In 2007 someone gave me David Allen’s Getting Things Done book as a present. Everyone I knew that read it, loved it. So I gave it a read but I didn’t really get it. I had been doing the stuff I needed to do for years so why was this so revolutionary?

Toward the end of 2008 with my life getting busier on the personal side and the demands of work still increasing with responsibility, I needed to get this under control. So a few weeks ago I sat down with a good friend of mine who really explained GTD to me in a way I could understand and with some software tools I could work with.

I finally got the point and the core of GTD – When something comes in, do it, file it or toss it. Just get it out of your brain so you can focus on the task at hand. WOW. For someone that feels ADD but has never been diagnosed it fed my control freak nature while allowing me to process everything as it came in and handle it properly in its own due time.

As we approach the end of 2008 I am looking at 2009 as a really busy and exciting year. I’m not usually a fan of the typical New Year’s resolution but I actually just did one for the entire year (read the entire bible over 365 days) so I know I can do something if I focus and am committed.

So since I am just starting with GTD and learning as I go, I would like to share my experiences, lessons learned and hacks I learn along the way.

I will be sharing this journey over on our sister site, MySolutionSpot.com, and cross-posting here. I will be writing once a month on this in a sort of “month in retrospective”. Who knows, maybe you will be inspired and take the journey with me or at the very least learn something new about organizing your life that will make you more productive.

“I was wondering how likely is it for a site to become the #1 search result on the search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN)? What are the most important factors for determining the likelihood of your site being #1? Is this something I should worry about now before launching the site or is it something I can do later? If a site ranks as #1, is it hard to maintain that after you have achieved it?”

Let’s address the last two questions:

1.) Is this something I should worry about now before launching the site or is it something I can do later?

2.) If a site ranks as #1, is it hard to maintain that after you have achieved it?”

Search engine optimization (SEO) is something that should be worried about all the time. Before the site is launched there are a number of things that can be done. I would recommend using the services that Network Solutions offers.

They will ensure that the structure of your site is such that it is maximizing the opportunities for the spyders to crawl it. (The spyders are gathering information for the search engines). I don’t have a lot of experience in building websites, so I rely on others to do it for me.

The next question is if a site ranks #1 is it hard to maintain it?

That is a very relative question. Things will always be changing but that makes them constants. Here are things that come to mind:

1. Content – you need to continually be creating new content. My site has slipped from where it used to rank & I need to get back to addressing that. The good thing is that I’m aware of it.

2. Search Engine Algorithms are continuously changing – so what worked one year ago may not work now. This is why its’ good to work with experts like those at Network Solutions who are keeping up with those trends.

3. Flux in your niche – people will always be coming or going

4. How much time you put in – and I’m referring to blogging & the content

5. Search Engines prefer older established domains – so that will increase your SEO over time.

6. Your community – linking & backlinking is totally in your control. It’s another thing that takes time, but getting involved in your extended community is well worth it in terms of SEO rankings.

Further reading:

Five frequent & frustrating SEO fallacies

Courting Bloggers

Sparking the Conversation:

As we close, what tips do you have for maintaining your site’s SEO rank? We want to hear from you.

In the community someone had asked: “I was wondering how likely is it for a site to become the #1 search result on the search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN)? What are the most important factors for determining the likelihood of your site being #1? Is this something I should worry about now before launching the site or is it something I can do later? If a site ranks as #1, is it hard to maintain that after you have achieved it?”

Let’s take a look at the first question:

I was wondering how likely is it for a site to become the #1 search result on the search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN)? This depends on many factors. Some that come to mind are:

Content – how often are you updating your content? Are you using consistent keywords that makes the search engines recognize your site as focused on a topic?

Search Engine Optimized – is your site optimized for search engines? Network Solutions offers this service.

Titles & the first paragraph – I think this is more important than tags. (I don’t tag anything on my personal blog). But a strong succinct title with key words is awesome for catching search engines. I have found titles like Twitter 101 and Blogging 101 to be very effective. Think about what people would search for in your niche then use that. Think like your readers. Ask them what you should write about. And you should also focus your first paragraph on keywords.

Images – hosting your photos in Flickr allows you to add tags & then search engines see those tags also.

Inbound links – how many links are you including to other highly influential sites? You can use a search in Technorati to find blog posts that have a high authority on the topic that you’re writing about. Use one link per paragraph. And if you link to influencers then it may catch their attention & cause them to link to you (which is called back linking)

Back links – When others link to you that also increases your presence online.

Competition – how many people are in your niche? One trick I’ve found that works well is to have a weekly post on a set of links to related articles.  I title it ‘community strategy links’. Community strategy was heavily dominated by sites in the UK, but I’ve moved up to the 2nd page on Google search results now.

Common misspellings – My name is commonly misspelled so I did two things. I purchased both domain names: www.conniebensen.com and www.conniebenson.com. But I also had to use Connie Benson in a few blog posts to get the search engines to notice it. (I generally don’t misspell my own name, so for one post I actually blogged about it. But you can blog about something & post it with an earlier date).

Those are my tricks of the trade. So why would anyone want to work so hard? Well if having your business online be successful is important to you, then yes SEO is very important. For me I’ve chosen to have a career of working online. A couple of weeks ago I received an email from a conference organizer that found me thru Google. My blog came up & as a result I have a speaking opportunity.

Additional reading:

Performance Related SEO In An Economic Downturn

and Network Solutions offers ongoing webinars & sessions on SEO

It looks like I need to answer the rest of the questions in future posts What are your SEO tricks? Please share – I gave you my best!

We just put up a good write up on when you should utilize e-mail marketing for your business. You can find the full article here.

Below is the summary:

Much has been written in the past about e-mail marketing over the last few years and it has become a popular channel to communicate with customers and market your products and/or services.

The concept of e-mail marketing started as people sending text messages through ListServ’s that communicated with a group that gave their permission to get the messages and participate in the responses. Slowly, people started to creep into these group e-mail services and promote their services that quickly got them banned. So they started to send those e-mails to people randomly and the concept of SPAM was born.

There are great tips and tricks out there on the nuances of do’s and don’ts so your e-mails are received and read versus being treated as spam and ignored. But where and why should you utilize e-mail marketing in your business?

For the rest of the article, go to MySolutionSpot.com and check it out here.

We’ve have made it a company wide focus to request feedback from customers and review it on a daily basis. We’re paying close attention to our customers concerns, issues and ideas and are working on some easier ways for you to talk to us. For example, our social media team gathers all feedback from this blog and shares it company-wide and we’re also using social media tools like Twitter ( You can send a message to @netsolcares).

The other two initiatives in Roy’s letter include::

MySolutionSpot.com – networking and educational resource
Small Business Newsletter – monthly educational newsletter – Sign up Today!

Roy expresses our vision & how we’re investing our resources to provide more services. Did you see the email ? Please leave your comments here on the blog. They do make a difference! In case you didn’t see the email here it is :

————–

Dear Network Solutions® Customers,

As the new CEO of Network Solutions, I am delighted to make your acquaintance and thank you for giving us the opportunity to serve your online business needs.

At Network Solutions, our goal is to provide the tools and resources to help small businesses and Web professionals successfully build and grow their business online. We recognize the value of listening to the voice of our customer, as it is your opinions and suggestions that help us prioritize our future product and service enhancements.

For example, you told us the importance of having access to educational resources to help optimize your online business.

Because of this feedback, we recently launched two new initiatives:

MySolutionSpot.com – networking and educational resource
Small Business Newsletter – monthly educational newsletter

In addition, over the next few months I look forward to announcing additional initiatives that will benefit our small business owner and Web Professional customers. Meanwhile, I invite you to share your feedback and suggestions with us about your Network Solutions experience. Provide Your Feedback

I look forward to hearing from you, and invite you to take a moment to explore our new customer resources, as well as our new corporate Web site.

Thank you again for allowing us to serve your business needs.

Regards,
W. Roy Dunbar
CEO, Network Solutions