Welcome to Day 1 of Reboot Your Blog! Woo-hoo, you’re here!

(This could’ve been called “Extreme Makeover: Internet Marketing Edition” except for the lawsuits that’d follow! When you follow the steps released each day, you’ll end up ready to jump into what’s coming in IM head first (instead of running away), with a new outlook, passion and enthusiasm for your business).

HOW IT WORKS

Every day you’ll get an email. That email will have a link to a post like this. You’ve got to be logged in to read the post. If you’re not logged in, you’ll see a login form. So keep your username and password somehwere safe. (I use 1Password. It’s superb).

Each days post will have a little background info – it’s important that you not only understand the what to do but the why as well. I’m not an omnipotent dictator (unless being Princess of the Cats counts…), and I want you to get fired up about your business and learn something in this process!

After the background info and training, you’ll have the objective  or goal for the day explained to you in a couple of sentences. And after that, you’ll get the actual, nitty-gritty, follow-the-steps assignment.

Today is Day 1, and it follows the formula. Have a read and do the work!

DAY 01 OBJECTIVE

To get a complete snapshot of each and every one of your internet marketing endeavors, how well they’re doing, and where they need improvement.

To understand what you need to do to clear out the crap, the time wasters and money-suckers, you’ve got to know your inventory, how much each site makes, how much each site costs, and what you need to do to complete work on a site.

DAY 01 ASSIGNMENT: TAKE INVENTORY

Get together all your domains and their stats.

To help, I’ve made a spreadsheet for you, you can access it in Google Docs by clicking here.  Make sure you’re signed in to your Google Account and choose “Make a Copy” from the “File” menu to add it to your private Google Docs account. Then you can fill it out and edit it as you’d like.

Here’s a peek at the spreadsheet:

For each domain you own, fill out a row as follows:

Domain Name

Simple enough – enter in your domain name. It’ll make it easier to read and organize if you omit the “www”.

Active (Y/N)

Is the site up and running? Some of use have some domains in our registrar accounts that we’ve not developed yet.  Mark “Y” for “Yes, it’s active!” and “N” for “No, not built yet.”

Analytics (Y/N)

Does the site have Google Analytics installed and tracking your traffic?

Lead Gen (Y/N)

Are you collecting email addresses at the site so you can follow up interested site visitors later?

Traffic (Monthly)

Enter in the number of unique visits per month. Here’s a screenshot of where to find that in Google Analytics:

Backlinks

Enter in the number of backlinks your site has pointing to it.

To find this, we use a tool called Market Samurai.

Main KW Position

Where is your site ranking in Google for it’s main keyword phrase?

We use Market Samurai for this too. With the advent of Google Personalized Search, you can no longer accurately check your own rankings by hand. And Market Samurai is a heck of a lot faster too.

If you can’t find your site in the top 10, just enter in your domain in the “Add custom URL’s” box on the bottom right of the Market Samurai.

Income (Monthly)

How much does your site earn, from product and affiliate sales, advertising, Adsense, etc. per month?

Cost (Monthly)

How much does it cost to keep the site per month? This includes hosting and domain renewal!

Hours to Complete

Assuming you know the site isn’t finished (you need to get it’s rank up, implement a lead gen strategy, add more content, etc.), how long do you think it will take you to complete that work? Be generous, remember things usually take longer than we anticipate!

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This is a fair amount of information to gather, and I don’t want you to be overwhelmed.

[box type="note"]Today you will not judge the sites.  Today you will just compile the data.[/box]

Tomorrow you’ll do the thinking, equipped with everything you need to know. You’ll cull the herd, and in following 30 days make over the promising sites that remain.