Avoid Instant Messenger - "Heresy! I must have my instant messenger" you cry! Keep a log of how much time gets spent mindlessly chatting on IM instead of doing something important. If you must IM, do it in moderation.

Filter Spam - Use a program to filter your spam instead of wading through it by hand. Even if you only get 25 spam messages a day (I'd love to be you) and only spend 10 seconds on each message, at end of a year that comes out to over 30 hours wasted on spam!

Filter your email messages before you take time to download them to your machine and you'll love spare time that magically comes your way.

** Slow Mouse? **

When I flick my wrist I expect that mouse to hop from one side of screen to other like house was on fire!

A slow mouse can steal seconds of precious time that add up to hours of frustration over weeks and months.

If you suffer from a "slow mouse," click then "Control Panel" then "Mouse".

Then you'll see a tab that says "Pointer Options" or "Motion" (or something similar) and you can adjust slider left or right to increase or decrease speed of your mouse's movement across screen.

** Use Windows Keyboard Shortcuts **

Windows has a number of nifty keyboard combinations that most people don't know about, but can save you incredible amounts of time, energy, effort and frustration. +Z - I call this "panic button."

Hold down "Ctrl" key and hit letter Z and you can often undo last action you took in Windows.

This comes in especially handy when you've deleted something (like a term paper or 500 word article) and want it back.

If you accidentally do something wrong, STOP hitting keys immediately and do +Z to undo what you just did.

+D - Ever wonder what little "flag" key is on keyboard next to "Alt?" (I sure have wondered.)

Well, it turns out that little key has some cool uses.

Hold down +D and you can minimize all open windows on your desktop.

Very handy when you keep many programs running and need to hit your desktop in a hurry. +F - allows you to search for any file on your computer immediately.

It will amaze you how much faster you can get things done just by understanding how to save little bits of time here and there using shortcuts, tools and better ways of doing things.

Search engines look at how many times a keyword shows up in various parts of your website as well as actual location on page.

Assuming that an important subject for your pages would appear at beginning of a page, those web pages starting with keyword should rank better than those that don't.

Also, in many cases, more websites linking to your site will drastically impact your rankings.

Entire books and websites exist to teach eager website owners how to pump up their rankings on all various search engines, however these promotion tips will serve you well in your quest for "Top Ten!"

** See what others have done for maximum exposure!

Go to various search engines and perform a search under which you would like to appear.

Dissect those pages to find common elements that make them show up.

~ How often and where do keywords appear on page? ~ How many words on page in total? ~ Do they put keywords in their hypertext links? ~ How many other sites link to them and could you easily get a link from those sites too?

** Beware of registration vs. promotion

Plenty of companies will "register" your website with thousands of search engines for about $50-$100.

But simply submitting to search engines won't do much for you. Without proper structure in your website, only sheer luck will cause your site to pop up in top ten!

-- Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use fr-e articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links... http://www.turnwordsintotraffic.com