SMC2015: Work Life Hacks

@alexmoss #SMConnect
Work Life Hacks
Increasing Productivity &
Efficiency
Alex Moss
Director, FireCask

Director at FireCask
Award-Winning
Online Marketing Agency
Search/Social/Outreach
WordPress Development
Co-Founder of Peadig
WordPress Theme Framework
Bootstrap Integration
Mobile/SEO/Social Friendly
Also lots of plugins
Who am I?

We’ve worked with these lovely folks over the past year:
Token Client Logo Slide

Time Pollution is Costly
Meetings
Incorrect Processes
Project Management
Emails & Communication
Other Online Distractions
THE OFFICE!

SAVING TIME
TAKES TIME
This talk has details of 100’s of tools.
You won’t need to use them all, but it will take you time to find
the correct tools for you to use.
I have been buildingthis list for years J
Something to Note

@alexmoss #SMConnectImage source:https://goo.gl/JJpklB

This is my Desk

Use the Right Tools
Keeping Up to Date
Managing your Inbox
Improving Sales & Proposals
Everyday Tools & Processes
Improving Project Management
Streamline Communication

Keeping
Up to Date
Keeping
Up to Date

Read Faster…
RSS Reader Apps
I use RSS Bot for Mac
Cnet covers other apps (Windows &
Mac) now Google Reader is dead.
Squirt.io
Parses any URL and shows you
content one word at a time.
Reading faster works

Use Feedly to Read Multiple News Feeds
Feedly merges all your RSS feeds into one dashboard. Add your own RSS
by URL, and also discover new feeds by subject.

Diigo is a Great Bookmarklet for Teams
Browse to a page and bookmark links.
Share with a team and create tags to help categorise them!

Take Reading Offline with Pocket
Similar to Diigo, Pocket is a bookmarklet service that lets you read articles with
less distraction. Also saves content offline and connects to iOS/Android apps.

Automate Connections with IFTTT
IFTTT is a massive tool that connects 2
applications together – any 2
applications!
Some examples:
• Save to Pocket also adds to Diigo
• Liking a tweet saves to Google Docs
• New RSS entry sends you an email
• New items in Feedly saves to Pocket
There are 1000’s of IFTTT recipes to
help automation!

Streamlining your Inbox

Chrome Enhances Gmail’s Experience
Google Chrome & Gmail
Once Gmail is loaded, there are some handy Chrome extensions…

Use Gmail Labs to add functionalityto your inbox. The 4 plugins below
help user experience and protect you from mistakes…
*Undo Send plugin is now out of Labs and in core settings

I split inboxesinto Important, Linkedin and Everything else.
Chrome extensions enhance experience and organisation.
My Inbox is Busy, but Organised
Send text
messages directly
from your inbox.
To-do lists with
Gmail integration.
Apps for iOS and
Android available.

Find out who you’re Emailing
View more information on a person
from their email. Links, social profiles
and other information.

So, Streak is AWESOME!
Schedule emails to send
later & Snooze emails to
pop back into your inbox
See if, when and
where someone has
read your email

Turn your inbox into a collaborative sales funnel.
Also use as an email-based project management system.
Use Mail Merge to create mass-templated emails.

Take canned
responses to the
next level with
Mail Merge

Proposals

Who?
What?
When?
Why?
Who will be responsible for particular work?
Delegate between yourself, the client and
other agencies.
What work will you cover and where will it
happen?
What KPI’s will you achieve?
How long will it take to reach your agreed KPI’s?
Why are you doing the work above?
Your KPI’s should always related to ROI, not just
rankings or some other metric,but a collection
of metrics.
SET EXPECTATIONS!
Cover these 4 Questions

Google Drive
Great for Collaboration
Powerpoint
Better options, more design freedom
Your Own Website/HTML!
Much better for interaction and complete freedom
of design. Use slides.com for custom HTML slides
Creating a Proposal

@alexmoss #SMConnecthttps://twitter.com/mattcutts/status/480596115054534657
SEO Tools

Some Quick Auditing Tools
Redirect Checker
Checks any URL path and
redirects that may occur
Sharemetric
View the number of shares from a
bunch of social networks
Screaming Frog
Advanced desktop app.
Great for advanced auditing & analysis.
Too much to explain in this talk!

On-site Auditing
Woorank
Good for quick onsite analysis
Raven Tools
Great for more in-depth onsite analysis.
For the Most In-Depth Site Audit Checklist, visit Annielytics:
https://www.annielytics.com/resources/annielytics-site-audit-checklist/

Raven Tools also Automates Reports
Easy way for agencies to create,
schedule and automate reporting for
their clients.
Supports AdWords, major ESPs like
MailChimp and Campaign Monitor,
Google Analytics, Facebook, Twitter
and much more.

Rank Tracking -
• Track keywords across multiple
countries and devices.
• Easy reporting via shared URL or
PDF – perfect for reporting.
• Most accurate I’ve seen for a while.
http://firecask.com/go/accuranker/

SEMrush is the Best for Competitor Analysis
Research by Keywords
Search for a keyword to find
Research by Keywords
Search for a keyword to find

Social Media Tools
Identify Target
Social Sites
There are 100’s of social
networking sites. There’s no
point in spending time within
Twitter or Facebook when an
alternative option can attract
increased brand exposure.

Social Media Tools: Analysis
Topsy
Analyticsfor Twitter tweets,
trends, users and links
FollowerWonk
Schedule updates to social. Complete
with analyticsand calendars

Social Media Tools: Management
TweetDeck
Manage multiple Twitter accounts
within one dashboard.
Also look at Hootsuite for more
advanced features
Buffer
Advanced social media scheduling platform. Complete with
smart analytics that suggest best times to post updates.
Connects to Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Google+ & Pinterest.

Outreach &
Earned Links
Outreach &
Earned Links

Link Landscape Tools
Kerboo
Uses multiple sources to show
you a domain’s link profile.
Also helps with automated
tasks relatingto penalised
domains
Majestic
Forensic detail of every link for
every domain.
Multiple bespoke metricsto
audit a domain,competitor or
potential link acquisition

Using Search Operators
Search operators are “strings of
charactersused in a search engine query
to narrowthe focus of the search.”
They can be used for many uses, most
commonlysite:domain.com – but you
can also use them to target sites for
links!
Examples
site
intitle
inurl
intext
filetype
related
Read FireCask’s Comprehensive Guide:
http://firecask.com/resources/search-operators-guide/

Use Majestic Metrics to Audit a Link Opportunity
Find links pointing to any domain. Great for both auditing your own domains
(finding lost links or links to less relevant pages) and finding links to competitors.

Outreach CRM Platforms
Find potential sites and contact
methods by domain or category
Turn outreach into a CRM to
monitor contact, make notes and
find related sites
Does everything BuzzStream
does, plus the slide before, plus:
• Automatically finds new/lost
links every day
• Easily manage disavow lists
and submissions

Use Buzzstream to Manage Outreach
You can manage all your earned link opportunitiesby site.
Also provides data on contact methods & domain authority.

Reporting

Different Methods of Reporting
DashThis /
Raven
Both help reporting automation
Connects to Google Analytics
Word / Powerpoint
with Google Analytics
Takes time, but is the best for the
most customised reports.
Always Refer back to your KPI’s!

Project ManagementProject Management

A Free Projection Management Tool
Google Drive
2 years ago I created a nifty Google Drive template
to help myself organise all client projects. I even
shared it within a long post I wrote for Moz.

All internal projectsare managed within Wrike. Split into hierarchy,we can
use this for all clientsand projects.
http://firecask.com/go/wrike/

Projectsare split into tree view, with each project containingeach task.
You can monitor and manage all tasks within your own dashboard.
Even use this as a CRM to deal with leads in their own folder.

Each folder has multiple tasks. Each task can be time tracked and can be
assigned to multiple people in your team.
You can use Toggl for free time tracking independent from Wrike.

Each task has its own thread with a rich text description area. Any member
can upload files, comment & discuss within an activityfeed

Wrike even has a nifty Chrome Extension with desktop notifications
as well as an Android & iOS app, and a LOT of other integrations

Organise projectsinto boards. Each board has lists which can be shared
amongst groups. You can even use as an editorial calendar.

I use it mostly for personal organisation.
Having the iOS/Android app also helps.
Holiday Checklist Board:
https://trello.com/b/Dm1kNYbP

@alexmoss #SMConnectImage source: http://goo.gl/HwmPZV
Collaboration & Communication

Instant Messaging
Skype
External Communication
Video Conferencing
Non-Cloud File Transfer
Slack
Internal or Team Platform
Channels per Project/Client
Better Search/Archiving
more stuff…

Set #Channels per Project/Client,
and Set Private Groups by Topic or Internal Team

Integrations mean updates are
communicated automatically.
Within FireCask, all our GIT repo
commitsare sent to our design-
dev channel
Statistics can be viewed within the web
interface and also sent by email digest.
Here you can see activity with heat maps
of DM’s to public messages.
More reading: http://goo.gl/OLpjcX

Other Collaborative Tools
Firefox Hello
Free videoconferencing
No signups at all, just share URL
Google Hangouts
Needs Google Account
Ability to do Live “Hangouts on Air”

VoIP and Teleconferencing
Sipgate / Mtalk
UK landline VoIP for free
Connect to your smartphone either with
call settings or an app
Powwownow
Free conference calling
Use national number. Available in Italy too

Development Tools & Processes

Always Agree on a Scope of Work
A Scope of Work Defines
Everything that goes into a Project
Create a form and ask questions about the
project with Gravity Forms or Survey Monkey.
Questions include:
• What is the goal of the project?
• What issues do you want to solve?
• If design-lead, what other sites do you
like/dislike and why?
• Is there a specific deadline?
• Is there a specific budget?
Build a wireframe with tools such as MockFlow.

Code Better
Better Coding with
Sublime Text
Integrations and functions
Extensions to connect & compile filetypes
Better CSS with Sass
CSS extension
Uses variables, expressions & operators
Connects with Sublime to compile CSS files

Standardise your Work
Work with a familiar and standard
framework. It’s productive, more future-
proof and has lots of support.
• Use a HTML such as Bootstrap. A mobile-first
HTML framework, it now powers 1% of all
websites.
• Use a CMS such as WordPress. It powers 26% of
all websites. Magento is good for complex
Ecommerce websites.
Peadig is a framework that connects WordPress
and Bootstrap together. All sites we create use
this same framework and build child themes.

Work Locally
Editing files on a development server
through FTP is ok, but it you’re working
at 25% efficiency!
You can develop and design all your sites on the
machine you work from. Installing PHP and MySQL
locally helps you code faster.
• MAMP (Mac)
• WAMP (Windows)
• PHP Storm

Revision Control with GIT
Bitbucket is a GIT repo where you can commit code revisions.
You can also create teams and collaborate for group coding projects.
SourceTree is an app for Windows/Mac that manages your repo.

TinyPNG
Bulk image compression. Also
offers WordPress plugin &
Magento extension
Skitch
Great to take screenshots and
annotate them. Syncs with Evernote.
Image Editing & Compression

Desktop App
Faster and more secure
Unlimited transfer limits
Less reliance on the cloud
http://infinit.me/alexmoss
Web Interface
No account needed
Send files up to 2GB
Email confirmations
File Tranfer

LastPass
Manage all passwords
Share access with your team
Chrome/Android/iOS apps
Evernote
Write formatted notes with rich
content to share amongst your team.
Chrome/Android/iOS apps
Content and Sensitive Information

Accounting Platforms
Image source: http://goo.gl/fkEVVD

Manage Finances
Hiveage
Good for starting up
Free version with paid modules
Payment integration
Nice UI and reports for internal monitoring
Xero
Better for complex management
Multiple currencies, auto-reminders
Direct feeds to banks for reconciliation
Great for VAT returns and accounting!

Thank you!
Any Questions?
alex@firecask.com
Slides:
firecask.com/go/SMC2015
twitter.com/alexmoss// fb.com/alexmoss1 // linkedin.com/in/alexmoss1
Grazie!
Ci sono domande?

firecask.com/go/SMC2015 #SMConnect
Keeping up to DateStreamliningyour Inbox
Proposal & SEO Tools
Outreach & Social Tools
Communication & Teleconferencing
Development Tools
File Transfer, Security & Accounting

SMC2015: Work Life Hacks

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SMC2015: Work Life Hacks