My February Traffic Challenge

I don’t know about you, but challenges, especially public ones get results. Last month, Lynn Terry challenged all her Elite Members to an office clean up. I am very happy with my results for that challenge, so this month I am challenging myself publicly to increase traffic to this blog.  How much? I am going to shoot for 75% increase in unique traffic (I was going to do 50%, but noticed I am on track for that anyway, so it wouldn’t stretch me too much). My blog is fairly new (only started it at the end of October last year), but already has a good number of daily visitors.

So, in order to keep myself accountable, here are my January stats:

This means, I need 2084 unique visitors in February in order to accomplish this challenge. I need to get to work immediately, as I only have 379 unique visitors for February as of now, so I am way behind.

I noticed that my daily visitors are dependent on my posting schedule: if I post, regularly, my visitor number grows exponentially.

So, in order to accomplish getting 2084 visitors this month, here is what I am plannign to do:

- post 5 times a week, no matter how hard that will be. I tend to write about 3 posts a week, but need to be more disciplined and post more.

- submit one article each week to EZA, Go Articles, Idea Marketers, and my favorite article directory, Website Articles (they don’t add AdSense, allow you to include images & videos to your articles, and promote the articles for you)

- guest post at least once

That’s yet for now. I’ll be back at the beginning of next month with my results.

Do you need more traffic to your blog/site? Why not join me in this challenge? Let me know below if you’d like to join my challenge, and we can keep each other accountable.

My Organized Office

Last month, Lynn Terry challenged all of us at her Elite forum to clean up/organize our office space: not only out physical space, but our computer desktop, email, hard drive, etc.

The challenge couldn’t have come at a better time for me, as I was already planning to do some virtual organizing: it made me push through and get it all done.

Here is my office before the challenge, and here is how it looks today:

But, my biggest problem wasn’t my physical desk: it was my desktop and email. For example, I had over 1500 unread emails in my inbox: this was not a recent problem, but one going back to more than a year. My inbox didn’t go under 1000 unread messages for an entire year. And I am happy to say that today, I only have the day’s messages.

My desktop was a real mess, with icons overflowing out of the visible area. And I am proud to say that my desktop looks so much better: just need to work on making sure it never gets as cluttered as before.

Here are the before and after pictures for that:

Being organized will help me be a lot more productive. Is your office a mess? Or is it nicely organized?

Do You Have Systems for Your Business?

I am in the middle of organizing my home business office, as well as my virtual office (desktop, email, etc.) and realize that even if you organize from time to time, unless you create systems, you’ll soon be back in your old habits and get disorganized.

I am speaking form experience. For example, I started by working on my inbox which had over 1500 unread messages, and managed to get through & remove several hundreds of unread emails. But in the past few days, my unread email is climbing back up. I don’t yet have a good system for my email, and I desperately need one.

As entrepreneurs, our systems are the processes and procedures by which everything in our business runs. When our systems work, everything runs smoothly, or as smoothly as possible when running a business!

Systems are essentially a step-by-step process written out for each aspect of your business. They help you stay on track, they make you more efficient, they streamline your business and they help you see where you can improve and where your business is excelling. When your systems work, everything runs smoothly. When they don’t work, however, all heck can break loose.

Here are some of the systems you could create:

* Customer service
* Marketing
* Sales
* Product creation
* Product development
* Purchasing
* Production
* Producing a newsletter
* Billing
* Invoicing
* Outsourcing

Systems are particularly useful when you’re outsourcing a task or if you’ve hired an intern or an employee. Then, you’ll have everything written down from the very first step to the very last step, and your contractor or employee will know exactly what is expected of them.

Creating your systems

The first step to creating systems is to realize what processes your business uses. Simply make a list of the processes you go through on a daily or weekly basis. Once you have your list, it’s time to actually create your systems. They’re created initially by simply writing down the steps to accomplish a task. As new processes are added to your business, you’ll simply create a new system for that process.

Once your systems are created, the processes can be fine-tuned by using several steps. Firstly, you may want to simply evaluate the process you’ve written to see if it works and if there are any loopholes or steps you’ve missed. Secondly, you may want to include goals and measurements to determine whether the system is a success.

For example, if you have a customer service system and your goal is to have 100% customer satisfaction, and you end up losing 20% of your customers due to an inadequate customer service policy, then you know the system needs to be tweaked.

Storing your systems

Because you’re an internet marketer, you’re probably on your computer at least 50% of the working day, and more than likely you’re on it 100% of the working day. This means it makes sense to organize your systems on your computer. A simple file with the date and the name of the system will make them easy to access. You’ll also want to organize your goals and how you’re going to measure the goals.

Systems are a business owner’s best friend. They’ll help keep you on track and running smoothly today, tomorrow and for years to come.

What has worked for you? And what hasn’t. I’d love to hear your thoughts, while I am working on getting myself better organized.

Organize Your Home Office Challenge

No matter how big or small your home business office is,you’ll benefit from an organized space.

I am finally joining the challenge Lynn Terry challenged her Elite Forum Members to do in January.

Here is what Lynn said:

I’ve talked about the mess on my computer desktop when I first started this blog: you can see a picture of my desktop above, taken in October last year. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look any better today, so I really need to work hard this month.

As for my office desk, I’d like to think it a little bit better: you can see it below:

I am confident that 1 hour of attention will do wonders for this desk, so that’s the plan for tomorrow. The problem will be keeping it clean afterwards, as my husband is using this same desk when needed.

My bookshelf with DVDs is looking really good: probably because I don’t use it that often. Here is a peek at it:

My biggest problems by far are my hard drive and email, but I’ve been working slowly on both of them. For example, in just 1 week, I went from over 1500 unread emails in my in-box to less than 900. The plan was to have it all cleared by tonight, and I know it’s not going to happen, but I am happy that I’ve made progress.

I also removed several GB of old “stuff” from my hard drive: not nearly enough, but a good first step. And that’s what’s really important: take small, consistent steps towards your goals.

If you are taking your business seriously, Lynn’s Elite Forum is one of the best places to get help. Give it a try. And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to let me know.

November Challenge: Build 30 Squidoo Lenses

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I have lots of PLR articles on my hard drive, and I decided to use them this month and see what kind of results I can get. You can follow me here.

Since it’s already the 9th, I’ll have to create 2 lenses a day for at least half of the month, but that’s no problem: with everything already on my hard drive, it shouldn’t take me more than 30 minutes each.

I am not going to create huge lenses, as I am following the Info Product Killer Method: they will be specific to a product, almost laser focused, so it should be quick and painless.

I’ll add the lenses here as I complete them, and then come back in the beginning of December and follow up with how it worked out for me financially.

Anyone else out there interested in doing this challenge with me? Let me know below if you are interested, and we can keep each other accountable.

Here are the lenses I created so far for this challenge:

1. Banangrams

2. Zojirushi Bread Machine bbccx20

3. Christmas Gift Baskets

4. EyeClops Night Vision Infrared Stealth Goggles

5. Furreal Friends Biscuit

6. Hasbro U-Dance