Frequently Used Links for Blog and Email

When I first started working with Shelf Reliance, I found myself using the same links over and over.  The problem was the number of links kept increasing.  When I share information on this blog or in emails to customers or potential customers, I kept having to go to my online store and copying the hyperlink.  It only took a little bit of time to realize that was taking too much of my time. 

My Solution:  A word document.

If you are in direct sales (for me, it's Shelf Reliance) with an online store, you want to send potential customers to your store rather than someone else's.  For me, that means sending you to http://imthriving.shelfreliance.com instead of www.shelfreliance.com.  It also means that for each product's page, I want to use a link that points you to my page, because I want you as my customer so I want you looking at my online store pages, not another consultant's.

What I was finding was that every time I typed an email or wrote a blog post, I was having to create those links.  So now instead, I save those links in a Word document and then when I need them, I copy and paste them in. 

Generally, I use a description with a link for the word instead of having a long hyperlink directly in the text of my blog post.  I haven't figured out a way to save the whole thing - text to display and the hyperlink to automatically fill in; but I can type my text to display and then copy and paste the web address in.

The alternative without saving these in a Word document is to go to the website, find the page I want and copy the URL (web address) EVERY time, or try to remember what it should be and risk sending you to a bad link.

This Works for Me - saving me time and energy.  It's taking time to build up my link file but the payoff was IMMEDIATE in saved time.  It's definitely worth it!

This post is being shared with Works for Me Wednesday.  For more great tips, check out We Are THAT Family!

WFMW - Remembering Blog Post Ideas

When I started this blog just a few months ago, I knew that I would be posting a lot but I had no plan on how to keep track of blog post ideas.  I started out just writing them on my To Do list each week as I came up with the idea.  That worked okay, but not great.  Then as I was writing a post one day, another post idea came to mind as a followup/related post.   So I quickly created a new blog post with just a title and my current blog post organization plan started.

So here's how I remember the blog post ideas I come up with.

I create a blog post with the title and maybe a couple lines in the body of the post.

I then click on "Schedule" (in Blogger on the right hand side of the page) and change it from Automatic to Set Date and Time.  I then set a date that I plan to have the post published and save it.

Then later when I have a chance to sit down and create the actual post, I can filter all my posts to show those in draft format and they are sorted by date.  I work on the one I'm feeling excited about, update the dates to make sure I don't have two scheduled for the same date (unless I want them to be) and make sure that I'm not missing any days (my plan is to post Monday through Saturday with Sundays off).

When I look at my full list of posts, I can see what I have scheduled, what's already posted, and what I have planned.  I can tell if I need to switch some things up.  For example, in the picture below, I don't want to publish two posts in a row on 72 hr kits so I'll be moving the Pre-Assembled kits post to next week instead of Thursday.  And now I need to come up with a new idea for Thursday.

BIG TIP - do not click Publish until you have completed the post - if you do, your post will publish when you have it scheduled for whether or not you ever finished it!

This post is being shared as part of Works for Me Wednesday.  Check out We Are THAT Family for more great tips!