Marketing on a Shoestring

It is with a heavy heart that I bring you the news that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has died an untimely death. I am not saying that you should not due some basic SEO for the main keywords on your website, What I am saying is that SEO does not hold the power that it once had. In SEO, Google controls the market and they change their ranking methods and algorithms so often that it has become nearly impossible to maintain a consistent search engine ranking.

I know that you have seen many promotions for getting a number one ranking on the search engines. For a rather substantial fee, they will guarantee top search engine rankings. These methods do work but, you can do the same thing yourself. All you have to do is find a keyword that nobody is searching for and voila-instant search engine success. Of course, if nobody is looking for that keyword, it still doesn’t improve your site traffic.

Go ahead and do some basic SEO but don’t kill yourself trying to get that number one position. The time that you spent on SEO would have been just as effective as spitting into the wind. Time is the most valuable commodity that you have and there are much more effective ways to get traffic to your website.

Instead of wasting your time on SEO, concentrate on Shoestring Marketing strategies. Write articles, blog, social network, YouTube, press releases, forum market etc. These are proven methods of driving traffic to your site and are not subject to the vagaries of Search Engine Optimization. Certainly, do some basic SEO but devote the bulk of your time on stratigies that are proven to build your traffic.

If you have taken the route of Marketing on a Shoestring, time management is one of the key factors for your success. One of the easiest ways to find more time in your day is to click on the unsubscribe link on the email lists that you belong to. It is simple and quick and will save you countless wasted hours.

Certainly, I am not saying that you should unsubscribe from every list that you belong to, only the ones that are not giving you useful content. All they are doing is wasting your time. The lists that I am talking about are the ones that the last piece of good information you received from them was the free ebook that came with your opt-in. If fact, I now offer a free ebook just for reading my opt-in page without a registration requirement. Then when someone does join my newsletter, I have developed a much more responsive reader.

If you look at the number of emails that you have received all promising to give you the secrets to the internet kingdom and really give you nothing more than a blatant series of non-stop propositions, they are just wasting your time. In the long run, if you are only getting promos and not content, just unsubscribe. This way you don’t have to spend the time checking out the emails individually and you will end up with a lot more time saved in your daily routine.

I subscribe to every list that comes down the line in hopes that it is one of the good ones that will help me build my business. After just one or two emails, you know if you are going to get real content or it is just a waste of your time. My subscriptions to email lists has now been dropped down to about a dozen good content filled newsletters and all the rest have gone the way of the dinosaur.

As a Shoestring Marketer, your time is the most valuable commodity that you have, don’t waste it having to sort though a jungle of worthless promotions every day. Just hit the unsubscribe link and put your time to better use.

Time Flies and Then You Die. You only have three basic things that you can use to build and market your business-money, knowledge and time. You can always get more money,you can always study and build your knowledge but time can not be created. You have a limited amount of time and if you don’t use it wisely, you can kiss your hopes of internet success a sweet goodbye.

Right now, you might be thinking, “Oh no, not another lecture on time management.” You are right. You can control your time and use it wisely to build your business or you can waste it on any of a myriad of distractions and lose it forever. It is your choice-use your time or lose your time. Either way, it is the one thing in marketing that you can not create more of.

There are many methods and systems that you can use to manage your time and in order to accomplish anything on the internet, you must adopt one of them. It is far too easy to start reading your email in the morning and get sidetracked and end up clicking on numerous links, wasting many non-productive hours on the internet and the important things that will build your business get passed over.

Then you look back at your day and wonder how you could have been so busy and still didn’t get anything accomplished. The answer is simple, you did not put a priority on the things that build your business and spent your valuable time doing essentially nothing.

Personally, I sit down each evening and plan out my next day. It goes something like this.

0600-0620 Check email and read and respond to emails that are urgent or might help build my business. The rest are set aside for my slack time.

0620-0700 Write 2 to three articles and submit them to the article directories. At this time, I also add them to my blog and on Monday, I select my best article of the week to send out it to my list.

0700-0800 This hour is devoted to blog and forum commenting. It is important that you comment daily as the blogs and forums are very important in building your online reputation.

0800-0900 At this point in the morning, I spend my time in the social networking circles-My Space, Myface and Squidoo. These social networks are becoming increasingly important in online business building. Although I have started these just recently, I have found them to be an important adjunct to my other marketing methods.

These are the most important things that I do and I have accomplished them by nine in the morning. The day is already a success and now I can go back and look at my emails, surf the net and scope out new and interesting business opportunities. You may have more that you have to do, if so, put it in your schedule.

This method works for me. You may find some other method of time management. It really doesn’t matter which method you use as long as you can look back at your day with a feeling of accomplishment. Our time on earth is limited. When Mr. Death knocks on your door, he is not going to give you the time that you need to write one more article or make a blog/forum comment. Your time has run out. The only question is did you make good use of it or did you fritter it away surfing the net.