Welcome to Day 12 of the Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!
Today we’ll give the search engines time to time to find, enjoy and index the bait we planted for them yesterday.
And while we do so, we’ll clean up another time waster and mental clutter creator that can suck away productivity.
DAY 12 OBJECTIVE
Clear and organize our internet marketing related files.
DAY 12 ASSIGNMENT
Most folks in this business have a multitude of scripts, PLR products and articles, training courses, graphics packages, site templates and all sorts of other files thay’ve collected over time.
And many times, we know we have a particular tutorial or graphic we’d like to use, but it can take a while to find it.
Today we’ll (1) eliminate unnecessary files and (2) organize those remaining so we can find them quickly and easily.
ELIMINATION
Go through all your internet marketing related files (I keep a folder on my hard drive titled “Revolution Tilt” and that’s were everything related to IM goes). Delete anything and everything that is outdated, no longer works, that disappointed you on purchase because it was something you already knew upside down and backwards, that never worked in the first place.
I found a huge package of MRR products and software I’d gotten when I was new in marketing. 99% of the contents of that folder are so outdated it would nearly be a crime to sell or give them away. DELETED!
Old versions of scripts – GONE!
This is simple. Be brutal. Be critical. Be narrow minded. Just DELETE!
(If you’re really nervous about this, put everything you want to delete in a separate folder labeled “To Delete.” After a month, I bet you haven’t needed ANYTHING that was in it. Then you can delete it with confidence.)
ORGANIZATION
I’ll show you the method that has evolved and worked for me over the years with some explanation. You can emulate it or adapt it to your unique circumstances. The point is to have everything categorized in some fashion that makes sense to you.
As I mentioned earlier, I have a main folder for anything related to internet marketing, it’s labeled ‘Revolution Tilt’ because that’s my company name.
Within that folder are the folders pictured above. Let’s go over them:
- Graphics: Holds site templates, “Buy Now” buttons, RSS icons, etc. Whenever I need anything related to design, I know to look here. Graphics are organized into subfolders as well, so if I need bullets for a salepage, I just look in the ‘bullets’ folder.
- Keyword Research: All my Market Samurai data files go in here, as well as any /csv or text lists of keywords I may have exported.
- Products & Resources: This is where any kind of training materials are kept, as well as scripts (like Amember). I organize training materials in folders labeled with the author’s name, it’s easier to remember than each individual product name.
- Swipe – Example Sites: In here are sites I’ve done a “Save Page As”. They might just be really nice design concepts, or they might have a particular element I like. Some are just really great salespages and copy. (I maintain a label in my Gmail account for email copy swipes too.)
- Wordpress: Since most of my sites are operated on Wordpress, I keep a bunch of plugins in the Wordpress folder that I use most often. This is just so I don’t have to re-download them (and remember them all!) when I have a new site to put up.
- Accounting: Records related to finances and accounting.
- Pics: Mostly just stuff from conferences, pics of me w/ other marketer friends, etc.
- Sites & Projects: Each site or project I’m involved with gets a folder under this folder. So everything for this blog is in a “Michelle MacPhearson” folder, everything for Crowd Mountain is in a “Crowd Mountain” folder, etc. Depending on the site, I may have several subfolders. For Crowd Mountain, I have folders for each Bootcamp Module, folders the monthly Niche Trailheads, etc. But for every site, there is always a subfolder named ‘Website’ where the sites core files are kept. It’s another backup should I have a server failure, and it makes editing any files that are on the server easy, as I don’t have to re-download them.
- TO LISTEN: This folder has random MP3’s and videos I’d like to watch or listen to, all related to marketing. When I’m working on something like writing a blog post, I don’t like any external noise, but for other tasks I might be involved in I usually find something in this folder to listen to while I work. When I’ve absorbed the info, I delete it!
This system has worked for me and you should be able to adapt it for your own business as well.
I keep all my files in a “Dropbox” folder. Dropbox is a utility (for both Mac & PC) that automatically syncs files across multiple machines. So whether I’m at my home computer, office machine or a laptop anywhere in between, all the files I need are accessible. For these same portability reasons, I also use Gmail and Google Docs, as they can be accessed anywhere.
Being able to find the files you need will increase day-to-day productivity and also clean out your mental clutter and to-do list. Make a point of completing this today!
ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER
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- Search Engine BaitThis entry is part 12 of 23 in the series...
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That’s odd, I never got the e-mail for Day 12, I just found this post when looking through the Week 2 Recap.
Ironically, I did organize my desktop a few weeks ago, as I had dozens of eBooks and other IM-related materials cluttering things up.
Keep up the great work!
This is great! I just did the same thing after you recommended several WordPress plug-ins. I realized that my general plugins folders was too cluttered with experimental junk (deleted!) which would make it hard for me to remember the essential plugins.
Here is something else I do with WordPress files:
I have a Wordpress folder that has all my themes.
Each website that I maintain has its own folder. Each website folder has a Theme Mods folder, where I store tweaked php files. If a file gets messed up, I just upload the original from the WordPress Themes folder.
Cheers,
Mitch
Hi Michelle,
Once again, great information.
This may be the greatest problem for Imers.
I too, use dropbox and google docs because I
live alternating at each end of Australia (mostly winter and summer)and that is
a huge commute!
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