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Content Creation: Batching Your Tasks
Content Creation: Batching Your Tasks
Content creation is hard work, especially when it comes to written content. It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing the content yourself, or someone else is doing it for you. Ultimately, someone has to sit down and put pen to paper… or words to screen.
If you approach content creation in a linear fashion, it will take you much longer because you’ll constantly be switching between tasks.
For example, writing and editing are 2 different processes. If you edit as you write, your creative process will be jarred, and you’ll not achieve a state of ‘flow’ which is what most writers strive for.
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The best way to stay organized and speed up content creation will be to batch your tasks. Below you’ll find 7 tasks to batch.
Why Is Batching So Effective?
Batching is basically grouping similar tasks and doing them all at one go. It’s almost as if you’re in an assembly line at a factory repeating the same task over and over.
This will not only increase your speed, but you’ll find it easier to focus on the task too. You won’t need to constantly go back and forth between tasks.
While it may seem like you’re not making progress, because nothing seems to be getting completed when you’re in the process – when it’s time to create the content, everything will already be done, and you just need to start writing.
That’s when the speed truly builds up and you’ll make up for lost time and more. Now let’s see how to batch your tasks.
Decide On Your Task For The Day
Content creation generally revolves around 5 tasks:
- Researching
- Outlining
- Writing
- Editing
- Publishing
You do NOT want to do them all in one day. So what you’ll do is decide what task you’ll do for the day. Ideally, you’ll want to complete all the work associated for a specific task before moving on to the next one.
For example, you might decide to spend Monday and Tuesday doing research. Wednesday may be for outlining. And from Thursday to Saturday, you’ll write like a maniac.
On Saturday, you’ll edit and proofread what you wrote… and on Sunday, you’ll publish the content.
This is just a general idea. Decide for yourself what you’ll do each day and only focus on that task.
Work In Pre-Determined Time Blocks
The next step will be to decide WHEN you’ll do the work. You don’t want to adopt a haphazard approach to content creation – or you’ll never get the job done.
Decide on a time block when you’ll begin and end the task. For example, you may decide to do your research from 9am to 11am. That’s fine. Just make sure you stick to it.
Many people find it especially difficult to write. Like author, Steven Pressfield said, “It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write.”
The best way to overcome this problem will be to sit down at your desk at the specified time, whether you like it or not… and give yourself just 2 minutes to write. Anyone can do that.
You’ll realize that once you start, most of the time you’ll keep going. Use this technique and you’ll trick your mind into being less resistant to the task at hand.
Do Your Research
In step #3, you’ll do ALL the research you’ll need for you to write later on.
This is especially important for non-fiction. Keep your research notes organized so that you can refer to them easily.
Remember to create a customer avatar of your ideal prospect; this way you can write all your content in a way that is incredibly appealing to him or her and you will be much more likely to get them to take a particular action (you are adding a call-to-action in your content, right?).
Outline Your Content
Having an outline will increase your writing speed exponentially. Of course, your outlines will be based on the research you’ve done.
Make a list of the points you’ll cover and so on. Even if you’re typing on a computer, having your outlines written on paper in front you is recommended.
In this way, you can glance at your outline as you type rather than switching between tabs and so on.
Write Like A Maniac
This is where the pedal hits the metal, and the rubber meets the road. Once your outlines are all ready, start writing your content.
There’s a saying – “Write drunk. Edit sober.”
So when you write, just let your thoughts and words flow. Don’t be overly concerned about typos, etc. The goal is to get the content written.
Even if you’re creating content for infographics, social media posts, sales copy, etc. this principle will apply. Write first… and churn out ALL the content that you need to complete!
Take Time To Edit
Once all your content is done, it’s time to edit the content and fix the errors such as spelling/grammar mistakes, sentence construction issues, typos, etc.
Batching this task will mean completing all your editing for the content you’ve created before moving on to the final task.
This may seem an onerous task, but it can have a significant impact on the final piece of content, so can’t be overlooked.
Publish Your Content
This is the most fun part of the lot. You’ll either be publishing the content on your blog or turning it into a digital product to sell. You might have other plans for it, but the principle stays the same.
Publish your content when it’s all completed. A common mistake beginners make is to create 1 piece of content, do all the steps above… publish it… and then run off to repeat the process with the next piece of content.
Can you even imagine how tiring and time consuming that will be?
By now you’ll realize that while batching your tasks seems to be a more delayed approach, it’s actually faster when you look at the big picture.
Adopt the pointers in this article and you’ll be a lean, mean, content creating machine.
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Search Engine Optimization And Why You Need To Use It
Search Engine Optimization And Why You Need To Use It
E-commerce is a cutthroat business. You have to arm yourself with the proper know-how and the tools to make your site a cut above the rest.
Each day, more and more sites are clamouring to optimize their rankings in websites and if you lose your guard, you may just get trampled on and be left in the abyss filled with so many failed e-commerce sites.
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a term widely used today by many e-commerce sites. For the past few years and the next ten years or so, search engines will be the most widely used internet tool to find the sites that they need to go to and get the product or information they need.
Most people that use search engines use only the ten top search results in the first page. Making it to the first page, more so to the top three is a barometer of a site’s success in SEO marketing.
You will get a higher ratio of probability in being clicked on when you rank high. The more traffic for your site, the more business you rake in.
But it is essential to grab a hold of that spot or make your ranking even better. As I said before, each day is a new day for all e-commerce sites to make themselves rank higher using search engine optimization. It is imperative to make your site better and better every day.
So just what is search engine optimization and do you have to use it? The answer to why you have to use it is an easy one. You need search engine optimization to be number one, or maybe at least make your site income generating.
With search engine optimization you can get the benefit of generating a high traffic volume. Let’s just say you get only a turnout of successful sales with 10 to 20 percent of your traffic. If you get a hundred hits or more a day, you get a good turnout of sales already. If you get only twenty to ten hits a day, you only get one or two sales, if any at all.
So once again, what is search engine optimization? Well, SEO is a strategy of using tools and methods to make your site rank highly in the results of search engines.
Getting yourself on the first page and better yet in the top half of the page will ensure that your site will generate public awareness of your site’s existence and subsequently generate more traffic; traffic that could lead to potential income and business.
Search engine optimization requires a lot of work to be fully realized. There are many aspects you have to change on your site or add as well to obtain great search engine optimization.
These will include getting lots of information about the keyword phrases that are popular in regard to your sites niche or theme.
You may also need to rewrite your sites content so that you can get the right keyword phrases in your site without making it too commercial but light and informative. There are certain rules and guidelines to be followed with making your site’s content applicable and conducive to search engine optimization.
You will also need to collaborate with many other sites so that you can get link exchanges and page transfers. The more inbound and outbound traffics generated by sites among others are one of the components search engines uses to rank sites.
Try to search the internet for some useful tricks. Tips, guidelines and methods for search engine optimization are plentiful. Read as many articles as you can that will help you optimize your site in search engine results.
The more knowledge and information you gather, the better. This will all help you in getting those high rankings. This may require a little time and effort on your part, but the benefits will be astounding.
If you can part with some money, there are many sites on the internet that can help you in search engine optimization. There are many sites that help in tracking keyword phrases that can help your site.
There are also some content writers that have lots of experience in making good keyword laden content for your sites that have good quality.
Act now and see the benefits garner with search engine optimization. All of these will result in better traffic and more business for your site and company.
7 Ways To Increase Your Traffic Starting Yesterday
Internet. Business. Profit. To fully integrate all of these words into a successful merging you will need another word: Traffic. Every article you will find about making your site or company successful will always include the importance of generating traffic.
So, we all know that at the core of it all, traffic is the most essential thing for a successful internet-based business company.
Aside from ensuring that you have a great product to sell, and you have your company’s internal organization well taken care of, it is now time to get to the nitty gritty of things, generating traffic.
If you already have a site and you don’t think that you’re getting the traffic that you deserve to be getting, then it’s time to reconsider your search engine marketing strategy.
If you are competing in these very competitive niches, you should always try to be a step ahead of your competition, increasing your traffic flow should have been done starting yesterday.
Timing is essential, that’s an old adage known to everyone. But with generating traffic, you should always be on your toes and be a day ahead of everyone else.
Never think of today and tomorrow as a starting point for making your site traffic laden, it should always have been done yesterday.
To help you out in generating more traffic for your site, here are seven sure-fire ways to increase your traffic starting yesterday.
1) Invest in good advertising with search engines
Google’s Adwords and Yahoo’s Overture provide great advertising schemes that are very popular and assures great traffic. Although this sure-fire way to increase your traffic will cost some money.
While some would shy away from spending money to increase traffic, it is imperative in this case to do so because Adwords and Overture is a top way to increase your traffic.
You can see for yourself the success that these search engine advertising methods have reaped rewards for so many companies. Lots of sites feature these advertising system and many have signed up to reap the benefits.
Do not be left behind. Every penny is worth it using Google and Yahoo’s advertising.
2) Exchange or trade links with other sites
When exchanging links with other sites, both of you will benefit from the efforts both of you do to enhance your sites traffic. When one site features another sites link, they will provide one another with the traffic one site generates.
The efforts are doubly beneficial because it appears that both of you are working to generate more traffic. The more links traded with more sites, the more traffic can be expected.
3) Use Viral Marketing
Viral marketing allows you to spread the word about your company and product without any cost virtually, or low cost if any.
This is a marketing method that can be quite sneaky; you can attach your company’s name, product or link to a certain media such as a funny video, entertaining game, an interesting article or a gossip or buzz.
With this method, people get infected with the creativity and entertainment of the medium that they will pass it on to many of their friends; the key is to know what is trending in your niche and jump on it as quickly as possible.
4) Search and use proper keywords or keyword phrases for your sites content
Search engines look for certain keywords (SEO Keywords) that they will show on their results page. In doing so, having the right keyword and keyword phrase is a high requirement in ranking high in the search engine results.
You could write your own content, or you can hire someone to do it for you.
5) Write articles that can lead traffic to your site
Submit articles to sites that contain the same content that your business deals in. If you sell car parts, write press releases and articles about cars and car parts.
Attach your sites description and services at the end of the article as well as a link back to your site.
6) Join forums and form online communities
Capture a market and show your expertise and credibility. When you have built a solid foundation via your site, people will trust you and your business and will pass this on to others; word of mouth recommendations are very powerful!
Traffic will certainly increase because they know that you can provide what they need.
7) Lastly, offer newsletters
If a lot people know about you and your business and they share this with others, you can find loyal traffic that will provide you with even more traffic by their recommendation.
Offering free newsletters packed with value may be shared among friends and this can lead them back to your site, and potentially a sale.
The key is to always overdeliver on everything you do and provide. Do this and the traffic will come as people begin to learn about you and your reputation, and this in turn will help to push your site up the rankings in the search engines, increasing traffic even more!
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