The 3 Most Important Things the Last Year Has Taught Me…

One year ago today…I registered the domain name for this site – and it got its first visitor the next day, (although I am pretty sure it was me… )

At the time, I needed someone to install my WordPress theme – and I paid plenty to have it customized. (I also didn’t realize that my hosting account included unlimited domains – I think I paid for 3 separate hosting accounts before it dawned on me… duh!)

Now… I can get a new site up and running on my own – including customizations – very quickly. In fact, this is now one of the primary services I offer. I still outsource the custom headers – but because I order so many, I get a great deal on them.  (Let me know if you need help with your own site).

Here are the 3 most important things I learned over the last year:

• Promoting your content is more important than creating it. (Gasp! I can’t believe I just said that!) It’s true. Don’t get me wrong – you still need to create awesome content – but if you don’t go out into the world and find an audience for it… what’s the point?

One of the many great tips I’ve picked up from Susanne Myers  from the Affiliate Treasure Chest was the concept that you should spend about 20% of your effort creating content – and the remaining 80% promoting it. That is probably the biggest mistake I’ve made over the last year with this site – creating content comes more naturally to me, so I invested 80% of my effort on that instead of promotion.

Using this 80/20 idea -  for every post or page you add to your site… try to find at least 4 off-site opportunities (i.e. guest blog posts, comments, or article marketing) to promote that specific page or post. (Important!!) If, however, you are trying to rank for a  competitive keyword – you may need to build a lot more backlinks to do so.

Which leads to the next point…

• When you do your off-site promotion – link it to a specific page or post rather than your general site or blog page. Also, whenever possible, link to those specific pages with an anchor text link for your targeted keywords. (For more information, see this article on how to create an anchor text link).

Most likely, not every page or blog post you create will be link-worthy. Instead, try to identify your very best pages – (Great content combined with a solid monetization strategy) and then develop a list of keywords you want those pages to rank for in the search engines. I find it helpful to draw up a game plan and block out a specific period of time to work on this activity. Otherwise, it is too easy for me to get distracted and go off on a tangent.

Which leads to…

• Time management is the most important skill you can learn. If I don’t block out specific chunks of time for very detailed activities – I end up way off track. With all the distractions online – perhaps you struggle with that, too? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at the clock only to realize it is already 2:30 in the afternoon – and I’ve barely scratched the surface for what I wanted to accomplish that day.

I’ve learned that I do my best creative work in the morning. Therefore, I now turn off my phone, shut down email – and block out that time to do nothing but write – and guess what? I get more accomplished in those 4 hours that I used to all day. This strategy also frees up my afternoon for promotional activities. It works out great.

I’m sure if I really think about it – there are probably a lot more things I could add to this list. However, these 3 definitely fall under – “I wish I had known then, what I know now.” Depending on where you are on your online marketing journey… perhaps they can help you, too.

Til Next Time,