We’ve all been there. It doesn’t matter if it’s a sunny day or a dreary one, we generally start by blaming the weather: “It’s raining outside I’m just feeling so
bleh,” you might think. Or maybe you might say to yourself “it’s sunny outside and I just want to get out there and play!”
Whatever the excuse begins as, the fact is that you simply aren’t feeling motivated. But deep down you know there is an SEO opportunity just waiting for you to grab it and if you truly applied yourself you might be able to accomplish something great in the marketing world today… Or you could just check your Twitter feed once more and see if that machete-wielding maniac’s motives have been revealed yet, or if Kim Kardashian did something nobody cared about recently.
It’s times like these that you truly need something to kick-start your day and keep it from becoming another one of those lost weekdays where you get home and wonder what you accomplished. (Hint: probably nothing.)
Here is a list of a few easy things to look at SEO-wise that might just ignite a little passion, creativity, or drive to your day:
Go Read a Competitor’s Twitter Feed
What is the competition up to? Maybe they just read something awesome or gained a bunch of retweets from a bunny-rabbit video. Perhaps you want to grab a funny bunny video of your own? Or maybe you can take the cutesy idea and make an infographic out of it. Of course I’m not suggesting you copy or steal their ideas. The purpose of checking in on them is to feed your imagination and help you come up with an idea for something your readership may enjoy.
Identify Your Most Popular Content
Dig into your Analytics and start looking through all of the content you’ve created. Check your social media accounts, find what had the biggest audience and gained the most likes/retweets/plus-ones. Figure out what exactly it was that people found the most useful and/or interesting. Did anybody link to any of your blog posts? Check Open Site Explorer, find out!
Once you’ve identified what was the most popular, start determining why. Was it a video, infographic, or slideshare? Did the subject touch on a popular current event? If so, can you find a current event that ties into your subject matter today? Figure out what it was that people liked about this content and use that concept to produce something new!
StumbleUpon
Are you using Stumbleupon? If not, you may be surprised how many people are. People of all demographic use this awesome tool to waste time at work or at home all throughout the day. It’s free, it’s easy, and it certainly can’t hurt.
Submit your best content
*(see the previous tip) to Stumbleupon. If you’re not using this already you will be surprised at how much traffic it can potentially bring to your site. Not to mention there’s always a chance somebody stumbles upon your awesome content and decides to link it to their blog/site/twitter/whatever. But even if it brings only three or four new visits a day, that’s three or four more than you had yesterday and VOILA – you’ve accomplished something in marketing today!
Spend a little time while you’re here thumbing through content relevant to your own in search of your next big idea. But
BE CAREFUL! Stumbleupon is a wonderful distraction and can quite easily get you sucked right back into where you were in the beginning of this process: wasting time!
What’s _______ Doing? Open Site Explorer Time!
It may seem a bit sneaky but it’s entirely fair. I’m sure you have a competitor who you respect the marketing efforts of. Perhaps they’re a much bigger brand than you or perhaps you are on par with them. Either way, let’s hop into Open Site Explorer and take a look at the Just-Discovered Tool!
Here we will see what links they have gained recently. Did they find a forum talking about something relevant to your interests? Perhaps there’s an interesting article relevant to your site on an online publication just begging for you to comment on. This is a great way to figure out what others are up to and discover some new ideas that perhaps you hadn’t thought of. Don’t feel bad, they probably are doing it to you as well!
WRITE SOMETHING!
I recently had lunch with the CEO of a marketing firm (who shall remain nameless) and the best piece of advice I think he offered me was to
“write EVERY DAY!” It doesn’t matter if what you are writing is anything worthwhile. It doesn’t have to be submitted anywhere and if it’s not good enough it doesn’t have to ever be posted on your site. If this is something that simply sits on your own personal Google Drive and never leaves, that’s perfectly fine! The idea is to exercise your writing skills.
Writing is one of the most important aspects of Marketing and SEO (
which are one in the same!). The most successful marketers are excellent communicators and authors first and foremost. Just like any other talent, practice makes perfect and in order to perfect your voice you must exercise it often. So while this actionable-tip may not be something that gains you any immediate SEO benefit or boost to your marketing campaign, it is still something that will pay off for you and your business/site in the long-run.
Contribute 1%
I personally have a rule that I try to maintain where I have to contribute at least
1% of everything I take-in from the internet. This means that if I read 100 message board postings I need to create one myself. If I read (or let’s face it, skim) 100 articles on the YouMoz forum, I need to write one myself. This keeps me constantly writing and creating thus furthering my own personal brand by hopefully promoting my presence in this ever-expanding online universe.
Of course there is a potential for danger here as you don’t want to just spew out anything and everything in order to satisfy your 1% rule. Make sure whatever you produce is worthwhile to others. If it’s not, let it sit there on your Google Drive and perhaps one day you can come back to it and re-work it to perfection. Or not!
Go Play with Graphics
Visual content is quickly becoming the king (maybe the queen?) of the marketing world. An attractive graphic grabs the attention of a reader and lets them know that they won’t have to commit much time to looking at what you’re offering. If you’re like me, you might not think you’re that great at graphic design. That’s okay! There’s a tool for you!
At MozCon this year, Lena West
talked extensively about the power of visual memes. In her presentation she noted several sites that allow you to create graphics quickly and easily with intuitive online tools. Easel.ly, Infogr.am, and Piktochart are all examples of tools you may enjoy playing with.
The example on the left was created with Easel.ly in about 10 minutes. I was merely playing with the tool to test it out and ended up with something totally ridiculous that
might actually work as a fun promo for a cloud computing company. At the very least, it gave me an idea and made me feel like I accomplished something! The moral of the story here is do not be afraid of graphics. You can create a meme!
Keep Going!
If you can identify one strategy, write two paragraphs, or make one comment on a relevant article (with or without gaining a link) you have accomplished something today. Marketing is about organizing a long-term strategy and none of it happens overnight. Working on the internet with a wandering mind it is incredibly easy to lose focus. Hopefully, there are a few simple ideas here that will get you back on track.
In the immortal words of Bill Murray: “BABY STEPS!”
