There are certain techniques that I put into the worthless, “busy work” category…
1) Spending several hours per day on directory submissions
2) Re-writing other people’s content and submitting them to other sites
3) Posting worthless (“Great Post!”) comments on people’s blogs
Be careful of spending too much time on empty promotional techniques. Measure the results of everything you do.
If you aren’t seeing a direct benefit after a period of time, either adjust your strategy/technique or move on to something else.
For example, people are obsessed over obtaining links, but all links are not created equal.
Compare the person who spends 10 hours per week hunting for link exchanges to the person who creates one useful video or article that rewards them over and over again with traffic and sales.
I’ve learned that publishing one useful video is worth more to me than submitting multiple ezine articles on any given day. So the task that takes less time actually gives me the greater benefit.
If you take the time to evaluate and track everything you do, you may be shocked at how you can make better use of your time. That way you can do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.
Tweeting Just to Tweet
Many marketers are becoming obsessed with Twitter. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great tool. But if you aren’t measuring the results, how do you know how beneficial it really is to you?
Just because you have 2,000 followers and you tweet 10 times a day doesn’t necessarily mean much if you aren’t measuring the effectiveness.
For example, did you know that you can track many of the URL shortening services (bit.ly, etc.) if you sign up with an account?
That way you can see how many people are clicking on your links. Many of you probably don’t do this, so you have no idea how your tweets are performing. Doing this is useful because you can learn what type of tweets get the most clicks.
Then there’s the “how-may-people-are-following-me” obsession. This is not a popularity contest, folks. If your followers are not engaged in what you’re tweeting about, then how valuable are those followers really?
Is there proof Twitter is helping you build credibility? How about your sales? How responsive are your followers to what you tweet about? Have you seen an increase in referral traffic from Twitter? Are you reaching your goals? Did you set any to begin with?
I don’t do a lot of direct promotion on Twitter, but I do monitor overall responses and referral traffic. I’ve learned what kind of tweets generate the most interest from my followers.
Plus, the RT’s (retweets) I receive from my followers alone have made Twitter worthwhile for me.
Even though I don’t use Twitter as much as many marketers do, I’ve found a way to use Twitter that is worthwhile for the time invested.
So if you are tweeting just because you just feel like you should be doing it and you aren’t measuring the benefits, you could be wasting your time.
Everything you do should have a strategy behind it and you should be tracking the results at all times.
You don’t measure the success of Twitter or any strategy by how many followers or subscribers you have. You measure it by how responsive the people are to what you publish.
Are you getting more sales? More traffic? Is it opening up new connections with others? Are you building more credibility? Do people respond and give feedback?
I hear people say things like “I’ve been promoting my site for 10 hours per day for the last month and I’m not seeing any results.”
My response is always, “What are you doing and have you been measuring and tracking the results?” All busy work is not effective work, and unfortunately there are no rewards or honors for “time spent online.”
How well are you making use of that time online? THAT is the key. Successful marketers work smart. They track and evaluate every task they perform. Then they keep the best and drop the rest.
Is it time for you to do a self audit on your marketing techniques?
I was looking for some inspiration for a new client. Thanks for providing some great ideas.
As one who is fairly new to all of this, I can say that at times I fall into that trap of checking the traffic multiple times during the day. Talk about a productivity killer, this is the one for me. There are so many ways to slice and dice the stats you could easily waste hours analyzing and over-analyzing all of the data there when I could spend the time on something more productive, like making a short video or something. Thanks, for helping me to refocus.
Great points Adam.
I totally agree and especially like the part about using your time to do things that work. It is a pure 80/20 rule. Identify what actions bring most benefits to you and your audience and focus on them.
btw-I stumbled upon your blog today, but it’s so captivating that I keep reading and reading. I like the fact that your posts are clear and straight to the point-great job.
Thanks,
Jimmy
Thanks, Jimmy! Appreciate you coming by. I’m already gonna check out your site because your domain sounds interesting. 🙂
Thanks for this post. I am going straight to the store to buy a proper microphone so that I can record some good instructional screencasts and share online. I am going to measure and test the whole way so I can gauge the ROI in terms of visitors to my site versus time spent.
Thanks,
Mark
Just my first month of blogging and I feel so exhausted, because i spend too much time reading and doing what i really don’t need. Thanks for the heads up lisa.
If only I’d know this a few months ago. pfff… But I guess this is part of the learning process, so I’ll keep at it.
A general rule to follow is the 80/20 ‘method’.
Thanks for posting.
Hey Lisa I have been wondering, Are you a marketing graduate? because based from your perspective and expertise on internet marketing, you are a phd in my list. . . 🙂 thanks for sharing your knowledge . . . I am a web designer and I just got off my first blog, being a one man army , I have to learn all this internet marketing stuff. . . man! I wonder how you managed, were you also a one man army or a one woman army for that matter when you were starting out?
I have a business background (BA in Management) but no concentration in marketing really. I just took years and studied those that came before me and learned the ropes. Remember I’ve been out here for 12 years so it’s not like it happened fast. Trust me, I made my share of mistakes. LOL Thank you
wow! 12 years! whew! I hope Id still be doing this in twelve years. . . Blogging is really fun. . . specially when I blog about web design and how great wordpress is for web designers and bloggers alike . . . really takes out the burden on the php coding and javascript too. . .
I agree with you. I have found submitting to too many directories can be futile. I have became more intentional with my blogging and my attempts to balance my social networking.
.-= Betty´s last blog … Love Or Lust? Educate Your Child On The Difference =-.
Great article and comments. On my end one of my dysfunctions was with emails. You get so used to checking your emails every other time without taking into consideration the amount of time you are wasting and its distraction from the important activities that could move you in the direction of your expectation. the first thing I did was to turn off all those email alert signals on my computer and then scheduled a time of the day to checking my emails. A lot of great stuff here and thanks for sharing.
Great tips there, tracking saves time for sure, look at where your traffic is coming from and work towards key areas that save you time. Anyway I enjoyed your post and will try and come back when I have the time!
Hi Lisa,
I’ve always been intrigued by your knowledge. I’ve recently opened a website using wp theme. I think I might have made a mistake. And I’m not sure what to do now. So here is my question: with this theme based site, do I always have to have fresh content, otherwise my traffic is doom?
.-= Francis´s last blog … Beginner to fluent in less time =-.
Lisa I have been visiting your website for the past few months now I never really ask you a question until now, I followed through your website as to how to create a website and now that my e commerce website is set up I am so confused as to where to begin with designing for a website, I am a beginner to learning HTML and all those complicated terms but where do i start if i want to start learning to design a better looking page than depending and using website tonight as a helper?
Hi folks,
I knwo one Turkish man who brings traffic(huge) over night.How?
Is it genuine? No idea, but he gets back links to his site or parked domains and earns a good living from the sponsor. Any guess ?
Hi Lisa,
Great posts. Many advices we love, and practice too. However, we learn from mistakes, then learning and then practicing new things. TEST! TEST! TEST is life and learning curve with 80/20 smart way.
Until get success we test, test & test while learn from experts like you & other folks.But many people knows the short-cut way how to make money with generating great traffic. Does any folks know that? As those who knows will never disclose the secrets! So we read and learn by trial and error.
Have a nice day!
“Great post!”
Just joking. Truly, I have been slipping into some bad patterns myself lately when it comes to making best use of my time. I think it all comes down to good content that people can use. Quality natural links come with time. I love all your videos and I’m planing to get into screen casting this week. I’m too ugly for video!
I follow you and a few other marketers who are honest about marketing. The get rich quick folks make me sick. Write good content, post to a few select social sites that you have built community at. Pay attention, and adjust.
Thanks again Lisa, and I’ll be back
.-= Chuck Jines´s last blog … Cyber Smart SEO Tip: Keyword Basics =-.
GREAT POST! has to be the worst task going…
It brings no value to the conversation – what’s the point…
Crazy as it sounds, I have actually noticed improvement in my Alexa rankings on occasions when I’ve left good detailed comments on other blogs – Try it
But more importantly, be part of the conversation and provide value.
.-= Johnluffa´s last blog … Make Your Next Product Launch Spectacular! =-.
I whole heartedly agree that you should be able to measure EVERYTHING that you do. So many marketers guess at what is working.
.-= PowerPoint Templates´s last blog … Ruffled Feathers PowerPoint Template =-.
This is a timely article.
I’ve recently sidestepped a potentially hazardous landmine regarding Directory submissions. In fact, that video Lisa did was how I learned about this site and the forum 🙂
As for Twitter, I originally only used snipr.com for tracking. Now, I use snipr, budurl and bit.ly.
Of the three, I could only see tracking on snipr and budurl. I just noticed this bit.ly blog post:
http://blog.bit.ly/post/242811319/summary-bit-ly-stats
It explains how to get to your stats!
Apparently, you have to use the bookmarklet and/or TweetDeck. Sigh… I guess I’ll still rely on snipr.
Cheers,
Mitch
.-= Mitchell Allen´s last blog … Mad Morpho – The Caption Deconstruction Challenge =-.
Gordon – you’re a smart dude. I like your comments!
Lisa – I agree that bit.ly is a great service. It’s really helped me get a handle on what kind of posts work really well, and which ones tank 😉
Also, I tweet other people’s posts and love seeing which titles get the best conversions. It’s a great way to learn how to write better titles!
.-= Christian´s last blog … An Undeniable Traffic Building Tool for WordPress Blog =-.
@Joseph; of course there’s nothing wrong with writing comments. Lisa was (rightly) criticizing the idea of leaving fake uninspired comments just to promote your site, like “nice article” and that’s it. Gordon explained it well in his comment.
@Ileane I’ve tried HootSuit and I wasn’t very happy with it. It’s kept crashing and lagging. I guess it was a period where they didn’t stabilize it properly.
Now I use su.pr and it’s great! I love it because it calculates the best time to tweet a link by giving you stats about how many click you get on each link and at which time of day.
Su.pr is also great if you use StumbleUpon, I hate having 5 different services for the same thing.
.-= Gordon´s last blog … CSS For Absolute Beginners =-.
I’ve never thought about tracking my twitter activity. I will start though. I’m very new with all of this and your post was an eye opener for me.
.-= Evelyn´s last blog … Going Raw – Raw Food Guide #1 =-.
Hi Lisa,
I found two other link shorteners that provide great tracking, the first is HootSuite. The ow.ly link shortener also allows you to schedule your tweets so you don’t send a bunch of them one after another which can annoy your followers. You can even tweet while you are asleep. lol
But the best one I have used so far for getting traffic is su.pr from StumbleUpon. Not only do you get the tracking but you also get the additional traffic from StumbleUpon, which has been a big plus for me.
Thanks for the post! See you in Twitterville.
@Ileane
.-= Ileane´s last blog … Posterous – Lifestreaming or Not? =-.
First and last issue in websites is that it must have added value for the users.
What do you think is the added value of this website?:
http://www.best-value-deals.com
Is it really a time waisting to write this comment? hmm anyway, I am going to create a twitter id and try to find some users for my website 🙂
.-= Joseph´s last blog … Library101 =-.
Very good points, Lisa. This reminds me of the well known 80/20 rule, where 80% of our results will come by focusing on the 20% of work that matters. Sure, we could spend endless hours submitting to directories, but not only is that very boring, it won’t even help!
.-= Jonathan´s last blog … PHP & MySQL Database Tutorial: Introduction =-.
Oooow I hate the “Great post!” comments. I bet half of the people that write those kinds of comments don’t even read the post. They just drop their link (especially if commentluv is enabled) and move on to another blog where they would do the same thing.
Twitter-suggestion for you Lisa: You should tweet your new blog post a few times during the week. I don’t know about other people that are following you but it’s hard to catch your new blog posts on Twitter because of all the real-time updates and tweets that are going on. 😉
.-= Gordon´s last blog … Questionable (Twitter) marketing tactics =-.
If you are going to submit to directories make sure you are in Yahoo directory and DMOZ. Those are the big 2.
Also, be wary of following comments that are made by people who are obviously not making money.
There is a lot of money to be made with twitter when you are in the right niche. On one of my accounts I direct people to “how to” videos and when they are done watching the video, they will leave through a paid link.
Most “how to make money” techniques work when you actually learn how to use them.
.-= Carl´s last blog … Learn The Most Effective Way To Make Your Content 6 Times More Effective =-.
@lisa,
I cheris you work. You are too good.
Well, if it helps anyone to see some figures, I have 135 followers on Twitter, and I typically see about 25-40 clicks for my bit.ly links.
.-= Grady´s last blog … DVD Sales: Ferocious Dinosaurs And Fairy Dust Lift Up The Chart =-.
Grady, that’s a pretty good conversion ratio.
Great Post.
To be honest I had a twitter account and started adding everyone who I didn’t even know. This was a bad decision as I never got any traffic from twitter. If you have followers who are interested in you, then you have more chance of getting traffic, not any traffic, but targeted traffic.
.-= Teen Blogger´s last blog … How To Keep A Effective Posting Frequency Combined With Brilliant Consistency- Part 1 =-.
Awesome, awesome article, Lisa. Thank you. I have been doing an audit of my marketing and content building activities lately and am finding cool ways to be smarter about my time. I really need to improve in the analytics aspect of this. I’ve been doing a lot without tracking and that just doesn’t make sense. Only after severe burnout did I wake up and realize I was doing many things with no proof that they were bringing in traffic and/or being appreciated by my visitors. Changing my ways for more results is what I’m about now. Thank you.
.-= Erika´s last blog … Nov 9, This Week on Organic Baby Resource =-.
When I first began I was that 8-10 hour a day promoter – then I realized what I was earning wasn’t comparable. I wouldn’t have worked any job for 8 hours a day for the little money I was generating. Then I developed a strategy and put time limits on the amount of time I spending doing things. I made myself do the important things, like getting some content written before I would do anything else. Then all of a sudden while I was out doing things with my family finally, I began seeing sales revenue. It was crazy, it seemed like on the days I did the least, I received the most return. Now I stick to the things that work – I have a set procedure that I stick to. I put what I learn on great sites like this one and finally it seems to be working.
.-= the affiliate marketer’s help desk´s last blog … Recently published on Associate Programs: Find sponsors for your tweets =-.
Profound article. I make it my duty to audit all my traffic building techniques, then make adjustments accordingly. I’ve found that Twitter drives a significant amount of traffic to my website, even though I have a small following.
.-= Wayne Farley´s last blog … World Aviation Authorities Tackle Climate Change =-.
In principle, agree totally. In practice… that’s a lot harder!
Where I’m at is cranking out the content, building traffic through commenting and search results, and working on increasing email newsletter signups. Being able to measure all that… not sure I know where to start.
Poking around here would probably be a pretty good place to start, I suspect.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog … I’ve Just Wasted $53 on Hosting and a Domain, s***, What Now? HELP!? =-.
It is also a great thing to listen.But some high pagerank directories are helpful in building the backlinks.
I didn’t know people were still submitting to thousands of directories. I guess if you’re new to all of this, it might sound like a good idea like it did to me two years ago.
I terms of checking traffic, I made the mistake of NOT checking so I had no idea what was going on (or not) on my site. I had to make it a goal to check at least every other day to improve my conversions.
.-= Carla´s last blog … Documentary – Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags =-.
I used to do the Twitter thing. Then it made me feel like a robot and that is how you see most people doing it anyway. Wasn’t seeing much results as most people just try to build a huge list and then just tweet their link a few times a day. Twitter seems very spammy. I have learned to use more effective marketing actions to use my time better. Great article and good point.
.-= BlogChat´s last blog … Blog Chat =-.
Exactly. I am currently re-modelling my business techniques. If I was paid for every worthless hour spent on checking, submitting and such I would be very rich.
Today I’m on my way to becoming rich by feeling rich already and having fun while I’m online instead of being anxious about any statistical results.
.-= Ramses´s last blog … What About Thesis 2.0 Pricing? =-.
I didn’t know about the tracking on bit.ly, but for for the heads up. I went there after I read that sentence and got signed up and looked around. I definitely see the benefits.
Thx a lot.
http://gibbydevelopments.com
I agree. After reading this post i took a look at the things i do to help my site how effective they are and how time consuming. It took me less than 10 minutes to make a free survey for people on my website and a whole day to try to ” submit to 500,000 free search engines”. I subscribed to your blog and am looking forward to future posts.
.-= Nick´s last blog … Will Ida and another hybrid storm combine and move off the coast forming a major Nor’easter? =-.
To be honest I haven’t really been tracking stats as often as I should. I main focus has been on visiting other blogs to get to know other bloggers.
Now that I know if a service that can check my Twitter links it will be quite helpful. Thanks for the wake up call and great advice. 🙂
.-= Ms. Freeman´s last blog … I’ve Got Nothing: The Crowdsourced YouTube Video & iTunes Song =-.
So true! Another worthless task is checking your traffic 20-30 times a day. I’ve gotten much less obsessive over the past few months about checking traffic, but it’s still often a waste of time to be doing it as much as I do.
.-= Grady´s last blog … The New And The News: The End Of The World Will Involve Foxes And Pirates… Probably =-.
Oh yes, I was an obsessive traffic checker too. Nothing wrong with that tho if you are using that information to improve your bottom line. For example, if you find that you are getting found for a certain keyword and the traffic from that keyword is bouncing then you can work on improving your content to get people to stay longer.
But if you are checking your stats and not taking action or interpreting them properly then yes, it can be a waste of time.
I love your post girl…
As always,very interesting and sooo true. I’m still working on my site, I don’t tweet a lot and i completely agree with what you’ve said. i you tweet to promote, then do it wisely.
good work girl, keep it up!!!
.-= carolle´s last blog … Best-Workout-Routines =-.