Eric Gehler SEO Richmond Virginia

My Daily Online Business To Do List Checklist

With so many distractions, so much information and so many ways to do things these day, I have to stop myself and create a Checklist. An online checklist of the things “I Know” I need to do daily or when ever I get on the computer to make my business or online ventures profitable.  That the name of the game isn’t it?

Now I may not get to each and every one of these, but it will keep me focused and remind me of the things I need to do, should do and am smart enough to know better to do on a daily basis.

1) Open Google Reader and browse through the RSS of Niche Markets in which I have current internet property.  This is my instant research module for any news relevant for my niches.  I will end the day also with Google Reader but for the purpose of Reading or researching SEO information.

2) From the Google Reader RSS feeds, I am sure I can find a topic of interest for several of My Niches. In this case a Niche is a website, blog, web 2.0 or keyword term that I am working on.  Read the feed, go to the reference source of the feed to read it fully.  Generate the overall gist of the information.  Open up the Website property I own that is associated with this niche.  Create or write contest based upon that information.  Normally I have a blog related to my niches so content creation is simplified.

I have several projects and a lot of web property so I will create content for 3-5 different sites. At Least that is the goal. The next day I will pick a different niches to work on.

3) Content is created. Time to show that content some Link Love. Regardless if the content creation is on a blog, web 2.0 platform or standard HTML web page, I need to show it some link love and can do that with various Social bookmarking properties.

4) Spread the Love - Digg Style.   Digg the content, create the proper category, title, description and submit. Then I will send a Digg Shout to my Digg Friends with a “plea” or funny reference asking them to Digg the Item as well.   Then I will use the DIGG blog feature to blog about the digg i just made.  Most people drop the ball on the Blog your Digg.  I have a separate catch all Blog that is linked to social services like Digg, Youtube etc that allows me to interface and re-post content.  It just makes sense and gives my Initial Digg more weight and new content to my Catch All Blog.

5) Spread The Love - Stumbleupon.  Make sure that you are the one that Stumbles your property first. You want the right description, category and keywords referenced to your site.

6) Spread the Love - Other social bookmarks & Property - Delious, magnolia, redit, mixx FriendFeed etc.  I have these in my tool bar and favorites and via other tools to quickly get these bookmarks created.  It’s all about how you set these up via your browser to make them most effective and not time consuming. If my content is worthy I will Twitter about it, and re share via FriendFeed Rooms that are appropriate

7) Spread The Love - RSS Style.  Most website property especially blogs have RSS Feeds. If I haven’t aggregated my feed for the property I will make sure I create the feed on feedagg.com and feeage.com.  Also in about a week I have a new RSS TOOL coming on line that lets me create my own feed however I want to make it, without having to pull a known feed.  Yes I create a FEED for property that has no feed and place in snippets of text with Links back to my property.  I add these to aggregate feed sources. I am beta testing the new feed creation and it is successful, Will be released soon.

The entire process above shouldn’t take more than 1 hour to 2 hours max. But the LINKBACK creation is important!

Check My Status - I will go through Google and search for my position in the SERPS for the keyword term projects I am working upon.  I will note the position in a spreed sheet along with the Google Data Center that is reporting the information. I will log the total  yahoo back links for my web property. I use the SEO Firefox plug in to easily see the yahoo back links as well as other info.  I have the preferences of Google Set to show 100 pages at a time so I can quickly see where my Keyword terms are positioned.  With the SEO Firefox Plug in it shows the SERP or position rank so Google Displaying 100 search results for a page is not an issue. I note progress, decline and determine if extra effort is needed today for that keyword term.

9) Check my Money - I will log into the various affiliate, adsense, amazon, etc programs that I have that monetize my sites. I look at the stats to determine what’s generating or not generating income. I look for trends, purchases, CTR rates anything that may indicate positives or negatives. I will compare the Stats from the Monetizing programs to actual Traffic Stats from my sites. If something stands out via the stats I will make adjustments.  If I find a trend I will optimize that trend and focus efforts in content creation towards that trend.

These two phases usually take me about 2 hours because I own operate and manage many website properties. I rarely look at each property, just ones that are current projects or are income producing.

10) Create More Content for Area’s I identified from My Stats or My Money evaluation. It is important to create as much content as possible, so my goal is daily new content for a niche.  Since I have multiple property at least 3-5 different projects get attention each day. Some projects will only get attention every other week or not at all.  You have to evaluate if your project is a set and forget, or a frequent or infrequent as far as updates.  The SERPS and the MONEY will determine it’s frequency.

11) Walk the Online Neighborhood.  I will cruise through Forums, Blogs, Twitter, membership sites in which I am a member. If a Post or Comment is appropriate I make one.  These Posts or Comments will have a source URL or Signature URL that is also building a link back to web property.  I try not to spend to much time in the Online Neighborhood and make it a point to only Go their AFTER I have done steps 1-10.  Otherwise the day is consumed with Reading instead of producing.

I usually set a TIMER or watch the Clock to make sure I am not Spending too much time in the Online Neighborhood.  One hour to me seems enough to get the Pulse of what I need to know.

12) Research - Research comes in many forms. There is keyword research, Niche Research, and Market Research. I try to expand my knowledge base on various topics of interest. I do Keyword research at least once every 2-3 weeks on my niche terms to make sure the data is still accurate. I try to stay on top of my game in both my niches and Market.  I use Google Reader to this.  I have RSS Feeds on all market and niche resources.

Those 12 steps pretty much take up most of my day. I set a Goal each day for Content Creation, whether it be a blog post, and Article to submit to directories, creating a new Web 2.0 property or Enhancing an existing web 2.0 property.

If I stick to this 12 Step Program, I can not fail to get traffic to my web property.

Tools of my online day:
2 Browsers:  Flock and Firefox Multiple Tabs open
Goggle Reader
Twirl for Twitter
Spreadsheet
RSS TOOL - Link Coming soon