When it comes to your digital empire, working smarter is better than working harder.

When it comes to your digital empire, working smarter is better than working harder.

When you browse the internet to look for some services or products, you may think each site you land on is run by a huge company.  Well, a majority of the time you land on a site that isn't already known, there is a small team or one person running everything on the backend.  This isn't a difficult thing to do anymore since technology has advanced so much to automate almost anything a website needs to function.

When a smart webmaster is working, he or she will know to go into it that working smarter is more efficient than working harder.  The time invested upfront will pay dividends in the long run since a majority of the work can be done, set aside, and continuously pull in leads.

In this discussion, I'll be going over a few things you can do to work smarter rather than harder and make the most of your digital empire.


Spy on your competitors to see what they're doing
Using a service like SpyFu will allow you to see what your competitors are doing in real-time.  Well, there may be a slight delay, but at least you'll have data on the competition and know what's working for them!  

If you know what your competitors are doing, you can figure out a strategy that will work for you, and you can save money by starting with ad campaigns and targeting specific keywords that will bring in profits.  You won't have to do as much split testing your ads, landing pages, and figuring out what images work to convert a person into a customer if you know what your competitors are doing to get sales.  Mimic what they're doing, save money, and boost your ROI!

Create multiple funnels to generate leads
One thing I love to do is build a sort of funnel to bring people to my main websites.  I will sometimes create a free service website, build a following, and start advertising my main sites to funnel people to it.  Another thing I'll do is create sales threads on forums, link to my main site, and get even more sales as well as an SEO boost!

Creating funnels can be done in various ways, but I've noticed if you give someone something for free, then they'll stick around longer, share your sites, come back various times, and tend to turn into a customer.  You will also want to link your money site in any email going out from your funnels to build awareness of your main location

Use IFTTT or Zapier to help automate quickly
If you haven't heard of these two services, then you're in for a treat!  IFTTT (if this then that) and Zapier are both platforms to help you automate whatever you can think of.  IFTTT isn't as advanced as Zapier, which is why it's free to use, but it still has the power to get a lot of things done that are necessary for your business's growth.

Think about automating your social media post, you can do that with IFTTT and Zapier, and you can get the word out to all your visitors across every platform with a single post.  What you can do is create sequences that take your blog posts and share them with every platform you're linked to.  This will allow you to focus on your content, your blog posts, and your website while IFTTT and Zapier take care of your social media posts for you

You can do so much more with these two services, not just automate your social media posts, so I highly suggest you check them out and implement whatever you can

Use Wordpress themes to save money and time on development
Back in the day, I would hire designers and programmers to build a website for me, until I figured out what WordPress what and that I could buy a professional theme for $40 to $75.  Trust me, this is a great way to go unless you need something super custom, but not many people need that so stick with WordPress until you're rich enough not to care to spend $10,000+ on a design lol

Think about it, would you rather spend $200 on a website and hosting for one year or would you want to spend $2,000+ for something that doesn't look as good and that's not including hosting?  Yeah, a Wordpress theme is the smart way to go until you need something specific.  You'll save massive amounts of money, you'll be able to take that money and make your affordable website profitable, and you can repeat the process in many different niches and stack your money high.

Use LetsEncrypt with auto-renewal
One of the best things I've come across recently is the service/website LetsEncrypt.  They give out free SSLs to anyone that registers, and you can set it to "Auto Renew" and never worry about it going out.  In the past, you had to purchase an SSL for hundreds of dollars and be tech-savvy to install it.  Now, you register and link your site with a few clicks to have your SSL up and to run for free

This is a huge time saver, it helps tons of people, and it's Free!

Utilize Virtual Assistants (VAs) to get tasks done
A great way to boost your productivity is to hire virtual assistants to help you do smaller tasks that take a lot of your time away.  This usually starts by having them be a sort of secretary and answering any incoming support tickets and emails.  You can promote them to help you fill orders, if you trust them enough, and eventually bring them on board as salespeople if they do well enough and understand your product or service.

If you have a team of VAs working on anything from emails to generating leads for your business, you can focus on anything crucial and keep the business flowing.


Final Thoughts,
I'm a big fan of working smarter rather than harder because I want to sit at my laptop and monitor sales as they come in, process those orders, and keep the business running.  If I can automate everything using IFTTT or Zapier, bring on VAs to handle the smaller tasks, and then spy on my competitors using SpyFu, then I'll most of my tasks covered and my free time can then be re-invested into the business to make it even better and more profitable!

Thanks for reading

- Tommy Carey
https://www.seoclerks.com/user/TommyCarey