Implementation Day 26 – Ups and Downs
Interesting day today. Hard to keep focused, but kind of got somewhere. Not exactly where I was heading though.
I almost started the day by ‘just clearing my desk’. This was beginning to turn into an exercise in shuffleling papers and compiling huge intimidating ‘todo lists’ from the mess. Luckily, I recognised this for the procrasturbation that it was and stopped myself. I need to come back to these lists at some point soon because they are stating to feel oppressive, but now is not the time.
I then got on to the task in hand, researching my target market for the new product. My god did I open up a can of worms!
I am a self confessed geek, but there was one point where I had so much alien data coming at me from so many new tools that I didn’t have a clue what was going on. I wanted to just put my fingers in my ears and go “La la la” until it all went away. Here’s the rough order of events:
-Interest in playing with new tools
-Confusion at what the tools were telling me (I usually enjoy this challenge)
-More confusion, just can’t make any sense of even one bit of the data. And there’s LOADS of different bits of data (not really enjoying this bit)
-What the hell is going on? I need to hire an SEO expert to even understand this stuff, let alone act on it.
-Finally a couple of pennies began to drop. But only enough for me to realise how little I actually know.
I was intending to just use the tools to check out my new sector. However, because that meant that EVERYTHING was new, I decided to check my magic presence compared to my competitors as a way of getting my head around the tools. This certainly helped me to get a grasp of the new apps, but what a bomb shell! My AdWord campaigns are kind of ok, but my organic results for all of my magic sites are awful! I’m surprised I ever get any gigs from online bookings looking at these stats.
After gaining enough knowledge to get depressed, I had a few general admin type tasks to get done and magic enquiries to respond to.
Once those time stealers were out of the way, I quickly knocked another item off the list. Since implementing the forms on the websites, I’ve been wanting to know if there’s a way of tracking the analytics of the people who fill in and submit them. After the SEO nonsense, this level of research and geekery was a walk in the park. I found the answer and got it implemented in both of the ‘form enhanced websites’ within about half an hour.
Got lots to do tomorrow, but also need to sort out this work/life balance thing. The more I achieve, the more I realise how little I’m achieving and I’m turning into a grumpy fart who’s not sleeping great. It’s probably just spending so much time outside of my comfort zones but it’s not great for my personal life.
In other news, the iPhone app is going great! I’ve definitely partnered wih the right person. We’re both really into the idea and it’s already half mocked up. App store here we come!