Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Tips on Finding Good Money Advice

If you found this blog you are probably doing a search for some type of money releated term.  And if so, this blog probably wasn't your first visit to a website in search of financial or personal finance related information.  We understand that its not easy to find the information you're looking for when there are so many sites that offer financial advice, only to find out that they don't have what you need.

For that reason, we're offering a few tips on how to find a good personal finance website:

  1. First, work on getting the right search term when you search.  Be as specific as you want and don't worry about being too specific, as the search engines substitute thousands of synonyms into their results to help you.  For example, if you are looking for information on budgeting don't type in "budget" or you will get budget rent a car, as well as sites like state budget offices and so forth.  Instead, type in something like "free excel household budget worksheet".
  2. Next, when arriving at a new financial site, take a quick look around.  If the site is confusing, poorly designed, or stuffed with advertising, then you may want to leave right away.  If the site itself is not organized, chances are the content will be the same.
  3. Determine if the site was built for you or for the search engines.  If it was built for you, the article page you landed on should have a long and detailed article filled with examples and useful information.  If it was built for the search engines, its English may be poor and it will likely be stuffed with lots of keywords that seem out of place.  The posts may be short and not offer much detailed information.
  4. When you find a site you like and want to get updates, you should subscribe to their RSS feed.  Every blog has an RSS feed and you can subscribe to it through any reader, such as google or the RSS associated with your web browser.  You should also bookmark the site so that next time you are looking for relevant information you can easily find the site again.