Views on motherhood, entrepreneurship, internet marketing and mindset
I've recently been pinging my sites through www.pingler.com whenever I have updated them. Pingler is a great tool – easy to use and it automatically pings about 90+ sites for you just with a click of the button.
Best of all – it's free to use.
So spend a few minutes and ping your sites if you haven't done so for a while.
When I started out on this journey of internet marketing, little did I know that I I would struggle at keeping focussed!
At work (my normal 9-5 desk job), I would pride myself on being able to get lots of things accomplished during the day. Multi-tasking was a given and we would often juggle 5 to 6 different jobs/projects at one time.
But with internet marketing, it seems like staying focussed on one task or one strategy is a real task in itself. And being a stay at home mom probably compounds this.
I have thought about this for a number of weeks and I think it is due to being bombarded with emails and "the latest strategy" constantly. When I first started signing up for "free" ebooks and the like I would be drawn into reading every email that that particular "guru" would send out. What ended up happening was that I spent my days being distracted by the latest ‘new’ fad or product launch rather than focussing on my own projects.
So to combat this I have decided on a number of rules:
1. I don’t read any of these emails from websites I have signed up on at all. If I think the emails are remotely interesting, I transfer them to an email folder for safekeeping rather than wasting time reading another sales letter/ pitch or product release.
2. I have stopped spending time on the Warrior Forum. Whilst it is a great resource, I found that I spent hours reading posts and people’s comments rather than taking action on things myself.
3. I have joined up for a mentoring program. This is a 10 week course that will help me focus on 1 particular area with multiple strategies. Wasn’t cheap, but I think will be worth every penny. Rather than keep buying ebook after ebook I needed a mentoring course to keep me on track.
4. Prioritize my time better. I still spend lots of time with my baby but it is in spurts. She is always in view (except when sleeping – bliss!) but I am splitting my time between interacting with her, feeding, keeping the household running and spending time for myself!
Not an easy task, but it has involved me trying to cram as much into my day as possible without going mad at the same time!
So how do you stay focussed?
Share your tips and experiences so we can all be more productive and achieve our goals!
I have recently discovered the wonders of Outsourcing – it is truly an amazing thing and makes me realise how much technology has evolved and crossed boundaries.
We have been liaising with an IT company in India to develop our website for our new educational product and have been using Skype to discuss and send information over to them in real time.
We had been struggling to find someone local to develop a website for us that:
1. Was not flat out or too busy to return calls (I still can’t get over the lack of customer service in today’s world – but that is a topic for another post!)
2. Did not charge us exorbitant amounts of money for a simple website.
So thank goodness for outsoucing sites like: Odesk, elance, rent a coder etc which allowed us to find someone at a reasonable price and with a great turnaround.
For those that haven’t though about outsourcing, here are some things that you may be interested in knowing that may set your mind at ease. Our website was outsourced to an IT firm via Odesk.
1. You have complete control over the project. Odesk has a great facility whereby you can see the time spent by your contractor – you can even view their screen shots!
2. You can specify whether your assignment is a fixed price or hourly assignment. If it is an hourly assignment, you can cap the number of hours they work a week.
3. Communicating with them isn’t expensive – in fact, if you both have Skype then Skype to Skype calls are free! (This is how we have been communicating with our IT contractor)
4. You can assess a person’s skills by tests that they have done, you can view their portfolios and feedback from prior customers.
Obviously, it helps if you can afford to outsource – if not, then it is not really for you, but you may be amazed at how cheaply you can get things done.
Embrace outsourcing – it will make your life a whole lot easier!
Had to share this with you – GoDaddy is having 30% off their dot com domain names.
Offer ends 20 August 2009. You need to quote discount code: gdr0802e to get the discount. Usually their discounts are 20% off doc com registrations so 30% is great!
Get it whilst it lasts!
There are lots of ways of promoting your website and getting it moving up in the ranks of the search engines. One easy way is through backlinking.
Backlinking creates incoming links to a website. The more backlinks a website has, the more it points to its popularity. Backlinks also have "value" – if the backlinks come from high authority sites, then in the eyes of search engines they are highly valuable. Backlinks are considered to be like "votes" for a website and if a highly ranked site has a link to your site, this elevates the significance of the site.
So how do you get backlinks for your site?
There are many ways to get backlinks; article marketing, blog commenting, guest blogging etc. But one of the simpliest ways is using Angela Edward’s backlink packets. Every month Angela sends out a guide to get 30 high page rank backlinks for one low price of $5. It is seriously good value and will do wonders for your niche websites. To really see the power of her backlinks, check out the Warrior Forum as there is a post about her backlinks and the effectiveness of it from people that have bought her monthly guides.
Check it out here: Warrior Forum
