We’re coming up on the big day – the one we look forward to for, seemingly, months. I love this time of year and I love Christmas day. We expect hustle and bustle leading up to Christmas with the gift buying, school programs, holiday parties, etc. So when it comes to the actual day we want to sit back, relax, and enjoy the day with our loved ones.

Ah, but that’s not always the way it works out, is it? Some years the rushing about continues, even on Christmas day, and the relaxing with family and friends takes a back seat.

This got me thinking: what if we apply some basic project management tools to Christmas day? Maybe with a little bit of planning and thought we could make it to Christmas evening having enjoyed a wonderful day with the people we love. Ok, maybe that’s a bit ambitious, but I’m going to give it a shot.

Step 1: Define the project

The first thing we need to do is define what the end product will look like. Survival? Ok, well, that’s not specific enough. How about avoiding any major family conflicts? I’m not a family therapist, sorry. That’s outside the scope of this project. Everyone is able to open their gifts in a somewhat organized fashion? We’re getting closer. We physically make it to all the places we’re supposed to go? That will suit our purposes for now. As the project sponsor, I own the project requirements. So let’s make an outline.

This project – Operation: Christmas Day – will include these features:

• We expect the children to get up early and open gifts. The adults don’t want to get up early. Let’s allow the kids to open their stockings whenever they get up. The adults don’t have stockings.
• Let’s have breakfast together and then open gifts. The menu includes pancakes, bacon, and fresh pineapple.
• We need to be at Grandma’s house by 11:00 for brunch.
• The extended family is getting together late afternoon – around 4:00.
• I would like to avoid any major family conflict, particularly with Uncle Buck who loves to talk politics.
• We’re driving to the in-laws on Christmas evening – we should arrive there before 10:00pm and it’s 3 hours away.
• I would like to feel happy at the end of the day.

Step 2: Develop a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

The WBS describes the work that needs to be done in order to meet the previously described requirements. Now that we’re clear on the project requirements, we’ll brainstorm about the tasks necessary to complete the project and organize them in a hierarchy. The WBS will provide the basis for estimating schedule and budget.

Here’s a sample WBS for this project, though it could be arranged in a variety of ways.

Step 3: Create a network diagram

After we’ve clarified the work involved in this project, we’ll identify the dependencies between tasks. This helps us to know what tasks need to be done prior to other tasks. If we’re not clear on what needs to happen in what order, the project can quickly degenerate, which means missed deadlines and poor outcome.

Here’s a sample network diagram for Operation: Christmas Day

Step 4: Execute the plan

A description of the important points related to executing the plan is beyond the scope of this blog post, so we’ll have to leave it at the planning stage.

These (very simplified) project management tools may be applied to a variety of situations. Regardless of the tools, I hope you have a very merry Christmas with your family and friends!

Many people don’t realize how important optimizing your content can be for your SEO. While link building with relevant anchor text is one of the major factors, proper on page optimization, including SEO content, is crucial to your organic rankings.

The first question any business owner/CEO/SEO/marketer should ask themselves when entering the wide world of search engine optimization is “what are the best terms my site should rank for and why should I rank?”

In our experience, most people would reply “I want #1 rankings for the keywords that get the most searches because I want tons of site traffic!”

And as an SEO content writer, I would have to humbly disagree. All the traffic in the world isn’t going to help your site if it doesn’t lead to more business.

You see, the key word missing from their reply is “relevant.” What you want are rankings for RELEVANT keywords that send RELEVANT traffic. From there you can actually write RELEVANT SEO content! After all, if you sell Christmas decorations, you’re not going to see much in the way of relevant traffic if you rank #1 for just Christmas or just decorations. People searching those terms individually could be looking for just about anything!

Relevance in SEO Content Writing

Once you understand the importance of relevance, it’s time to gather a list of the MOST relevant keyword searches with the MOST amount of traffic. You should only focus on one keyword silo per page – so for instance, one page would focus on the silo “Christmas decorations” while another could focus on “holiday decorations”.

By keeping these silos on different pages, you can more easily tell the search engines what you think each page should rank for, and plan your content and SEO accordingly.

So using various keyword research tools (I love the Google Adwords Keyword Tool myself, but the Search-Based Tool and Wordtracker tools are good too), you want to collect a list of all keyword terms containing both words “Christmas” and “decorations” and sort by search volume.

Take your top 5-10 most searched terms and voila! You’ve got a list of keywords you want to use in your SEO content.

More to SEO Content Writing Than Meets the Eye

Of course, there’s more to optimizing SEO content then just throwing keywords all over the content. For one, keyword stuffing is definitely a no-no in Google’s eyes, and secondly, it makes content REALLY rough to read. So there’s a balance.

Write enough content (400-600 words is typically ideal) so that you can comfortably use combinations of your top 5 keywords without it looking unnatural or stilted.

There’s certainly some more goodies I can share about writing SEO content, but I think I’ll stop there for now. As you can see, this is only Part 1! Stay tuned for Part 2 in the next couple weeks, and in the meantime, feel free to ask questions and I’ll do my best to answer them in my next post!

SEO Content Writing Recap

1. Conduct keyword research to find relevant keywords to rank for (think about what prospective customers would search for).
2. Pick one keyword silo per page of content (or 2 REALLY closely related ones).
3. Incorporate the top 5 or so most searched for terms in different combinations within your content.
4. Do NOT keyword stuff – 400-600 words should make it easy to naturally tie in 5+ keyword combinations.
5. Come back sometime in January to see my follow up post and learn more about optimizing your SEO content.

We are really thankful for all of the feedback that we have received through our blog comments in 2009. We would like to share some of those comments (we refer to them as love letters) with you.

VIDEO LENGTH: 1 Minute 15 Seconds

If You Liked This, Please Share It On Your Blog!

To Share it, simply copy the code below and paste it on your site.

Tomorrow, December 2, ProspectMX is partnering with the League of Lancaster Bicyclists (LLB) to gather toy donations for a local non-profit group. This blog post was written by Jonathan Bentz – jonathanbentz.gooruze.com.

The League of Lancaster Bicyclists will be hosting a ride in Quarryville, PA to raise awareness for the local toy drive. The world headquarters of ProspectMX will serve as a toy drop-off destination. Good’s Store in Quarryville will also serve as a drop off location.

ProspectMX and the LLB need your help. The local non-profit is around 100 toys short from their toy goal for area children in need. If the organization doesn’t acquire its number of toys, THEN THE KIDS DON’T GET TOYS FOR CHRISTMAS!

How you can help:

1. Stop by one of the many area retailers that sells toys and pick one up.
2. Get a warm, fuzzy feeling inside as you purchase your toy.
3. Drive from area retailer to ProspectMX World Headquarters to drop your toy off.

Here’s ProspectMX’s address:

ProspectMX
221 Rohrerstown Road
Lancaster, PA 17603

Lancaster-Area Small Business Owners And Marketing Pros, Listen Up!

As an added bonus to you for helping ProspectMX make dreams come true this holiday season, stop by our offices and you can receive a FREE website consultation with one of our knowledgeable internet marketing consultants. Its the least we can do to show you how much we appreciate your generosity this holiday season.

For more information on the bike ride and toy collection, happening this Wednesday from 9am – 6pm, please give me a call at 717.406.1884. You can also hit me (@jonathanbentz) or Dave Conklin (@prospectmx) on Twitter and we’ll get you all the details.

Thanks in advance for your help this holiday season – we really appreciate it!