Hi All……..
Just wanted to say a big thanks for all the support Ive had so far writing these posts, its really great to get such nice feedback, thanks again and keep it coming…
How To Keep Track Of Information Overload
The biggest thing I noticed when I started internet marketing, was the fact that there was so much information to try and take in, we are in a field where we makes changes and edits all the time, and these changes no matter how small can have a dramatic affect on what happens with your niche blogs/products/affiliates, sometimes it could even change drastically, obviously the drastic changes for the better or worse will be easy to notice, because a), You will either be #1 in Google and selling lots;), or b), No where to be found, and crying like a small child after dropping an ice cream all over the dog!.
But its the smaller things that have been more noticeable over time for me, those small changes, or forums posts, or comments, these are the ones that will make the steady difference in traffic to your site, but how do you record all this information without writing a novel?, well I’ll show you what I do, and hopefully this will make your life allot easier too.
I’m going to send you off to some sites, I have no affiliation to these sites, they will not charge you, or take your email, and I do not earn a penny/cent/bean;), and these are FREE too, you can even go to the sites as I talk about them, or wait till the end of this post, and I’ll post the links in order at the bottom of this page.
My Planning Method
First off, I don’t really plan allot, and I hate having to write allot too(except in this blog;), so I needed something that I could use to track what I do, when I do it, and also be easy to review, so the first thing I did was go to this site –> http://incompetech.com/beta/cal-monthly/ <— , the online calender, but I do not use it online, I printed out all the months on .pdf and use the plain old fashioned pen to paper way;).
The first thing I do on the calender is make a shorthand key, so say if one of my sites is called fishingonice.com, id abbreviate that too foi, and doing that saves me a ton of space on the calender, I also shorthand events too, like NewPost = np, NewProduct = npr, so if I were to write a new post one day for my fishing site, id write it like this np>foi, if I had another site called spaceisfun.com and I also posted on that same day, I would add it to the other new post like this np>foi>sis , hope that is clear?, another good shorthand is bookmarked = bm and I would add it like this np>foi>sis + bm.
You can see from my actual calender picture, that this is a good use of space.(its blurred, but there are reasons for that;)).
If you are wondering what I do it for, it basically is an easy way to track exactly what I do and when I do it, so if I notice a big increase in traffic, I can look back over my calender, and see what I did at a certain time, and find out why it increased:), then I repeat that same plan on my other sites and get the same increase in traffic hopefully.
Its limitless to what you can do with it too, because you can shorthand everything you do, some other examples I also use are…
- blog comments = bc
- forum post = fp
- backlinks = bl
- new page = npg
Sometimes I’ll even shorthand a blog post title, or a site where I posted comments/forums on, as long as you write it out in the key at the top of the calender, you will understand when you come back weeks later.
The good thing about writing the blog post title out is, if you notice for that particular post you got lots of clicks or purchases on your product, then you might want to adopt that same writing style for other niche posts, and relate it to those products too, if that works, then you have a great sales post to store and use anytime you want for any particular niche.
What Else Do I Use
A basic text editor, word, wordpad, notepad, personally I use notepad++ , but thats just form my days as a web designer, but the basic free editor you have with your computer is fine.
Every time I start a new niche site/blog, I also open a plain text file too, this is where I write the sites affiliate links, copy, Analytics tracking, but most importantly PASSWORDS!!!, I cant tell you how many times I’ve forgot my passwords, it drives me nuts, this is because you find yourself registering for so many different things, that you need a central place to store all this information, and a no frills text editor is great for that.
On my desktop I also create a brand new folder using the site name, in this main folder I break into sub folders like, images, text files, videos, podcasts, anything to do with that site, goes into that folder, this makes it allot easier to store stuff so your not looking around your computer to find things you need.
Last But Not Least
A white board, this is hanging right next to my computer, great for quick hand notes, reminders, ideas, websites, anything you need to do quickly is done on the white board, and there pretty cheap too, you don’t need a huge one either, something small will do just fine, then when your done with it wipe it clean and start again.
Ok thats it for this post, hope you got something good from it?, again its great to have feedback good or bad, I’m learning too, so any tips would also be great to share with us all as well;).
Take Care All…..
Heres the links if you need them
http://incompetech.com/beta/cal-monthly/
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
Tags: planning internet marketing, recording marketing results
