It’s a rhetorical question. Who doesn’t would be a more appropriate and non-rhetorical question here in the United States where our company is headquartered. It is also the subject of our website, or in this case blog, spotlight of the month for February; LoseWeightForMe.com.

During the past 20 years there has been a dramatic increase in obesity in the United States. In 2008, only one state (Colorado) had a prevalence of obesity less than 20%. Thirty-two states had a prevalence equal to or greater than 25%; six of these states (Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia ) had a prevalence of obesity equal to or greater than 30%. (Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html)

Losing weight is a three state (and we don’t mean 3 of the 50 in the U.S.)  process; “State of Mind, State of Time and State of Body©”

To effectively lose weight you have to mentally be prepared and truly want to lose weight – State of Mind, be willing to dedicate the necessary time to lose weight for preparing the right kind of foods and making time to exercise – State of Time and committing to some form of dedicated and ongoing cardiovascular exercise – State of Body. Without these three components you can not and will not be successful.

LoseWeightForMe.com takes these three components into consideration in everything that is presented on the blog and are the lively topics of conversation from our visitors. The blog provides carefully chosen articles that can truly help achieve your weight loss goals as well as only allows advertisers of the highest quality and most effective products to help you lose weight. There is even a BMI (body mass index) calculator on-site that can help with your weight loss goals and planning.

It is a proven fact that having support from others who are in the process of losing weight or have successfully and even unsuccessfully lost weight is vital in keeping ones morale high and goals moving forward and our weight loss blog provides plenty of support from readers and experts alike.

Online since November 2007, LoseWeightForMe.com has been a tremendous resource for thousands of individuals who have battled weight loss successfully and found the information contained in it invaluable in their efforts.

If you are among the 20% plus of folks in the United States who are overweight or anyone elsewhere in the world who are on a quest to get back to a healthy weight and lifestyle visit our blog and partner with us to reach your goals.

This month we are spotlighting one of our flagship sites; Articlestorehouse.com.

Articlestorehouse.com is an article directory with an attitude.  That attitude has the focus and goal of the site set on becoming one of the premiere article directories on the Internet. With complete respect, as it as been the model and inspiration for the site, look out EzineArticles!

Launching in June of 2009 with a package of “seed articles” amounting to no more than about 2,000 articles, Articlestorehouse has grown in just 7 months to almost 37,500 quality articles as this spotlight was being written and 5,880 authors. There have also been downloads of content from the site of 132,626 proving that quality counts.

And quality is what Articlestorehouse is all about.  “I’ve witnessed so many article directories out on the Internet that accept any content regardless of how poorly it may written and that is just not acceptable for our growing article directory,” said Brad Hodges CEO and Publisher of the site. “We want our customers to know that when they come to Articlestorehouse to find free quality articles to use on their own websites and blogs that they are assured of finding only the best of the best, they deserve nothing less,” he added.

Because of this commitment to quality, all articles are carefully screened and edited before they are ever published.  Spelling, grammar, punctuation and format are carefully monitored though a quality control process that insures they make the grade as prime “A” articles.  Authors either submit their articles directly for approval through the site’s submission process or are received from carefully screened professional article distribution partners that have agreed to adhere to the same high quality standards for reviewing and editing articles prior to being submitted to Articlestorehouse.

“We are very proud of our authors, continued Hodges, and we treat each quality article as the carefully crafted art of the person who wrote it intended it to be; with respect and dignity.”

Quality authors are obviously the lifeblood of any article directory.  Authors put their trust in article directories and their partners to distribute their carefully crafted material to the search engines and other website and blog owners as quickly as possible. By getting the massive exposure that Articlestorehouse provides for their articles, authors are assured of getting the message and information out that they provide in their content to as many sources as possible,  and thus get the exposure and traffic for their own websites, products and services.

Although an article submitted cannot be an advertisement but must truly be an informational article that readers will find both interesting and useful, the author can still write about something they are making a living from that readers of the article and potential users of that product or service will find meaningful and helpful in assisting them to make a decision to purchase that product or service. The author is allowed what is called a “Resource Box”, an area at the end of the article, wherein they can provide web links, addresses, phone numbers, etc., that will direct an interested user to more information or a website or place where they may purchase the product being “artistically promoted” in the article.

On the flip side not everyone is an author or writer and many find it very difficult to articulate in a written article something about a product or service they want to sell or promote on their own website or blog.  This is where the free content end of Articlestorehouse.com comes in whereby those who want to provide quality content and a good visitor experience to the visitors to their websites, but aren’t necessarily writers, can go to find articles they can use to help promote.  The only caveat is that any article used by a that party must retain the full resource box information that the author provides in the article to prevent copyright issues.  It becomes, however, a win-win situation; the website or blog owner can find good content to use that is pertinent to their site and helps keep visitors on it so they may ultimately purchase and the author of the article receives another potential conduit to drive readers to their offering from their resource box.

The question that may logically arise is “where does the article directory make money and why would they offer all this for free?” That is a logical question and the answer is from advertising on the pages of the article directory that is in harmony with the content being sought in the articles. The more quality content provided on or distributed from the directory, the more visitors to the directory seeking or submitting for distribution that quality content and thus more exposure to the advertising. The ultimate goal of Articlestorehouse is to consistently retain and globally distribute quality content to the users of the Internet for whatever reason the need may call for.

Since authors are the source for all content,  Articlestorehouse also endeavors to provide benefits to authors in the way of article writing education and tools that will help them to continue to create quality articles and receive the maximum exposure for their hard work.  At present the site provides a “Learn More” page that provides meaningful information but has aggressive plans to extend this with learning videos, training videos and tips and tricks that will help maximize the attraction of readers to their material by providing information to enhance or improve their writing skills. There is also an authors blog that caters to providing “inside” information and guidance to authors.  Articlestorehouse also has a Twitter presence at http://twitter.com/ArticleStorhous where authors receive additional exposure by daily “Tweets” spotlighting quality, interesting articles chosen for additional promotion as well as article writing tips and tricks tweets in-between.

Articlestorehouse.com is on a fast track to the top of the article directory domain and if you are an author we invite you to get on board, submit your quality articles and reap the benefits of our quality growth plans and top exposure platform.

We are barely past the middle of December and already we have launched four new websites to our product and services line up setting a new company record for the most launches in the shortest period of time and adding to our growing array of choices we can provide to our customers to resolve their needs.

The new sites launched during December 1 – 17th are as follows:

Blu-ray R Us - A Blu-ray player review and shopping guide website.

Child Safety Online Now – A guide to help protect your child online.

Speed Up Your Internet – A guide on how to enhance your Internet connection and boost your Internet speed.

Spyware Alert Now – A complete blog on how to intelligently protect yourself from Spyware, Adware and Malware on the Internet.

We sincerely hope our customers will find these new sites beneficial for finding answers, products or for resolving problems they may be searching for resolution on. For questions or comments regarding these new site launches please use our contact form here.