Your time is so precious and you have big plans. Here are 10 things you can do that will, hopefully, get you where you want to be … quicker! These tips will:
- improve your online presence
- improve the professionalism of your companies, and
- improve your network and create better relationships
These tasks will take only a short amount of time but, if initiated correctly, can work for you in the months and years ahead.
The following list is not meant to be a substitute for the basic principles of listening, providing value, developing relationships, diversifying, protecting against weaknesses and threats, evaluating strengths and opportunities and pursuing SMART objectives.
These are, however, specific actionable tasks that can help you build your online empire and none of them should take much more than 10 minutes.
1. Email signature
Make sure your email signature contains
- your company logo
- what your company does (website design, SEO, print, email, etc.) maybe some people don’t know the extent of what you do – this is a non hasslely way of telling them
- links to your website (maybe your Twitter, LinkedIn, or whatever links are important to you)
Make sure the whole thing looks good and that the colors are consistent with your website. They can be tricky things to sort out and can appear differently in different email clients but it’s worth spending 10 minutes sorting this out. It could get you new work and thousands of dollars!
2. Press release
If you are about to start your online business or have done recently, you can do no better than write a compelling and newsworthy press release and submit it to PRLog, PressReleasePoint, i-Newswire and other free online press services. If you haven’t just started, you can write one about the developments in your business or site.
Your press release along with it’s nofollow links back to your site will be available to tens of thousands of media professionals and, more importantly, Google.
3. Automate social bookmarking
Are you spending ages submitting your links to social bookmarking sites, Twitter and Facebook? Automate this process with Ping.fm, OnlyWire and Bookmarking Demon.
These services may be a hassle to set up but an automated bookmarking service will save you countless hours in the future.
4. Leave blog comments
You should always leave a few comments every week on other sites in your niche to cement your authority and visibility. However, why not get a little extra juice with the search engines while doing this? On CommentLuv sites you can get a dofollow link and choose the anchor text. Google this plus your keywords to find them:
“Enter YourName@YourKeywords” [+ your keywords]
Always leave a comment that asks a question and/or adds something to the debate.
5. Get your YouTube channel in search engine results
Have you made loads of great videos and your disappointed with the viewing figures? You can improve the PageRank of your video channel by adding comments to those that have a high PageRank. To start with install the SEO Quake plug-in (you may like to install this on your “secondary” browser). This shows you PageRank and other information for the links provided by Google in a search.
Then Google this to find the YouTube channels that allow comments:
“channel comments” site:youtube.com [+ your keywords]
Select, with the aid of SEO Quake the channels with PageRank of 4 or more and get commenting on channels in your niche.
6. Ask a customer why (s)he chose your service/product
Has someone contacted you through a search engine? Ask them what they entered to find you and write more blog posts with those keywords.
So simple. So effective. So do it.
7. Think up some great blog post titles
Head over to StumbleUpon, Digg, and Delicious and see what’s top of the pops. As you explore trending topics, you’ll notice how certain ideas can be adapted, like the increasing popularity of no verification casinos, which are gaining attention for their quick and easy access. Can you take inspiration from these trends and rework the titles to make them original? Where do you think I got “10 Ways To Improve Your Online Business” from?
8. Write an email to a blogger/competitor/industry expert you admire
The higher up you go; the nicer people get. If you write an intelligent, thought-provoking, precise email to a successful person, 9/10 times you’ll get a reply. Don’t ask for anything, just do it.
9. Brainstorm/Mind map/Notebook/Whiteboard
Always carry a pad of paper and pen around with you so if you get a killer idea (a idea for a great article or a great concept for your business) you can write it down before you forget it.
Before you start a project, spend 10 minutes to mind map your ideas on a piece of paper or on a whiteboard. Don’t know what a mind map is?
Here’s one (above) for this article.
10. Upload documents to Docstoc and SlideShare
Have you got old content, or early drafts of articles, sitting around on your hard drive? You can recycle this content by converting it to PDF or even keep it as a Word document and upload it to sites like Docstoc or make it into a Powerpoint document and upload it to SlideShare.
Change the titles, change the text around a bit and make sure it has links in it to your other articles. This content will piggyback of the site’s reputation and send deep backlinks to your site.
What do you think?
Are any of these things helpful? Can you offer your own tip to improve an online business that’ll only take 10 minutes! I would love to hear some more suggestions so pop them down in the comments area beneath this post. Or help me out by Tweeting, Facebook Liking or Google +1’ing this article!
Hi Rob very good tips here going to take a look at PRWeb I take it it’s good if you recommend it 🙂
Definitely, Del, I know there are a number of other PR sites out there that are worth submitting to but PRWeb seems to be the biggest. I’m going to be doing a bit of this myself, soon. 🙂
I just got past the “FREE” sign up then stumbled upon the cost for each submission 🙁
Thanks for pointing this out, Del, they were free at one point but obviously not now! PRLog, PressReleasePoint or i-Newswire still seem to be free, I’ll correct this in the article, thanks!
No worries I’ll check out the others 🙂 thanks for point them out!
Good ideas, but avoid using Scribd. They allow for illegal downloads of ebooks. Between Scribd, and a few other sites like them, I’ve had over $1,000,000 worth of illegal downloads of one of my ebooks. If I had the money, I’d hire a legal team and shut the site down.
Instead of Scribd, put your articles on sites like: IdeaMarketers, Alumbo, ArticleBin, ArticleSphere, EzineArticles and Author Connect.
Have Fun,
Jeff
Wow, I’m really sorry to hear that, Jeff, I can see why you may want to boycott Scribd. But I’m really amazed they’ve done this. I have had my free eBook uploaded by a documents site and I wrote a few emails and eventually got it taken down. Did you have a copyright notice on the material? If so, they’d be breaking US law, I would have thought, and they state on their website that they don’t do that. Anyway, thank you for the other alternatives. And thanks for the comment. 🙂
Hi Rob,
They have done this to me several time, even though they are supposed to have a database to prevent any removed ebook from being put on their site again. Scribd uses the same defense that YouTube uses for distributing copyright protected material. Anyone can put content on our site, and there are just too many submissions for us to check them or be held responsible for any violations. My feeling is that if you can’t run a business properly, you shouldn’t run the business. On my blog, I’ve slogged through over 7,000 comments to get rid of the spam. If I can do that as a one person operation, then Scribd should have the resources to check content before it’s posted.
Yes, there is a copyright notice on the cover, and every page of my book. In the picture they show of my book’s cover, you can even see my copyright notice.
With each violation I sent them one, or more, DMCA notices in order to get my ebook removed. I also contacted their hosting company, which did nothing, and their domain registrar, which also did nothing. I also contacted Facebook and asked them to remove the Scribd page due to numerous DMCA violations, but their response was that they wouldn’t do anything unless my ebook was offered as a download in a post on their Facebook page. Thanks Facebook.
It’s an ongoing battle with several sites.
Sorry for the rant.
I do regularly write, and post, articles on Free Article Sites, like the ones I mentioned above, and get some good exposure from them.
Have Fun,
Jeff
Hey Jeff, you rant away. If that had happened to me I guess I’d mention it a fair bit. I’m just about to release a premium PDF and I don’t want it ending up on any of these sites! I have removed Scribd from the article and replaced them with SlideShare. If you would like me to write to them (another user coming in registering disappointment might make a slight difference) just email me with the details and I’ll have a real go at them!
Hi Rob,
Thanks for the offer, but for now my ebook is off of their site. I’d have to check, but I think I’ve had them remove it four times so far.
What I’m planning on doing is getting all of my current, and future, ebooks and sell them as Nooks. That way they can’t be put on any other site. But I know of other photographers, like Guy Tal, who sell their ebooks as PDFs, and just deal with the sharing/stealing issues as they arise.
It’s always something.
Thanks for removing Scribd.
Have Fun,
Jeff
Hey Jeff, oh, that’s good they have taken the book off. Probably a good idea, thinking about it, to set up a Google Alert for the title of your eBook and then zap them with emails as soon as it shows up! Yeah, Nooks and apps are relatively free from this!
All the best, Rob
Hi Rob,
Yes, Google Alerts are great. I use them to find places who have my book for download, and shouldn’t, and to find who’s talking about me, travel photography and more.
Have Fun,
Jeff
Personally, I’m spending more time on mind maps to build roadmaps for our products and projects. How/where are we going to promote? What’s the end goal? What results are we seeing now? Where do we need to see improvements?
Those are the kind of questions I”m focusing on.
But also, I”m focused on building the email list which is also my tip. Build your email list early, and deliver consistent relevant info (in other words, don’t exhaust them and focus on delivering the goods).
Yes, Ricardo, the list is so important I almost forgot about it in this article. I started a year ago and my only regret is I didn’t start it sooner.
The funny thing with mind maps is that I read a book about them by Tony Buzan about 7 years ago and didn’t really think much of it. But just recently I’ve been using them for everything! Thanks for the comment.
Well done on a good round-up of ideas, Rob. Some of these I haven’t looked at before, e.g. Scribd. It’s interesting to consider blog comments; I’m noticing that some blogs I’ve visited over time are showing a fall in numbers of comments on individual posts. Is that something you’ve noticed as well? I figure that provides even more reason to leave a comment, because you’re more likely to start up (or continue) a rapport with the blogger in question.
Hey, Tracey, no I haven’t noticed a drop in comments here or anywhere else. But, if there is, I reckon it’s because there are more competition, more blogs and more articles out there and people have “comment fatigue”. But I agree with you, it’s great to have interaction with the blogger. Glad you found this post useful.
Posting here because I downloaded your book and didn’t know where to comment. Very compact presentation of the key issues every online marketers should know. In a few minutes of reading I got the nitty gritty on topics it took me days to find piecemeal around the web. As much as I enjoyed the succinct content, I also made use of quite a few of the hyperlinks (for example, a link to get free stock photos). Nice job, Rob!
Thank you for your kind words, AstroGremlin, about the free eBook. I’m pleased to say that many people comment on its usefulness. Also, you should come back next week because I’m about to offer another free download – the first and last chapters of my next eBook How To Get Clients.
I have used BMD (Bookmarking Demon) & Ping.fm, the results have not been very satisfactory, i guess as far as SBM is concerned the best way is to do it manually and by changing the description.. what do you guys feel??
I do it manually for the main ones (Digg, SU, Twitter, FB, etc.) but automate the rest. Try OnlyWire, it’s a pig to set up but once it’s going it saves time. I don’t think it’s a biggie about the description, most people don’t bother and just click the vote button and I assume Google realises this and just counts the votes.
Docstoc.com – is another of these dodgy sites that incentivises people to rip and flip copyright content in exchange for a share of adsense revenues..
Sets a pretty bad precedent huh? To say the least!
Not at all. You could paste up copyrighted content on Facebook or wherever. Different people have different experiences of sites taking down copyrighted content. I have my stuff ripped off everywhere but I don’t moan about it. I write to the site and get it taken down.
Ripping off copywrited material is against the law so you should complain to the politicians and judiciary in your country rather than here.
Hi Rob,
Awesome article. Loved the points: 1,6,8.
The first one was something we never realised we werent doing, although it was always at the back of our minds..
Not too sure about the youtube thing. Havent tried it yet.
Got ur website from Matt… Ve been hooked onto it ever since… Awesome content!
Hey Abbas, good to see you here again. Glad you liked it. Maybe the YouTube one was the weakest link but it works 🙂 I assume you came this way via Mr Matthew Ogbourne – very glad you did. I hope you find some useful stuff here.
I’d add that you should subscribe to both ProBlogger and Mitch Joel’s marketing blog (Six Pixels of Separation). They will make you a smarter, wiser, and overall ‘better’ online businessperson.
Good couple of people to follow, Ben. I definitely agree with you 🙂
Fabiolus 10 Ways you posted here. “Upload documents to Docstoc and SlideShare” never reall thought of that I am sure going to try. You could leave blog comments just as you wrote but mostly people do not have keyword luv to use it like that. Anyways great post you posted here.
Thank you, Mitja, posting to Docstoc and SlideShare is a good idea, just like posting to articles’ sites.
I personally blog as well and I’m creating a little something similar to this
particular article, 10 Ways To Improve Your Online Business (that won’t take more than 10 minutes). Will you care in cases where I implement a number of your ideas? Thanks for the post.
Yes, no problem, Fermin, as long as you credit them. 🙂
Some fantastic tips here Rob, thank you. I do like the Press Release idea and will definitely be exploring that.
I use mind maps almost obsessively using Freemind Portable, and on the iPad with Mindmapper. If not mind maps I make lists for everything using Wunderlist2 or notes using Evernote. It’s strange really as I can’t remember the last time I picked up pen and paper! I like these last two services are they are saved in the cloud and I can always find my work whereas I tend to lose bits of paper and notebooks.
Hey, Lee, good to see you here again. Thank you so much for your mindmapping and “cloud noting” recommendations. I’m sure some people will find them useful. I’ve heard so many people rave about Evernote but I haven’t got into it … yet. 🙂