As an online entrepreneur, business efficiency should course through your veins. With all the new applications and trends out here, you will get inundated and overwhelmed. You may end up trying new things, or worse, spending money on things you do not need.
What you have to focus on is productivity—things that move your business goals forward. Today, I will share several tips to improve online productivity.
These are:
- Automate tasks that you can
- List your priorities
- Work in a quiet area
- Spend time on analysis
- Set up planning sessions
Let us get started!
1. Automate tasks that you can
There are many online tasks that you can automate to help you improve online productivity. All it takes is to find the right resources to get it done for you.
Sure, you will have to spend some time planning how to automate and what tools to use to make it happen. But once both of these things are over, you can free up a lot of your time.
Here are some examples:
- Email marketing – you do not need to track emails one by one, nor do you need to send emails one by one. Use an autoresponder that will allow you to get email subscriptions. What do autoresponders do? With a tool like this, you can program the system to send automated emails according to how our customers behaved.
- Social media – perhaps you have several social media channels. What you do is you post something on each. Or perhaps you post updates that you have published a new blog. You do not have to do these things manually. There are tools like Hootsuite where you can program your posts, and Hootsuite will release them on your social media channels as per the schedule you desire.
- Payment processing – some online sellers still charge their customers by bank transfer. Do not do this anymore. You have to target consumers who have a card. Use payment gateways that you can integrate with your online store.
- Website performance report – you do not have to measure your site speed or traffic manually. You have to get the services from SEO software to help you do this. Many of these software tools are free, and you can even use Google Analytics, where you can see a real-time performance report anytime.
As you can see, activities like these take up so much of your time. Many autoresponders and social media post tools are free. You will not get the top services, but you will still offload many repetitious tasks.
2. List your priorities
Each business has a priority. This is different from a goal. A goal is something that you want to achieve. For example, your goal is to make sales.
To achieve this goal, you have to break down activities into small pieces and put them into categories. These activities are the things that will help you achieve the goal.
However, there could be so many activities that you simply get lost in a sea of them. What you need to do is prioritize them.
The process of prioritization is simple. All you have to do is to ask yourself these things:
- What will this task accomplish?
- Will this take me closer to my goal?
- Will this reduce my costs?
You have to choose tasks that are related to your goals. For example, you may want to edit your website to make it look prettier. On the other hand, you should also write an email marketing series that you will send to your subscribers.
If you love designing your website, chances are that you will do this over the email marketing activity. However, this is the wrong priority. Re-designing your website only fulfills your sentiments, but it does not help you drive sales.
3. Work in a quiet area
You are likely working from home. It is rare for an online entrepreneur to rent an office unless you are already a medium-size company.
To improve online productivity, you have to work in a space in your house that you can call your own. I know that this is difficult to do, especially if you have children.
My advice is that you should have a separate room that only you can access. Yes, you can still hear them, but you can use earplugs to drown out the noise or use noise-canceling headphones. Just tell your family that you cannot hear them.
Another option that you have is to work at night when everyone is already asleep. This is tough, and it is going to somehow create a distance between you and your family. If you decide to do this, find a balance between working and spending time with your kids.
You can play with them before bedtime and then work once they are already asleep. You can also spend time with them in the morning, and then sleep in the afternoon.
4. Spend time on analysis
Another thing that will help you improve online productivity is to do analysis. There are many tools online that can help you do this. You can start with Google Analytics or integrating your site with Google Search Console.
If you are using the Shopify platform, you will have access to analytics. In fact, all platforms have an analytics dashboard of some sort.
Here are some things that you must analyze:
- Traffic and its sources
- Ad performance like CTR and conversion
- Competitor performance
- SEO effectiveness
What you analyze depends on your priorities. If your shop is experiencing a sales slump, then you need to analyze what is going on. After the analysis, you can move on to my next recommendation.
5. Set up planning sessions
The last tip that I have is for you to conduct planning sessions. You can only do this if you are done with your analysis. After all, what will you plan about if you do not know the root cause of the problem?
In your planning session, you have to create a list of activities that will help you solve your problems, break down these activities into manageable pieces, and set a target date of completion. List down the target date, and make sure that you visit this list again and again.
Once the plan is carefully laid out, it is time for execution. All plans that are not executed well will just remain like that—a plan. Nothing from your plans will miraculously happen on its own. This plan should also be itemized in order of priority.
Summary: Quick Business Tips For Improved Online Productivity
A business puts you in a tough spot. It is not like being an employee where you go about your day, and then you get paid. If you have a business, a wrong decision will cost you money, which includes using your time the wrong way.
Your time is precious. Rich or poor, we each have 24 hours per day. We cannot have more than that, and we cannot bring back the time we lost.
Use your time wisely, and make sure each activity you do is productive. Avoid what is called business noise, which apparently gets you busy but does not mean a lot.
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