Separate Your Tasks for the Best Results!

Separate Your Tasks for the Best Results!

11 September 2009 11 Comments

Many of us, myself included, get hung up on ALL the combined aspects of building a niche website, that we try to do everything at once! When RankSpankers comes to life, the one thing you will immediately notice is that everything I am doing, is done in very “Methodical and Logical Stages“. So what does that mean?

Separating Tasks for Best Results and Least Frustration!

Shhh… this is a secret! A secret that will not only save you time, but makes sure your niche product website will do its best, right out of the gate!

1 – Building The Site Blueprint- If you Have No BluePrint, You Have no Plan!

When you start planning your website – do ONLY that! Plan your site based on what people are buying and what your site is about! The ONLY important aspect of planning your website is that when you are done, you have a list of ALL the pages and ALL the Product Reviews & Guides your site will contain.

ELIMINATE SEO from this part of your site building… that comes LATER! You are not building a site for search engines, you are building a site that provides information for readers, and every page of your site should support the READER, not the search traffic!! (This step is a featured section of the RankSpankers Website – Stay Tuned!)

If you are outsourcing your content, submit it to your writer and forget about it, for now.

Step 1 Complete – 2 Hours.

2 – Build Your Site Structure

Once you have settled on your site blueprint, the next logical step is to build the foundation for your site. When I use WordPress, (Most Often) this is when I handle the install through Fantastico, install my plugins, create the category structure and almost every aspect of building a site on the WordPress backend.

Keep in mind that WordPress has a “Privacy” setting (Admin > Settings > Privacy) that you can use to block ALL search engine spiders for now, as a matter of fact… its now turned ON by default!

Step 2 Complete – 1 Hour.

3 – Create Your Content Titles

After you have the backend completely setup the way I want, I actually populate ALL of my page and post titles in place! Copying them from my BluePrint is simple and easy enough, and within 1-2 hours, ALL of my sites structure is completed, and I can review how it will flow to visitors.

Again, I am NOT paying any attention to SEO at this point in my page or post titles! They are what they are… and the main thing, is that they need to instruct a visitor to EXACTLY what content is included on that page! SEO is a separate process… that we will get to AFTER the site building is complete!

Step 3 Completed – 1-2 Hours.

4 – Source, Edit and Upload ALL Product Images

At this point in my site build, I usually spend a few hours sourcing ALL images at one sitting! It makes it much easier, since I am not piecing it together on the fly… opening new windows, tasking between applications, etc.

I Sit down with my Site BluePrint and go on the hunt! By the time I am done, usually 2-3 hours later, I have 100% of all my product review images uploaded and applied to their respective posts.

Step 4 – Completed in 2-3 Hours.

5 – Add the Post Content Once you Have ALL Of It!!

If you use a service like TextBroker, you can expect to have all your content back within a day or two, unless you choose a specific author for ALL your content. (Which is what I do)

Store your content in a text file as it is coming in… and ONLY when you have all of it, should you jump over and put it onto the site. You would be surprized how much time you waste opening and closing windows, when you post it as it arrives. I use my site blueprint for storing ALL the content to the site and once its complete, only then do I jump back into the admin and post it all to the respective titles.

Step 5 – Completed in 3-4 Hours.

The End Result…

For myself, I like breaking these tasks into separate days or sessions for many reasons:

I Don’t Get Bored with one Site when I break it into several days!
I STILL get things done while waiting for Content!
I am never jumping from window to window, task to task in the same session! Its like working in a factory… doing piece assembly… focusing on ONE SMALL part at a time!
I don’t lose a full day on one site, and can work on several sites in one day!
I OFTEN come up with different ideas during one step or another, that are easily implemented sitewide!
I am very Task Oriented, and have a starting and ending point to each task, thus I feel like I have accomplished something!
Its EASIER to track where you are on a site build!

I could go on and on… but the bottom line is that “It Just Works!” By following a repetitive protocal on every site build, you will begin to get super-efficient at each task you complete, taking far less time on the next site!

Repetition turns to habit… habit turns to productivity… increased productivity turns to money!

11 Comments »

Jon said:

I’m still getting started with the N1WAY method to building my sites, so I’ve been thinking about creating a checklist in OneNote for each site. However I never considered batching tasks together (like finding all product images in one sitting). That’s a great idea!

Reply – Quote

Post Comment #1, 11 September 2009 at 5:37 pm

Rochelle said:

Agreed! It is much better for me, mentally, to combine tasks and focus on one thing at a time. For me, it helps because there is a definite sense of completion as each step is done. That feels good!

Rochelle

Reply – Quote

Post Comment #2, 11 September 2009 at 10:33 pm

Dave said:

Great post Mark cheers!

Its soooo easy to get bogged down when niche site building so breaking it up into smaller achievable pieces is far more rewarding…

I havent touched my 1st finished N1Way site as have had other work commitments, had a look at it and its made its first sale after about 3 weeks live (about 4gbp) so fingers crossed it does ok.

cheers again

dave

Reply – Quote

Post Comment #3, 12 September 2009 at 6:20 am

Niche Store Journey said:

This is some GREAT stuff Mark:

I have recently re-read both the N1Way Guide and all your posts here on this new blog, and I am going to recommit myself into getting a few stores done soon!

I fell into the same trap as many other marketers. Falling in love with my sites trying to do much MORE than is necessary. While being a perfectionist is not necessarily a bad trait, it certainly is not conducive to getting work done as a niche store builder!

More than anything, your writing as well as the N1Way Guide really shows me that it really *IS* as simple as sitting down with a concrete plan, executing that plan, and then leaving the resulting site the heck alone for a while and moving on with your life.

Sounds easy… But don’t most things?

Reply – Quote

Post Comment #4, 12 September 2009 at 7:21 am

Ben said:

Mark
Another great tip from the master – thanks so much!

The biggest problem I had building my site was the jumping back and forth between various webpages, such as when I was adding images while trying to build the site at the same time. Very inefficient. Your idea of getting things together while the content is being created (assuming one can outsource this) hits the nail on the head.

Thanks again – go Panthers!!!

Ben P

Reply – Quote

Post Comment #5, 12 September 2009 at 8:49 am

Nadiya said:

This puts it all in place. I am guilty of being all over the place with the different aspects and you are correct in the waste of time that occurs and then the frustration which is my own doing. Mantra is now super-efficiency!!!!! Great Post! And thank you for all the help and assistance you continuously provide.

Reply – Quote

Post Comment #6, 12 September 2009 at 2:01 pm

Caroline said:

Super duper post, Mark.

I have to admit I am guilty myself of jumping all over the place, from task to task, when building a site. Quite a time waster, I can assure you.

t’s so easy when you have a step-by-step guide to follow, such as you’ve laid out. It’s like the difference between driving to a given destination when you’ve got a map (or GPS) to follow compared to driving blindly at night with no headlights on and no idea where you are going!

You may get where you want to go eventually but it will take you alot longer and be whole heck of alot more frustrating then if you had sat down and plotted out your course!

Caro

Reply – Quote

Post Comment #7, 12 September 2009 at 2:14 pm