One of the concerns, aspiring Internet Marketers have when contemplating starting a home based business in the internet marketing field would have to be how to separate work time from play time.
In the beginning your e-business may require a greater time commitment from you, at least until you get things rolling. One of my favorite things about internet marketing is the automation. I built my business so that as time went forward, I’d be spending less time working, and more time having the freedom that comes from working from home.
I’m going to give you a few tips that have helped me with my own time management, in order for you to be a little more productive with the time you’re investing into your business. Workflow and productivity are two important ingredients for a successful business in any niche.
Planning and Setting Goals:
It’s important that you have clear set goals so that you don’t end up spinning your wheels throughout the day; it’s a good idea to have your goals written out and displayed prominently so you can keep track of them throughout the day. I use 3 types of goals personally. The first one is my long term goals, where I list my company’s objectives, things I’d like to achieve over the course of the next twelve to twenty-four months. I include things like income expectations, traffic numbers, joint ventures in place, etc. These goals give me a broad overview of what I’d like to see happen within my business long term.
Next, I break my goals into smaller chucks that are easier to manage. For example if you set your income goal as 120,000 a year, then you know you have to set your monthly target for $10,000 in order to achieve your long term goal, this can then be broken down further so you know your daily target.
What works for me, is a simple whiteboard that I picked up from Staples. It has a calendar that I can fill in as each month turns over, and it has a spot to the right, where I list out my goals for the month. I fondly refer to it as the “Goal Board”. On my goal board, I’ll list out twenty things I’d like to accomplish with my business by the end of the month. Here I set targets for things like twitter followers, twitter income, Aweber subscribers, etc.
The last part of this process is breaking it down to a daily level. This way, you know exactly what you have to do, and approximately how long it will take you. It’s a good idea to break down your tasks into your “Daily duties”, everyone’s will be different. I’m going to include my list for today to give you an example.
Daily Tasks:
- Backup data
- Track stats and earnings for all sites
- Check and respond to voice/email/tweets etc.
- Research and write tomorrow’s article and schedule
- 10 Directory submissions for my website/websites
- 10 blog comments on various blogs
- Create 10 backlinks using Angela and Paul’s method
- Bookmark my post to 10 bookmarking sites
- Submit 2 articles for article marketing
- Do my Twitter maintenance (Follow/unfollow/schedule/etc)
- Fulfill or outsource any outstanding services for clients
- Track my keywords and rankings
- 1 hour on research and educational (if you’re going to be the expert in your field you need to keep up on what’s new and cutting edge)
- Spend 1 hour on project (Can be any module you wish to add to your business)
This keeps me on track, and makes me much more productive that if I started work with nothing more than a vague notion of what I should be doing today. Another thing you might want to try is breaking your daily duties down into blocks of time, this way you can know at a glance how your day is progressing, and whether you’re behind, or ahead of schedule for the day.
Organization:
Organization should be another key ingredient in your business regardless of what it is. In order for you to accomplish your goals for the day, you need to have an inventory of materials and resources available or you’ll end up wasting precious time and energy.
“Make sure you keep a small inventory of the things you’ll need to run your business”
Keeping things organized is definitely a skill that I lack, so it’s a bit harder for me. What I ended up doing was devoting an entire day to organizing my offline and online files in a system that makes it easier for me. In our line of work, were constantly downloading, uploading, writing, revising, files upon files upon files. It’s important to structure your files in such a way that you can easily find then when you need them, and also recognize what you’re seeing so you know if you’re looking at an early revision or the latest one!
“Focus on the task at hand, until it’s complete”
Review:
From time to time, it’s important to go back and review the goals, and objectives that we’ve set for ourselves. This is a great way to keep ourselves on track, and remind ourselves of the things we’ve already accomplished, as well as the things we might be avoiding. (You know what I’m talking about) J
Once again, thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a productive day!
Warren
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Backlinks: Why You Need Them, And Where to Get Them!
Why do I need backlinks?
Who cares if you have any backlinks! Well, actually the search engines do… quite a lot actually.
They take into consideration, how many sites link to your webpage, and consider it to be a kind of “vote” for your site. I mean who would link to a site that had no useful info on it, or provided no value?
Another thing that gets factored into the equation is the quality of those backlinks pointing at you. Do you have 30 PR0 sites linking to you? Perhaps you have twenty or so links from sites on the same IP? (All from your other websites, it’s assumed) Perhaps you have mastered the art of blog commenting to the 9th degree, and have 10,000 of those, and only those?
It’s a good idea to have a healthy mix of backlinks; your goal here is to target three things.
Building backlinks should be an ongoing part of any website’s marketing plans. Do some keyword research, calculate just what you need in order to rise to the next level, or SERP (Search Engine Ranking Position) and decide on the number of links you’re going to build on a monthly or weekly basis. If you’re not comfortable you can always outsource work like this to other companies, or even other website owners.
I have to be constantly building backlinks for my own sites, so I have no problem taking on a handful of clients each month, and adding their site into my own backlink building program.
“Remember! The more roads that lead to your website or blog the more potential traffic you’ll receive”
Where Do I find Backlinks?
There is one question that I seem to answer at least once a week.
“Where can I find more backlinks?”
Here are some of the backlinks I personally build for my sites, you can implement some, or all of them depending on your needs. Not all niches will need a ton of backlinks, if your company or website is in a specialized niche with very little competition, you may only need a handful of high quality backlinks to ensure a first page rank.
These are in no particular order, use the one’s you feel most comfortable with.
Forum Links – A good way to build traffic to your site (and pick up some backlinks) is to join a forum in your field, if you start answering questions in an online forum you will soon be considered to be an expert in your field, and people will be inclined to click on your signature link to visit your website.
Add a small link to your site at the bottom in your “signature” (remember to follow the forum rules, and don’t spam simply to get your link out there)
Social Bookmarking – Social bookmarking sites allow us to bookmark our favorite sites, stories, blog posts, pictures, etc, all around the web. Some of the more common one’s that I’m sure you’ve heard of are Digg, Stumbleupon, or Delicious. There are literally hundreds and even thousands more, and at each one you can create a bookmark (which is also a backlink) to your site, as well as any other you find interesting! I receive thousands of visitors a month to each of my sites from just one of the bookmarking sites I’ve listed above. Bookmarking should be a part of everyone’s backlink building strategy!
Article Marketing – This is probably one of the oldest methods for driving traffic, and building backlinks. There are thousands and thousands of article directories on the internet today. How do you get a backlink from them? It’s simple, just submit an article you’ve written, or have the rights to, and voila! You now have a backlink from their directory to your site. Remember, not all directories are created equal, start at the top and work your way down. Choose the highest quality article directories first. Again, decide on your backlink schedule, and build accordingly. Whether or not you decide on submitting to 20 directories or 200 directories a month, the most important thing is to try and stick to a schedule.
“Consistency is the key to a good backlink building strategy!”
Blog Comments – Commenting on blogs in your niche (or others) can also be a great way to build backlinks to your site, or blog. When leaving comments always go for quality over quantity, if you leave a comment that adds value to the discussion, or post then it’s much more likely that someone reading the comment will click through to your website where you will then have the chance to convert them to perhaps becoming loyal readers on your site.
Guest Blogging – Want a backlink from an authority site in your blogs niche? Write a great post and offer it up to the site you’re trying to get a backlink from. It’s a good idea to start by leaving some decent comments first as the site owner will then have an idea of who you are, and will know that you’ve already been contributing in some fashion already. Remember when you leave comments on a blog, your adding content. Who loves content? Google does! So you can be assured that a blog owner will value the added content and will be more open to the idea of having you guest blog for them. It’s a good idea to offer up your best work at times like these! (Hint – if the article you offer up doesn’t work for one site, keeps it and offer it up to the next blog on your list!)
Directories – There are a vast number of web directories out there. I take advantage of two different kinds, SEO friendly free directories, and paid directory listings. When looking at paid directories I’ll usually only consider a few like Yahoo, Best of The Web, or Eaton Web Directory. There are also some great free one’s, dmoz is one not to be missed, though in past years it’s been getting much harder to get included into their directory for one reason or another. Always be sure to choose the most relevant category to submit your site to. Directory owners receive dozens of submissions each and every day, and you don’t want them to click the “delete” button, simply because you’ve listed your site in the wrong category. It’s also a good idea to keep a list of sites you’ve submitted to, as well as another for sites you’ve been accepted into.
Press releases – Sending out a press release can be a great way to announce your website to the world. You will end up with backlinks, exposure, traffic, and possibly more sales if done right. It’s also a great way to announce new products or services you’re launching.
And there you have it; these are just a handful of methods you can start using today to build up your backlinks to your blog or website. There are many other one’s out there as well, but I’ll save those for another day!
Once again, thanks for reading, and have a great day!
Warren
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