Frank Schulte-Ladbeck

Writing quality content may not be enough if no one is looking for a post on your topic.

I used to write an informative post without concern if the post would be read by users or found by the search engines, because the post served my greater writing goals in regards to my business. With a website, this can be an error. Each written post should add value to the site. Value will be defined as bringing in users to the site; users who will hopefully convert to being your clients. Yet maybe you still need a post on a topic that will not add value, so how can you craft your writing to meet the goal of adding value?
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A good checklist can save you time and money, but you should think about the design to help your business get it right.

I have so many projects going on at the moment, that I decided to create some checklists to make sure that I am hitting all of my tasks. Checklists seem to be unacceptable to many people though. When I tried to help my fellow home inspectors out by creating a checklist to help them with the new rules for home inspection, I received several negative responses. The idea was that a person could not catch everything by following a checklist. Another person commented that you cannot be creative with a checklist. I beg to disagree.
    The professionals who do their job best have designed their tasks to meet their goals. Part of that design starting point is a checklist. To create a checklist, you have to think about what you need to do to ensure success at each step. I will agree that going through the steps, checking them off, is not going to be the best option for your business. I leave space to write notes in my checklists. Note taking helps me to reach the next level; however, a not might not have occurred to me without having gone through the checklist first.
    Multitasking requires organization if you wish to be effective. I began to think of how I would form a checklist for my websites. I began by looking at different tasks that I need to accomplish, and how those tasks can be handled on different days. Since this is a checklist for my website, and there are quite a few tasks which need to be taken care of while I am on the internet, I created an HTML version of my list, so I could set my browser home page to that list. When I open my browser, the first thing that I see is the task which I have to undertake. Here are my beginning notes. Your task could be very different, depending on what you need to accomplish.

Monday    Google Analytics, Webmaster
Central, site optimization, rank check to fill out terms, forum
Procedure:    1) Find Top landing page articles to compare to the week before
2) Check if pages have been optimized by using term target or semager(need chart)
3) Find websites sending traffic to me; discover why (need chart)
4) Record Adsense revenue
5) Use Rank Check to discover where I sit with keyword ranking process (need to chart)
6) Find keywords that I am hitting with SEMrush report
7) Go to forum A to respond to questions

Tuesday    article for free sites
distribution
Procedure: 1) Look up articles from week before
2) Rewrite sections or create a brief article referring back to original article
3) Places to submit to:
ezine Article
ehow
articles4ever
4) Go to forum B

Wednesday    Keyword research on semrush, Google Insight, Google Trends, Website link building research
1)Pick a term to target that you have not been ranking for on the semrush report from Monday
2) Find a term with a high CPC and preferable low competition
3) Go to Google insight and Google Trends (Can this be done with tool on iGoogle?)
4) Pick terms to target for the next week
5)Find websites for dofollow comments on commenthunt(?); look for edu blogs; seospyglass?
6)forum A

Thursday    Photograph editing for articles
Procedure:   
1) Find or take photgraphs based upon keywords found on Wednesday
2) Use GIMP to Size them
3) Plan out articles (titles, h3, body paragraphs)
4) Go to forums B and C

Friday    Write articles for the next week 
Procedure:    1) Write articles when I have a chance on Friday and Saturday
2) Go to forum A and D
3) Commenting for linkbuilding

This web development checklist will be an ongoing process. Creating a checklist and never altering it can lead to failure. I found that doing these tasks can help improve my site. At one time, I performed them all on one day, which lead to a long work day. Currently, I am spending around two hours each day on this checklist; however, this is because I am getting into my groove, and I am trying to find ways to improve my website’s performance. Once my system is in place, these jobs should go fairly quick, yet I will still spend time evaluating the checklist.

We leave our website’s url all over the net to build links, but we forget how important it is to build links internally.

I was running SEO SpyGlass to examine my links and that of my competitors. After running a report on semrush, I thought upon my site’s architecture, and how different users move via internal links on that site. External link building is improtant, and new site owners are geared towards building those links; yet they forget that internal links within their own site can help them out. One fact which struck home when looking at the semrush report is that pages are ranking well for a given term; however, these were not always the page or keyword that I wanted to emphasize. I began considering how I want people to move through my site, and how they actually might wish to use the site.
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There are free solutions for a small business when you need data from your site.

When I started off as a manager, I was not overly concerned with data. I was more focused on my staff, and the job at hand. As I developed as a manager, I saw how understanding an MIS report could help me perform better. I became involved with budgeting more, so I found that I really needed to understand my numbers. I think that some small business owners may ignore their operating metrics in areas where they are not familiar. Setting up a website may be one such area.
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How different is your site from the next guy’s site? Have you considered a new format for your blog?

I was discussing the state of real estate portals recently, when it was pointed out that we are reaching a “plateau of similarity”. Not long after reading this phrase in an email, I receive another email informing me that another site is adopting the features of two other popular sites. The move makes sense. You copy what works for others. Refine the element to make it work better for you. Then others copy your imitation; hopefully some will refine the element with a clever innovation to take it a step further. Eventually, we obtain a distilled feature that works at its optimum level.
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