14 high impact blogging tasks you can do in 1 hour or less

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If you only have 1 hour to spend on your blog, what should you spend your time on? Here are 14 high impact blogging tasks you can do in 1 hour or less…

One of the biggest challenges facing bloggers and online business owners is TIME! None of us have enough of it. And most bloggers would say that time is holding them back and stopping them from achieving their goals.

So what’s the solution?

There really are only two solutions to the problem of not enough time:

Find more time
Make better use of the time you have

Given that finding more time is rarely an option, that only leave option 2.

But how can you make better use of the time you have?

By focusing on the tasks that give you most bang for your buck.

So many of the tasks that bloggers and online business owners routinely do are ‘nice to do’ but not essential. They are ‘busywork’ – tasks that make you feel like you are doing something useful, but do not actually move the dial.

If you really are up against it timewise, ditch those tasks completely and focus solely on the high impact tasks that will truly make a difference to your bottom line.

In this article, I am sharing with you 14 high impact blogging tasks that you can do in 1 hour or less. (If you have 2 hours per day to work on your blog, you can get them all done in a week!)

1. Do keyword research

Keyword research is one of the most impactful blogging activities you can do. Why? Because – done properly – keyword research will ensure you spend your blog writing time on the topics which have the most potential to drive traffic to your blog.

If you follow my method for keyword research, my keyword research calculator will calculate for you which keywords are likely to send you the most traffic.

This will save you time in the long run, because you can write fewer blog posts, but get more traffic.

Put it this way… would you rather write 10 posts that each get 10,000 pageviews per month? Or write 100 blog posts that each get 1,000 pageviews per month? Keyword research will help you find those ‘gold nugget’ keywords which will drive the maximum amount of traffic to your blog.

And you can easily do enough keyword research for the next quarter in under an hour!

2. Watch my keyword research video

A little unsure how to do keyword research and how to find those high traffic ‘gold nugget’ keywords? Watch my keyword research video and learn this high impact skill FAST.

(The video is only 37 minutes long and will save you a huge amount of time in the long run!)

3. Write a blog post

Think you can’t write a blog post in 1 hour? You totally can! Head over to this post for tips >>> How to write blog posts faster

Make sure you write your blog post on one of those ‘gold nugget’ keywords, and you know that it will be an hour well spent!

4. Do an SEO audit

Struggling to get traffic to your blog? There’s a good chance it’s because your blog is not well optimized. Usually SEO audits cost $$$$$ and take a considerable amount of time to complete. Not so with my DIY SEO Audit! It’s totally free and you can easily do it in under an hour.

Get it here >>> FREE DIY SEO AUDIT

5. Research and apply to new affiliate schemes

One of the quickest and easiest ways to earn money from a blog is from affiliate sales. But you can’t earn money from affiliate products until you’ve applied to the scheme and been accepted as an affiliate.

A good place to start is Amazon Associates, but there are many other affiliate schemes worth applying to. (And many of them pay better commission than Amazon too!)

If you have not already signed up to Amazon Associates, do that first. (Their commissions are low, but their conversions are high and they have products in almost every niche under the sun, so it’s definitely worth joining!)

If you are already an Amazon Affiliate, use your hour to research other affiliate schemes in your niche and apply to any good ones you find.

(PRO TIP: A good way to find high-paying affiliate schemes is to take a look at what your competitors are reviewing, recommending and linking out to!)

6. Write an affiliate post

One of the best ways to make money from affiliate links is to write an affiliate post. In other words, write a review or roundup post that is focused on a keyword / search term your target readers are typing into Google when they are in the mood to BUY.

Go back to your keyword research and pick one that will help you ‘sell’ your affiliate products. Good contenders are things like:

‘Best X for under $Y’ – e.g. ‘Best cot mobiles for under $50’
‘X product review’ – e.g. ‘Disneyland Paris with teenagers review’
‘X product vs Y product’ – e.g. ‘Vitamix vs Magimix’
‘The top 10 X for Y’ – e.g. ‘The top 10 5k apps for new runners’
‘Essential X for Y’ – e.g. ‘Essential gear for newbie gardeners’

The good news is that these types of posts are usually pretty quick to write, if you know your niche well. The trick here – if you only have 1 hour – is to pick a topic you can write off the top off your head, not one that needs a lot of research. For example, if you are gardening blogger, you’ll just know what gear is essential for newbies already without having to do any research at all.

7. Organize your affiliate links

One reason why bloggers don’t make as much money from affiliate marketing as they could is because their affiliate links are in a disorganized mess!

Spend your next spare hour sorting them out – your future self will thank you… and you are likely to make a lot more money from affiliates in the long run.

Here’s how >>> How to manage, organize and track your affiliate links (without expensive software!)

8. Send an email promoting an affiliate product

And don’t just stick to blog posts! One of the most effective ways to promote affiliate links is via email. Remember, your email subscribers are your warmest audience and are much more likely to listen to your recommendations than casual website visitors.

Pick an affiliate product that you love (preferably one that also has good affiliate commission) and write an email to your list telling them why you love it so much.

It doesn’t have to be a hard sell. (In fact, it really shouldn’t be a hard sell!) Just tell them why you like it, what a difference it has made in your life and why you recommend it.

An email like this is easy to dash off in under an hour and you’ll likely make more sales from it than a blog post on the same subject.

(PRO TIP: Once you’ve sent the email out to your subscribers, use it as the basis for a blog post on the same topic. You’re halfway there already, so it will be a lot quicker than writing a blog post from scratch!)

9. Make an opt-in offer

Hands down the best way to grow your email list (with the right people!) is by creating a really good opt-in offer – something your target audience want badly enough they are willing to give you their email address in exchange for it.

But an opt-in offer in 1 hour? Surely that’s not possible?

Actually, it’s easily doable. The trick is to make your opt-in offer something small but powerful – something that gives your readers a ‘quick win’, like a worksheet, cheatsheet, checklist or printable, all of which can easily be dashed off in under an hour.

And the best news? These kind of 1 page / ‘quick win’ opt-in offers are usually far more attractive than a great, long, 80 page ebook (because just like you, your readers don’t have much time either!)

Don’t overthink it, just create something fast and get it out there! A not-quite-perfect opt-in offer that’s done and out there will get you a whole lot more subscribers than a ‘perfect’ opt-in offer that’s still stuck in your head! (And you can always improve it / make a better one later.)

10. Run a flash sale

If you have digital products to sell, use your 1 hour to create all the assets you need to run a flash sale!

An hour is easily enough time to create a coupon code, write 2-3 short sales emails and a schedule couple of social media posts.

If you don’t have a digital product yet, read on!

Woman reaching out of bed to turn off alarm clock

11. Record a mini course

Statistics show that digital products – especially online courses – deliver far better RPMs than ads and affiliate links. Better still, diversifying your income streams will help you future-proof your blog and blogging income. But so many bloggers don’t take advantage of these benefits because they ‘don’t have the time’ to create a digital product.

Maybe you don’t have the time right now to create an all singing, all dancing, ‘signature’ course, but you almost certainly have the time to create a mini course!

Instead of waiting for that illusive future moment where you ‘have more time’ to create a ‘proper’ course, get on with it now and create a mini course that gives your students a quick win.

A mini course should solve one small but very annoying problem for your students. It should be quick and easy for your target audience to watch and take action on. And consequently, it should be quick and easy for you to create!

In its simplest form, a mini course is just a series of short videos. So, for example, a mini course made up of 10 x 5 minute videos will only take 50 minutes to record!

Again, don’t overthink it or aim for ‘perfection’. Just aim to make it super helpful for your target audience. Think of a problem your target audience really struggles with / is always asking you about and would be willing to pay for to get it solved, then hit record on your phone or webcam and start teaching.

(And yes, I appreciate you’ll probably need to do some editing, not to mention uploading it into course delivery software, but don’t think about that right now. You can chop it up and package it later… in your next spare hour!)

12. Edit a mini course

Got your mini course recorded? Good – now you can spend your next spare hour chopping your mini course up into sections, and uploading it into your course hosting software.

Once again, don’t aim for perfection. Simply chop up the video you recorded into sensible sections of 5-10 minutes max, upload the videos into your course platform and add any necessary text (links to things you mention in the videos, for example).

Remember, this is not a signature course, you won’t be charging top dollar for it and you are not promising to dramatically change your students’ lives… You are just aiming to help them overcome one particular problem.

All done? Woohoo! You now have a digital product you can sell on repeat to your audience. (And the smug satisfaction that you’ve finally made that thing you’ve been procrastinating over for MONTHS!)

Now go back to #10 and run that flash sale!

13. Create an email course

Does the idea of recording and editing videos freak you out? It’s honestly, a lot easier than you think! But if you’re just not ready for that, create an email course instead!

An email course is pretty much the same concept as a mini course, but instead of delivering the course materials via video lectures, you deliver it via a sequence of 3-7 emails.

If you keep the course content simple, you can easily set it up in an hour. They key is to make your emails short and action oriented.

You probably can’t charge for an email course (unless you’re teaching something really valuable), but you can absolutely use it as an opt-in offer / lead magnet.

14. Read Blog Smarter Not Harder

If you’ve enjoyed this post, then you are going to LOVE Blog Smarter Not Harder!

I know I’m a little biased, but I truly believe reading Blog Smarter Not Harder is one of the most productive things you can do in 1 hour.

Blog Smarter Not Harder turns traditional productivity advice on its head and is your fast track to getting more organized, wasting less time, overcoming blogging overwhelm and achieving your goals – even when you don’t have much time!

In Blog Smarter Not Harder you will learn:

The BIG PROBLEM with most so-called ‘productivity’ advice
Why you probably have the WRONG THINGS on your TO DO LIST
The BIG MINDSET SHIFT you need to make if you want to be TRULY PRODUCTIVE
How to ensure your DAILY ACTIONS align with your ULTIMATE GOALS
How to create a MONTHLY PLAN for MAXIMUM IMPACT

You will also get:

THE PRODUCTIVE BLOGGER’S TOOLKIT: 12 tools to help you work more efficiently
Plus TWO WORKSHEETS to help you get the most out of the book!

Oh, and it’s totally free! Grab your copy right now and read it in your next spare 1 hour… then put it into action and watch your productivity skyrocket!

Over to you…

What’s your favourite high impact blogging task, that takes 1 hour or less?

How do you make best use of limited blogging time?

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