When you start out promoting your website, one of the first things you need to learn to do is to be organized. The following 5 tips are some things you can do to get more organized:
Knowing where stuff is
Knowing where your stuff is, is a first step toward reducing clutter and confusion. A desk that has a million things on it is bad enough, but where most online marketing happens in the digital realm, so your file system must be logical.
Keep your desktop free from all those icons. Consolidate them into folders so that finding them will be easier. When you plan to save a lot of information, save them into a logical folder structure.
To illustrate the effectiveness of this for example, take a look at the following folder structure that I use for organizing each web site that I run (click image to enlarge):
Just by glancing at the folder structure, you should immediately know what’s inside. So, I create what is called a template folder. Looking at the location of this folder, it is inside the D drive which I call DATA, then inside the WEBSITES folder, where all my website source files etc are kept. The template folder structure is just called ‘FOLDER STRUCTURE’ and I keep a copy of that with empty folders, so each time I create a new website, I copy that folder and rename it to the domain name of the site.
I know what assets and files I need for each site, so it’s just a matter of logically organizing them. Go no further than 3 levels deep if you can. You just need to create the structure that works for you, but most importantly, be consistent. Consistently saving files in the same logical locations will make them very easy to find and you wont frustrate yourself with a clutter of inconsistent disorganized mess.
Every source image file is saved in the IMAGES>SOURCE folder, once you’re ready to export it for the web (optimized of-course) you save a copy in the WEB READY folder. Similarly, all social media images, post details are stored inside the SEO folder and broken down by the social media type.
Set a goal and stick to it
When you first start a new web site, it can be very daunting and overwhelming when you look at all of the marketing tactics you should be doing. Setting short term goals that are realistic and achievable is a good way to encourage yourself. When you can visibly see the completion of a goal or an objective, it gives you a sense of accomplishment.
Write them down! For example: If you have a blog, set a goal to make several posts each month. You organize your goals into degrees of importance and use a calendar to plan specific times for specific tasks. Stick to it!
I like using Google calendar myself to document what I have worked on or completed and can go back and see how much progress I have made or set objectives for the next week etc. The trick is to force yourself to do something, even if you don’t feel like it. This is probably the most important quality, I believe that successful people possess. The art of self discipline, not intelligence is what propels people past others.
Perform tasks systematically and automate as much as possible. I cannot begin to tell you how many countless hours I have saved by automating tasks.
Repetition is necessary in the beginning when you’re trying to get the process down of how you do something, but once you’ve mastered it you need to work on methods of automation.
For example: Checking my ranking in search engines used to be a laborious task, until I started researching various tools and testing them. Eventually I came across Rank tracker, which is such a time saver, its worth many times more than the small investment. Investing money in software or researching free alternatives to speeding up your tasks, is a worthwhile investment when you really start to calculate what your time is worth. And this brings me to my next point.
What is your time worth?
Part of improving efficiency and organization is putting a value on your time. You need to be realistic about what your strengths and weaknesses are. Knowing this will help you to know what you should get someone else to do. You can spend several hours working on creating graphics that end up looking sub par for your site or you can spend a couple of dollars to outsource the job to an expert on Odesk or Fiverr, and move on to something else that you can be more efficient at.
Even for someone on a very small budget, you can get some good quality work outsourced. Isolate those manually laborious tasks that cant be automated, but that suck time out of your day and either set a dedicated portion of your time to do it, or outsource it.
Keep it clean
Many programmers often refer to doing housekeeping as the practice of organizing code, files and folders and keeping them uncluttered and neat. If you’re a developer or designer, then keep your code clean and neat.
Document everything well so that 6 months from now when you’re looking at the code, you will know exactly what you did or what your thought process was at the time. On a more basic level, don’t keep old images that you’re not going to use lying around. Delete them.
Putting things in their proper places, instead of placing them on your desktop for convenience, is a practice that you must master. If you have a clean file structure, no unnecessary clutter, you will be much more efficient and not waste time when you need to find something in a folder that you’ve not been in for a while.
Naturally, there are just so much more that could be said on this subject and for some it will come a little easier. I hope these steps help you as much as they have helped me over the years.