According to the National Institute of Health in 2006 approximately 1500 people die each day in the United States due to cancer and about 3400 people are diagnosed with cancer each day. Sadly these stats have only grown higher in the past two years. Cancer and cancer related forums have been a large hub for people to communicate within. These forums allow you to speak about your disease, worries, questions, etc. As well as receive tips and advice from other members of the forum. The communities on these forums are very closely knit, some of the people on the forums are dealing with the disease right now in the present and some have dealt with it in the past. Either way, these forums are a spectacular place to join up and talk to some like minded people about cancer and other related diseases such as:

Breast Cancer, ovarian, choriocarcinoma

Colon Cancer, Pancreas and Liver

Kidney Cancer, bladder, prostate

Hodgkin Lymphoma

Bone Cancer, brain, carcinoid, thyroid

Stomach Cancer

Leukemia

The categories in which these cancers are available in on these forums varies in several different categories such as common cancers, cancers in women, cancers in men, blood and lymphatic system cancers, skin, digestive, urinary, etc. Even if you have a really rare cancer, chances are someone on these forums has it or had as well. The forums aren’t just a few small groups of people. Thousands upon thousands of people join these sites, looking for the same support, as you are looking for.

Sometime during your disease you may feel completely alone and scared. But this isn’t something you have to deal with on your own, take a look at the forums below to find a community that you can participate in:

- Cancer Forums Net: This is a forum for members to introduce themselves. It is not a place to get advice or support for a specific cancer type

- Friends In Need: Support for breast cancer survivors of all ages, tips, information, chat, message board and list serve Email discussion

- National Breast Cancer Org: Get Answers. Meet Survivors. Free Breast Cancer Discussion Forum

- Cure Zone: This website is designed for people with cancer that would like to use alternative medicinal procedures as well as homeopathic “medicines” to slow down or stop the disease as well as different symptoms that cancer or chemotherapy can bring

- ACSCSN: The official American Cancer Society Cancer Survivors Network

- Cancer Compass: From diet and exercise to mobility concerns, our online cancer forum is full of resources and feedback about ways to improve quality of life

You can also find forums with your specific disease such as Breast, Oral, Prostate, etc. Simply go to your favorite search engine and enter in the terms.

Chat forums are very popular and, they are gaining popularity by the day. This is because they provide a good opportunity for people to learn things as well as to share things. Life is all about this kind of communication and chat forums will ensure that you have a good platform. However, for you to gain from these forums, you need to find only the best. It is possible for you to judge what the best forums are and, you will need to look at the following tips that will ensure that you always stay ahead. First, it is vital for you to look at forums for chats and know what they are all about. There are very many topics which you will find being discussed. It is vital for you to look at the variety and know what your interest is. Many singles will look for those forums that are for dating. This is because when you are meeting a lot of people, you will be in a position to spark a relationship. There are forums which are carried on and specialize in discussing issues that have to do with dating. Singles can join these chats and learn all they need to know in this regard. When it comes to relationships, it is vital for you to get all the help you need. Many singles like you are not able to navigate around establishing relationships that are lasting relationship.

When finding good chat forums, you will need to consider the kind of people who frequent the chat. Chats are virtual places that host many people. These are the people who make it possible for a forum to be fun or exciting. Remember, you must keep in mind that when you choose a topic, you will find people of the same interest. If you are looking for a support group, check out good chat forums. You will find forums that will ensure that your problems are sorted out. The following are examples of topics of chats that you will find, if you are looking for a support group. You will find a chats for victims of domestic violence, you will also find those for recovering alcoholics, for people with mental issues like suicidal thoughts and so on. Therefore, forums are in plenty and you just have to think of any topic. The best forums are those that you try out and like. You do not have to go through all forums for you to know which is best. You can simply go through review which will inform you on what others think about a particular chat.

The best chat forums will ensure that you chat in a safe and secure manner. This is the most important thing. You need to keep yourself anonymous and the chats you choose must facilitate this. Therefore, go through the various rules that are stipulated and ensure that they will safeguard your interests. You must also seek to follow all the rules that are laid down. Many people do not follow the rules let alone read them. You need to understand their importance so that you can have a pleasant time while chatting. The forums will connect you with people from all over the world and, this means that you will be ever so enriched, when you get chatting.

Getting the highest ROI (return on investment) for your marketing efforts is the ultimate goal of internet marketing. But with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) pricing models all across the board, it may be like trying to find a needle in the haystack.

The Search for Competitive SEO Rates

The search begins (for most businesses) by locating a qualified SEO company that specializes in the types of services you require. Some SEO firms specialize in PPC others prefer Organic SEO, while other firms are more versed in custom SEO Web Design or link building services.

Even after you refine your choices, is your business ready to embrace SEO or the changes that may be required in order to polish your value proposition and step up your collaborated marketing efforts?

Sometimes you have to let go (of an older site or an older approach that has seen better days) and work with a medium that is more pliable, modern and efficient for acquiring long-term benefits in search engines.

Otherwise, the approach of putting lipstick on a pig is an unlikely combination for producing viable increases in conversion (as customers are less likely to fall for the facade). Even with traffic, if your site has poor navigation a bad color scheme or is screaming “hey I’m from 1999″, then no amount of SEO is going to make things right.

Much in the same light, if you want to tune/optimize your site for top 10 positioning, honing your websites programming platform and writing some fresh content is a starting point for optimization, but it is a pivotal milestone at best. SEO is a holistic process involving hundreds of layers of coordinated components (for those who dominate the top 10) and cutting corners just keeps your pages that much further away from reaching the top.

An objective analysis using a problem / solution based approach can help to shed light on this matter.

1. The Challenge – The company or individual is starting fresh with limited content or web presence, has no clue about content or relevance yet wants to rank in the top 10. This is definitely the most difficult starting point for SEO.

In this scenario – Your looking at 6 months (minimum) to make an organic impact in a larger playing field and more importantly, you will have to work harder to play catch up by augmenting your site with content (articles, offers, promotions or links). Not to mention you will need to receive endorsement from the various piers in your industry in order to establish trust in the eyes of search engines and get a real lift into the top 10. By far the most costly endeavor (be prepared to spend 20-30K to truly compete in a competitive market 5-10K to establish moderate keywords over 6 months).

2. The Challenge- Website exists but has sparse content or hasn’t changed it in ages (challenging, but with an infusion of content rankings can be developed).

In this scenario – just working with the existing content is a plus, you can tweak the code, optimize the internal links as well as add a blog and start developing inroads with search engines and new potential clients using social media, RSS feeds and viral marketing to kick up exposure for your brand.

3. The Challenge – The company is active online, has a website and uses PPC advertising (at least they are in the ballpark and understand the art of the deal and how to hone your pitch and make adjustments to fine tune conversion).

In this scenario – The company has a great start, has a degree of online branding and visibility in place. For starters the website will require a bit of polishing through a content development strategy (x amount of posts or articles per week), some targeted SEO copy writing to pull it all together (5-10K well spent could bolster the organic rankings you seek).

4. The Challenge – The company has an understanding of internet marketing, has honed content that is experiencing marginal results but needs direction and traffic (the ideal SEO client).

In this scenario – The suggestion would be to start fresh, create an all out assault using a new site, a giveaway or promotion, a full scale link building campaign and 6-8 months of targeting a series of a high flying traffic bearing phrases to grow into (expect to spend up to 40K to get the exposure, but what you stand to yield by comparison is well worth it).

Starting fresh (with a new site) allows you to clearly identify competitive keywords and factor them into the site architecture, so even when the site is in between links flowing in from external sources, the age factor alone from it’s own dynamic internal links can push it up the ladder.

Just like traditional marketing, exposure is one of the metrics used to determine if the campaign is yielding a high degree of relevant traffic, generating solid leads or conversion for your efforts.

Price is commensurate to exposure, but only as long as the visibility can be leveraged and the results have the ability to warrant the cost. With prices ranging from a few hundred dollars to up to $50,000 dollars for an SEO campaign (from a large SEO firm). What matters the most is determining where you are (in your marketing stance), where you want to be (the end result desired) and what your budget is to set the stage for hitting the search engines running using a small business SEO campaign.

Most typical SEO / Client relationships start like this. The prospect (who has marginal visibility for a narrow range of keywords) wants to extend visibility for their site and funnel additional / relevant traffic by adding competitive traffic bearing terms to their pages.

Nine times out of 10, this impulse was inspired as a result of an emerging competitor dominating the top 10.

So, with the “why should they get all of the pie incentive” the prospect starts screening SEO companies to assess the benefit to cost ratio and potential return on investment. Unlike their corporate counterparts who may have millions to allocate for marketing or internet marketing, a more realistic budget for most businesses is $15-30,000 per year, granted that they can double or triple their return on investment.

However, you have to weigh the pros and the cons and understand that the long term investment of time, energy and optimization take time to mature and to fully appreciate the impact it can have on a local and national level takes patience (no matter how much you spend).

SEO is not always the ultimate solution, not all traffic converts, so sure you could have a top 10 position for a less competitive phrase and just break even, or you could go through the natural stages of adding a strategic array of traffic bearing keywords until your site gains enough authority to finally hits the top 10 like the big dogs (for multiple terms) so you can recover your investment.

So as long as you understand it is all about visibility and pairing your produces or services with those who have a need for it, as long as your value proposition is polished tried and true you chances of success are far greater than just waiting for traffic to beat a path to your door.

But before considering SEO, I encourage small business owners to consider an objective analysis of their motives for wanting to compete, but also for creating a game plan that is realistic for their stage of the game. One model suggests allocating 10% of your total revenues is a fair percentage to dedicate to internet marketing, for others up to 20% is the norm.

Aside from being ready to handle the influx of new traffic and leads you should (a) have a product that is worthy, (b) have invested in a professional and compelling website that encourages engagement and sales conversion, and (c) above all else has an alternate method to augment sales aside from strictly using online promotion.

This way, in all fairness you give optimization the ability to systematically increase traffic and exposure the way it was designed (over time).

It requires multiple rounds of SEO in the beginning (to jump start a campaign) as well as a maintenance factor to ensure your rankings don’t slip as a result of competition, changes to algorithms, or market conditions.

So, when considering a time line, it is always better to work on 3-6 month blocks to track your results after all the dust to settles so you can gauge just what steps are required for the next quarter.

There will be exceptions (if you sell e-books or gadgets for example) but the bottom line is if you have the margin and you are experiencing a slow season, then SEO is a perfect way to augment visibility in your niche that if performed properly is one of the most cost effective advertising mediums in existence.

My suggestion is, for anyone interested in optimization to educate themselves about the basics, the more information you have, the more informed your SEO company can involve you covering all of the steps along the way.

A good SEO company can perform keyword research, competitive analysis, perform some reconnaissance to determine which phrases have traction for your competitors and emulate a strategy for you.

But the real value in SEO is to establish authority for your site, so that instead of the old, “let’s build some links”, mentality, you can accomplish more by adding one page to your site that would have taken months of SEO work from a nuts and bolts worker bee mentality.

When you optimize a keyword for a website, you are in fact targeting the type of consumer who would type those keywords in a search box, so by the very nature of the phrases, you can determine to a great extent the motives of the visitors that frequent your pages. Another important lesson is, be where your at, but make sure you aim high enough for the main root phrases and climb that ladder over time.

Although many may find it discouraging that many SEO companies will not reveal their SEO rates online. Mainly because the shock value for those with the Mc Donald’s mentality walking into a five star restaurant (with the four dollar burger mentality) similarly may have the same alarming reaction when they get the bill.

If you can see the value in SEO, then at some point, you will inevitably have to put your money where your mouth is, learn how to do it yourself (which is not always the best use of resources and time) or just skip the whole SEO thing and be happy where you rank.

The statement that you get what you pay for is merely one side of the equation. Just because you pay $50,000 for SEO services doesn’t mean that you could not have received the same results for $20,000 respectively.

But in all seriousness, how many small businesses have that kind of capital to invest? The answer, the ones who performed some due diligence, found their stride, identified a market and used SEO as a means to reach a larger more targeted audience. That is the value of competitive SEO and competitive SEO rates.

Your forum of choice should have a difference. This is because there are very many forums which might not suit you best. There are several things that you can consider, if you want to participate in your forum of choice. First, it is vital for you to know what you are interested in. You need to consider what problem you have and, the kind of insight you are looking for. For example, if you have a medical condition, you can visit a medical forum that will play a major role in your recovery and knowledge of the condition. If you want a forum that will provide support, there are many support group forums that are dedicated to providing you with all the information you need. Many times, we are interested in a variety of forums. Do not seek to participate in, all at once. If you do not want to get overwhelmed, dedicate some time for each forum and, you will be in a position to gain the most from these forums. Apart from considering the topics or subjects, you need to go a step further. You will find that there are very many forums for a single topic.

Your forum of choice will be attractive to you. For example, if you are joining an online forum, their display of information and topics will play a major role. There are forums which have a very complicated theme and, display of information. The last thing you want is to be stuck in a forum that you do not find inspiring. Your forum of choice needs to have the right content. By going through the information, that is posted and what people are saying, you will have the opportunity to gage yourself and see whether this is the right information for you to be taking in. Forums that are of your choice need to have experts who can guide the discussion to the right path. Qualified specialist should give their insights as to what they really think on a particular topic.

Your forum of choice should inform you on issues that are factual. You should also have the opportunity to state what you really think in regard to the particular topic. Above all, you need to really feel at home and safe in a particular topic. Take time before you decide which forum to join. If you are not comfortable in an online forum, you can always participate in forums that are not online. There is so much to gain from forums but, you will even gain more when you join forums that are inspiring and pleasing to you. Let friends recommend the kind of forums you need to join. This is because you can get to learn so much from friends. If you find that a particular forum is not serving you in the right way, you can always shift to another forum. This is the best thing about forums. Make sure you have fun and, if you realize that you are not having fun, you better look for another forum to be part of.