#even if theyre either perfectly reasonable or easily avoidable

[coffin-bird]

..

[mojaves]

💯🔱💘🖤 and 🧐:]

💯 HUNDRED POINTS SYMBOL — share three random facts about your oc that others may not know.

not only can he play the guitar, he's also very good at the piano. he can assemble furniture so easily without looking at the instructions. and he is not!! a very good cook. the best he can do is noodles. and even then they go wrong sometimes. he's doing great clearly.

🔱 TRIDENT EMBLEM — can your oc swim? do they enjoy swimming?

no he cannot and no he does not!!!!! which is fun bc thats kind of the reason why he died [: isnt life fun

this will not convince him to ever learn how to swim. btw. he's never gonna do that

💘 HEART WITH ARROW — what and/or who do(es) your oc consider the most important to them?

OHOHOOHHO!!! OK ok he loooves to think he's sooo independent and doesnt need anyone [based on his extreme avoidance of literally everyone while he was still alive] but hoooh boy!! oh boy. if anything ever happened to his brother, or any of the gang he ends up getting tangled up with [ryan + dev + beck] later in the story, he WILL go insane go crazy go stupid. he will start biting and attacking everything in his path. not that it means anything. bc theyre nothing to him clearly. he hasnt gotten attached to them at all. theres no connection there. he's a perfectly emotionally stable individual.

🖤 BLACK HEART — has your oc killed or seriously wounded anyone before? have they broken someone's heart and/or broken someone's trust?

answered here!

🧐 FACE WITH MONOCLE — is your oc more logical or emotional?

speaking of being a perfectly emotionally stable individual, he loooves to think he's more logical, and so completely out of touch with his emotions that he doesnt experience them anymore. little does he know every single one of his decisions is very emotionally charged, and made to push people away so he can continue living in his little hole of self pity that he dug for himself and refuses to get out of. even though theres like. a ladder right next to him. and so many people around to help. they can see through the facade alex youre not fooling anyone <3333 and you know youre not fooling yourself either buddy!!!!! just get your head out of your ass already!!!!!!!

[its5amandimstillawake]

Ok so this may seem random but I just binge watched bobs burger, all 10 seasons of it. And I had always heard it was like American Dad or family guy, hell when I googled "what to watch if you liked Bob's burgers" or looked for shows similar American Dad and family guy came up. Now I hated family guy and American Dad growing up, my dad watched it and I just never enjoyed it. But I watched a compilation on YouTube of Bob's burgers and it seemed decent so I decided to give it a shot and im glad I did. Unlike American Dad or family guy, two shows that have the goal to offend people, and who's humor heavily relies on steriotype or references, Bob's burgers doesn't feel dated, doesn't rely on steriotype, it bases it's humor on putting these likeable character that you love into different scenarios and having them reacting to the world around them. And unlike a lot of shows, like I said watched all 10 seasons and it never really got repetitive or boring or annoying I honestly enjoyed every episode, every episode felt new and fresh, even if the idea has been done before. Now there are several things I enjoy about Bob's burgers and I just kind of felt like talking about it so

First, they all, not only love eachother, but also actually like eachother. Now I feel like a lot of people don't quite get what I mean by that. I personally love my mom, I do not like her, I don't like the way she thinks or acts, I always say that If I had met her at school or at work or something and was not related to her I wouldn't like her. I've seen many siblings who love eachother, they'll defend eachother and take care of eachother but for the most part avoid eachother especially if they're at the same school, they don't go out of their way to talk or hang out with eachother. This family all seem to actually like eachother though.

Which leads me to my next point. The Belcher siblings are personally my favorite part of the show, I was actually confused when I first started seeing them all together, because most shows seem to have that sibling relationship of love but not like, and while that's fine and can be realistic, I don't very often see a show that shows a good healthy sibling relationship of siblings actually liking eachother which can also be realistic and is a good thing to teach kids. The Belcher siblings are great, they of course defend eachother and take care of eachother but they're also friends. They walk together in between classes, theyre all in the same friend group, they go out of their way to hang out with eachother and play togetherand have fun together, they eat lunch together and scheme together. Of course they also spend time by themselves and will hang out with their mutual friends without their siblings and have friends outside of the mutual friend group, and of course they get into arguments and disagree with eachother a lot, what siblings don't? But for the most part they get along very well. You won't see any of them embarrassed to be seen with their younger siblings in or out of school, even Tina, the teenager of the group who's going through a lot for the typical teen problems including being embarrassed often and caring a lot about what others in her grade think, will hang out with her little brother and sister, and take part in their mischief, and eat lunch with them and doesn't have a problem with it.

The kids aren't the only one with a uniquely healthy relationship when it comes to these types of shows, we also have their parents, Bob and Linda. Bob isn't the steriotypicaltypical husband that's often portrayed in these types of shows, Bob isn't the husband that complains about how his wife is always nagging or jokes about how being married is awful. Linda isn't the steriotypicaltypical wife, Linda doesn't complain about how her husband can't take care of himself, or seem disgusted by her husband or seem exasperated by the kind of person her husband is. Strangely enough they seem to actually love eachother, and support and encourage eachother and care about eachother and enjoy spending time together and enjoy working together. They enjoy making small fun competitions with eachother and having fun and laughing together. They seem to bring out the best of eachother. And yes they aren't exactly in their honeymoon phase, and may not have that "spark" they first had when they first got together, and they're not exactly the pinnacle of romance, they are however a good representation of a happily married couple who genuinely love and like eachother and have been married for years. And of course they each have their flaws and they have their disagreements and arguments but who doesn't?

And the Belcher kids love and like their parents as well and enjoy being with them and involve them in their antics as well.

And they love and like their kids as well. And given each of the children it would be expected in a show like this for one or two of the children to be considered "disappointments" or "not as good as the favorite child" there's usually a kid who's clearly the favorite and one or more kids who's looked down upon by the parents and everyone else in shows like these, however Bob and Linda genuinely love and are very proud of each of their kids and they both have good relationships with all of their kids. Even in the episode where they spent the entire time showing just how much of a screw up gene was, Bob took gene aside and said that while gene could get distracted and could mess up at times that he was still very proud of him and loved him.

Bob and Linda support their kids in everything they do, even in the episode where gene got interested in "table setting" and got into a competition and his parents didn't quite understand it or understood why someone would enjoy it they still helped and encouraged him and expressed how proud they were that he found something he enjoyed doing.

It's a very healthy family and it's enjoyable to watch.

The show itself, although it has 10 seasons, doesn't ever get annoying or repetitive, every episode seems fresh, like I said binge watched the entire show and was actually pretty sad when I got the final episode and realized I was done and couldn't watch anymore, although the first season was great it got better over time, and personally I thought each season was better then the last.

I like that all the characters seem realistic, their was several episodes with the Belcher kids where I could imagine my younger self and my friends and brother doing similar things. And like I said the parents though loving also seemed like a realistic couple that have been married for years.

I also liked the consitancy. A lot of characters over time will become an exaggerated version of their former selves. For example a character like Patrick star or homer Simpson or Cosmo from fairly odd parents, who start off the show kind of dumb and clueless but not annoyingly so and are still enjoyable, over time will become so damn moronic that you wonder how they've managed to go this long without accidentally killing themselves and it becomes annoying and frustrating and they're no longer likeable.

None of the characters in this show have a character flaw that becomes so extreme they become unlikable, in fact all of the characters in the belcher family are likeable, and stay consistent, thats the point, you want to see them go through these things and want to see them win and come out on top because of how likeable they are. Louise is mischief, she's a prankster, but it's never to the point where she's unlikeable, she's still a good kid who usually doesn't go to far and when she does shes quick to see her mistake, apologize, and try to make it right, if anything a lot of times her pranks are to help defend other people or "bring justice" to people who have been wronged.

She may be a bit extreme but she's still a good kid and you want to see her come out on top. Gene can be loud and extreme and not really get hints, but he wants to befriend people and wants to help people, even though he can be gullible and a bit clueless and as a result can easily get roped into stuff, he tries to help people and make things right when he sees things going south, he's a sweet kid.

And Tina can be innapropriate, and can be selfish at times and not always see the big picture, but like gene and Louise when she sees that she's messed up she immediately tries to fix it and make things right, she has a stronger moral compass then either of her siblings and usually the voice of reason and helps people out whatever situation they're in, including her siblings who can often end up in some pretty bad situations, and is willing to take the fall for the sake of others.

Bob can by cynical, and a bit extreme about things he cares about (work, turkeys, Thanksgiving in general) and when he gets extreme he won't think things all the way through he'll just react, but he means well, he cares about his family and will put aside his obsessions for his family and is willing to sacrifice those things for his family. Hell one of the things hes obsessed with is Thanksgiving, he will make sure everything goes PERFECTLY and will get very upset if they're not perfect and will go crazy trying to make it perfect, but the reason Thanksgiving is his favorite holiday and the reason he cares so much is because of his love for his family and because Thanksgiving to him is being with your family. And even he is willing to sacrifice his Thanksgiving to be there for his friend, teddy, who's alone and without his family.

Linda can also be extreme and not think things all the way through but like bob, she means well, the times she gets extreme is typically when it involves her family and trying to do everything in her power to make them happy, and to do what she considers the morally right thing to do, even if it means going a little crazy and taking things a bit to far while doing so. I think a good example of this was when Louise got in trouble at school for causing problems, she was causing problems because a couple of kids were picking on a smaller kid and she was attempting to defend the kid, Linda thinks it's morally wrong to punish Louise for defending a kid and breaks Louis out of detention from the window (also breaking the school's AC in the process) to get her some ice cream all while having to avoid mr.frond, the school counselor who's around the same area. It's a good example of how it makes for a funny episode and flawed characters because of how extreme they can get but how they're motivation and reasonings makes them likeable and makes you root for them.

Anyway. I know this is kind of random it just kind of bothered me that I don't really see bobs burgers being talked about very often and I see it being compared to American Dad and family guy when, from what I've seen of the two shows, it's not really similar at all

[webdesignersolutions]

The reviews were mixed and some times I saw positive reviews even posted here, so I’ll share my experience so that others might heed more recent warnings. You can only get their $3.95 pricing if you pay 3 years in advance, so you never even get to try the service until you’re in the hole $140’ish. After that, here’s what welcomes you. 1. cPanel kept timing out when I actually had time to set up my site. To be perfectly honest, I never even got a chance to deploy a site. I’ll get into why I didn’t deploy later, but it’s important to understand that con #1 happened every day and night since I signed up, so it made it 100x more difficult to get past problems #2 and #3. The error I got was rather vague too.

theirhostnodethingy.net took too long to respond.

A support agent immediately asked me to give them my IP so they could check if my IP was “blocked” by their firewall. Why? Why on Earth would my IP be blocked? Well, apparently if you fail to login or fail to connect numerous times, you get automatically blocked for security reasons. That’s great and all but… If the failure is on YOUR side, why would you block ME, the site owner/administrator from accessing it? It becomes a Catch-22 where the site times out so you try to reconnect since it gives you no error or warning and on the Dashboard it shows you that it’s “online”, and you fail to reconnect, and little do you know the site is tallying up your failures so it can block you for trying to connect too many times. In the end, in the middle of trying to get problem #2 solved, I got so fed up with not being able to access cPanel, I requested a refund immediately. 2. Even now, LetsEncrypt is in ‘beta’ and you have to request it manually. They insist they’re not hiding behind a PayWall for SSL. They insist they aren’t trying to “force” users into buying their SSL upgrades. And yet even now, what, a year after their super friendly community poster said they would have a free solution up ‘soon’, you still cannot easily set up a Free SSL? The worst part is, they don’t even TELL you that you can get LetsEncrypt by requesting it. I had to ‘request’ SSH access, find out that GreenGeeks doesn’t support CertBot, try to manually build certificates for hours before submitting a support ticket because I couldn’t access SSH (that’s #3), only to find out LetsEncrypt is actually in beta but I could have the support agent request it and their staff would get to it “when they can”. Seriously? Why isn’t this in the email, or in the SSL page? If you insist you’re not trying to get us to pay for SSL, why are all the free options so obscure and hidden? If you just want people to pay, just fucking say so. Don’t sit around and BS us because people who publish and host websites deal with a lot of BS all the time, we’re quite good at detecting it. And if we hear hooves, we aren’t thinking zebras. 3. You have to request a support ticket for SSH access. This was, I guess taken care of fast, although I never got to test it much because cPanel kept dropping and I was unable to actually do anything with it. If you want SSH access, you actually have to submit a support ticket and wait for them to give it to you. And instructions on how to access SSH aren’t clear either. They email you an FTP temporary password and you’re actually supposed to change that password on cPanel and your SSH login is your cPanel login @ the site URL or the site IP. But I didn’t know any of this until they told me in the middle of a support ticket. Their “tutorial” conveniently leaves a lot of this information out. Overall, I wish I could’ve had a chance to actually try their service. I wish I could tell you how fast or slow their servers are, how quick it is to update WordPress or how much downtime there is in a month, but I can’t do any of that because I could only access cPanel 50% of the time I tried to and in 12 hours after submitting the request, they never gave me my LetsEncrypt SSL so I couldn’t publish my site using https. I’ll be going with NixiHost now. This site will be just a personal blog of mine so I don’t want to spend more than $10 a month but the conclusion of this is, listen to Reddit, go with their recommended hosts. Note: Turns out NixiHost is also forcing you to submit a “support ticket” to get LetsEncrypt. How is this garbage allowed?

Submitted May 03, 2018 at 03:59AM by sonnytron https://www.reddit.com/r/webhosting/comments/8gphx4/avoid_greengeeks_its_2018_and_theyre_still_awful/?utm_source=ifttt

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[survivorwakea]

Episode #3: “New Tribe New Tribulations.” - Ben

That joint tribal went almost perfectly besides the fact that a dean voted for me for whatever freakkkkiing reason, but I really came out of that tribal with close allys in Johnney and Chloe from the other tribes so I really think that is dope I would type more but I’m shot

wow ladies so im sitting on the toilet rn and i am fucking shaking in my boots. do u know how worried i am rn. im so worried. johnny said at the joint tribal that we were SOMEHOW not a part of that the 13 of them had already gotten to know each other and meet each other and everything that hit me rly hard bc like.... shit. shit shit fuck. fuck fuck shit. fuck. they’re friends already and more likely than not lono is gonna get picked off one by one at the tribe swap or whatever im literally so scared

Omg omg omg I just went to like my first ever live tribal and it was soooo exciting omg omg omg. I really loved having the chance to sort of better connect with these people and have a moment with them that you wouldn't otherwise have really. And, I survived so that's a massive plus as well!! Eek I'm just so excited right now to be playing this season and everyone on the other tribes seem so active and happy and I'm really looking forward to getting to know them more throughout the season. It sucks I had to lose Dean but we all have to make sacrifices somewhere.

Just got on new tribes and I’m pleased. I think I should be able to make some strong connections here. Elmo’s on my tribe and that really helps. Also talking to Joey and he seems pretty cool. Hopefully we do a good enough job on whatever song we choose so none of us have to go home. Hopefully Johnny, Justin, and Taylor are alright. I still kinda don’t know what I’m doing or where I am. Didn’t realize until half way through the last round that all 3 tribes were at the combined tribal. I thought there were 10 of us and that it could be a split vote. True flop? Yes. Maybe I’ll decide to get it together.

After a really crazy tribal council, we swapped and to be honest I don’t feel as bad about this as I probably should. I feel like during the joint tribal I bonded well enough with Chloe, Thomas and Taylor where I think that if we go to a tribal I have enough bonds started that will keep me safe at least for another round and on top of that we also got Cullen on our tribe which is honestly the best case scenario because that could honestly be a free round!

Trust Rankings (Early AF) 1. Chloe 2. Thomas 3. Taylor 4. Randy Who’s Cullen?

Well I knew I was going to be talking about the swap eventually. Cullan just got evacuated which is sad and I hope he is doing okay. I'm glad I swapped with Chloe and I feel Adam and Taylor are staring to see me and Chloe as a duo, which can be either good or bad. Randy I need to talk to more. Taylor and Adam both said they would be a number to me and Chloe if we need them, but I hope to hold that off for a little while.I just want to win this next challenge and avoid tribal :)

WHAT IN THE ABSOLUTE FUCK DOES THOMAS THINK HE IS DOING RIGHT NOW?   Taylor has messaged me saying last night they spoke to Thomas about maybe us 3 working together and that Taylor thought maybe Thomas should message me first about it. But here I am with Taylor messaging me about it and no word at all from Thomas. I've given Thomas a chance to bring it up, I've been sat talking to him about how he's now finished school so he has more time to play orgs. This could so easily lead into a conversation about how Taylor messaged him. But instead he's just said "Im gonna go get a slurpee" well while you're out go find someone else to work with you because you're gonna need all the help you can get because I'm fucking coming for your bitchass now and I'm not gonna stop until it's red raw from taking all these hits from me.

New Tribe New Tribulations. I stayed with Elmo which is good, and I have been chatting up the rest of the tribe. Jared seems nice and I've floated the idea of working with him at a potential tribal. I've talked less with Lily, but she seems nice. People I've talked the least with are Ian and Joey. Joey never responded to my messages, and Ian I just don't talk to lol. I'm pretty confident ian would stick with me and elmo and I think we could successfully target Joey, especially if we hold the milo 3 over their heads and threatened rocks.

So, my premonition was most indeed correct. We ended up swapping from 4 tribes to 3 tribes. Not that that’s a totally bad thing. I mean, looking at OG tribes on Haumea 2.0, I’m in a 3-2-1 majority. And we had a music video challenge. My tribe lip synced to I Write Sins Not Tragedies. The question is, will we be pouring the champagne in victory? Or will the goddamn door be closed on one of us at tribal council?

whew. sorry i haven’t made a confessional yet i’ve been busy. but now i feel like i’m gonna leave out important info so let’s hope i don’t. we swapped tribes and that was... a bummer. i had my 3 person alliance over on my other tribe and i had elmo! i miss elmo so much and just hope we meet again soon. i don’t really loooove my new tribe.. i like justin of course and i think i’ve been hitting it off with johnny. and strayed talking to anbel a bit. tried to talk to bodhi and asya but nothing really clicked. here’s something interesting.. justin told me he went idol searching and he looked where i looked round one and where i found the idol. he told me that a power was there but it’s now gone and he told me that johnny told him he looked there but said he just drowned in the vortex and didn’t say anything about a power being there. so i think johnny just messed up his words but now justin thinks johnny has a power and i’m just letting him think that and throwing scenarios out there and i can let johnny take the blame hehe. i also went idol aka advantage searching somewhere and i got somewhere asking if i’d be willing to give up 2 votes. i thought about how during the joint tribal a vote was missing so i assumed whatever power is there, somebody has it. so i said nope bye i want my votes! i told justin about this so i can kinda pin asya having this power since she was at the joint tribal and she’s on my tribe now so it could be a good excuse to vote her off if we ever go to tribal and i can be safe another round.

so now justin thinks johnny has the idol or some kind of power even though it’s really me who has it. and thinks asya has whatever power she got for giving up 2 votes. idek if asya is the one who got that power but i needed someone to pin it out so we have an excuse to vote her out and i can stay safe.

i also wanna apologize for whatever spelling mistakes i make and if i literally don’t make any sense at all. it’s so hard to type up exactly what i’m feeling and put it into words kdkdkdkd.

Trust List:

1. Joey 2. Anabel 3. Elmo 4. Ben 5. Bodhi 6. Lily 7. Randy 8. Ian

so we swapped which is great! the initial numbers are 3-2-1 and im in the 3 so that's great! however ian isnt the most socially active player so i think he could easily be the target of the 2 and the 1 and i dont think either ben or myself would want to pull a rock for him right now

i think i will hint him to get close to like lily or someone so in case we ended up losing a challenge she'd want to target joey instead of him. thats the goal. i dont want to lose ian bc basically if lily sides with joey in that situation, jared will be the decider and while i do trust jared, i think it gives him too much power yanno and it might be enticing for him to stick to his OG tribe ally rather than two ppl he met at the swap

im not sure how that will go but i hope well hehe! ALSO I FOUND AN IDOL, ZACK'S INFORMATION PULLED THROUGH!!! i havent told anyone yet, in fact host made a mistake in the beginnin sayin that it was already found and then said like 1h later, oh u actually have an idol and that got me SHOOK TO MY CORE! the awk thing is that i told ben already that i didnt find it so hdiasfahsdif! i just hope that when / if i tell him, he wont be too upset with me bc i right now i consider us p close!

It’s hot as hell where I am right now. Better to be sweating over the heat than sweating over tribal, I guess.

I got tribe swapped fucked and im annoyed.

So i got put on a tribe full of STINKY stinky players. And the challenge is a lipsync so im like "submit the lipsyncs ASAP" and theyre practically more than useless and do nothing. So we submitted practically nothing because theyre so fucking bad at time management. And now we're at tribal.

Nobody talking to me about the vote, so I'm going home. I'll try and pull a stunt but idk. Wish me luck

Milu 2.0...hmmm... Where do I begin? 🤔 So my feelings on the tribe are mixed. Adam, Tom and Chloe were all part of the previous joint tribal so I had already had conversations with all of them. It made it easier to socialize when the swap actually did happen. Tom seems like a cool cat, and I had approached him with the idea of him, Chloe and I grouping up. Chloe seemed more than okay with it, but Tom never talked to Chloe about it like he said he would. That raised some red flags for me and Chloe. Adam and Randy I didn't feel as comfortable to begin with, but in the past day or two Adam has really came around and proposed we work together. Thus CAT was born. It's maybe not something long term but I think I could have great allies in Chloe and Adam individually. Tonight's vote is probably the most uncomfortable yet. Nothing feels solid, everything feels very much in the air, even if I have a majority alliance. This game is a rollercoaster and tonight I'm teetering on the edge and I have that sinking feeling in my gut. All I can do is put blind faith in my people and hope for the best.

Milu 2.0...hmmm... Where do I begin? 🤔 So my feelings on the tribe are mixed. Adam, Tom and Chloe were all part of the previous joint tribal so I had already had conversations with all of them. It made it easier to socialize when the swap actually did happen. Tom seems like a cool cat, and I had approached him with the idea of him, Chloe and I grouping up. Chloe seemed more than okay with it, but Tom never talked to Chloe about it like he said he would. That raised some red flags for me and Chloe. Adam and Randy I didn't feel as comfortable to begin with, but in the past day or two Adam has really came around and proposed we work together. Thus CAT was born. It's maybe not something long term but I think I could have great allies in Chloe and Adam individually. Tonight's vote is probably the most uncomfortable yet. Nothing feels solid, everything feels very much in the air, even if I have a majority alliance. This game is a rollercoaster and tonight I'm teetering on the edge and I have that sinking feeling in my gut. All I can do is put blind faith in my people and hope for the best.

This confessional is for the Third cycle where the end result was 4-1 (Randy, Tom) Loosing this challenge as honestly a rally hard pill to swallow I was absolutely pissed if we’re being honest, pissed at the fact that the final product was my video that as supposed to get snipped and trimmed because I didn’t know legit anything about that song or even lii syncing. I think me competing and being the one that submitted helped me when it was time to vote somebody out because I was told by basically everyone that sending me home would have been a silly decision. I honestly think my only option was too got out Randy because I think I’m solid with everybody else individually where I was trying to force something with Randy. If we lose again things will honestly go from 0 to 100 real fast as I don’t think anybody knows if Tom and Chloe are actually tight or what the deal is there but that will one hunger percent come in to place. All in all very successful round for me in my opinion. I think I need to be careful not to build this huge target on my back but I’m staying focused and just plowing through

https://soundcloud.com/bodhi-small/week3/s-0kmTB

I’m doing wonderful! As far as this game is concerned, Jared and I are tighter than Ralphie May’s(RIP) pants. We know what each other is doing, and we communicate CONSTANTLY. Ian is tricky to get. He just says “Oh, okay” to everything, its as if he’s building up a wall to prevent me from having a social game, it’s highkey INFURIATING. I LOVE LILY, she’s an actual angel, and she’s a good player. I like Elmo alot, he’s definitely at a disadvantage due to his timezone. As far as everyone else, I’m getting closer to Asya as we’ve put our “beef” aside and we realized we’re friendly. Johnny and I have known each other for 3 years, he was the first person I knew in this community, he was the first person who hosted me and got me into this community, he’s going to always be like a brother to me.

________________________________________________________________

Cullan is removed from the game. Randy is voted out 4-1.

[themoneybuff-blog]

Questions About Car Seats, Leftovers, Medical Insurance, Budget Brands, and More!

Whats inside? Here are the questions answered in todays reader mailbag, boiled down to summaries of five or fewer words. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question. 1. Early or late retirement contributions? 2. Purchases for infrequent use 3. Used car seats? 4. Excessive leftovers 5. Friends want me to spend 6. Value of one bag living 7. Buying a house on $35K 8. How to avoid drive-thrus 9. Medical insurance difficulties 10. Budget brands? 11. Starting career advice 12. Thoughts on taekwondo One of the most enjoyable parts of writing this mailbag column is the wide variety of comments and questions I get from readers. I usually try to keep the stuff I choose for the mailbag at least somewhat within the realm of personal finance, maybe slipping in one or two questions or comments a week that arent related to the topic, but I get quite a lot of great stuff from readers that covers completely different topics that I just cant reasonably fit into the mailbag. For example, just in the last week or two, Ive received the following notes from readers: A reader wrote in to talk about the joys of playing Magic: the Gathering with her son and how they were building Commander decks together. A reader wrote in to encourage me to pick up some of the writings of the philosopher Byung-Chul Han, particularly his essays Psychopolitics and The Scent of Time (which Im currently reading). A reader has been trying to get me to debate him concerning a number of hot button political issues. A reader has been writing to me consistently for weeks asking for step-by-step help in getting a batch of homemade kombucha to work. A reader invited me to his dynasty fantasy football league. Thats just over the last several days. Honestly, I love this kind of thing, because it represents human connection. Theres a sharing of ideas and interests and a sharing of concern behind all of it that goes way past merely writing about financial issues, and it means a lot to me, even if its not fodder for the mailbag. Speaking of the mailbag, here are this weeks questions. Q1: Early or late retirement contributions? Is it better to contribute to a Roth IRA early in the year or as late as possible? I have money set aside for my 2019 Roth contribution but I dont know if I should do it now or wait. Brian Unless theres some specific reason thats unique to your situation that points to waiting, you should put those savings in there as soon as possible. The longer the money is invested, the more time you have for compound interest to work in your favor. Having said that, investment markets are unpredictable. Theres always a chance that right after you put your money in, the markets dip. Remember that this could happen no matter when you put your money in there. You could put your money in now and immediately see a dip, or you could wait until next February to put it in and immediately see a dip. The difference is that, on average, its much more likely that the investment youre putting your money into will go up in value over that period. If you wait, its very likely that youre going to miss out on growth. Put your retirement money away in retirement accounts as soon as you can. Dont sit around holding them, because youre usually doing nothing more than missing out on growth if you do that. Q2: Purchases for infrequent use Im considering purchasing a pair of bowling shoes. I only bowl once or twice a year, but it seems like its a wise investment since I could get a pair of perfectly good bowling shoes for around $25 instead of paying $3 or so each time to rent them. How do you view rarely used purchases like this that, while adding to the stuff you own, will eventually pay for themselves? Adam My philosophy on purchases like these is similar to yours. I try to look at the total cost of ownership of the item over an extended but still reasonable period of time, like five years, and I figure out which is going to cost less. I also consider how frequently Ill actually use the item, and it basically has to be annually at the very least and preferably much more frequent than that. That type of thinking requires full honesty to be valuable. So, in your situation, is it cheaper to rent shoes for $3 a pop twice a year for five years or buy a pair of shoes for $25 once? Well, the cost for rental over that period is $30, so Id probably swing toward buying a pair, assuming that Im bowling twice a year. If you assume that its actually going to be much less than twice a year, youre going to be better off renting. I usually use a five year measure for calculations like this, because I figure its pretty hard to predict accurately what my life will be like beyond that time threshold and its also probably a reasonable guess as to the wear and tear that an item can take. Usually, with a five year calculation, its obvious whether its a good move or not. Again, in this situation, those bowling shoes arent going to be worn out after ten wears, so its likely you will be able to continue wearing them at that point or theyll have some minor secondhand value. This pushes the pendulum even more toward buying them. Q3: Used car seats? I am expecting in November. My husband and I are starting to pick up baby items from FB Marketplace and Craigslist. Whenever a carseat is listed on Marketplace someone always comments that you shouldnt buy used carseats because theyre not safe. How are used carseats not safe? Amy A carseat is one of the few baby options I wouldnt buy used. The reason is simple: a big part of whats protecting that baby when theyre in the carseat is plastic, and you dont know how that plastic has been treated. Theres some chance that the plastic has become brittle and could easily crack or break in a severe impact, just when you need it the most. This can happen, for example, if a carseat has been left in the sun too much over the course of years. Its not an issue of negligence its an issue of you not knowing the history of that carseat. It may have had years of sunlight exposure, rendering the protection that it offers your child much weaker. Most baby items are fine to buy used clothes and baby monitors and things like that. Those arent things that will cause calamity if they fail and its usually obvious if theyre doing their job or not. A car seat, though, is something you should invest in. 99.9% of the time, it wont matter, but 0.1% of the time, it matters more than anything else and youll never, ever want to skimp on that situation. Q4: Excessive leftovers On any given night we will have 2-7 people at our house for dinner. By default we cook for 7 but that means that many nights we have a ton of leftovers. We eat leftovers for lunch every day but they still get tossed a lot. We cant give them to the food pantry either. Ideas? Andy My first suggestion would be to simply have a leftover buffet night for dinner twice a week or so. On, say, Wednesdays and Saturdays, just pull out all leftovers, put them on the table, and let people assemble their own plates of leftovers and heat them up (or heat up the hot items before putting them on the buffet). That way, the leftovers get consumed directly and you have a free dinner. Another suggestion is to frequently make meals and side dishes that are easy to remix into another meal if you have a low turnout. For example, if you make a bunch of spaghetti, you can save it for two nights and then mix in a few additional spices, put it in a greased 9 by 13 pan, put a couple cups of mozzarella and provolone shredded cheese on top, and bake it for 30-45 minutes, covered for the first half, to make a nice spaghetti bake. We also often have plain vegetables as a side dish and save the leftovers to make quick soups later on, for example. A final suggestion is that on nights where you have a low turnout, simply prep leftover plates for the next night and have the same thing for dinner again, or prepare a different dinner the next night for just the two who ate the night before. I dont think you need to feel obligated to have a fresh meal on the table for whoever happens to show up each night. Q5: Friends want me to spend Im 23 and got a nice job out of college paying $45K per year. Several of my friends from college are in the same area and have jobs as well so its fun to hang out with them, but it feels like they want to blow their income as fast as possible. They go out drinking and to clubs constantly, upgrade their phones all the time, ride around in Ubers when they have cars, and throw money at stupid stuff. I want to get rid of my student loan debt and start saving for a house and Im already contributing to retirement so I can get out of this as young as possible. Its not like Im avoiding fun but theres a ton of stuff to do that doesnt cost $50 or $100 for an evening. When I suggest anything else other than clubs or an expensive restaurant, I get ignored. Do you have any suggestions? Amy Find new friends? I mean, that sounds fairly cold, but it sounds like your values are diverging from the values that your friends hold, or perhaps they were always divergent and the income just exposed it. While I dont mind being acquaintances with people with drastically different lifestyles than my own, I have found its far more pleasant and easier to have close friends who have similar values and lifestyles to my own. That way, Im not pushed to overspend constantly just to spend time with my friends. I have been in situations where it felt like I had to pay some kind of admission fee (in the form of going out when I didnt want to) just to hang out with a friend and if I wasnt willing to do that, that person wouldnt hang out with me. That just isnt worth it. Id suggest digging into activities that you feel internally interested in doing. Find groups in your community that match up well with that by using things like Meetup and there youll find people who are also interested in what you happen to be internally interested in. Get involved in those groups. Youll find its not too hard to build friendships that way. Q6: Value of one bag living I found your post on one bag living to be interesting but not practical. Its not like more than maybe 0.001% of your readers will actually ever do it. What is the practical value of such an article? Ollie The practical value of it is that it really shows you how few items you actually need to have a happy and comfortable life, and when you realize that, you begin to realize how much extra unnecessary stuff you have and how much that stuff is costing you, both in terms of the stuff itself and the space youre paying for to store all of that stuff. Lets say, for example, that you decided to try it for a month. You packed a big duffel bag full of stuff and aimed to live solely out of that bag for that month. During the month, almost everything you use comes out of that bag other than maybe a few kitchen items, you really dont use anything else in your home. At the end of the month, youre left asking yourself what the point of all of that other stuff is. Why have any of it if youre able to have a great life without touching it? Why have shelves full of books and DVDs you never touch? Why have a television if you have a good life not watching it? This is likely to lead you to start downsizing your possessions, recouping some money along the way, and its also likely to lead you to question almost all of your physical purchases. If you keep going in that direction, youll find that you likely have excessive living space and can easily be satisfied with a smaller home or apartment, and if you downsize that, then youre on the way to some serious financial improvement in your life, as youre losing far less money to utilities, insurance, property taxes, and so on. Q7: Buying a house on $35K I am a single woman with a four year old child from a previous marriage; the father is not involved and avoids paying child support. We live in a small apartment in [a large city with a moderate cost of living]. I make $35K per year. My mom lives about five miles away and takes care of my son when Im working and hes not in preschool as she has a pension thats enough for her to live on because my father died in the workplace. I would like to be able to afford a small house for us and get out of this apartment building before hes too old because theres kind of a rough culture of teenage boys here. I would like to be in a house in four years. I have no debts and am saving about $200 a month for emergencies. Carrie First of all, Id contact a lawyer and do what you can to get child support. The cost of supporting your child should not be borne solely by you and hes legally obligated to provide financial help here even if hes uninvolved. Second of all, $200 a month in savings thats also used as an emergency fund isnt adequate to get to where you want to go in four years. I looked into your area and a small starter home is going to run you in the $300K range now and will probably be closer to $350K by the time you want to buy. 20% of $350K is $70K. If youre saving $200 a month, youll get to about $10K in four years if there are no emergencies. To get to $70K in four years, you need to be saving around $1,500 a month and have no emergencies that tap that money. Considering that youre making about $3,000 a month before taxes, thats an extremely difficult proposition. Thus, to make it to your target, youre going to have to do some radical things. The first thing I would do is sit down with your mother and discuss the option of cohabitation for a few years, with you splitting up the housing costs. If she could move into your apartment or you two could move into her dwelling and its a tenable situation for a few years, youll both save a mint. If youre paying $1,000 a month in rent and it suddenly drops to $500 a month, theres $500 a month toward savings, and probably more than that because youll have lower utility bills and you can more easily share food costs. You may find that after you buy that starter home, it may make sense to have your mother continue to live with you to keep costs manageable going forward, at least for a while. If you can swing something like that, use a lot of smart frugal tactics like sticking with store brand items when shopping, get on that child support issue, and keep working at your career to move toward a better salary, you can make this work. Without those kinds of big changes, this probably isnt a realistic goal. Q8: How to avoid drive-thrus How do you stop relying on the convenience of drive-thrus? I understand that its way cheaper to make meals at home but when I can just go to a drive-thru and get a quick meal and have it eaten before I even get home or eat it right when I walk in the door and theres no cleanup because I just toss the wrappers, its hard to convince myself to make a big mess making a meal at home. Leon There are a few good strategies for solving this problem that work well for different people. I suggest trying one for at least 30 days, see if it clicks with you or merely causes frustration, and either stick with it if it works or move on to another if it doesnt. First, try simply packing a meal for yourself at home before you leave in a small cooler. Make something simple that you like a sandwich and some baby carrots and a drink or whatever. Pack the individual items in reusable containers and put them in something insulated with an ice pack to keep it cool. Take that meal with you when you go out and save it at your desk or in a work fridge until youre ready to leave, then eat that on the way home. You can do the meal prep the night before while watching a television show and if you use reusable containers, cleanup is really just a matter of popping stuff in the dishwasher and wiping off the table (which youd need to do anyway). If you want, you can designate Fridays as eat out days and keep it as a treat for yourself for getting through the week. Another thing I strongly suggest is to simply get better at cooking at home. Cooking seems very difficult at first and even easy things like scrambled eggs feel like a giant mess and a big time and energy investment, but once you get more practiced, it stops feeling so challenging. Start by making really simple meals that you like grilled cheese sandwiches or scrambled eggs or spaghetti. Another strategy is to cook things in advance, make individual meals out of them in reusable containers, and keep them in the fridge. For example, you could make a huge batch of spaghetti one night and pack three or four individual meals of spaghetti with a breadstick in resealable containers in the fridge. Then, you can take them to work with you and youll also know that one is just waiting for you when you get home. Yet another strategy is to use a slow cooker. Start a simple dump meal before you leave (a dump meal means you just dump several ingredients in there and turn it on low) and youll have a hot home-cooked meal waiting for you when you get home. Slow cookers are great for stews, chili, soups, and simple casseroles; it can also make a mean pot roast. The goal of all of these things is to either put something in your hands directly so that youre not tempted to stop or have something at home waiting for you so youre not tempted to stop. Q9: Medical insurance difficulties I am covered by [a major medical insurer] through my workplace. A few months ago, I had a procedure done that my doctors office informed me would be fully covered by my insurance. They filed this with the insurance and the insurance company came back saying that the procedure wasnt medically necessary and wouldnt cover it, so my doctor is now billing me for it at the tune of $30K. I dont even know where to start. Should I contact a lawyer? Petra Without seeing the bills and documentation, I cant give you full advice on what to do. However, my first step would be to document every single detail that you can recall about this entire process, including dates and what you were told by both your doctors office and insurance. If you have any supporting documents, such as receipts and printed information about the procedure or about the costs, thats all valuable here. Then, I would go through the process of appealing this claim with your insurer, providing a copy of all of that documentation. An appeal should definitely be your first action. If you find that your appeal is denied, you should then discuss the matter with your doctor and attempt to get their bill reduced. If youre still finding that youre paying an excessive amount, then I would take all of this documentation to a lawyer and get legal help. It very much sounds like you were given inaccurate guidance from a doctors office and a lawyer can usually help here. Q10: Budget brands? Are there any budget brands you trust for making high quality stuff? Meaning brands that are cheap in price but the quality of their stuff is good? Darren The store brands at most department stores and grocery store chains fit that bill. For the vast majority of product types, the store brand is as good as most of the name brand options. They might not beat some of the really high end premium versions of those products, but the store brand is usually as good as 80% of similar items on the shelf. For things like charging cables and basic electronics like computer mice or keyboards, Ive found that Amazons generic brand, Amazon Basics, is really good for the price. For many different kinds of smaller electronic items, like external batteries for charging devices on the go or headphones or things of that nature, I strongly trust Anker. If theres an Anker option for a small electronic device, youre probably getting great bang for the buck with it. Those are the ones that immediately come to mind as brands that I strongly trust that consistently provide good bang for the buck across a wide variety of products. Q11: Starting career advice My oldest son is about to graduate from college with a degree in electrical engineering. I am collecting career advice from some people I respect to pass along to him. What advice would you give to a fresh college graduate in a technical field today? Robert First of all, treat the first decade of your career as an opportunity to build skills and relationships above chasing salary. A killer resume ten years from now will be worth a lot more than earning an extra $5K or $10K right out of the gate. If one job pays a little more but feels like a dead end, while the other job pays a little less but feels like its overflowing with opportunities and ways to build relationships, take the latter job in the first decade of your career. Second, if your workplace offers a 401(k) plan, take advantage of it immediately and contribute as much as you can stand. You will never regret this. Just do this and then start off with smaller take-home checks theyll still be a lot more than what you had in college. Pay yourself first. Third, no matter how tough a situation is, dont burn bridges, even if it would feel good. If youre moving on from a position, do it as gently as possible and be as positive and flexible as you can on your way out. Finally, eat healthy, get some exercise, get plenty of sleep, and dont work too many hours. If you dont do those things, youll be far less productive during your work time, the quality of work you produce will be lower, and youll have a harder time picking up new skills. If your workplace is obsessed with 80 hour workweeks, carve out as much of that 80 hours toward self care and rest that you can reasonably get away with. Q12: Thoughts on taekwondo I was wondering if you could share your thoughts on taekwondo from the perspective of both a parent of a student and as a participant with an eye toward cost. Is it worth it? Do your kids get value out of it? How about yourself? Brenda I attend a local taekwondo school with the rest of my family. It was an activity that my two oldest children wanted to try and the family plan isnt much more expensive than just the two of them participating, so when our family schedule lined up and our youngest was old enough, we all joined. In effect, our third family member was half price and the rest of us are effectively going for free, and the price has actually gone down as some family members have reached black belt rank (and those who havent are at a belt rank approaching black). First of all, if youre new to martial arts of any kind, its something you should shop around for. Any city of any size likely has a few martial arts schools; a larger city likely has some dedicated taekwondo schools with branches in various locations. Different schools offer different prices and different philosophies. Taekwondo is a martial art thats focused on fast, high kicking. That means that it really works hard on agility and balance. Theres also an emphasis on forms, which are sequences of kicks and other movements that are memorized and done from memory, which challenges a persons memory while physically exerting themselves. Our familys interest in martial arts lies much more in the realm of self improvement, character building, self defense, and fitness rather than training to fight. There are definitely martial arts schools that are very focused on simply training to fight, preparing people for things like mixed martial arts. Theres nothing wrong with that, but its not what Sarah or I were looking for in a school. We wanted a school where the merit wasnt in whether you defeat someone in a fight, but whether youre working hard and genuinely improving yourself so that youre better at the techniques, better in all around fitness, and better in character than you were the day before. Again, I have nothing against a school focused on fight-focused training, but its just not what Im looking for or what I would direct my children toward until theyre old enough to make those kinds of choices for themselves. Perhaps someday theyll take what theyve learned and move in that direction, and Im fine with that. When my oldest son and daughter began expressing a genuine interest in taekwondo, we shopped around for local schools that offered dedicated youth programs and were focused on a self-improvement type of martial art philosophy, and we found one that we liked that had classes near us, and over time, we all joined up. I think it has genuinely helped our children improve their ability to focus, their ability to overcome challenges, their character, and most definitely their ability to defend themselves and get out of a threatening situation. As a parent, Im thrilled with the impact taekwondo has had on them. As for myself, I joined because I agree in a deep philosophical way with the goals and direction of the school, as well as the fact that I was looking for a fitness program for myself and an opportunity to mutually encourage my family to be more fit. This hits all of those marks and with family rates, its pretty inexpensive. If you divide our session fees by five, theres absolutely no way any of us could be in a sport or a fitness program at these rates. If someone is interested in taekwondo or martial arts in general, Id start by figuring out why you want to do it. What are you hoping to get out of it, or what do you want your child to get out of it? Self-discipline? Fitness? Self-defense? Character? What are the one or two things you want most for yourself or for your child that you hope martial arts can provide? Start from there and shop around at a lot of schools in your area. Theyll all have different philosophies and centers of focus some of them will line up well with your own goals and philosophies, while others will go in a different direction (not wrong or bad, just different). Find some that match what you want, price compare them, and give one a try for a session and see if its right for you. Got any questions? The best way to ask is to follow me on Facebook and ask questions directly there. Ill attempt to answer them in a future mailbag (which, by way of full disclosure, may also get re-posted on other websites that pick up my blog). However, I do receive many, many questions per week, so I may not necessarily be able to answer yours. https://www.thesimpledollar.com/questions-about-car-seats-leftovers-medical-insurance-budget-brands-and-more/

[sheilalmartinia]

Link reclamation: A practical guide for turning unlinked brand mentions into links

Your latest content campaign has been covered by a top-tier global publication… but there’s no link! Your brand (or your client) has been mentioned, but that’s all.

At this stage, do you simply accept the brand value of a mention and move on to target your next link prospect? Or is there a process you can follow to at least try to get a link added in?

Sadly, unlinked brand mentions are one of the biggest challenges when building links through content marketing and digital PR. It’s more common than many link builders would like to admit.

But, seeing a link added in to an article after it’s been published can be easier to achieve than many assume.

You just need to know when it’s right to ask for a link, who you need to reach out to and what you should say. We’ll cover all these things below.

Content-led link building is hard — don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

It often takes blood, sweat and tears to launch a campaign which earns significant numbers of links. And it’s for that reason that link reclamation should be a tactic which is executed as standard. After all, if you’ve put the effort in to land coverage in the first place, it makes sense to follow additional steps to secure a link if that’s what it takes.

How many people use link reclamation?

To demonstrate a point: I recently reached out to my Twitter and LinkedIn networks. I asked a simple question: ‘Do you use link reclamation alongside your content marketing campaigns?’

The responses surprised me…

Always: 29% Sometimes: 47% Never: 24%

Of those who took the time to respond, only three in ten are executing link reclamation as standard on every campaign.

Perhaps more surprising is that one in four aren’t using it at all.

Given some of the comments left alongside the poll, this is something which many turn to if they have time — rather than working it into a wider link building process.

Think of the links which could have been earned but which were simply let lie as brand mentions.

What is link reclamation?

Link reclamation is a simple but efficient tactic to turn brand mentions into links; usually those earned as part of a content marketing or digital PR campaign.

As SEOs, we understand the value of authoritative, editorial links and the impact which they can have upon our campaigns — just as much as we understand how hard it is to even earn coverage from top-tier publications in the first place.

That’s why it can be frustrating when we discover a brand mention which doesn’t link.

What’s really important to remember, however, is that, in many instances, journalists aren’t purposefully avoiding linking to you or your client. For one reason or another (whether that’s trying to speed up the publishing process, a question as to whether a link is really needed to tell the story or others…) articles sometimes go published without a link.

As an industry we need to accept that there’s little we can do to change a journalist’s own processes and publication criteria. What we can do is take action and follow a series of tried and tested steps to try to land that link.

After all, the hard work of getting the coverage in the first place is already done. Turning a brand mention into a link is surely easy in comparison, right?

I’d like to say yes. And in many cases it is. However, I’ve also seen some horrendous examples of link reclamation gone wrong, usually because of a lack of understanding as to whether a link is actually deserved or not.

How do you find unlinked brand mentions?

One way to find unlinked brand mentions is to use ahref’s content explorer and follow their tutorial here. Combining a CSV export with Screaming Frog to compile a list of web pages which mention your brand but which don’t link.

If you’re actively promoting a content marketing or digital PR campaign, however, you’ll undoubtedly already be looking for the latest coverage.

One of the easiest ways to find this is through Google News. Filter by ‘Past 24 hours’ to see coverage picked up in the past day, or set to ‘Past week’ if you’re looking to find additional articles and features.

This will often throw up a number of unlinked brand mentions  which you then can use link reclamation tactics for to try and turn them into a link.

Don’t forget to set up Google Alerts both across your brand name and campaign headlines as well to easily be alerted to further unlinked mention opportunities to explore.

When should you ask for a brand mention to be linked?

It’s not always right to ask for an unlinked brand mentioned to be turned into a link.

Despite what many may say, a journalist doesn’t owe you a link. Not even if they cover your campaign.

A link’s purpose is to take a user from A to B and, in order for that to make sense to be in place, it typically needs to add value of some sorts.

To put this into a working context, let’s look at a few different scenarios here.

Your brand (or client) has been mentioned in an article in reference to a study which you conducted and which the article directly mentions. There’s no link but many of the statistics and findings have been revealed.

A journalist has featured an infographic which you produced (and embedded it) but hasn’t linked. They have credited your brand.

Your brand has been referenced alongside a quote which you supplied to a journalist to add further weight to their story around a subject.

Your brand has been mentioned out of context. In this case, let’s base it around a Tweet which circulated last year; one of your physical stores has been mentioned in an online newspaper, only in reference to a robbery taking place over the road from it.

In which instance would you say you’re well-deserved of the link?

Scenario one. 

When there’s a clear opportunity to add value with what’s on the other end of the link, there’s no debating that a link should be in place and it’s easy to justify why. The good news is that, in many cases, the link will already be in place when there’s clear value to the user and is an important part of the wider article.

Scenarios two and three are the ones where most link reclamation activity happens. Those where a link references the original campaign or the brand who has supplied a quote. In most cases, the link isn’t already in place here because it isn’t vital to the story. However, the link is in context and can be requested as a way to cite a source.

Scenario four is where link reclamation should be avoided. The link is of no value to readers and doesn’t make contextual sense.

Always be mindful as to whether it makes sense for a link to be added in to an article. Ask yourself; “would a link add value to a reader?” Otherwise, you’re wasting your time trying to reclaim an out-of-context mention.

You need to be able to clearly outline where a link should point to.

Note: requesting homepage, category or service page links is often not as successful as those to content pages as it can be seen as overly commercial.

You also need to be able to justify why it makes sense to be in place to maximize your success rate at link reclamation.

Who should you approach with your request?

You need to make sure you’re making your request to the right person to increase your chances of seeing a brand mentioned turned into a link.

Your options of who to approach are usually:

The journalist who wrote and published the article

Their editor

The publication’s corrections desk

You see, most go straight back to the journalist who they pitched the original story to, however this isn’t always as successful as it could be.

Why?

Journalists are busy people.

Once they’ve hit publish there’s a good chance they’ve moved onto writing their next article and have more or less forgotten about what they last put together. And we simply have to accept that. They have new priorities and they’re not about to go and drop everything to add your link back in.

Of course, that’s not to say that reaching back out to a journalist doesn’t work, simply that they’re not always the best option.

You could reach out to the editor of the section. However, again, they’re busy individuals and adding your link in likely doesn’t come as a high priority.

A corrections desk’s role is to make amends to articles which have already been published.

This makes them, at least for me, the first people to reach out to.

You’ll find corrections contacts listed for most publications. If we take a look at Metro’s ‘Contact Us’ page (found in their footer), we see:

The address clearly states that the purpose is for complaints or corrections. sSending your link reclamation request here often ensures both quick action and an increased chance of success.

Say you send to the corrections desk and either get no reply after three days or you don’t see the link added in. (Note that you often won’t be notified that a link has been added to the article after you request it through the corrections desk — so be sure to keep checking yourself.) In this case, you might go back and reach out to either the journalist or the editor (or both; essentially giving you three chances at getting that link).

What should you say to maximize your chances of getting the link?

I’ve spent hours in the past reworking emails, but am confident that the approach which I now take works well, at least across my own clients and campaigns.

I’ve learned that a successful link reclamation email includes the following:

A polite THANK YOU for covering your campaign, brand or client (manners really do go a long way)

A clear reference to the title of the article which contains the brand mention

A link to the article which contains the mention

The link which you want added in to the article

A simple justification as to why the link adds value to readers

And, in practice, here’s what that looks like for me:

It’s simple, straight to the point and polite; however what it does perfectly is justify why a link would add value to the article and should be added in.

In this particular example, the link was added into an article on USA Today within 2 hours of sending the email.

Earning extra links for your brand

Link reclamation is something, as far as I’m concerned, should be done alongside all content marketing and digital PR campaigns to help you maximize the number of quality links earned.

Once you understand what works (and what doesn’t) in terms of who to approach and what to say, you’ll find that it’s something you can spend half an hour on each day and see results from.

At the end of the day, links still work in SEO. And there’s every argument to be made to put in that extra bit of effort to earn more from your (already put in) hard work.

James Brockbank is Managing Director of Digitaloft, a multi-award winning SEO, PPC & Content Marketing agency. You can find him on Twitter @BrockbankJames.

The post Link reclamation: A practical guide for turning unlinked brand mentions into links appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

from Search Engine Watch https://searchenginewatch.com/2019/02/15/link-reclamation-a-practical-guide-for-turning-unlinked-brand-mentions-into-links/