Holidays In Geneva

St Peters Cathedral in Geneva was originally built between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and is surprisingly small for a building of this type. It comprises a mixture of architectural styles, including a neoclassical, gothic, and Romanesque that combine surprisingly well. The North tower can be climbed, and offers excellent views over the lake and the old town. 

The English Garden was originally constructed in 1854, and is home to the Monument National, a bronze fountain, and the Flower Clock, a massive clock planted with over 6,300 flowers that was constructed to honour the watch making industry in Geneva. Its second hand is the biggest in the world. 

The Water Fountain is the most famous landmark in Geneva. It is an impressive five hundred foot high fountain that towers over Geneva harbour, and is illuminated by night. During the day, when the sun shines, a rainbow forms behind the jet of water, creating an impressive lightshow all of its own. 

Built as a monument to the founders of the European Reformation, Guillaume Farel, Theodore de Beze, John Calvin, and John Knox, construction of the Reformation Wall began in 1909 to mark the fourth centenary of the birth of John Calvin. 

The original Botanical Gardens in Geneva were in the Parc des Bastions between 1817 and 1900, but they were moved to their current location in Chambesey in 1901. Here you can find a large pond, thousands of flowers, a garden of the senses, several greenhouses full of exotic plants, an aviary, and a park of rare animals. 

The biggest United Nations building outside of New York is the Palace of Nations in Geneva. The building is in the shape of a double horseshoe, and was built in the 1930s as the headquarters of the predecessor of the UN, the League of Nations. 

Set across four floors in the shell of an old factory building, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary art is a must see for any fans of modern art in Geneva. Their most notable exhibit is a reproduction of a Parisian art collectors flat, complete with original furniture, sculptures, and paintings. 

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum tells the story of the Red Cross from its inception at the hands of Henry Dunant to its modern day humanitarian activities through a combination of sculpture, documentation, computers, and multimedia presentations.

Maximizing Your Free Traffic Funnel From Google

This article is all about how to maximize freetraffic from Google. There are numerous ways to get free traffic to your website. This free traffic is very important, obviously because it cuts the amount of money that you need to budget for advertising dramatically â€" or it enables you to spend more advertising dollars on paid advertising media. Google plays an important role in terms of generating free traffic.

There are numerous ways to get free traffic to your website. This free traffic is very important, obviously because it cuts the amount of money that you need to budget for advertising dramatically - or it enables you to spend more advertising dollars on paid advertising media. Google plays an important role in terms of generating free traffic.

Using natural search marketing techniques, which basically employ search engine optimizationtechniques, you can move your website listing up through the ranks in the Google search engine.

This search engine optimization includes both on-page optimization, as well as off-page optimization, where you get one-way, inbound links to your site on important websites that already have high searchengine listing for their keywords.

Essentially, you make sure that your HTML code is clean, that you have used your keywords effectively within your content, that your links are anchored with your keywords in the text, that you use your keywords in the 'alt' tags, that you use meta tags, and that your keyword is included in the title tag of your page, as well as in bold, with an H1 or H2 HTML tag on the content portion of your page.

But once you get traffic, you need to learn how to maximize it. Set up an opt-in page, which may also be called a capture page, a squeeze page, or a gateway page, which your visitors will go through before getting to your website content. This page will request the visitor's first name and email address, and if you are offering them something for free in exchange, such as an E-Book or report, they will happily provide you with this information.

This information is then sent to your auto responder, where you can market to these visitors over and over again, bringing them back to your site again and again, without having to get them to come back to you through the search engine.

By capturing names and email addresses in this way, you can truly maximize the free traffic that you are getting from Google, and you will find that you have more repeat visitors, which in turn amounts to more sales.

Have you seen those websites that contain hundreds of content pages? Do you wonder how people put those sites up so fast? It's a lot easier than you think, if you use the right strategy for building content rich web sites.

First, when building a content rich website, instead of using the outdated method of doing each page, one at a time, use the technology that we have today to your advantage.

You can create, find, or buy a website template, where you just paste content in, but that is still too slow for many.

The best option today is to use a content management system, such as Joomla. You can find or buy existing templates that can be plugged into your CMS, or you can have one designed specifically - and only - for you and your website - one that is truly unique.

When you use a content management system like this, getting the content up on your site is fast and easy. Just paste it into the form within the administrative area of the site, tell the system where you want it linked, and submit it. You're done! But where are you going to get hundreds of pages of content fast?

You have four viable options: You can write the content yourself, you can hire someone else to write it for you, you can use free content that you find on the Internet, or you can buy private label rights content and either rewrite it or have someone else rewrite it.

The first option, writing the content yourself, is of course the slowest way to get content for your site. But if you hire people to write it for you, you could assign 10 writers 50 articles each, and have 500 articles to use for content in about a week's time. All you have to do is login and put it on the site.

Using free content, while acceptable, is a bad idea. You will be publishing content that has already been published, and the search engines will penalize your site for having duplicate content in terms of where you will rank in their listings. If you are not depending on the search engines for traffic, however, this is an option.

Finally, consider using private label rights content. This content must be rewritten, in most cases, but again, if you employ some writers to rewrite the content for you, the work will be good to use, and it will be much cheaper than having fresh content written - and usually much faster as well.

Local Google Advertising - Important Free Tip

Small business owners *think* they are supposed to be found in Google under their company name. Some web design firms tell small business owners that they *are* in Google if they can find their website by typing in the company name.

Many small business owners are unaware that it's possible to 'get listed locally' on Google. They think they are supposed to be ranking for the product or service they offer, for example, if they sold ice cream machines they think they are supposed to rank in Google for ice cream machines.

"The Customer is Always Right"
Is that always true?

Small business owners *think* they know what their ads should look like, many small business owners know their industry backwards and forwards, they often are no where near as skilled in advertising or marketing (and those two items are not the same). Even if a business owner knows a thing or two about advertising when it comes to internet advertising more often than not they are mistaken.

If you are a web designer or an internet advertising salesperson, you have to make a sale, if your client wants their website to look a certain way, you give them what they want. After all you are more interested in getting a check from the client than you are in ensuring the finished product actually puts money in the customers cash register.

Small business owners *think* they are supposed to be found in Google under their company name. Some web design firms tell small business owners that they *are* in Google if they can find their website by typing in the company name. The reality is the prospective customers the business owner is seeking are typing in what it is they're in need of and the geographic area they're willing to drive to in order to get it. Even if a product is shipped, or shipped for free, the prospective customer is likely to prefer a vendor nearby just in case they want to return it.

Take a hypothetical scenario. Let's say you operate Harry's Ice Cream Machines, a fictitious vendor of food service equipment that makes frozen desert. And you not only sell these but you service them. Now you're a local company, you do not have the staff to service merchandise on the other side of the country. So you need to sell these things locally. Ok, to make it more real, the manufacturer you get the machines from dropships them and you can't afford to cut your margin that much, so you compete locally because if your customers buy from you they'll get service that they can't get from a dropship arrangement.

Now you get a website built... you don't yet know what SEO is, so you do what most everyone else you know does, you get a "web designer". This designer builds you a site and puts in the closest thing he knows to do for keywords. Only problem is he's shooting for the wrong target (and probably doesn't know it). He's got you "optimized" for ice cream machines.

Well, let's just see how hard this is (or isn't):

Google the keyword phrase- ice cream machines, it returns 83,700,000 results. Which means you're trying to knock off 83,699,999 other webmasters who have a head start on you!

Now let's say for the sake of argument, you are offering them in Maryland, Now you're only going up against 422,000 other pages.

I don't know about you but I'd rather get in a fight with 400K people than tangle with 83 million... what do you think?

So let's continue with our hypothetical frozen dessert making marketer (I wonder if their really is someone in neighboring Montgomery County Maryland who sells this... I might get a client inadvertently!)

Search Google (or Bing, or Yahoo) for "ice cream machines "in Montgomery County Maryland, Now we only have to do battle with 12,000 other pages.

Moral of this story: at a minimum target the state you're doing business in, better yet, target the county you want to do business in and you will fare much better.

Controlling the Color of Hydrangea Blooms

Many folks grow hydrangeas to enjoy the long-lasting flowers in their landscape. As an added bonus, the blooms of these lovely plants can be easily dried for year-round enjoyment, and unlike most other plants, the color of some hydrangea blossoms can be controlled or changed by gardeners. This is accomplished by regulating the acidity of the soil that the hydrangeas are planted in.

Not all hydrangea varieties can change color. Those that are naturally white will remain white no matter what the soil type they’re grown in. Most hydrangea blooms tend to subtly change color as they mature, but gardeners can only manipulate the colors of those that are naturally blue or pink. This would include the colored Big Leaf and Pee Gee varieties. Big Leaf hydrangeas are also known as mopheads or lacecaps.

If your hydrangea has blue blooms, amending the soil to make it more alkaline will change the blooms to pink. Likewise, a pink hydrangea may be changed to blue by increasing the acidity of the soil. It is much easier to change a pink hydrangea to blue than it is to change one from its natural blue color to pink. And it’s much easier to control the color of hydrangeas that are grown in pots than if they’re grown in the ground.

The presence of aluminum in the soil will make a hydrangea bloom blue. Garden centers will carry aluminum sulfate that can be added to the soil around hydrangeas to make the soil more acidic and help them develop a blue color. Be careful when using aluminum sulfate, as too much can burn the roots and harm the plant. Apply it around plants that are at least two years old, and water the plants well before applying this soil amendment. One tablespoon of aluminum sulfate per gallon of water is recommended, and may be applied throughout the growing season to retain the blue blooms.

If the soil is naturally acidic with a low pH, the color of the hydrangeas will naturally tend to be shades of blue or purple, and sometimes both colors simultaneously. If you have acidic soil but would rather have pink hydrangea blossoms, the plants must not be given the opportunity to use the aluminum in the soil. To accomplish this the pH needs to be raised to between 6.0 and 6.2. Be careful to not raise the pH above 6.4. If the pH is that high, the plant will not be able to take up iron and will suffer. A fertilizer high in phosphorus will also prevent the plant from taking up aluminum from the soil.

Hydrangeas planted near concrete sidewalks or a concrete foundation are more likely to produce pink blossoms. Lime can leach out of the concrete and keep the soil pH too high to produce blue blooms. If you absolutely must have blue hydrangeas near a concreted area, it’s best to grow them in pots.

Hydrangeas make excellent cut flowers and the dried blooms make beautiful arrangements. The key to successfully drying hydrangeas is to cut them at the right time.

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to dry hydrangea blooms that have been cut at their peak of color. For best results, allow the blossoms to dry somewhat on the plant before cutting them. Even the white hydrangeas will turn colors as they age, and most commonly they will turn slightly green, but may also turn light pink or even burgundy. The best time to harvest the blooms for drying is after they begin to change color and dry a bit in late summer to early fall.

After collecting the blooms, they can be placed in a dry, airy room out of direct sunlight until fully dried. They may be left standing in a dry vase or hung upside down. Either method works well. The method used to dry them isn’t nearly as important as the timing for gathering the blooms.

Space Saving Small Cars

Space Saving Small Cars 

With petrol prices continuing to increase and cars becoming more expensive to run, people are turning to small cars to solve their problems. These cars have gained incredible popularity due to their compact size, cost and fuel efficiency. These cars have contributed in a major way to the modern car industry and almost all of the major manufacturers around the world offer a range of compact vehicles. 

The size of the car ranges from 4400mm and 4750mm long for convertibles, 4100mm and 4450mm long for hatchbacks. Small family cars based on sports utility vehicle design range from 4400mm to 4750mm in the international based models and for the U.S. models it is 4200mm to 4500mm. The considerations of compact cars in Japan are under certain conditions and they are as follows: the vehicle needs to be 3.4m long, 1.48m wide, 2m height with an engine capacity of 660cc to 2000cc, 4.7m long, 1.7m wide, and 2m height. There are no special considerations for hatchbacks, minivans, SUV’s or CUV’s. They run on either diesel or petrol with an engine capacity of 1.5 litres to 2.4 litres, some are 1.3 litres to 1.4 litres units for economy models, within an absolute range of 100 bph and 170 bph. 

In the year 1950, the compact class was introduced, built on a 2500mm wheelbase and to it were added hardtops, hatchback and station wagon designs. The “compact” term was coined by the American motor industry, and is now used all over the world. It was between the 1958 and 1960 when modern compact cars were greatly expanded. During the 1960’s small vehicles evolved into slightly smaller versions with 6 cylinder engines, with two-bench six-passenger sedan but were among the smallest in North America. 

Consumers today seek vehicles in the U.K. that are fuel efficient as well as fun to drive and for this reason the sale of small cars are at an all time high. Manufacturers are coming up with new ideas and innovative designs in this sector which is proving extremely popular. According to information in 2010 these smaller versions of cars made up about one third of the overall car sales.