Poaching Elephants for Ivory

Poaching Elephants for Ivory Poaching of elephants has been present from the past 1000 years. However it increased considerably in the 1970s and consequently the elephant population of the world registered a sharp decline with statistics showing that the number of elephants in Africa declined from 1.3 million in 1980 to just 400,000 in 1990 (Ivory trade threatens future of African Elephants). Sudan and the Central African Republic have also registered a decrease in their elephant population. The crucial factor which results in the poaching of elephants is ivory trade. Therefore to save the dwindling elephant population of the world, cutting the demand for ivory in the world became necessary. The first attempt against ivory trading was made in 1975 with the advent of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which placed elephants under the list Appendix II species (White gold: The ivory trade ban). These are the species that, though not threatened by extinction, are at risk of being endangered. This did not ban ivory trading and was just a means of regulating it. However it failed to achieve its purpose as the killing of elephants not only continued but increased as the demand for ivory in the international market increased. Thus in 1989 CITES was forced to revise its position in context with elephants. As of 1990 the elephants were removed from Appendix II and rather placed under Appendix I (a species threatened by extinction) by which the killing of elephants was illegalized and a full ban was imposed on ivory trading (White gold: The ivory trade ban). After the ban was put under practice ivory trade was nearly eliminated because publicity surrounding the issue turned public sentiment so far against the ivory trade that it nearly eliminated the demand for ivory worldwide; most poaching stopped abruptly in response. After the imposition of the ban the number of poached elephants in Kenya was reduced to 500 in 1993 from a huge 3500 in the 1980s (White gold: The ivory trade ban). Also because the demand for ivory had decreased, the price of ivory per pound also decreased from $125 to $5 (White gold: The ivory trade ban). This reduction in price made the poachers lose incentive and poaching of elephants diminished. Another act, The Botswana Conservation and Management of Elephants Act of 1991 (The Conservation and Management of Elephants in Botswana) also helps protect the elephant population. By the application of strict rules by the government of Botswana, which includes the setting up of anti-poaching units, poaching is prevented on a large scale within the country. As a result the elephant population of Botswana is not only stable but is experiencing an increase. There are many points in favor of the ban being continued. These arguments are based on the profitability of live elephants to the countries they are in and on animal rights. Elephants provide a lot of benefits both to the countrys economy in which they reside and also to the natural habitat of other wild life. Some countries like Zimbabwe and Kenya thrive on the tourism brought about by the presence of elephants in their lands. Zimbabwe has earned a net total of $424 million and Kenya has earned a net of $100 million on account of the attraction their elephant population created for the tourists (White gold: The ivory trade ban). Thus, as ivory trade involves the hunting and killing of the elephant population of these countries, it has a detrimental effect on the tourism industries without which these already poor countries will lose significant amounts of money and a major contributor to their gross domestic product (GDP). The former chief executive of the Zimbabwe Council for Tour ism, Paul Matamasia, stated in regards with poaching: Without wildlife, we do not have a tourism industry to talk of (Zimbabwes Wildlife Threatened by Poachers). Another benefit of elephants is that they help change woodlands into grasslands, an action which helps provide habitats for the varied wildlife. Thus if the elephant population is reduced due to ivory trade it indirectly has an adverse effect on the habitats of other animals. This was exemplified in the 1970s in the Tsavo National Park in Kenya when a decrease in elephant population led to a decrease in the population of other animals such as zebras (Why Ivory Trade should be banned). The other main argument presented in favor of the ban is that of animal rights. The indiscriminate slaughter of the elephants is necessary in order to acquire ivory as it cannot be obtained while the elephant is alive. After it has been killed the process of extracting ivory involves the poacher to cut into the head of the elephant because roughly 25% of the ivory is contained in the head. This brutal killing of elephants just to take their tusks is a violation of animal rights and of the law as elephants are considered to be an endangered species and according to The Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973 ESA prohibits everyone, private person and federal agency alike, from taking endangered wildlife. The regulations extend this to threatened animals. Take includes harming a listed species. Harm: in the definition of take in the Act means an act which actually kills or injures wildlife. Such act may include significant habitat modification or degradation where it actually kills or inj ures wildlife by significantly impacting essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding, or sheltering (The Endangered Species Act). However some argue that the ban is wrong and should not be imposed. There is a debate regarding the endangerment of the elephants with one side claiming that they are not endangered at all. This side argues that rather than being in danger of extinction, the elephant are experiencing a rise in their population. The advocates of this viewpoint cite the examples of Kruger National Park and Botswana. In Kruger National Park the population of elephants increased from 7000 in 1994 to 12000 in 2005. Also in Botswana the elephant population is not only increasing but the authorities registered a threat of overpopulation. The number of elephants increased from 54700 to 60935 (White gold: The ivory trade ban). The ban imposed on ivory trade by CITES requires the elephant population to be below 2000 to qualify. Thus these advocates claim that the ban has been wrongly imposed and should be lifted as the population exceeds that stated by law (White gold: The ivory trade ban).. It must be noted however that this increase in population of the elephants only registered after the ban had been imposed in the first place and can be directly attributed to it because after it was imposed the poaching incidents were reduced to negligible amounts. As far as the problem of overpopulation is concerned it can be justified to still put the elephants under Appendix I of CITES in order to protect the population from falling to such low level that it will become too late to save elephants from extinction; as the old clichà © goes: prevention is better than cure. The primary party opposing the ban is the Southern African Development Community (SADC) which includes 12 countries including Botswana, Tanzania and Namibia. The reason SADCs opposition of the ban is the loss of revenue it had from ivory sales. It argues that due to the ban these countries cant even trade in legitimate ivory which is obtained after the elephant dies a natural death. These countries also claim that the population of elephants in their territories is much greater than the level at which a species is considered endangered. In fact these countries claim that they lack the area and resources to cater for the growing population of the elephants (White gold: The ivory trade ban). This, they claim, poses a threat to their human population as elephants come in conflict with the villagers and are responsible for destroying many crops. Another argument they present is that allocating areas especially for elephants is indirectly very costly as they need that area to grow crops and as agriculture serves as a main form of livelihood it is very difficult. Jon Hutton summates the problem by saying: Crops give survival. Elephants dont (White gold: The ivory trade ban). SADC further says that the ban should be lifted so that these countries can sell up to a collective stockpile of $8 million dollars (White gold: The ivory trade ban) that is collected from elephants that died a natural death. These countries claim that the revenue generated from these trades will be used to conserve the elephant population by building better places for them to live in. In response to the argument that legal ivory and stockpiles should be allowed to be traded and that elephants should rather be placed under Appendix II by CITES, it can be inferred from a similar situation that this is not a good solution. In the past, in response to the appeal by Botswana, CITES placed elephants under Appendix II rather than Appendix I in 1997 which allowed a one off trade of ivory with Japan. However this gave way to increased poaching activity in the area as the demand for ivory tusks was restored which acted as a stimulant for the poachers which led to a considerable decrease in elephant population. A complete ban was soon placed afterwards to stop the poaching as illegal advantage had been taken of a lenient decision. This just helps reinforce the idea that a ban is the only solution to protect the elephant population and if lifted gives rise to illegal trade in ivory which is difficult to tell apart from legitimate trade because while DNA testing has been intro duced it is very costly and it will be very difficult to test each batch of ivory. If we consider the argument of the destruction of existing crops and too little space for practicing agriculture we can see that lifting the ban is not the only solution and neither is the killing of elephants a good option as it might aggravate the situation rather than making it better. Much better and effective answers exist in the form of relocation of elephants. The relocation of elephants from overpopulated areas to areas where they exist in very few numbers is a very feasible solution as it answers both the problem of overpopulation in some countries and dearth of elephants in others and will help reach equilibrium between the two. This idea was used in 2001 when some elephants were transferred from Kruger National Park in South Africa to Mozambique. Will Travers, a member of the Born Free Foundation, said: Translocation as a management option, rather than culling, is going to be increasingly used (Worlds Biggest Elephant Relocation Begins) The argument that the revenue generated will be used to help the elephant population is impractical on two bases. Firstly for most of the countries the amount earned from legal ivory trade is much lower than the amount earned by tourism. Thus harming the elephant population for lesser revenues is not a good option. Secondly most of these countries are developing countries and the amount required to increase the living standards of the elephant population will be too high and cannot be fulfilled alone by revenues generated from trade of ivory tusks which is detrimental to the elephant population in the first place. By carefully considering the arguments presented by both the advocates in favor of the ban and those who are opposed to it and by considering the statistical evidence presented in this essay, it can be firmly concluded that the ban on ivory should remain and is the only barrier standing between live elephants and the extinction of a species. Any other scenario, whether it was a nonexistent ban or a lenient one, has proved damaging to the population of elephants in the world. When a ban had not yet been imposed the numbers of elephants was dwindling at a worrying rate while when a little leverage was allowed to some countries for legitimate trade the consequent rise in demand of ivory and the increase in poaching pushed the elephants one step closer to being wiped of the globe. Also the killing of elephants for ivory is a very atrocious crime as the life of a living being is much more important than the benefits it can provide in death and the conservation of a species is much more es sential than monetary benefits. Thus a full ban is the only answer and the protagonists of the group who think that the ban should be lifted should reconsider their arguments.

Sallie Baliunas and the Dangers of Think Tanks :: Global Warming

Sallie Baliunas and the Dangers of Think Tanks Public policy makers increasingly rely on the research of think tank scholars to guide their policy decisions. But who checks the accuracy of think tank scholar research? Unlike academic journal publishing, which follows a rigorous system of peer review and editorial oversight, think tanks publish opinion pieces without regard to the peer review process. Their policy publications are not based on pure academics, but on a complex interaction between academic, political, and economic interests. In Washington, there is no time to focus on the academic details. As Eric Altermann points out in his book What Liberal Media?, think tank scholars â€Å"are expected to spend at least as much time networking with reporters and government staffers as on research.†1 Efficient dissemination of information is as important as the information itself in the think tank business of knowledge. Sallie Baliunas of the Marshall Institute fits Altermann’s think tank scholar profile well. Regarding her involvement in the global warming debate, she has spent less time on the scholarship of global warming and more time advocating the idea that it is simply a myth. She is a senior scientist at the Marshall Institute, which supports her writing of articles against the Kyoto treaty (â€Å"Bush right to oppose [Kyoto] treaty†)2 and the promotion of the idea that global warming is a natural process caused by increased radiation from the sun (â€Å"The Sun Also Warms†).3 Though she has published relatively little in academic journals on the issue, articles such as these are numerous in conservative political forums, such as the website TechCentralStation.com, â€Å"where free markets meet technology.†4 Though she is not considered a global warming expert by professional climate scientists, she is oft quoted by the anti-Kyoto folks as the expert voice that pr oves global warming is a hoax (see any article by Charli Coon of the Heritage Foundation5 or by Chris de Freitas6). Her global warming research has been funded, in part, by corporate oil interests. Think Tanks Baliunas’s association with think tanks does not make her scholarship automatically suspect. However, think tanks dwell in the grey area between scholarship and advocacy, and one must ask in which category Baliunas belongs. Think tanks cannot claim to be completely unbiased, because the majority of their funding comes from corporations, whose interests are not usually only academic, but also economic. Baliunas is an â€Å"Enviro-Sci Host† for TechCentralStation.com, a website sponsored by AT&T, ExxonMobil, General Motors Corporation, Intel, McDonalds, Microsoft, Nasdaq, National Semiconductor, PhRMA, and Qualcomm.

Metaphors by Sylvia Plath Essay

Sylvia Plath is well known for her confessional style of writing. Her poem ‘Metaphors’ was written in the 1960’s and expresses her self-loathing during pregnancy. Unlike many poets, Plath isn’t afraid to express her inner feelings throughout her work and explore herself within her poetry. In her poem ‘Metaphors’ Plath uses the ‘I’ voice to make her writing deeply personal and convey her pessimistic attitude towards her body image during pregnancy. ‘Metaphors’ is written in a single stanza structure consisting of nine lines each containing nine syllables. Nine is a recurring and significant number in the poem as metaphor and pregnancy both have nine letters and ‘I’ is the ninth letter of the alphabet. It also may be an underlying reference to the nine months of gestation during pregnancy and the impact pregnancy is having on Plath. The poem is written in the form of blank verse without any regular rhyming pattern; however the meter remains consistent with 9 syllables in each line. Plath creates shockingly vivid imagery of her heavily pregnant body and child within; â€Å"An elephant, a ponderous house.† She uses the word â€Å"ponderous† to create an image of her large, lumbering heavily pregnant body and â€Å"house† to show that she is sheltering something precious within. Plath also compares herself to the humorous image of â€Å"a melon on two tendrils.† This makes the reader picture a heavy, round image staggering on two frail, weak legs. The writer’s constant comparison to humorous, ugly objects such as â€Å"a big loaf† and â€Å"a fat purse† highlight the extent of her depression and self-loathing. Although Plath compares herself to a large, unattractive being, she places great value on her unborn child’s life and compares it to many beautiful, valuable objects; â€Å"ivory† â€Å"fine timbers! She uses comparison between the beautiful baby contained within her and her own self-image; â€Å"Money’s new-minted in this fat purse† which clearly represent the ugliness she sees in herself, concealing her precious child within. The writer claims to be;  Ã¢â‚¬Å"a means† where the child will thrive and grow until birth, â€Å"a stage† for her child to develop and grow within and â€Å"a cow in calf† which emphasizes the self-loathing she feels towards the change in her body. In the second last line on the poem, Plath says; â€Å"I’ve eaten a bag of green apples† which could be a reference to the Bible and the apples that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden and how her over-indulgence followed by painful consequences are a biblical reference to original sin. Plath compares her situation to that of Eve’s, she believes that she too indulged in the sensual pleasure of over-indulgence and is now facing the consequences of her actions. On a more literal level, it may also be that she has over-eaten and feels bloated as this is often common among pregnant women. Plath ponders what the uncertain future holds for her in her last line; â€Å"Boarded the train there’s no getting off.† She implies that the pregnancy is too far advanced to be terminated and she is solely responsible for the new life within her. As the poem progresses, Plath begins to feel helpless towards the last weeks of her pregnancy, facing an uncertain future and she has no control over the outcome. The overall tone of ‘Metaphors’ is a pessimistic one which highlights the extent of the poet’s self-loathing and depression. This may be related to mental health issues the fragile poet suffered from. Plath’s distorted self-image combined with the love she feels for her unborn child and her uncertainty of what the future may hold for her come together to produce a beautiful, highly emotional poem. She successfully incorporates striking yet shocking imagery to engage the reader into her deepest thoughts and feelings and almost sympathise with her situation. Plath leaves us pondering what the future holds for her through her extremely heart-rending, thought provoking poem.

Andrew Beard Invents the Jenny Coupler

Andrew Beard Invents the Jenny Coupler Andrew Jackson Beard lived an extraordinary life for a black American inventor. His invention of the Jenny automatic car coupler revolutionized railroad safety. Unlike the vast majority of inventors who never profit from their patents, he profited from his inventions. Life of Andrew Beard - From Slave to Inventor Andrew Beard was born a slave on a plantation in Woodland, Alabama, in 1849, shortly before slavery ended. He received emancipation at age 15 and he married at age 16. Andrew Beard was a farmer, carpenter, blacksmith, a railroad worker, a businessman and finally an inventor. Plow Patents Bring Success He grew apples as a farmer near Birmingham, Alabama for five years before he built and operated a flour mill  in Hardwick, Alabama. His work in agriculture led to tinkering with improvement for plows. In 1881, he patented his first invention, an improvement to the double plow, and sold the patent rights for $4,000 in 1884. His design allowed for the distance between the plow plates to be adjusted. That amount of money would be the equivalent of almost $100,000 today. His patent is US240642, filed on September 4, 1880, at which time he listed his residence at Easonville, Alabama, and published on April 26, 1881. In 1887, Andrew Beard patented a second plow and sold it for $5,200. This patent was for a design that allowed the pitch of the blades of plows or cultivators to be adjusted. The amount he received would be the equivalent of about $130,000 today. This patent is US347220, filed on May 17, 1886, at which time he listed his residence as Woodlawn, Alabama, and published on August 10, 1996.  Ã‚  Beard invested the money he made from his plow inventions into a profitable real-estate business. Rotary Engine Patents Beard received two patents for rotary steam engine designs. US433847 was filed and granted in 1890. He also received patent US478271 in 1892. There was no information found as to whether these were profitable for him. Beard Invents the Jenny Coupler for Railroad Cars In 1897,  Andrew Beard patented an improvement to railroad car couplers. His improvement came to be called the Jenny Coupler. It was one of many that aimed to improve the knuckle coupler patented by Eli Janney in 1873 (patent US138405). The knuckle coupler did the dangerous job of hooking railroad cars together, which formerly was done by manually placing a pin in a link between the two cars. Beard, himself had lost a leg in a car coupling accident. As an ex-railroad worker, Andrew Beard had the right idea that probably saved countless lives and limbs. Beard received three patents for automatic car couplers. These are US594059 granted November 23, 1897, US624901 granted May 16, 1899, and US807430 granted on May 16, 1904. He lists his residence as Eastlake, Alabama for the first two and Mount Pinson, Alabama for the third. While there were thousands of patents filed at the time for car couplers, Andrew Beard received $50,000 for the patent rights to his Jenny Coupler. This would be just shy of 1.5 million dollars today. Congress enacted the Federal Safety Appliance Act at that time to enforce using automatic couplers. View the complete patent drawings for Beards inventions.  Andrew Jackson Beard was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006 in recognition of his revolutionary Jenny Coupler. He died in 1921.

How to Create Content for Google’s E-A-T Algorithm and Medic Update

How to Create Content for Google’s E-A-T Algorithm and Medic Update You already know that content marketing is a tough nut to crackeven if you’ve got the privilege of working with a team of people with a knack for words. There’s blog posts everywhere you turn in your Google Drive, research papers littering your desk, and website content planned for the next six months. But even after all that prep,  it’s still possible to sink to the bottom of Google’s search results. Just 9% of content  gets some form of organic traffic. And it’s pretty easy to fall into the 91% that doesn’tespecially when over 3 million blog posts  are being published every day. Pretty disheartening, right? It doesn’t have to be that way forever. In fact, you could earn pride of place in Google’s SERPs by focusing on one of their new algorithm features: The E-A-T update. Here’s how you can get in on the action. How to Create Content for Google’s E-A-T Algorithm Update by @elisedopson via @ Where It All Started: The â€Å"Medic† Update On Aug. 1, 2018, Google rolled out a new core algorithm update. That’s not groundbreaking newsthey release some kind of update several times a year, as explained by the internet gods themselves: As with any update, some sites may note drops or gains. There’s nothing wrong with pages that may now perform less well. Instead, it’s that changes to our systems are benefiting pages that were previously under-rewarded.... - Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) March 12, 2018 But this one? It was pretty spectacular. And I don’t just mean the sheer size of itthe effects were devastating for some websites. Huge sites like LiveStrong, The Kitchn and Men’s Health lost thousands of organic visitors  overnight: I think a 50%+ drop in organic traffic is significant enough to call this update a pretty big deal. But if you had your spy goggles on while sieving through that data, you might’ve noticed a trend with the sites that took a hit. Data collected by Search Engine Round Table  found 41% of all sites affected by the update were in the healthcare nichehence why you might’ve heard the algorithm named the â€Å"medic update†. That’s not to say site owners who don’t fall into the healthcare category are safe though. In fact, eCommerce, business, technology and finance took a sizeable dent of the disaster share, too: E-A-T Guidelines, Explained If I’ve scared your socks off, I apologize. But the entire point of me talking about this is to show you how you don’t have to slip to the bottom of page 50 at the mercy of the medic update. In fact, you can use one of their revised ranking factors to your advantage with the content you’re creating. Part of the medic update consisted of Google’s guidelines to â€Å"create great content†. Here’s Google’s Public Search Liason, Danny Sullivan, explaining exactly that: We tell lots of things to do. Improve site speed. Consider secure. Etc. But that's not what this update was about. It's broad. And respectfully, I think telling people there's no particular thing to "fix" is indeed helpful. It means, hopefully, they think more broadly... - Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) August 1, 2018 Not really helpful, right? Especially if you’re already creating great content. (Which, spoiler alert: You should be.) But an interesting part of that whitepaper was Google’s focus on E-A-T content. Those guidelines refer to how Google measures the quality of a page. It stands for: Expertise: How knowledgeable is the site owner on the subject matter? Authoritativeness: How credible is the website publishing this content? Trustworthiness: How trustworthy is the website publishing this? Google’s aim has always, and will always, be to show the best, highest-quality results for any search term you could think of. Searchers want to see the best content that satisfies our user intent. If that’s to view information, you’ve got no chance of ranking highly if you’re not factoring E-A-T guidelines into your content marketing strategy. Recommended Reading: The Most Massive SEO Copywriting Guide That Will Make Your Traffic Soar How to Create E-A-T Rich Content Ready to make a dent in the SERPs and start creating content that Google (and your audience) love? Here are the four sections you really need to focus on: 1. Optimize Author Bio and â€Å"About† Pages Let’s start by focusing on the â€Å"E† section of this new algorithm update: Expertise. You need to be showing that everyone contributing to your website is an expert on the topic at handwhether that’s B2B content marketing or dog walking. Why? Because going back to Google’s aim, they want to give searchers the highest quality information. Let’s use an example. If you’re searching for information on the best time to post on social media, which of these would you be more satisfied with? A site ran by a budget social media agency. A site ran by a social media expert, who’s also a keynote speaker and has 10,000+ Twitter followers. I’ll bet you pick option is B. That’d be Google’s preference, too, purely because they’re more trustworthy and have more expertise than option A. The easiest way to showcase your expertise is to optimize two key pages on your website: Author Bio Pages You already know that many CMS create pages, such as author bio pages, automatically. I’m not here to teach you how to suck eggs. But you might not realize you’re able to edit these automatically-generated author pages, and build on the expertise section of Google’s E-A-T guidelineswhile maximising your search visibility. Author bios are a great place to start because Google’s quality guidelines  say: â€Å"Websites or pages without any beneficial purpose, including pages that are created with no attempt to help users, or pages that potentially spread hate, cause harm, or misinform or deceive users, should receive the Lowest rating.† So, for each person with an author page on your website, ask yourself: Are they social influencers? Do they run popular blogs? Have they won awards? Have they spoken at industry conferences? Have they worked with/written for prestigious companies? If you can answer â€Å"yes† to either one, share the details in their author bio pageor ask contributing writers to craft their own professional bio  before you publish their content. Here’s a fantastic example on Search Engine Journal: Along with setting herself apart from other contributors, Julia’s bio shows she’s an expert in her industry. She runs an almost 100-person strong team, served thousands of clients, been named as a top 30 content marketer, written a book, hosted a podcast, and published a course. Pretty impressive, right? Since author bio pages that rarely offer any value, your target audience see content that’s published by someone with experience, knowledge and expertise (like Julia) when you’re optimizing them. Show them you’ve got it on offer! Recommended Reading: Your Ultimate Content Marketer's Guide to Keyword Research About Pages Take the â€Å"show your expertise† game a step further by optimizing the ‘about’ page of your website. This isn’t person-specific; it’s a full rundown of your company and lets your audience get to know the people behind the brand. You could answer questions like: What experts are on your team? Have you won (or been nominated for) awards for your work? Why should someone pick your business over a competitor? Just take a peek at this infographic from the About page on Avalaunch Media’s site  for inspiration: 102 years of digital marketing experience is pretty impressiveas is the long list of logos of sites they’ve been featured in, and the number of events their team have spoken at. Fancy putting this infographic-style About page into action for your own site? Remember to add some supporting text. Google isn’t smart enough to understand images (yet), so make sure you’re giving their search engine spiders  text they can read and rank. Recommended Reading: SEO Content Strategy: How to Make Your Traffic Soar by 594% 2. Purge (and Redirect) Poorly-Performing Content If you’re creating content on a consistent basis, you might think you’re acing this whole â€Å"content marketing† thing. Truth is: You’re only acing it if the content you’re pushing is getting resultswhether that’s direct traffic, social shares, or conversions. If your content isn’t getting any of that, it’s hindering you, not helping you. The E-A-T algorithm means site owners need to create a site-wide content plan with high-performing content. How can you an expert in your industry if 90% of your content doesn’t perform well? Enter: Content pruning. A fancy word for removing your old content, and redirecting usersand Google spidersto something better. Jimmy Daly, Content Manager at Animalz, told me how QuickBooks pruned their poorly-performing content  and grew search traffic by 44% year-on-year: â€Å"QuickBooks SEO lead Will Waggoner merged pageview data with conversion data to help him decide which pages to prune. He made sure to ignore new content that hadn't been around long enough to rank or assist in conversions. He generated a list of pages that received less than 100 pageviews in the last six months and had not assisted in any conversions. Then, he made a plan for each URL. Some would be redirected to an article on a similar topic and some would be redirected to the blog home page. Lastly, Will confirmed that the sitemap would update automatically. Once confirmed, he put the redirects in place. Traffic was up 20% in a few weeks. By the time peak season rolled around, QuickBooks' content was getting 44% more traffic than the previous year. Will points out that removing content doesn't guarantee increased traffic. He recommends improving navigation to make content more accessible and refreshing old content first. Each piece of content represents a significant investment of time and money- delete it only when you've exhausted other options.† Fancy following Will’s strategy? Here’s a quick summary of what you need to do to meet Google’s E-A-T algorithm: Identify poorly-performing pages with 100 page views in the past six months or pages that don’t generate conversions. (Use Google Analytics’ conversion paths  for this.) Improve those pages, or delete them. If redirected, redirect the old URL to the next, most-relevant page. For example: If you’ve deleted a page on content marketing tips, redirect it to a related blog post or your services page. Just like QuickBooks, you’ll see the impact in no timetrust me. 3. Take Control Over User-Generated Content (UGC) Opening your site to guest authors is a scalable way to increase your content output. But if you’re not keeping a close eye on the content being published, you’ve got no chance of catering to those E-A-T guidelines we’re working so hard to meet. It ties back into the point I made about deleting poorly performing content: Poor content will reduce your entire site’s credibilitywhether it was published by your marketing team, or not. Think about it: If you’re opening your site to contributors, you might get a ton of new content being published to your site every day. That’s great right? Not necessarily. Not all content is good content. Contributors might be publishing: Spun content Duplicate content Low-quality content Content that’s optimized for another keyword you’re already targeting elsewhere It’s better to have one strong piece of content, rather than five low-quality ones. That way, both Google and your audience are wowed by one pieceand you’re in with the chance of ranking higher naturally.   But opening your site to contributors, and allowing them to publish their own content, could make that harder. Caveat that by: Not giving contributors permission to publish without being reviewed by you, first. Creating a set of writing guidelines that all contributors must  stick to. does the latter. Just take a look at the â€Å"write for us† page: Notice how only the best writers squeeze through their process and end up having their writing published? (Including me 😇) You want to follow the same ethos and never sacrifice quality for quantity. Google wants to push sites with expertise, knowledge and trust to the top of the ranks. Vet your contributors and if they don’t meet the same E-A-T guidelines, don’t publish their stuff. It’s really that simple! 4. Build Strong Editorial Backlinks Ah, the one word that makes SEOs rejoice: Backlinks. Us content marketers already know these little hyperlinks play a huge role in any SEO strategy, but your content needs to act as a link-building machine if you want to benefit from this algorithm update. Why? Because links prove credibilitythat caters to the T part of the E-A-T algorithm: Trustworthiness. Site owners who’re dishing out backlinks want to point their audience in the way of incredible content. If they point to low-quality sites, it’s their reputation at stakeand their own rankings that will drop. That’s not gonna do them any favors. But site owners who run reputable, powerful websites want to send their audience in the way of great content. Not 500 words of spun content or content stuffed with your keyword in every paragraphhence why you need to create strong content, and build even stronger backlinks to get in Google’s good books. Follow Moz’s 10x framework, or Backlinko’s skyscraper technique, to build that content. Go above and beyond with your knowledge, educating your customers much better that anyone else can. Then once you’ve got a kick-ass piece of content that’s 10x better than your competition, do some outreach to spread the word. You could: Send the URL to other blogs you’ve linked-to (external linking is good for SEO) Ask influencers to take part and get them to share with their followers Build your own promotion network and ask those people to share your content with their network. (Slack is great for this!) Each of those tactics raises the number of eyeballs on your content. More eyeballs = more backlink opportunities. But if you fancy taking this a step further, go out of your way to ask  for backlinks. Several techniques exist for this, including: Broken link building: Identify a 404 error on your target website, and create a resource to replace it with. Send your URL as a replacement. Round-up/resource link building: Search popular round-up/resource pages in your industry, and reach out to the editor asking to get involved. Guest posting: Write another piece of supporting content and place it on a popular website, linking back to your original piece. Infographic link building: Create an infographic to support your content, and attempt to get it published on industry sites with a link to your content as credit. When you’re working through this section, remember that not every backlink is a good backlink. Good backlinks are contextual, and from authoritative sites with good SEO metrics. It’s a waste of time targeting sites with low Domain Authority, for example, since those won’t pass much ranking power through to your site. SEO powerhouses like HuffPost and Forbes, on the other hand, will! Ready to Ace Google’s E-A-T Algorithm? If you’re not focusing on creating content that’s written by experts, authoritative and from a trustworthy site, you’ll have a hard time on your journey to page one. But it’s easy to boost your organic search traffic when you’re creating what Google, and your target audience, are cravingjust like Marie Haynes did: YEAH! Got this incredible email today from a client for whom we did a site review and made a bunch of recommendations. Their main terms were on page 2 and 3. And now they're #2 for their most important keyword. Improved E-A-T, internal linking and much more. pic.twitter.com/Z7NeXVRtd8 - Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) July 27, 2018 Quality content + strong backlinks = better SEO rankings. And whether you’re just about to ramp-up content production or have a ton of existing content to update, the new E-A-T guidelines are going to get you there.

Total quality management Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Total quality management - Term Paper Example An article in the New York Times that displays a graph will be critiqued. A top-down flow diagram, cause-and-effect and flowchart will be drawn to explain the processes and problems surrounding purchasing a vehicle. Finally, an example of a poka-yoke will be given. The first dimension of quality that Garvin proposes is performance. The advertisement gives the primary operating characteristics of the services provided. The second dimension is features. The advertisement gives the secondary aspects of performance that supplement the basic functions of the services offered. The third dimension is reliability. The services offered in the advertisement have measured to verify their reliability. This is especially important because the services offered are consumed over a specific duration of time. The fourth dimension is conformance. The testing services offered in the advertisement meet the standards that are set by Prometric. The fifth dimension is serviceability. This dimension does not have relevance to the services offered at Computech Computers Inc and as such, repair and restoring of services does not need to be considered. The seventh dimension of quality is aesthetics. The advertisement makes the services offered to look, feel and sound in teresting to the reader. However, it is not possible to please everybody and individual preference will dictate whether the advertisement had aesthetic value. The eighth and final dimension of quality is perceived quality. The advertisement infers the good quality of the services offered by use of images, assurance that the company is authorized by Prometric and the provision of full time qualified instructors (Garvin, 1988, pp. 113-174). External customers are people or businesses that purchase the services or products offered by a company. External customers are the ordinary customers who purchase the company’s products or services. Internal customers

Legal Envirn of Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Legal Envirn of Business - Essay Example On reviewing the executive employment agreement between Jonny Bee Good and the Big Bad Company, there was a valid agreement made on the twenty first day of April in the year 2010. On this issue, the signature part is provided at the end of the terms and provisions’ script. This means that the executive should only sign to the contract after going through the entire script. On allocation of duties, Jonny Bee Good was hired as the president of the company expected to serve with much loyalty, faithfulness, and total devotion. However, the company had the right to modify or change the executive’s position and duties during the term of their agreement. On the issue of compensations, the company offered compensation with respect to its customary payroll practice. Two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars was the executives’ base salary by the Big Bad Cars Company. The salary was to be reviewed annually by the board in accordance to the company’s review polici es and practices. Incentive compensation programs would be in operation whereby the executive would be eligible to in participation. On the issue of termination of the contract, according to the contract, the agreement was supposed to operate in full force with no breakage until the two parties are associated in breaking it. The two parties could only terminate the contract upon agreement. The company could also terminate the agreement in absence of the executive but only upon a written notice, while the company would pay executive the compensation to which he would be entitled. The executive held the right to terminate the contract with or without a good reason but upon a written notice of ninety and thirty days respectively. Contract between the two parties was meant to last for a period of two years according to their agreement. In that case, a total or $450,000 would be entitled for Jonny Bee Good as his compensation after the contract. Centrally