Who remembers that memorable quote from Spiderman? (see left) “With great power comes great responsibility“. As an SEO Expert, you tend to know everything that it takes to rank your website or page for whatever keyword you choose, this is a great skill, and certainly a power to be reckoned with. I know. My competition know as well. However, it is not always as simple as throwing a few links here and there and hoping for the best, especially if we own a handful of websites, tracking everything is a huge task in itself. It is indeed your responsibility to be on track of everything that you do, where you send links, how you earn them, and so on and so forth.
One of the hardest lessons of SEO that I have ever learned is to make sure that above all else, you have a process that is repeatable time and time again, however, this notion is completely useless, unless you can track absolutely everything that you do, and at what stage of your campaign you are at. This is what would hands down have to be the SEO secret that most people seems to know, but never implement.
Let me tell you. Since I started monitoring where I am sending links, how I am earning them, where the are coming from, even down to the anchor text that I have used, my productivity has shot through the roof, and yours will too.
So, How Can I Monitor My Campaigns?
As a preference, I tend to use Google Docs. I have one account that I use, and I monitor everything from there. Although many people will argue that Google Docs is not the best option, for me and anyone who works for me, it certainly comes with ease of use. I will simply categorise my websites in to several documents, and tailor a method of attack for each specific site dependant on the niche, and the overall outcome that I want to achieve with that site.
Another great service that you can use (and is also completely free!) is Dropbox. This is a cloud based storage service that is compatible between your PC, Mac, and even other devices such as your iPhone, and your iPad. What this means is that, you can upload spreadsheets and documents that can be edited in real time, and can be stored for future reference, even mounted as a hard disk on your PC or Mac depending on your skill level. As I already mentioned, it is completely free to use, I use it too, you can sign up for an account here.
This Is A Great Way To Upscale As Well!
If there is one great lesson that I ever learned from Lynn Terry, it is this. Upscaling too late is seriously painful. What I mean by this is that when you are ready to outsource in order to move forward with your online business, if you have to upscale your business at this point, it is one of the worst situations you will ever find yourself in.
Imagine this. Imagine that in order to move forward you need to hire a few assistants to help share the load. Imagine at the same time that you never created a central area to track assistants, and your campaigns. This is hands down one of the hardest situations that you will (may) find yourself in.
It is in this respect that I recommend setting up a system where you can track your efforts. Remember this. A repeatable system of SEO is probably the biggest SEO secret of all time, and has set up some of the best experts in great careers online.
Here is just some of what I reccomend tracking:
- Your step by step method of building links
- Where you have earned links
- Where you have created video
- The pages on your websites, and what keywords you are focusing on
…and there is plenty more that I can recommend, but the truth is that it will probably not be tailored to your specific site and niche.
So, as a plan of action for today, go and start using Google Docs, or sign up for an account with Dropbox, and if you have any questions, you can always contact me.
