Tracking your backlinks doesn’t have to be a time and resource intensive process thanks to a range of free and fairly cheap backlink analysis tools that are now available.

I’ve detailed my top 5 Free backlink analysis tools which I recommend for tracking and monitor your link building efforts.

• Yahoo! Site Explorer/ Bing Webmaster Tools

http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

With the Yahoo! Site Explorer tool, you can view the links that the Yahoo! Search engine is seeing point to your site, plus more information that Yahoo! has about your site, if you’re site is verified in the Yahoo! system.

As Bing and Yahoo! merge forces, they have confirmed that Yahoo! Site Explorer will be migrated into the Bing webmaster area.

The Yahoo!/Bing Site Explorer historically provides a better profile of your inbound links than Google tools as they tend to include almost all of them whereas Google chooses to filter links out.

Within the Site Explorer tool you’ll be able to see the total links to a site and specific pages and can include or exclude links within a website to get a clear picture of your website’s link profile.

• Google Webmaster Tools

www.google.com/webmaster

Google’s webmaster center also provides some valuable link profile information. While it’s still not what I consider to be a completely accurate picture of a website’s backlinks, Google has increase the number of links it tracks.

Google’s “Links to Your site” area allows you to drill down to a page level to see the inbound links and it also provides a ranking of the top “Anchor Text” for the links pointing to your website (helps to see if your SEO efforts are on target for the right keywords)

You can also download all Google’s data so you can manipulate it in your favourite spreadsheet program.

• Link Diagnosis

http://www.linkdiagnosis.com/

A clean well designed free link checking tool that uses a browser plugin to analyse the links to a website. While it doesn’t appear to find all links, it gathers a healthy cross section and even locates sites which have since removed links to your site.

It includes information such as PR, PageRank, Anchor text, outbound links, link strength and link history.

• Open Site Explorer

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/

Open Site Explorer comes from the well respected SEOmoz team. Offering similar insights to the Yahoo! site explorer tool (probably a hat tip for the name also), Open Site Explorer also includes some important SEOmoz specific link and authority factors.

The only catch is that you’ll need to go pro for a full review of your link profile, which for the reasonable well priced membership is a good investment in your SEO.

• SEOBook Backlink Analyzer

http://tools.seobook.com/backlink-analyzer/

Another tool from one of the SEO industry’s more respected tool providers – the SEOBook Backlink Analyzer is a desktop tool that provides some valuable insights into your website’s link profile.

It analyzes / grabs anchor text, IP addresses, Alexa data, page title, number of links on page, and number of outbound links on a page. It basically is a big spreadsheet which makes it quick and easy to view linkage data for a paticular site.

There’s many more tools out there, both free and paid, but I’ve found these one’s to offer enough insight for both novice and more experienced SEO needs.

If you use a different tool to track your link building efforts, share them with your fellow readers below.

Comments

So, content drives everything. Online that is even more evident. It’s relatively easy to figure out just what kind of content is important to individuals or to small groups of people. There still might be a wide range of different content likes and dislikes, but they can be gathered in, quantified, and then addressed according to that need.

The Internet however, forces us to communicate in every way possible. In business, this creates some serious problems. It’s virtually impossible for most businesses to communicate with every type of person in every type of way that is best for that person and for the company also. It’s a lot of work and, more often than not, resource limitations stop folks from being all things to all people.

What I will be concentrating on over the next few posts has to do with the intent of your content. Even if you can’t put your message in all the formats available (written word, social media outlets, video, podcast, etc.), you can control the intent of your communication. I started thinking about this a while ago at my blog and I want to expand on the idea here.

We need to decide what we are trying to accomplish with content. Once the intent is known, then the message and placement will follow more easily. I have identified six areas to look into to help define the intent of one’s content.

1. Content to inform
2. Content to educate
3. Content to entertain
4. Content to validate
5. Content to re-create
6. Content to populate

Now that I have introduced the concept as a whole, let’s jump right in and look at areas to consider for content that is intended to inform.

First, you have to decide what it is that you want to inform people about. Many times people will have so much to say (I am guilty here as well) that they will cram everything into one newsletter, e-mail update, or blog post, thinking they have accomplished something. That’s not informing someone. That’s annoying them and confusing them.

Now, you can inform people about anything, so for clarity I am going to stick to one area. It’s the idea that companies need to inform their customers and prospects alike of just what is going on within the company. This is a tricky kind of content approach, though, because if it looks like you are just trying to create content for content’s sake by updating on every little activity of your business then you will lose people. Remember, people are smarter than you think and they are in control of their experience with your content, not you. As a result, they can vote “no” on your business with a click if you have overstayed your welcome.

So what are the most important areas to inform your customers about, so that they feel that they are “in the know”?

Product updates – These are common and oftentimes far too technical. Try to make your product updates more conversational and concentrate on the benefit to the customer rather than the wizardry of the technology or process. People want to know “What’s in it for me?” so tell them. If someone wants more details, they’ll ask.

Management changes – Customers hate to be surprised just like the rest of us. If there has been a personnel change at your business that warrants communication with your customers, then do it sooner than later. Some initial pain or discomfort will far outweigh trying to explain why it was kept under wraps.

Community interest – If your company is involved in some kind of a community activity, tell the story without bragging. People like to be associated with people and organizations that pitch in.

Industry recognition – If you have received any industry accolades, tell your customers. It will make them feel good about doing business with you.

Employee highlights – The last thing people want to deal with is a big, faceless organization. When people get attention, your readers take notice. Why? Because they are people too and would love to see the same thing happen at their business.

There are more and I would love to get your comments but for now that’s enough to consider.

So, just how do you do this kind of intentional content creation? Blogs, newsletters, e-mail updates, Web site notifications and more are all viable options. Find a place, though, where this kind of information best fits in the context of what appears with it.

For example, a newsletter that is focused on what the company does in the community is not the place for product updates. Create a place where people will know that they will get this kind of information consistently and they don’t have to hunt it down or weed through other unrelated areas to get to it.

So, keep your customers informed and they will feel like they have a relationship with you and your brand. That relationship is important capital that can be stored up for use in times where it may come in handy .

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1) Use TweepML: TweepML is a great resource for finding lists of like-minded Twitter folk. It also makes it dead simple to follow a group of people. Be sure to create some of your own lists. By being included on TweepML lists, the site has generated more than 1,100 followers for me over time.

2) Be Current Eventful: We counsel clients to have a social media editorial calendar so they’re not stuck without relevant conversation starters. Another thing to consider is tapping into current events, popular TV shows or sporting events and participating in the discussion. It’s a great way to become part of the community and to truly connect more with folks on Twitter. Also consider Twitter Chats – these are live virtual events held on Twitter. There are chats held for just about any topic. Find one of interest to you or create your own – just be sure to use a tool like Tweetchat to make the event easier to follow and participate in.

3) Tap Into OneForty: OneForty’s goal is “to give you access to the very best tools that make Twitter valuable.” Their site provides an easy way to find tools and other sites that help you get even more from Twitter. You can rate the sites you find and also create your own toolkits to collect and share your favorite sites with other users.

4) Follow the Law of Thirds: Ever go to someone’s Twitter page and see that every tweet is almost identical and usually self-promotional? How likely are you to return to those profiles much less follow them? The Law of Thirds is a general guideline designed to help you provide a good mix of content. You’ll want to tweet value content, conversation as well as some self-promotional information. Value content includes POV thoughts, live tweets from a conference and/or links to things you think are cool and useful — but that have nothing to do with you. Mixing in some self-promotion can be done. Just try not to offer too much of it — or any of the other thirds for that matter.

5) Put Style in the Profile: Twitter is all about making personal connections. Filling our your profile with your personal information, adding a picture of yourself and even customizing your background goes a long way in giving your profile a personal feel. It shows people you’re serious about participating, helps them make a connection with you and encourages them to follow you. It’s understandable that some folks would rather protect their tweets or minimize the amount of information they provide in their profile. But their amount of followers will be impacted as a result.

Twitter is a lot like life in that you get out of it what you put into it. These sites and tips make it easier to work smart with Twitter and get even more out of it. They’ve definitely helped me appreciate the little blue bird more.

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If you do have bloggers block, here are 10 topics to help you come up with an idea to blog about.

Frequently Asked Questions – FAQs

Every business gets asked the same questions over and over again. These could come from prospects or clients and are great topics for blog posts. Chances are, if they are a FAQ, they’re also searched on a lot too.

New Products and Services

What’s new with your company? What are you offering now that you didn’t previously? Maybe its brand new or maybe it’s version 2 of an existing product. Don’t be afraid to tell the world when you have something new to offer them.

Feature Spotlight

I’d be willing to bet that most people don’t know how to use half the features of the products they use every day. That’s why putting the spotlight on different features is such a good idea. People love to get more out of what they are already using.

Industry News

What’s happening in your industry? Are their new laws that will affect your company? How about a merger or another big company folding? What’s changing and how could that impact your customers?

Interview Someone

Interviews can be pretty easy. Come up with a list of questions and then interview someone. You could do it in person, on the phone or even via email. You could interview anyone from the marketing department to shipping and even your boss. Everyone’s point of view is different and it’s fun to see different sides of a company.

Review Something

Everyone is searching the internet to find out if a particular product or piece of software is worth the money. If you can, look at what your company uses and write a review. It’ll work best if it’s something unique to your industry, but it could be for anything that helps keep your business running.

Create a Top 10 list.

Lists are a great way to make easy to scan and quick to consume posts. You could write about 10 Ways To…, 7 Tips for.., 14 of the Best…, 6 Mistakes. Pretty much anything you want. Just make sure your list is interesting and provides value to you readers.

Case Study or Success Story

Every company has them. A success story that they want to tell the world. So do it. Write out the situation, the actions taken and the results. Even if you already have a formal case study, summarize it in a blog post and then link to the full case study. Customers like to know that you’ve had success and it can really help sell your services.

Solutions/How Tos

Nothings perfect, and people spend hours trying to troubleshoot products and services every day. Wouldn’t it be great if you could offer up the solution? You’d be their hero! It could be solutions for your own products or maybe someone else’s. Either way, people like solutions and providing them can help build confidence in your brand.

Company News

What’s happening with your company? Are you growing? Did you promote someone? No blogs want to be completely self-centered, but no one likes a blog that doesn’t seem personal either. Don’t be afraid to talk about what’s happening as it helps readers feel more connected to the company.

There you go. 10 topics that will hopefully spur ideas on what you can write on your blog. So what are you waiting for? Go create.

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The upside to blogging with an iPad is that it’s portable and you can easily log your thoughts on a screen that is a lot more convenient than typing into an iPhone or other smartphone. Also, there are a number of apps to make it fairly easy.

The downside is that even though typing is easier on a much larger screen, typing on a screen vs. a tactile keyboard still takes some getting used to, even if you’re an iPhone owner. I also found some issues with copy/paste and for web based tools, anything that uses Flash is a no-go.

Here are several tips and tools that you can use to become productive more quickly when blogging using an iPad. Each icon links to the app store and this post was written entirely on an iPad.

WordPress App – The free app for WordPress is handy and is of course a very limited version of the web based version. The advantage of using the app is a simplified view and larger editing area. Basic functions like create, edit and delete of pages, comments and posts is available. If the limited nature of the app doesn’t work for you, the web based version works well too, albeit with smaller text and work area.

Bonus tip: Another handy blogging tool for iPad is BlogPress, which now supports updating Twitter & Facebook as well as upload & embedding of YouTube videos.

Dragon Dictation – One very handy workaround awkward typing on the iPad is to use speech to text. I had pretty low expectations of Dragon speech to text software but it’s pretty easy to use. You just speak into the microphone on the iPad and then copy the text from Dragon software over into WordPress or wherever it is that you’re blogging with. There might be a few small edits to make, but I found it to be pretty efficient and pretty accurate. Speech to text saves a lot of time and it’s something you can do when typing isn’t convenient. In fact, most of this post was done with Dragon.

PhotoPad & Built-In Screen Capture – With many blog posts, I capture images as screen grabs and then do some editing to customize for a particular blog post. iPhones and iPads can easily take a picture of whatever is displayed on your screen by holding down the top and bottom buttons at the same time. The image is automatically stored to your images folder.

Then I use the free PhotoPad app to open the image and do basic editing. Upload the image using WordPress and you’re all set. Editing options are very limited and I would love to get other recommendations.

Disqus Pro App – We use Disqus to manage comments on Online Marketing Blog, so moderation duties can be handled in part with this app that is made for iPhone, but usable on the iPad.

Echofon Pro – What good is writing a great blog post (or dictating one as in our case here) if no one knows you’ve published it? That’s where tools for Twitter and/or Facebook come in. I use Echofon for my Tweeting activities on my iPhone 4 and the iPad. In regards to blog promotion, it’s a quick way to share links to your best posts. There is a Tweetdeck app for iPad too, but I’ve had little luck getting it to work.

Analytics App – If you need a quick fix for top level web stats for your blog and you use Google Analytics, then this app comes in handy. Like the other apps on this list, it’s limited, but can offer you info on the go.

Will the iPad server as a replacement device for blogging over the laptop?  For now I would say no. The limited features of the iPad apps over their web counterparts means too much switching back and forth between app and browser. However, I do see the iPad providing more convenient access to blogging than a cell phone. If you’re like me and manage a large number of draft posts at any given time, being able to finish off a post in between watching streaming movies on Netflix or HuluPro can add a slice of productivity to an otherwise all-entertainment device.

There are many other apps for iPad and if you have found some that are particularly useful for blogging, please share in the comments.

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As search becomes ever more interconnected, and websites begin to routinely change dynamically based on your search and browser history, your ability to create and optimize individualized pieces of content (blog post, photo, video, tweet, status update, podcast, PDF, presentation) reaches critical importance. If someone is looking for “chocolate ice cream” you need to have content pieces to show up on that radar. If someone is looking for “ice cream sandwiches” you have to cover that base – as well as possibly hundres of other keyword combinations.

There are two strategic ramifications for this new era of content marketing.

First, elaborate but narrow ideas and executions need to take a back seat to simpler but widespread initiatives. One podcast with very high production values is less important than ten podcasts (about different topics) with reduced production values. (There is of course a limit to this logic. Crap is still crap). Also, if you are a larger, well-known brand that relies less upon prospective customers finding you via search or discovering you via social chatter, this principle of breadth trumping depth is not as iron-clad. But, it’s still important. Sure, people probably know how to find Toyota online. But, shouldn’t they also be using content marketing to be in the debate around vehicle safety, reliability, ethics, and an array of other topics?

Second, if you’re going to commit to creating content to fit a large number of customer queries, you can’t waste bullets. You cannot just show up to the party and create your 10 podcasts, and not think about what keywords apply, what the psychology of the people using those keywords is, and how your company can fulfill those needs. Way too much content is being created today with a mindset that goes no deeper than “well, we’re creating and uploading content, so that’s a good thing.”

There’s a Method to the Content Madness

Content without strategy is a colossal waste of time and money. You can do better than that, and you need to, as we’re entering an era where low-hanging fruit is an anachronism. When every single one of your competitors has a content marketing program, the advantage will go to whomever has the best understanding of WHY certain content is successful.

For every piece of content you create, regardless of format, you should develop a Content Rationale Report that includes these pieces of information (as an example, I’ve included prospective answers for a social media metrics chart I’m developing)

• Format of Content: Downloadable chart and glossary (PDF). Companion blog post.
• Description of Content: This chart and glossary will show businesses how to select the most appropriate social media success metrics, based on their business goals and availability of specific data.
• Budget, Including Labor: $300 + 5 hours of Convince & Convert time
• Who Will Be Interested in This Content: Small and medium-sized businesses (with an emphasis on agencies) that need to figure out social media success on a regular basis. Targeted at marketing directors.
• What Questions Does This Content Answer for Them: What social media success metrics should I be paying attention to, and why?
• What Keywords Will Be Used to Find It: Social media ROI, social media statistics, measuring social media
• What Do We Want Them to Do After Consuming It (Call-to-Action): Subscribe to C&C blog, contact C&C about training their teams on this metrics selection process, share the chart with colleagues
• 3 Success Metrics: Social sharing, RSS subscriptions, inbound leads

Here’s the worksheet in downloadable form:

This is functionally similar to the Creative Brief that ad agencies have been using for decades to help copywriters and artists understand the psychology of the customer, and what needs to be included in the advertisement. It’s a tremendous tool for keeping your marketing strategically on target, and now the Content Rationale Report repurposes the creative brief for this new era of search-driven, socially-enabled communication.

You can’t just fire content bullets randomly into the air. You have to know why you’re making it, for whom you’re making it, how they’re going to find it, and how each and every piece of content will contribute to your business success.

That’s the future of content marketing. Are you ready for it?

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#EngageorDie

Why is sociology and anthropology so important to understand for social media?

I believe that at the top level, all of social media is driven by anthropology and sociology – it’s just the nature of the network. I never formally studied social sciences in college, but was inspired to become versed in them because it’s clear that human nature and culture define social networks and therefore require insight, research, observation, and forethought. On an even deeper level though, social marketing and service professionals should also explore psychology to create experience-driven connections, interest graphs and ultimately contextual networks that are linked through meaningful and mutually beneficial communications and engagement. All of these things help weave everything together.

These fields of study earn greater importance today as technology and innovation evolve at an increasingly blurring pace and with it, the adaptation of human behavior and culture. In Social Media and in the real world, in order to become relevant, you have to earn relevance.

Hutch Carpenter from Spigit recently wrote a post in which he describes a two year lag that companies experience when looking to adopt web 2.0 technologies. How can companies deal with this apparent lag time and what’s the best course of action for them?

There definitely is a lag time between the introduction of innovative tools and their rate of adoption across the Diffusion of Innovations by Everett Rogers (also known as the technology adoption bell curve). What we need to remember though, is that adoption is driven and necessitated by the tasks and the objectives at hand. As you pointed out (Jacob), culture and behavior can never adopt and change as quickly as technology so companies need to stay agile and limber; I agree with this. What makes social media so interesting, especially for the enterprise, is that it’s among the first platforms to affect a business from the outside in and from the bottom up. The brief (compared to other business processes) history of technology is introduced and managed from the top down. New media, services such as Twitter and Facebook, are at their very core, social operating systems (OS), and as such, are introduced into the corporate culture through the individual. The Social OS is unique to the individual as their experiences are defined by the applications they use, how and why. Essentially, instead of IT coming to teams with new technologies, they’re now forced to examine the use of social networks from inside the fire wall and also how they connect to outside networks and how the social OS impacts and possibly benefits or harms the corporate ecology.

As champions, it’s not only our job to demonstrate the potential of social networks and services, it is necessary to become the IT of social technologies to our internal decision makers to prove their value to workflow and productivity inside and outside the organization.

Social media is now forcing the company culture to change and adapt based on these social operating systems. Actions and reactions are now more tangible, direct, and immediate.

With any new and pervasive technology, we as decision makers within the organization, are now responsible for defining guidance and education in order to improve their applications for both business and personal use. Just because it’s introduced from the personal side of the workforce doesn’t mean that users have mastered the potential of these networks nor identified their risks.

In order to support this radical transformation, it has become clear that governance, responsibility, and accountability is needed – not restraint.

There has also been a lot of discussion around Social CRM as these services also represent new opportunities for businesses to improve the bond between customers, prospects, and brands. This isn’t just new technology, it’s forcing decision makers to change methodologies around what this all means. This in turn, creates a lot of change within the enterprise and that change needs support to make sure it happens for the right reasons. Social CRM, at the very least, is propelled by engagement with purpose. And, when you think about it, in order to do so, genuinely, everything needs to change to support an outward focus and an inward process for adaption – otherwise, this is all lip service.

In order for organizational transformation to take shape, social architects are required to blueprint the grand design, but also the incremental steps defined by realistic milestones that encourage progress rather than disruption. You have to allow your company and its team to breathe in the process. It’s like drinking wine. You have to pour it, swirl it around the glass, smell it, and then drink it, slowly.

In my experience everything has to start with a pilot program that is intentional, well executed, with metrics that show advancement. Success begets additional pilots until dedicated budget is earned and continually justified. Taking this approach also encourages analysis and development by exploring and attempting to answer the following questions:

What are we trying to accomplish?

What is the change we’re seeking to enliven?

What is the action we’re hoping to spark?

At what levels?

Why?

What resources would it take to support it?

What does success look like at the end of the pilot?

How do these results compare to other programs currently in place?

This is why I’m forever a student of new media. The answers and the path to these answers is different within each organization – governed by the prevailing corporate culture and hierarchy.

Remember, technology, before and after social, changes quickly and as such, I encourage businesses to consider the development of a department or team responsible for identifying, evaluating and testing innovation. Good friend Deb Schultz of the Altimeter Group is leading work in this field and helps companies, such as Proctor and Gamble, determine where technology can benefit specific areas of business units. And for those that perform well, examine rollout strategies for other business units to improve processes through the constant integration of proven innovation.

What’s the difference between social media and Social CRM vs. SRM?

Social Media equals any tool or service that is used the web to facilitate conversations and networks. Social CRM, as discussed, is the socialization of CRM methodologies and processes. SRM recognizes that all people, no matter what system they use, are equal. It represents a wider scope of active listening and participation across the full spectrum of influence mapped to specific department representatives within the organization using various lenses for which to identify individuals where and how they interact. What it does not represent however, is yet another acronym. It’s simply a social object, intended to broaden the discussion for evolving sCRM.

The social Web is distributing influence beyond the customer landscape, allocating authority among stakeholders, prospects, advocates, decision-makers, and peers. SRM recognizes that whether someone recommended a product, purchased a product, or simply recognized it publicly, in the end, each makes an impact on behavior at varying levels. Therefore customers are now merely part of a larger equation that also balances vendors, experts, partners, and other authorities. In the realm of SRM, influence is distributed and it is recognized wherever and however it takes shape.

The last thing I’m trying to do here is introduce a new acronym. People are very very literal, so you have to be careful with what you say and how you define things. New media affects the decision of a “social” customer at every level. Why just build an infrastructure around customers when you need to build it around the entire decision cycle? Infrastructure decisions are expensive and require a lot of support, I want companies to think about the investment they make because it’s much bigger than they know now.

Is a large part of social media common sense? You have a quote from Business Week in your book that ends with “don’t be stupid” why do you think companies are having trouble following this?

If you tell someone not to be stupid you are evoking common sense. What people need to do is be specific. Common sense is not enough. You have to define what common sense is and provide guidelines, rules, and training around it. Why? Because the definition of common sense is different to everyone and the greatest example of how common sense fails is the assumption that individuals employ common sense in all that they do. If you take a look at what happened to Nestle and Green Peace and the conversational carnage that ensued, social media pundits and consumers alike, called for the head of the community manager responsible for fueling the attacks in Facebook. But, regardless of the behavior, working, and the absence of “common sense,” I’m willing to bet that this individual didn’t actually break any of Nestle’s rules per se. The community manager was most likely doing the job as instructed or perhaps, as assumed. This demonstrates a real life example of how the personal compass that guides each one of us points differently and what appears as common sense to one, is absolutely “un”common sense to another. Creating a foundation on common sense is no different than erecting buildings on marshland. As leaders, it’s our job to create guidelines, training, and management systems for social media engagement similar to the processes that establish the quality and significance of service training programs that present employees with various real world situations and desired outcomes where they are expected to excel. For example, “if you are greeted by someone who is challenging and hostile towards your brand in a public forum, here is what you need to do…”

Without understanding the processes, culture, and the “how’s” and “why’s” of Nestle, it’s not really possible to advise them and tell them what to do. But one can guess where it needs to start, and that’s a much bigger discussion.

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The one thing that sticks out from ASW was at the Meetup202, er, meet up, was where Dr Ngo got on stage and talked about being focused. In his case he was refering to becoming a specialist in a couple of niches, rather than try to run hundreds of offers successfully.

Likewise, I’ve found that whether in online gaming or in my business, I get the best results from focusing on one or two tasks, rather than try to do many more than that.

In affiliate marketing terms, by all means test 5 to 7 offers at a time. But once you find one or two potential winners (profit or marginally in the red), you also need to focus on making them work. Else you could be locked in a permanent cycle of testing offers.

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I’ve spent the last couple of weeks focused on launching a major upgrade to one of my sites. If all goes well, you should see it by the end of the 1st week of June (if not, in the next couple of days). It’s the result of focus again. Just like it’s usually easier to make $1k/day consistently from one offer, rather than $500 each from 2 offers, I’m also placing most of my eggs in one basket with this new project.

Here’s one of my recent game changing moment: Track your time…ruthlessly.

For those of you who might have been or still are lawyers, accountants, consultants, you would be familiar with time sheets, especially if you’re charging clients on a per-hour basis. I’ve heard of stories where lawyers have sat on the toilet, doing their daily business, thought about a case and charged that time.

But, no, I’m not talking about charging THAT kind of time.

I’m refering to brutally counting how much time you spend on your business each day, doing something that will get you towards achieving your goal (you have a goal, right?).

So time spent reading email, AIMing, checking stats doesn’t count. Setting up new campaigns, optimizing an existing campaign, rotating creatives, whatever that makes your business more successful counts.

Since my experiment started, I’ve been updating my time usage on a Google Doc spreadsheet and the results weren’t pretty early on in the experiment. I was averaging 30mins of productive work on some days, and about 2 hours on other days.

Note: You have to be extremely brutal about whether you’re doing something “productive” to make this experiment work.

A research study shows that the average American exec probably clocks about 30mins of productive work for each workday (8-hour block). In efficiency, this is 30mins / 8×60mins = 6.25%. Terrible.

Upping how you use your time might make the difference between success and failure, especially if you’re slogging at a day job.

The way I see it, you can either become “educated” and aware about every offer out there, every new network, read a lot of blogs and forums to “know everything”. Or you can become really focused and bank.

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“We want to connect our users with the businesses that provide the goods and services they need, but the first step is for those businesses to have an online presence. We’re excited to team up with the SBA to make that process easier for business owners across the country.”

Tools for Online Success features videos from small business people who have used the Internet to become more efficient, cost effective and more successful.

Some of the videos featured on Tools for Online Success include how to establish an online presence, displaying images on a website, promote a business using free online marketing, grow with paid online advertising and measuring results with web analytics.

“The SBA is pleased to partner with Google to put these important tools in the hands of small businesses across the country,” said SBA Administrator Karen Mills.

“As the web evolves and consumers adapt accordingly, we know that more customers are finding traditional ‘Main Street’ businesses online. With these tools for online success, we can ensure these small businesses reach new markets and customers so they can continue to create jobs.”

The mistake many people make when going up competition is to simply fight them head-on. If a competing site is already larger than you, than a direct conflict will more than likely leave you with losses or take an extremely long time before improvement is made. Instead, think creatively and develop strategies which give you a niche or foothold your competition hasn’t discovered yet.

A good example of creative thinking can be found with keyword development. If your competition has a lockdown on a set of keywords, then a good strategy would be to develop a set of keywords which differ slightly. Don’t deviate too far from the path as you want your keywords to keep in line with the topic. However, use longer tail keywords and discover terms your competition hasn’t thought of to use yet. A small bit of research can get your going in the right direction.

Be patient. I can’t make it anymore simple than that. Even thinking creatively and sidestepping your competition won’t net you results over night. More people end up failing due to lack of patience than just about any factor out there. Giving up will always equate to failure, but if you tough it out, many times you’ll start to see improvement.

Sometimes, being the little guy gives you a tactical advantage against competition. Being on top many times can lead to complacency, leaving you with the desire to succeed. Just keep at it, and whittle away with different strategies before discovering something which can breed results. Be creative, be patient, and adapt, and you’ll be making strides.