Today’s guest post is by Elizabeth J. Agnew:

Six Sustainable Productivity Solutions
by Elizabeth J. Agnew, MS, PE

Invest in the planning
Managers spend a fair amount of time planning out how a project will be completed, by who and when. There are university degrees in this – it matters. You can do this for your day. The return on your time investment will far outweigh the cost. A benefit is that you’re revisiting your goals each time you put them in your schedule, revisiting your intentions, and setting your mind up for success. You maintain that future perspective.

Create a skeleton structure
You probably already have a feel for how you’d like a typical day to go. Create a structure that would repeat either on a daily or weekly cycle.

Separate and allocate productive content and maintenance content
What you do includes project work, or content, and administration. Match when you do each to your natural inclinations and energy levels. You can lump maintenance or administrative content so that, in the end, it too will feel like a project.

You are the ultimate master!
Making a schedule doesn’t bind you to it. You remain in control, and there’s no reason to feel guilty if something comes up and you have to abandon it, or choose to abandon it. It’s simply a statement of intentions, or a roadmap representing ideal at the time of its creation.

Estimate conservatively
When you sit down to plan your day, you’ll be surprised at how much you can theoretically get done. Double the time you think each task will take, and limit yourself to 3 or 4 projects per day. If you’ve looked at the bigger picture, you will see how just a couple of projects per day adds up to larger overall goals.

All you have is now
When you can’t focus, it’s because you are not putting your energy on the task at hand. But the irony is, the task at hand is the only task you have, because the past is merely a memory, and the future just a dream! Keep your energy on what you’re doing right now. That will help you get it done.

Elizabeth J. Agnew, MS, PE
Vision, Goal, Action. Coaching
www.vgacoaching.com
Phone: 650.326.1751

Liz coaches engineers and other technically minded people on how to develop into successful leaders. The coaching process opens the doors of discovering the 9 elements above. Personal foundation, life vision, relationships, and behavior patterns are explored to leverage strengths and create new effective ways of being. She offers complimentary coaching consultations – call or email today to schedule yours.

This resource on Developing Your Website: Tools for Women goes through the following ideas in a series of posts.

1) Introduction
2) Parts of a Website (domain names, hosting, mailing lists)
3) Content Management
4) Free and Open Source solutions
5) Design and user interface
6) Payment processing
7) Networking (online and offline)
8) Generating revenue online: Google Adsense, affiliate programs, members-only content and other ways to make money
9) Reviewing your Data by using Reporting
10) Updating your site with Timely Content

Prior Links:
Parts 1 and 2
Parts 3, 4, and 5
Part 6

Today’s post is focused on Part 7: Networking, Part 8: Generating Revenue Online, Part 9: Reviewing your Data, and Part 10: Updating your site with Timely Content

Part 7: Networking

When you’re first starting out, a large part of your success depends on the circle of associates you are part of: your networking abilities help foster (or hinder) your ability to receive referrals to new customers.

As your business grows and as your website becomes more “mature,” with additional links and more updated content, you’ll want to develop good connections with other professionals who are natural allies to your business. For example, as a real estate agent, you’ll want to have established working relationships with a mortgage broker or loan officer, assessor, handyperson, printer, gift baskets provider, attorney, and coach. Then you all may link to each other, both online and offline!

I highly recommend that you allocate at least 10% of your time towards increasing your circle of associates. Offline, this may take the form of attending networking events like Chamber mixers and BNI meetings, “power-lunching” with others who share your values, attending industry-specific events, conferences, or seminars, or finding a MeetUp group that suits your preferences. Online, this may take the form of answering questions on Linkedin, participating in a discussion board or listserve group, or updating your Facebook or MySpace portfolio.

Important Note
Your circle of associates determines your ability to find customers who “fit” what you are selling. Who are your natural allies? Identify your circle and foster strong connections within that circle.

Questions to Answer:
What sets you apart from others?

How can you help other people within your network?

Who would you like to contact or make friends with? What’s your plan for finding those associates/friends?

Part 8: Generating Revenue Online

If you are setting up an online business only, and you anticipate that your website will be your primary place of business rather than a brick-and-mortar location, you’ll want to sell through multiple channels on your website.

Some items to consider include:

1) Your physical or virtual product or service that you are marketing through your website. For example, if you are a jewelry seller, you may display your finest pieces in your online store. If you are a tradesperson, you will offer a gallery of your handiwork or past work you’ve done for others. If you are selling a product, you offer “buy now” buttons on your website.

2) Adsense: Google Adsense is an easy way to add revenue to your site through small content-specific ads. These are targeted ads that display in a section that you specify on your site, and the ads are served and processed by Google. google.com/adsense.

3) Sponsored reviews: If you offer a review service or some other way to highlight products and services on your site, specify what you accept for the review process.

4) Affiliate programs: There are multiple services where you may become an affiliate and receive a small portion of any sales that are initiated through your link. For example, you may consider reselling products from my website, A Successful Woman, and receiving a 20% commission of the value of any products or services sold.

5) Members-only content: In some cases, you may be able to charge a membership fee for the ability to access “members-only” content on your website. Do you have certain items, products, freebies, downloads, or articles that your visitors would be willing to pay a small fee for? Find a way to organize that information into something that works for your customers.

6) Ongoing specials or coupons: what can you offer? Your brain will help you come up with many different offerings that you may convert into income streams. For example, can you identify three items that you may sell that are helpful or valuable to your customers? Through my web design business, we also sell web hosting, logo design, and print design. I’m sure you can find three additional items that support your customers for your own business or project.

7) I’m offering 99 ways for you to generate online revenue through my blog postings: http://www.asuccessfulwoman.com/success/tags/99-ideas-to-generate-online-revenue/… I hope you’ll subscribe to my blog to keep posted with these. Feel free to contact me and share some ideas that have worked for you, too! info (at) a successful woman (dot) com.

Questions to Answer:
How much do you want your website to gross for you each month? What breakdown will be from physical products, personal services, and/or website advertising?

What types of advertising, if any, are you willing to accept on your website? Ads served from outside parties? Ads served through an ad network? Ads that only you organize or offer?

What constitutes a successful website for you?

Part 9: Reviewing your Data

Hands down, the best service that I’ve found is Google Analytics google.com/analytics, a free way to receive data reports about who is visiting your website. This requires you to sign up with an account, and then install a little “snippet” of code into the footer of your web pages. When a visitor comes to your website, the little “snippet” counts your users and the time they spend on the site, what pages they visit, etc. and creates weekly reports for your review.

You may see a sample Analytics report for the ASuccessfulWoman.com website here:
sample report.

Notice things like the total number of unique visitors, the time spent on the site, and the pages visited.

With this data, you get a good sense of how visitors find you (through the search engines? through links from other websites? through e-mail?) and what types of pages are your most commonly-visited pages.

This data then gives you ways to either update your most commonly-visited pages or provide even more targeted information to make your visitors’ experience smooth and straightforward.

Questions to Answer:
Are you able to update your content in response to your reports?

What pages do your visitors tend to congregate around? Can you make that page content even more engaging?

How can you make your site “stickier” for visitors (for example, by adding related pages)?

Part 10: Updating your site with Timely Content

I’ve found that as my website content loses its “freshness,” the amount of time visitors spend on the site decreases.

To make an immediate impact and to keep your site fresh, you’ll want to add content, content, content.

Some ways to add additional content to your website include*:

• Blog posts
• Photo gallery or visitor photo gallery
• Event calendar or visitor event calendar
• Latest press releases
• Latest newsletter
• Recent projects or upcoming projects
• RFP list
• Job opportunities or volunteer opportunities
• News archive
• White papers
• Published articles
• Member highlights
• Customer highlights
• Story of the month
• Notes from our director
• Seasonal announcement
• Staff profile
• Latest volunteer projects or newest volunteers
• Industry news
• Company announcements
• Recent awards
• Who’s who
• Expert analysis
• Charitable giving report

*These ideas and more are in my book, ‘Fifty-one Ways to Build your Community of Clients Online’, available in e-book format and on Amazon.com.

What I’ve found is that you may make more of an impact when you share your knowledge: what do you know about and what types of ideas may you discuss with authority because of your life experience, your beliefs, or your values?

For example: a chef may talk about nutrition, ingredient sourcing, good local restaurants, ways to combine flavors, and sample recipes. A landscaper may talk about flowering plants, native plants, bush and hedge combinations, garden layout, soil composition, pest control, and ideas for the next spring season. There are so many opportunities for you to share your knowledge, I highly recommend you find something you really want to share and identify a place for it on your website. For me, I use these postings and integrate them into my “resources” section for my business, 10K Webdesign, so I have a multitude of links and how-to articles in one section.

What are you able to share? Find ways to integrate those into your website for maximum success in keeping your site updated with timely content.

This resource on Developing Your Website: Tools for Women goes through the following ideas in a series of posts.

1) Introduction
2) Parts of a Website (domain names, hosting, mailing lists)
3) Content Management
4) Free and Open Source solutions
5) Design and user interface
6) Payment processing
7) Networking (online and offline)
8) Generating revenue online: Google Adsense, affiliate programs, members-only content and other ways to make money
9) Reviewing your Data by using Reporting
10) Updating your site with Timely Content

Prior Links:
Parts 1 and 2

Today’s post includes Part 3: Content Management and Part 4: Free and Open Source solutions, and Part 5: Design and user interface.

Part 3: Content Management

When you focus on the part of your business that you know best, you free up your web developer, copywriter, or marketing communications consultant to assist you in communicating that vision. If you’re the person tasked with developing the company’s website, your goal is to pull together all the information relevant to the business into a site map or website document that clearly details the different pages and the page content for each page.

If you don’t have a clear vision of how the business is put together, your web designer or other support staff and vendors may not be able to help you effectively.

Ideally, you are able to set up your website with a content management system (CMS) so you may make your own changes moving forward (instead of having to wait for the web developer to make changes, edits, and updates).

Why update your content regularly?
Your page content gets assigned a “timestamp” that assists the search engine in understanding if that page is “timely” or if it’s outdated. The more recent page content you have, the more “relevant” that page is and the higher your site’s overall ranking.

Check your site’s page ranking here:
http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php
Page rank goes up to 10, with a higher number being an indicator of a very well-linked site that is highly relevant with useful information.

What kind of content should I post?
Any kind of content that helps your customers make a decision is helpful content. This may include things like Frequently-Asked Questions, checklists, white papers, resource articles, or information about your field or industry. Try and keep a neutral tone when providing this type of content, as hype or advertising copy may actually turn off your customer. Stick with general information and information specific to your processes and procedures.

Ideas for content
Here is a list of helpful content that you might consider posting on your website from my book, “Fifty-one Ways to Build your Community of Clients Online:”

• Daily or weekly news in your target area
• Notes on your business process
• News that affects your clients
• Books, articles, or magazines with a review of why it’s important
• Events that you or your company attended, organized, or led
• Events from associations or membership groups
• Event calendar for your region
• Initiatives within your company
• Charitable drives, auctions, or events
• Blog entries in your content area (do a web search on “Blog on _______” and fill in your topic area)
• How-to articles
• Photo gallery
• Visitor photo gallery
• Latest press releases
• Latest newsletter
• Recent projects or Upcoming projects
• Job opportunities or Volunteer opportunities
• White papers for informational or educational purposes
• Staff or Member highlights
• Story of the month
• Notes from the CEO, Director, or Board Chair
• Seasonal announcements
• Staff profiles
• Latest volunteer projects or newest volunteers
• Company announcements
• Recent awards
• …. and much, much more

One question I always ask myself before posting:
So what?

Here’s your article or news resource or your latest updated page…. so what?
Does it help your customer or build your community of clients?

If so, then it is useful.

If it’s not useful, doesn’t fulfill a need, or is just more marketing messaging, consider dropping it and waiting until you have something helpful and useful to share. Quality content is much better then a barrage of useless, “hyped,” or marketing-speak information.

Separation of design and content
Because of CMS setups, most people are able to make updates to their page content without having to wait for the web designer to make the change.

Here are some screenshots of the back-end of Wordpress: this is very easy software which I use to manage the ASuccessfulWoman.com blog.

Easy to write a new post (”posts” are chronological, “pages” are fixed navigational elements)

Reviewing past posts

Managing categories

When you integrate a blog or other CMS system into your site, you have an easy way to add additional content to your site.

Important Note:
Most open source software requires a download to your hard drive (the download is usually in “zip” or “tar” format) and then an upload and installation onto your hosting package. Use an FTP program like FileZilla (all platforms), WS_FTP (PC), or Fetch (Macs) to upload the package to your hosting package. Check all “Readmes” as needed. Or, ask a knowledgeable person to take over this part of the process for you: most savvy web developers are familiar with CMS installations.

Questions to Answer:
Do you have a sitemap for your website?

What can you do yourself and what will you hire expert advisors or vendors to assist you with?

Who will update the website once it’s installed?

Part 4: Free and Open Source solutions

Popular open source content management systems are Joomla.org, Drupal.org, OsCommerce.com (for e-commerce packages), and Wordpress, a blogging platform. There are also proprietary CMS systems that fulfill the same needs. Many of these packages are written in PHP (Personal Home Page, a type of programming language) and use a mySQL database. You’ll also find variations that are built on these elements.

All of the open source versions of CMS’s are free to download and install. In my experience, most installations will require some customization by a team or individual knowledgeable about those software packages to get the package to do what you want it to do.

All CMS’s operate under the assumption that there is a back-end where you may make page content changes using simple web-based forms. Your hosting provider typically offers PHP and mySQL as part of their offerings: check your host to see their specifics.

Open Source systems that I recommend, based on your needs:
Joomla, good for lots of different types of content
Drupal, good for member-driven sites
OsCommerce, good for e-commerce
Wordpress and Wordpress Themes, a good general-purpose page content manager

How To Set It Up
GoDaddy.com (we resell these products through 10KHosting.com) offers an excellent package where you may simplify the process of installing some of these CMS solutions.

To begin, you find and purchase a domain ($10/year) and Economy Linux Hosting (about $4-5/month). You typically do not need any “extras” but you might want to consider a proxy service or “private domain registration” so that your personal contact information does not appear in the public record of domain registries.

You’ll set up an account with your username and password. Make a note of any passwords, PINS, usernames, or control panel access logins you set up.

A domain typically is “parked” while you’re waiting to install the actual files and it may look something like this while you’re waiting:

Here is a sample of a back end showing the “Hosting Connection” or (”Value Applications” on 10KHosting.com)

Notice the section on the right which offers one-touch installation of things like Joomla, Drupal, or Wordpress.

It is possible to “manage” your domain so it points to a particular drive or it forwards to whatever link you specify. For example, a link like yourname.com may go to a homepage that you set up, or it may be forwarded directly to yourname.com/blog, where the “blog” subdirectory is your blog package (like Wordpress).

E-mails and e-mail forwarding typically comes standard with your hosting, so set up a few key e-mail boxes such as info@yourname.com, webmaster@yourname.com, or contact@yourname.com.

Important Note:
When you register your domain name (www.yourname.com), consider reserving the .net and .org versions.

Consider reserving your domain name for 2+ years so you do not lose ownership by mistakenly not renewing each year.

You may always call a hosting provider’s technical support or new accounts number and ask if they offer Linux, PHP, and mySQL.

Always try to receive hosting with control panel access so you may manage as much as possible yourself.

Questions to Answer:
Do you know what you want your site to do for you? Consult with a web advisor to figure out the best solution for your specific needs.

Do you have someone who can deal with the domain name and hosting setup?

Do you have an existing domain? If so, where is it registered and who is the contact? You may do a domain search via GoDaddy.com.

Part 5: Design and user interface

I encourage you to focus as much as possible on page content, which will help with your search engine rankings and your website’s “reach” through the number of pages you offer. I don’t encourage you to spend too much of your web budget on design. A good web designer, with clear direction and a variety of links that you like, can design a beautiful homepage for approximately $450 per design. A good web developer may encode that design for approximately $100 per page.

If you’re installing a CMS and customizing the design, then your web developer may upload the “base model” software and the designer can create a template design around that base model.

I was amused with a question on Linkedin asking how much a website costs to implement, and with four separate parties, the estimate added an extra digit each time (from $300, to $3000, to $30,000, to $300,000). Regardless of the budget, make sure that you choose a designer that has created other material that matches the look and feel that you desire. Also, make the most of your programming/coding time by organizing the functionality you desire as well as possible in the beginning, so your web developer may follow through with functionality according to your exact specifications.

For example, do you have a form? What is in the form?
Typically it would include:
First name
Last name
Title or Position
Company
Address
City
State
Zip
E-mail
Phone #1
Phone #2
Description
And a few drop-down lists or radio buttons relevant to what information you need
You probably need the date a form was submitted, a date the form was processed, and possibly a “referred by” field. You might desire an “internal notes” section or a photo section.

You would probably want the form to be forwarded to a specific e-mail and the information collected from the form dropped into a database where you may sort the forms by Lastname, Date entered, Date updated, or some other fields.

If you can specify in as much detail as possible what you need your form to do, it will be easier for you to explain this to your web design team.

Sample web form back-end:

Your web visitors will rely on your content to navigate through the process of deciding if they want to choose you or not. Help your web visitors by “funneling” their experience to your most popular pages: typically a homepage, about, products/services, samples or testimonials, and contact page cover the main items needed.

Lay your pages out in an orderly format
Your visitors appreciate if you direct them to the most important pages of your website. Lay out your pages so they “flow” naturally to the user. Put in a “Frequently-Asked Questions” page or a “How to Get Involved” page that provides helpful information on how a web visitor may interact with your website. Plan ahead so you understand what’s important on your site and direct your visitors to the most important pages.

Make your navigation easy to understand
Keep your website navigation simple and consistent from page to page so your users don’t get overwhelmed or lost in sub-pages or sub-sub pages. It is helpful to break up your information into multiple pages and provide links to each page as needed. For example, if you offer a section on “Twenty Steps” and each step is approximately 200 words, consider creating a main landing page and then add twenty links to each separate step.

Keep the site “sticky” with a call to action on every page
Ask your visitor to do something with each page: this may be as simple as a “sign up for our e-newsletter” or as complex as “participate in our survey.”

Some other ideas for keeping your site sticky include: adding “related pages” links, adding a “pricing estimator” or calculator, offering a “how to get started” application, offering a “download a PDF” for your standard form, or offering a “for more information, contact us” e-mail form.

Make it as easy as possible for your web visitor to make the choice to move forward with you, your products, and your services.

Questions to Answer:
What forms or procedures do you currently complete over the phone or in person that you may be able to move online?

Do you have standard worksheets or documents that you may make available as PDF’s for download?

How may you better use your website to manage your clients and potential customers?