Project Management Supports Productivity
In law school, I was more organized than any other time of my life, until now. I had writing assignments, client tasks, and reading that had to be completed, often on a daily basis. But what was unique about my busy days was that they were for the most part, very predictable. Clients needed research into the factual and legal aspects of precedent cases with subsequent legal documents produced for hearings, professors needed research into the factual and legal aspects of precedent cases with subsequent legal documents produced for grading, and professors needed the students to read massive amounts of material each night to even hope to understand their classroom lectures. Research and writing, research and writing, and reading is what it boiled down to. I didn’t need a project management tool to know what was coming up for my evening ahead or the next day’s classes.
Client work in the search marketing industry has been a bit different. I am currently working on SEO, PPC, social media, and reputation management. Each of these core areas requires research and writing, but the tasks are inherently smaller in focus. Writing an optimized title, doing competitive link research, adding tracking codes to PPC ads and keywords, submitting content to social news sites, organizing RSS feeds, the list goes on and on. I have previously mentioned that I love my USB stick with GTD TiddlyWiki, but I’m finding that my claim of tracking progress with projects just isn’t working out that well for me on my USB stick. Enter Clocking IT. It may not be the prettiest project management solution, but it’s free, and it really aids in tracking progress. I create each of my websites or projects as a client. Each “client” then appears in the column under “projects” and individual milestones and projects fit under the client and then there is a task level. It is easy to add time to really track each task, and completing a task is a simple checkbox. It’s not integrated to go offline, but it does what it says.
Blog Search Engine Optimization Strategy Questions
At work, we often work on the search engine optimization of corporate and organization websites. Usually, the main domain name isn’t ranking as well for keyphrases as it should be, and we can help. Though developing a blog is determined on a case-by-case basis, it may not come up as part of the initial SEO strategy, it sometimes comes along the lines of the social media strategy for the client.
Blog search engine optimization is important to integrate into a social media and an SEO strategy, and having ultimate goals on what you’d like your blog to rank for aside from your corporate pages is crucial in that integration.
On this blog, I unfortunately post most of the time “on-the-go.” Even when posts are planned out, I write without much editing. And I write the way I speak, for the most part. That means I’m fairly conversational, maybe a bit formal at times, and rarely thinking about keyphrases that would be good to incorporate.
As this blog becomes more popular, I’d like to help it along with more organic traffic as I do with any client.
In developing my strategy, here are some questions I will be answering:
1. What do I like to write about?
2. What receives the most eyeballs and publicity for the blog?
3. What am I currently ranking on?
4. How can I exploit gaps in the online marketing field? (Will I ever rank for “online marketing”? or SEO?) Not likely anytime soon because of the competition.
5. What are people searching for?
6. How can I best tie my blog posts here with the blog posts I do for work?
Look back at my previous post on blog improvement tips to help with your blog search engine optimization strategy.
Blog Improvement Tips for the Me(me).
How can one improve one’s own blog when tasked with client work, work blogging, and social news activities of sphinning, stumbling, digging, and voting?
This is my take on the question I’ve been tagged to answer in a “blog improvement meme.” And I’d like to refuse to answer my self-posed question. How can I? I can’t! I’m planning a wedding here, people!
But if I had the time to do something to this blog, I’d improve it in these ways (though in no particular order):
1. Highlight my Blog Titles
As I strive to write better posts, I am also experimenting with my title copywriting. Currently, the white on green just isn’t highlighting what is about to be read. As a matter of fact, the link colors in general just aren’t working for me because of improper contrast.
2. Post Regularly
I have not found my blogging rhythm, and I’m currently losing opportunities to retain readers (especially from influxes in StumbleUpon traffic) because I do not post regularly. Regularly doesn’t have to mean frequently, but once or twice a week shouldn’t be too painful.
3. Generate a Blogroll
There are people who I actually read regularly. I’m guilty of daily scrolling through the 1000+ blog posts that are generated in my RSS feeds, but for those who I make an effort to read, I really need to recognize as providing value. If this means a blogroll with two people in it, that’s what it’s going to be!
4. Socialize the Site
It’s already been pointed out to me that I don’t have any social buttons to simplify voting for and spreading my content. I MUST DO THIS! It’s fundamental, and we tell all of our clients who blog that it’s essential. Do as I say, not as I do, apparently!
5. Contact Info and Biography
The only place my name appears is under “copyright.” Yuck! And there’s no immediate way to contact me. (Hint: Go to MyBlogLog.) And there’s no photo of me, and my “about the site” section leaves a lot to be desired. I need to work on this.
Thanks to Jeff for the tag, and the team at Search Engine People for being so kind to me lately! I promise you’ll make the blogroll when it goes up.
The previous thoughts on my own blog are meant to inform about your blog issues. Colors are important, as are producing content, linking to resources, being a bit self-promotional, and engaging with visitors. I am happy with how things are, but blogs need tweaking and improvement, just like search engine optimization and other forms of marketing. The people I tag below are not because they need to improve their blogs, but because I believe they will have suggestions that may also aid in your blog marketing efforts.
I hereby tag: Simon Heseltine, Karl Ribas, Derek Beauchemin, Bill Hartzer, and Andy Beard.
