allowing you to see the connections clearly.
4. Gather some index cards
Or yellow sticky notes if you prefer. I recommend this method for longer writing projects like books which have several chapters and can be overwhelming to write. Just remember to have a clean floor so you can out lay out all your index cards and re-arrange them to fit your theme.
Write down your ideas on your card. Keep them short – just one to two sentences per card. After that lay them down and analyze the connections -can you string then together to form a coherent whole? Are they arranged in sequence or do you need to rearrange them? This is a great way to put order to your to a longer writing piece.
5. Put a call to action
Unless you are writing in your journal, you are writing something to address a particular audience. So what do you want your readers to do after reading your article post or book? Do you want them to buy your product or book a consultation with you? Do you want them to click through a link or donate to your favorite charity?
Whatever it is, be sure to ask for it. You don’t even need to put the call to action at the end of your post. You can put it in your introduction or write your post to revolve around a specific call to action.
And in the case of this blog post, this is my call to action: apply one tip that you got from this post in developing a writing idea. Afterwards, contribute comments below on how that tip helped you in writing a post or book.
About the author: Prime Sarmiento is a long time journalist and content marketing strategist for online tutorial company Ahead Interactive - provider of live, real-time, video-powered tutorials. You can follow her writing tips in twitter.
8 Tips for Raising Moneysmart Kids
Oct 3rd
Ask your children to list down all the things they could do if they get a $50 or $100 bill for a day. You will be amazed by the answers. Even though you might have never talked to your kids about smart spending, kids figure out a way to set their priorities when it comes to spending their money.
But while kids know their priorities (candies! Toys! Computer games!) as consumers that doesn’t mean that they’re wise spenders. So, if you have been postponing the money management talk with your kids all this while, this is the right moment to teach them about personal finance.
There are many ways to break the ice and discuss money without causing your child to lose interest or perceive the topic as boring. Here are eight pointers on how to instill good spending habits in your child that would last for a lifetime:
- Listen to your child
Refrain from criticizing or chiding your kid for overspending or making the wrong buying decisions. Instead of scolding or arguing, you can make your point in an interesting way such as giving examples of a better deal or a better quality product that you have heard about from a friend or an advertisement. Ask your child’s opinion on such information and take the flow of the conversation towards proving your point with patience. - Let your child “earn” it
Instead of handing over the allowance as a dutiful parent, make your child earn it. The tasks don’t necessarily have to be boring. You can hand over a combination of interesting and slightly uninteresting chores. For instance, you can ask your kid to prepare a list of her favorite songs for the weekend party, cleaning the garage and pepping it up with her very own ideas. - Give a modest allowance and stick to it
Regardless of your financial status, the allowance for your kid should always be at par with the average allowance of the other kids at school. This would avoid rash spending habits and showoff or inferiority complexes in your child. - Go interactive
There are many applications designed specifically for school age kids that can help them manage their personal finance. Some of them are quite educational and interactive. You can either buy these applications or even download some of them for free. - Be a role model
Parents are the kids’ first teachers. To teach good spending habits and money discipline in your child, you need to introduce those habits to yourself. By working on your own money management and personal finance skills, you can set a great example for your kid to watch and learn on a daily basis. - Shop smart
Go shopping with your kids. Get them to prepare the shopping list and make sure they understand that you will stick to it unless you have to buy something absolutely essential. Such discipline would help your kid avoid the habit of spending on unnecessary items just because they ‘feel like it’. - Teach about social responsibility
Teach your kids about the importance of money, social responsibility and setting their priorities. For example, your child must understand that donating a dollar to the homeless charity is more important than spending it on unhealthy sugar candy. - Buy a piggy bank
Keep a cute piggy bank or a fake fancy vault in your kids’ room which would encourage them to save a portion of their allowance and gift money on a regular basis. Discuss the target amount to be saved for the ‘grand spending spree’ by the end of a certain period of time. For example, your kid can buy that new Barbie set or a shiny soccer ball by saving a portion of her allowance for a couple of months.
Teaching your children about financial responsibility is a way to ensure their future. It’s one skill that they will treasure and give them a better life.
About the author: Prime Sarmiento is a long time journalist and content marketing strategist for online tutorial company Ahead Interactive - provider of live, real-time, video-powered tutorials. You can follow her writing tips in twitter.
Manage Your Energy so You Can Manage Your Time
Sep 20th
sun pillar by tomhe
One of the greatest ironies of this age is that while various gadgets like smartphones and netbooks allow you to multitask, it seems that you never manage to get things done. You are caught in the busyness trap. There’s just too much work to do in one day that sometimes you end up exhausted with half-finished tasks.
The problem lies in how to keep our energy level high to ensure that you finish at least one of your most important tasks for the day. There’s just not enough hours in a day and it’s not possible to be productive the whole time.
You need more than time management. You need energy management
1. Dispel the idea that you need to be a “morning person” to be productive
How many times have you heard (or read) this advice – wake up early so that you can do all the tasks at hand. There’s nothing wrong with that advice. It’s actually reeks of good common sense – start early, finish early. The thing is that technique alone won’t work with everyone. Especially not with people who are not morning larks.
I should know because I was once deluded with the idea that I will be more productive if I get out of bed by 6 a.m. Like most of you Lifehackers, I’m always on the lookout for productivity hacks because I have a lot of things in my plate. I’m working full time as an editor for a news agency, while at the same time tending to my side business as a content marketing strategist. I’m also a travel blogger and oh yeah, I forgot, I also have a life.
I read a lot of productivity books and blogs looking for ways to make the most of my 24 hours. Most stories on productivity stress waking up early. So I did – and I was a major failure in that department – both in waking up early and finishing early.
2. Determine your “peak hours”
Energy management begins with looking for your most productive hours in a day. Getting attuned to your body clock won’t happen instantly but there’s a way around it.
Monitor your working habits for one week and list down the time when you managed to do the most work. Take note also of what you feel during those hours – do you feel energized or lethargic? Monitor this and you will find a pattern later on.
My experiment with being a morning lark proved that ignoring my body clock and just doing it by disciplining myself to wake up before 8 a.m. will push me to be more productive. I thought that by writing blog posts and other reports in the morning that I would be finished by noon and use my lunch break for a quick gym session. That never happened. I was sleepy, distracted and couldn’t write jack before 10 a.m.
In fact that was one experiment that I shouldn’t have tried because I should know better. After all, I’ve been writing for a living for the last 15 years, and I have observed time and again that I write more –and better – in the afternoon and in evenings after supper. I’m a night owl. I might as well, accept it and work around it.
Just recently, I was so fired up by a certain idea that – even if I’m back home tired from work – I took out my netbook, wrote and published a 600-word blog post by 11 p.m. This is a bit extreme and one of my rare outbursts of energy, but it works for me.
3. Block those high-energy hours
Once you have a sense of that high-energy time, you can then mold your schedule so that your other less important tasks will be scheduled either before or after this designated productive time.
Block them out in your calendar and use the high-energy hours for your high priority tasks – especially those that require more of your mental energy and focus. You also need to use these hours to any task that will bring you closer to you life’s goal.
If you are a morning person, you might want to schedule most business meetings before lunch time as it’s important to keep your mind sharp and focused. But nothing is set in stone. Sometimes you have to sacrifice those productive hours to attend to other personal stuff – like if you or your family members are sick or if you have to attend your son’s graduation.
That said, just remember to keep those productive times on your calendar. You may allow for some exemptions but stick to that schedule as much as possible.
There’s no right or wrong way of using this energy management technique because everything depends on your own personal circumstances. What you need to remember is that you have to accept what works for you – and not what other productivity gurus say you should do.
Understanding your own body clock is the key to time management. Without it, you end up exhausted chasing a never-ending cycle of tasks and frustrations.
About the author: Prime Sarmiento is a long time journalist and content marketing strategist for online tutorial company Ahead Interactive - provider of live, real-time, video-powered tutorials. You can follow her writing tips in twitter.
Attending Networking Events is a Career Investment
Aug 31st
As a Lifehacker, you must be attuned to the changing trends in the workplace. The uncertainties in the U.S economy put into question the idea of a “stable job”. You might be also more keen on pursuing portfolio careers or perhaps setting up a business in lieu of the traditional climb-the-corporate-ladder career path.
The only way for you to cope with a changing workplace is for you to leave your desk and meet people who can help you attain whatever you want from your career – with or without the threat of recession.
So, the best career investment that you can do now is to go to networking events. This will give you a chance to meet corporate executives and entrepreneurs who can give you job leads, serve as your mentors and/or become your business partners.
1. Be selective
Some events are worth it, some are just useless, you need to choose the networking event which is aligned with your goal. Choose an event where you can find the experts in your field and/or where you have a higher chance of meeting your potential employers.
Do your research first – surf the net for information about the event and ask your friends and colleagues for feedback on the networking events they have went to themselves.
2. Have clear, well-defined goals
List down what you want to get out of this networking event and then make your own schedule that will meet your goals.
For instance, Rossana Llenado, founder of online tutorial company Ahead Interactive (AI), invests on attending networking events as this helps her in building her business. So despite her initial concerns on cost and spending time away from her four kids in Manila, Llenado left for California to attend the four-day convention of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) in San Diego.
Llenado went to IABC conference and participated in the workshops and met up with business contacts in the U.S.. This is in line with her goal to put AI as one the world’s premier provider of online tutorial services. She came home, with a lot of ideas on how to expand AI’s reach and is now busy fine tuning her operations.
3. Build relationships
Instead of indiscriminately handing out and collecting business cards, use networking events to meet and establish long-term relationships with potential employers or business partners. Networking organizers advise that you focus on making “meaningful connections” with few people – those who have the right vibe and you’re comfortable working with.
You also need to avoid being too aggressive, asking questions like “so do you have any job openings?” or “are you interested to buy my products?”
This will turn off a lot of people – hard selling won’t sell here. Just be cool and discuss with them your common interests and goal. Exchange business cards and keep those contacts “warm” by sending e-mails or inviting them for coffee where you can discuss your proposal.
4. Pay it forward
Go to the networking events with the mindset that you will bring value to the table – and not to pass around your resume and sell your products.
Yes you can find job leads in networking events – but not on one go. You need to establish trust and confidence among the people that you meet in these events. When approaching someone, you need to consider how your skills and interests can help in solving his/her business problem.
5. Treat networking as a career investment
Going to these events is not cheap. You need to invest both time and money, and the cost gets higher if the event is being held overseas.
You need to discern the difference between value and cost. If the $1,000 you spend going to networking events will bring you triple that amount either in terms of business revenues or career promotion, then the event will have paid for itself.
That said, if you’re broke or had to get a second mortgage just to attend the event then you better skip it, and save for it so you can go there in the future. Besides, a high price tag will not necessarily mean that is of high value – to you. Many people spend money to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos. It is a high value event for many people, but do you think going to Davos will help you attain your specific career goals?
Whatever career path you want to pursue, everything in the end will boil down to having solid relationships with present and future colleagues and partners. While social networking sites may have helped in expanding your work and social circles, meeting people face to face will build trust and confidence that will pave the way to better opportunities.
About the author: Prime Sarmiento is a long time journalist and content marketing strategist for online tutorial company Ahead Interactive - provider of live, real-time, video-powered tutorials. You can follow her writing tips in twitter.
Five Simple Ways to Generate Ideas For Your Blog
Aug 12th
photo by anselm http://www.flickr.com/photos/anselm23/2964430510/
If you’ve been reading Lifehack for a while, you would have learned that blogging is the cheapest and most effective way to reach out to your clients, market your products and/or services and establish your expertise.
But setting up a blog is just the first step. You can’t just write one or two posts and leave them at your self-hosted blog site. You need to blog regularly to achieve whatever your objective is in setting up a blog – whether it is to get ads, be Internet-famous or sell your services.
The problem is how to come up with good ideas to sustain your blog in the next few months.
The solution is to find a way to regularly get ideas for blogging. Here are some easy techniques that you can employ to generate ideas that will keep you blogging.
1. List down your ideas
Get a piece of paper or open a blank document in your computer and put down any topics that is related to your business. Don’t censor yourself, just keep the ideas flowing. You can do this every day (my tip for morning larks: do this first thing in the morning) or every week. Remember that no one is watching you while making this list – so no idea is bad or ridiculous. You can always edit this list later.
2. Solve your reader’s problem
No matter how satisfied your readers are with your products and services or the information that you provide in your blog, they will have some questions about it. So compile all these concerns and write one blog post detailing for each of the problem that you want to solve.
For example, if you are a dentist who blogs, one of your readers problems may focus on taking care of their children’s teeth. You can then write a blog post offering a step-by step guide to new mothers on how to teach their toddlers to brush their teeth or perhaps tips to encourage their children to go to the dentist for regular cleaning.
3. Go to online forums
Visit large online forums and monitor the most popular topics and what are the most common questions that the forum participants ask. You can then write a post based from what you learned from this form.
To find an online forum, type this a this Google: “keyword related your business + forum.” . For instance if you’re a dentist looking for an on online forum, you can type this in Google : “oral care + forum”. Google will then give you a list of for a where oral care is being discussed.
An alternative to the online forum is for you to hang around in the comment section of a popular blog related to the theme of your blog. Take note of the questions and opinions posted by commenters.
4. Read a book
Take one idea from the book and write how you applied that idea. Another option is to review the book – give a synopsis, your opinion about the book and how your readers can benefit from reading this book. If you are not a bibliophile, you can apply the same technique in culling ideas from the latest movies that you’ve seen.
For instance, when the last installment of Harry Potter film was shown, I’ve read a lot of blog posts that harped on the Harry Potter theme – from the usual movie reviews to posts about the life lessons learned from Harry Potter or their favorite Harry Potter characters.
5. Twitter trending
Grab some ideas by looking on a Twitter trending topic and putting your spin on it. Another technique is to read the recent Tweets by the people you follow and/or people who follow you.
Coming up with ideas is one of the first things that you need to learn even before you buy your own domain name for your blog. Blogging, after all, is a long-term commitment and once you applied the above techniques, it will be easy for you to keep your blog interesting and rewarding for your readers.
About the author: Prime Sarmiento is a long time journalist and content marketing strategist for online tutorial company Ahead Interactive - provider of live, real-time, video-powered tutorials. You can follow her writing tips in twitter.