Hydroponics or Traditional Gardening, Which Is Better?
Most gardeners who garden in soil are curious about hydroponics and somewhat fascinated by the idea. But very few actually make the leap to gardening using hydroponic techniques.So let’s have a look at some of the pros and cons of each method of gardening.First, let’s look at the advantages (or pros) of gardening in soil.Gardening in soil is low cost – or is it?
Gardening in soil is the traditional method of gardening; it’s the way my grandparents did it.
Anyone can garden in the soil.
There is a connection with the earth when you dig in it, getting your hands dirty.Now let’s look at a few disadvantages.The earth must be tilled or in some cases amended because the existing soil is unsuitable for gardening.
Due to depletion of soil nutrients, the resulting crop is unpredictable at best.
Soils may be contaminated.
Traditional gardening in soil usually involves a lot of bending, kneeling and thus can aggravate back problems or make it impossible for older folks who have mobility challenges.
Garden pests can be a real problem – either stealing your whole crop or munching holes in tomatoes and leafy greens. Those pests can come in walking, crawling, slithering and flying forms. And although all the gardening books say that roly-poly bugs are not destructive in a garden, I beg to differ. I have really voracious ones in mine!
Growing things in soil is messy and involves dirt and sometimes mud.
Weeds can be a real problem.
Watering can be a challenge. Too much rain can wipe out the garden; too little can wipe it out also. Watering may be cost prohibitive and sometimes banned during very dry weather.
Some people just don’t have a “green thumb” and their plants seem to wilt and die no matter what they do.Now let’s explore the pros and cons of gardening with hydroponics.First, let’s look at the advantages of hydroponics gardening.The garden can be at your ideal height so you don’t have to bend, kneel or crawl on all fours to garden.
When you use a high quality nutrient solution for your hydroponic garden, you can be confident that your plants are getting all the nutrients they need to produce high quality produce – thus your body will have access to those nutrients via the plants.
Problems with pests are minimal.
There is no weeding necessary.
Vegetables and greens grow faster than they do with conventional gardening methods.
There is no “mess” or “mud” involved. Vegetables come out clean.
Gardening can be done just about anywhere, even in your basement or on a porch.
You can garden any time of year.
You have control of water and you can grow an equivalent amount of produce on much less water.
Hydroponics is an easy DIY project.
This gardening method is almost foolproof. In other words, anyone can garden with hydroponics and get a successful harvest.There are also some disadvantages to hydroponics.The initial setup may be expensive. However, most of the cost is incurred one time at the beginning and can be reused many, many times.
Setting up a hydroponic system may seem complicated.
Some people don’t like the idea of “buying” nutrients.
Some may object to eating something they consider to be produced with chemicals. However, there are many organic nutrient options that can be used in hydroponics.So let’s recap; both growing in soil and growing with hydroponics have their advantages and disadvantages. The more adventurous you are, the more fun you can have with either method of gardening. You must decide for yourself but I hope this information has given you food for thought.
Continue Your Marketing Research and Marketing More – Especially During a Recession
You are probably reading the title of this article and thinking, “Marketing is the last thing on my mind.”Times are tough. Many companies are eliminating jobs in the thousands, people are struggling to pay bills, and therefore consumer spending has decreased. The news is dismal. Don’t believe it!As a small business owner, I am sure you are disheartened to see a decline in revenue, so naturally you start contemplating where you might be able to save money. As you begin looking at your expenses you like many other people zero in on your marketing expenses. Resist that notion!Don’t rationalize cutting back on your marketing because you may think, “People know about us so I can afford to cut back,” or “People are not buying as much so I should cut back too.” The aforementioned statements may appear to be perfectly logical statements, but looks can be deceiving. This is the exact time when you analyze your completion, reevaluate and market more. Why? Because others will stop marketing and yours will stand out! Make sense?Successful business owners recognize that this is not the time to cut back on their marketing. Why? These owners understand the importance of being part of their customer’s mindset.So how does a company or small business accomplish this?First, you need market research to find out where your brand currently resides in the minds of your customers (if you are just starting out market research will enable you to identify needs that are not currently being met).You then take the information obtained from market research and start promoting your products and services. The more frequently you market your products and services, the more you becoming a part of your target markets mind set.Now is not the time to cut back on your marketing efforts. Try to maintain or if it is possible increase your marketing.Now I am l aware that conducting market research and marketing can get expensive and time consuming, but there are several cost effective ways to help you gain the exposure trust and confidence that you need. Social networking sites such as Twitter, and Facebook are easy and free.It is times like a recession that force you to become creative. Think outside of the box. Times may be tougher than usual, but customers will flock to those who effectively market and build relationships. When you build your relationships properly you get the customer to know, like, and trust you – and no matter what is going on in the economy that is going to keep your customers coming back for more of what you offer.
Why DIY SEO Is An Epic-Fail
A lot of us guys think about saving money on SEO packages before even starting to plan on a SEO campaign. Now this is quite admissible given the fact that the Economic Recession has still not faded from the foreground, and is still a pressing issue for most investors.However, before starting to talk about how beneficial affordable SEO services can be for your brand new enterprise or online endeavor, let’s check out why trying to compromise too much on SEO packages through DIY SEO can kill your brand!
The Design & Development Fails – Oh yes, if you thought you were a Design maverick – you are wrong. We are not saying you can’t design well. In fact, some of the best graphic and web designers don’t work in an agency. But most of the designers do not have an iota of idea about SEO, or how their design should complement an affordable SEO package. Result – no results!
Content or SEO Copy is Never Professional – Now you may have a Masters in English, but writing sales copy, specially to complement the efficacy of affordable SEO services is a mean task. For instance, you can write a great academic essay, but to write a sales advertisement to make people visit and read the essay is a completely different thing in itself. And if you haven’t mastered the latter, your DIY SEO packages would be no good – even with an excellent form in academic writing.
Keeping Up with the Ever-Evolving SEO Process – SEO services are not a slow-rolling stage-coach that can be hopped on to whenever you feel like – and yet reach the destination in time. In fact, the world of SEO spins so fast that even a week-long absence from the industry may take months of coping up to do – for instance the introduction of “Google Instant” or the “#newtwitter” to quote a few. This is why it is important to get SEO packages sourced from professional firms, rather than suddenly decide to try your hand at it one fine day!
Tracking the Results – Yes there are enough tools on the planet to keep track of your SEO campaign’s progress and the gradual achievement of objectives as you move on. However, tweaking your SEO packages in order to weed out the possible or potential failures and spruce up the whole campaign cannot be done in a DIY fashion.
In fact, the point that most people miss here is that tracking an SEO campaign is not only to see if the final results have been obtained or not. It is in fact, also to keep streamlining the SEO efforts and gain an advantage over business rivals who probably have employed affordable SEO packages to fly high as well!
So if the purpose of those affordable SEO services is to get to the top of SERPs, you better lose the DIY demon fast and get on with a professional search engine marketing company.For vital days lost in experimenting may set your SERP clock by years, with no way to recover on the lost value and money.
97% Of Companies Have Still To Claim Their Google Local Places Listing
Have you a local business or service? How do you advertise it? Are you on page one of Google when someone keys in a keyword phrase looking for the business or service you provide? Have you looked recently at your Google local listing? It’s all changed at Google, and companies need to wake up to that fact. Now, due to the emphasis Google is giving to companies, when a person does a Google local search they will see a list of seven highlighted companies at the top or next to top of the search result.For too long, many companies with local services have been unable to get on page one for their Google local listing as search engine optimisation is expensive and they had to compete with the directories such as Yellow Pages online. The problem for companies was they spent money on having a website built, but getting people to it has been very difficult. Now, securing a prominent place for your company or service on Google is possible.There is an ‘art’ to being one of the top seven places and keeping it there for when someone does a Google Local search. You will benefit by having your Google local listing set up for you by online marketing experts that can give your business a boost by analysing keywords which will bring the most searches to your website thereby ensuring that all the elements are specially engineered to get you a top placementFewer than 3% of companies have actually ‘claimed’ their Google local listing yet statistics show that 82% of people who search for a business online will result in an offline action. 34% of people use a Google Map to find a business. That means a whole section of potential clients could be passing by your business without even realising that you are there. Did you know it is estimated that over 50% of all local purchases are preceded by an Internet search?To summarise, companies are too busy, on one hand sorting out their business, and they worry about getting noticed from their advertising on the other. To attract new customers, they have to look at what is happening in Google and also with mobile marketing as more and more people buy smartphones. Texting to customers and including mobile websites in the promotion is becoming more prevalent. It is time for most companies to waken up to the fact that advertising in local newspapers is not enough anymore.