ARE YOU HAVING GARAGE DOOR OPENER TROUBLE? DON’T WORRY. HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO!

HOW TO EXTEND THE LIFE OF YOUR GARAGE DOOR

Homeownership is the ultimate goal of many Americans, as well as everyone around the world. Buying a home is usually the single largest purchase the average person will make in their lifetime. Being a homeowner is a great way to increase your net worth, and can help cement a positive financial outlook for your future. However, your work doesn’t stop once you’ve signed the purchase agreement. In fact, that is where the work begins. Not only will you have to make payments on your home, but you will need to do your part to maintain the property, and in some cases, you will need to make upgrades to aspects of your property to keep them in line with aesthetic changes or modern technological advances. Instead of waiting for issues with your home to get to the point of no return, it is often better to address what may seem like “small” issues. That way, you can fix any issues for a lower cost.

Homeowners often budget for their “regular” home costs (mortgage, property tax, insurance), but they fail to earmark funds for property maintenance. Experts have found that setting aside 1-3% of your home value, per year, as “maintenance costs” is generally a good idea. So, if your home costs $300,000, you should be budgeting $3,000 – $9,000 per year for maintenance costs. That is quite a large sum. Some years you may find you don’t use this money, while other years you may exceed this amount. While homeowners tend to focus on the large items that may require repair (roof, hot water tank, plumbing, electric), there are other aspects of your home that can cause quite the inconvenience if they are not working correctly. One such item is your garage door. The garage door opener is the “everyday workhorse” of your home. You use the opener multiple times per day, and it brings added convenience into your life. Most people really don’t give a second thought to their opener until something goes wrong. This may lead to costly repair or replacement services. If you apply the right maintenance strategies, you can get extended use out of your garage door and opener, and you can avoid costly repairs. If you’d like more details on strategies you can employ to extend the life of your garage door, keep reading for some easy tips.

Keep your ears open (Listen!)

This one may seem very straightforward and basic, and that’s because it is. You don’t have to be an expert to identify a strange sound. You use your garage door daily, so you know how it usually sounds. A weird noise can point to a potentially larger issue. Think about it. Your garage door works using a mechanical mechanism. If your car were to start making noises while you were driving, you would take it to be looked at. The same applies to your garage door. If you hear a grinding noise when you operate your door, this may point to an issue with your garage door motor. If you hear a clanking noise when the door opens, this may point to an issue with your garage door springs. Garage door spring issues can be very serious, and need to be looked at immediately.

Do a visual inspection

This is another one that you do not need to be an expert to complete. Every so often (perhaps once or twice per year), do a visual inspection of your garage door system. Here are some steps you can follow. First, stand inside your garage with the door closed. Check around the seams. Are there visible gaps? Is light coming in? If you find these issues your door may not be properly aligned. Now you will want to take a door at all the garage door components (springs, wheels, tracks etc). Are your springs tight, or do they look loose and lacking in tension? Is there rust on the wheels, or do the wheels look worn out? Are the tracks dirty and filled with debris? These are things you will want to be on the lookout for. Especially with your garage door springs, as signs of aging can lead to potential bigger issues. If you do notice issues, it may be time to call a qualified garage door technician to get the issues repaired.

Clean and lubricate garage door tracks, rollers and hinges

This step is a little more hands on. The tracks of your garage door can become filled with debris (leaves and grass, dust, cobwebs). Just like you wouldn’t leave debris to build up in the corners of your home, the same goes for your garage door tracks. Simply grab a broom, and brush the debris out of the tracks (no fancy tools needed). When lubricating your tracks, rollers and hinges, do not use water or other chemical products. These type of products may cause build up and may do additional harm. Instead, you will want to get a good spray silicon lubricant. Your garage door manufacturer should have a list of products they recommend. You can utilize this maintenance tip seasonally for maximum effectiveness.

Check the balance of your garage door

This is probably the most “technical” tip on this list. You will need to disconnect your automatic opener. You will now manually open the door. The door should open easily. Once open, the door should remain open and not slip down the tracks. Next, you will close the door. The door should start to close with the application of a little pressure. Once it starts closing, it should not slam down. This will show that your door is balanced, and that the springs are doing their job correctly. This is a quick way to assess that your garage door is properly balanced.

These tips should help to extend the operating life of your garage door. If you run into any issues, it is best to call a qualified technician. If you are in Commerce City, CO, then place a call to the experts at Garage Door Repair Commerce City.

 

Article source here: HOW TO EXTEND THE LIFE OF YOUR GARAGE DOOR

Maintaining Your Garage Door Track and Rollers

You might not ever realize just how important it is to have your garage door serviced annually unless you’ve experienced an incident. You don’t have to experience an incident before recognizing the need to have your door serviced annually. In some cases, it might be necessary to have your garage door serviced more often due to the amount of use that it may receive. If you live in a household with more than one driver, it is obvious that the garage is being used frequently. Great attention should be given to the condition of your garage door if you want to maintain the condition of your garage door. It doesn’t matter if your door is automatic or manual, you’ll need to make sure the rollers and tracks are in good condition in order for them to continue working properly. With continued use of the garage, it eventually begins to wear on the tracks. This means they need to be lubricated frequently and the tracks need to be aligned. If this isn’t performed regularly, it will cause the door to begin dragging. Once this occurs, it will be more difficult for you to open and close your garage door. You can prevent this from occurring simply by having your tracks and rollers serviced annually.

In between your annual checkup, you can inspect the tracks and rollers yourself. Simply remove your car from inside the garage since it could make it challenging to get to the rollers and tracks of your garage. Inspect them with the garage door closed. You’ll need to examine all of the rollers and if any appear worn, they will need to be replaced in order for your door to continue functioning smoothly. You can use a toothbrush to dislodge debris and grease buildup by brushing around unsealed bearings of the rollers. Once you’ve cleaned them, spray them with a silicone spray oil. You don’t need to lubricate the bearings if the rollers are nylon and have sealed bearings. It will be most helpful to simply spray the lubricant around the rollers. If this is something that seems too detailed for you, you can always rely on one of our service technicians at Garage Door Repair Commerce City to handle the job for you. They know exactly where and how to handle the job of inspecting and lubricating your rollers. They also know and understand the safety precautions that need to be taken in order to remain safe while cleaning the rollers and tracks of your garage door.

Another job that you might allow us to handle for you is the inspection of your nuts and bolts that stabilize the doors roller hinges and its track mounting brackets. We’ll need to secure any loose parts that we identify and replace any worn or rusted nuts and bolts.

You’ll need to have the tracks cleaned also. You can use a toothbrush like you used to clean the rollers. The toothbrush is also used for the same purpose; clean and dislodge any debris and grease buildup. A delicate cleaner should then be applied to the tracks and wiped clean to remove any remaining debris. The proper alignment of horizontal tracks should also be considered. A level should be placed along the top of the tracks to in order to make sure they are properly aligned. The track should have a slight slant that extends from the door entry to the back of the garage. The tracks should also hang at the same distance from your garage ceiling. When adjustments are needed, the bolts will be loosened and the track will be taped back into its position. Once this has been completed, the bolts will be tightened once again. Your vertical tracks will also need to be inspected and adjusted is they are out of alignment. Again, this is a job that can be handled by a professional service technician. In fact, if you want to ensure that the job is done right it is likely in your best interest and that of your family, to allow a qualified garage door service technician to handle the maintenance of your tracks and rollers.

We are aware of the desire to save a buck or two but the end result is often less than ideal. In our experience, we often find that when people attempt to handle this on their own, the often overlook something and therefore they end up spending far more money than they initially intended on spending. There are lots of moving parts and components that accompany your garage door. In order to know where they all fit in and how they all operate, you’ll need to know where they are and when they are in need of some attention. Rather than continuing to use your garage, without ever giving consideration to the condition of your door, do yourself a favor and have regular routine maintenance performed on your garage door. With routine maintenance, you’re rollers and tracks will be evaluated and properly maintained. This helps minimize your exposure to any incidents from occurring.

We do not expect most people to know much about the functionality of their garage door but it does at least help to know what type of parts are used to hold the door in place and how these parts enable you to continue to safely go on using your garage, day after day. This is important because you are at least able to make visual inspections of specific parts of your garage. Whenever these parts, such as your rollers and tracks, appear to be misaligned or worn; you can notify us to make the necessary repairs. The sooner you address the problem, the less expensive the problem will be. The longer you go on using the garage in despair, the more costly the job to repair the tracks and rollers will become. Save yourself time and frustration by having the rollers and tracks repaired as quickly as possible.

 

Article source here: Maintaining Your Garage Door Track and Rollers

GARAGE DOOR OPENS OR CLOSES ON ITS OWN

Yes, it actually happens! Your garage door can open or close on its own. You may have experienced this unusual event already. If not, don’t be surprised if or when it happens; just remember this post by our Garage Door Repair Commerce City technicians and you’ll know what to do about it.

Imagine coming home from work and seeing your garage wide open for all to see. It’s a scary feeling; after all, who has been in your garage or your house while you were away? Is anything missing or is anyone still inside? You KNOW you closed the garage door when you left. You even saw it close! What in the world is going on? Here in Commerce City, CO this can be a little inconvenient during the cold months.

You may have a short somewhere

One of the main causes of garage door openings and closings on their own is an electrical short. If you have one, it’s either in one of your transmitters or in the wall button or its wires. These shorts can cause your garage door to fully close (you watched it come down and close!) but then suddenly go back up as you drive off. To see if the problem is with your transmitter, or remote; try removing the batteries and operating your garage door from the wall unit. If that clears up the problem, it was your transmitter; if it doesn’t, there are other areas where the short may be, including the wall button, the circuit board, the wall button wiring, and the wired keypad. If you are doing these repairs yourself, try a process of elimination and test each component for functionality and use the trial and error method to eliminate each part until you find where the problem is. You are always welcome to call our Commerce City, CO garage door repair pros and we’ll quickly and conveniently get to the problem and fix it for you. Other local repair technicians can too so if you want to save the hassle and time invested; just call for a professional to come and help.

Your remote has gone crazy

Not really! Remotes don’t actually go insane; they just act like they do. Here’s what we mean. If your garage door opener remote is defective or is running on low battery power, it may be sending out random signals. If the unit is defective you may need to replace it or at least have it serviced. Low or leaky batteries are another matter. Test them by taking them to a local retail store like Lowe’s, Home Depot, Best Buy or Wal-Mart. They will test your remote battery for free. No, you don’t have to buy one of their batteries even though they’d like you to. If you have a home battery tester, you can do this yourself. Remote batteries are not expensive and you should always keep some extra ones on hand anyway. If you open your remote and discover that your battery has leaked; remove the batteries and clean up the leakage with a Q-tip dipped in vinegar or lemon juice. Try removing as much as possible and especially around the terminals. Dry completely before adding new batteries to the remote.

Someone has the same frequency

Sometimes your neighbor down the street winds up with your same remote frequency. When this happens, your garage door will open or close on its own. There are a number of reasons why this can happen. The neighbor may have adjusted their remote code for better security and unknowingly matched yours. This is more common in older remotes but it still can happen often enough to baffle lots of people.

One of our Commerce City, CO customers reported that he decided to work from home one day and was in the middle of a phone call when he heard his garage door opening. He was upstairs and happened to look out the window directly above the garage. To his surprise, no one had driven up to his garage door and there were no cars visible coming or going. What just happened? It turns out that his neighbor 3 houses down had just come home for lunch and her husband had just last night changed the frequency on her opener remote for security reasons. Incidents like these happen with greater frequency on openers manufactured before 1993. After this date, remote manufacturers starting using rotating codes that result in millions of programming number combinations.

Power surge

A nearby lightning strike or storm can cause a power surge in your electrical system. Sometimes this can cause damage to your opener’s electrical circuits.

Lock that door!

Locking the door that leads from your garage directly into your home is a smart thing to do. This is true even if you are not experiencing garage door openings and closings on their own. Imagine leaving your front door unlocked and wide open all day while you are at work or on vacation. You would never do that! It’s almost the same thing when you leave your inner garage door unlocked. Anyone that manages to get inside your garage can now simply walk through that door into your living area. All they have to do is close the garage door on the wall switch and help themselves to your belongings in almost total privacy.

Get in the habit of locking your doors especially the one inside your garage leading into the house itself. If you are experiencing unexpected garage door opening problems and are leaving for a trip or on vacation, invest in a simple garage door slide lock. This basic lock attaches to the tracks on your garage door and when locked, it prevents the garage door from opening as it is now locked into place. Just be sure to remove it when you return. You can damage your garage door or burn out your opener motor by attempting to open your garage door with the lock in place.

 

 

Article source here: GARAGE DOOR OPENS OR CLOSES ON ITS OWN

IS YOUR GARAGE DOOR OPENER NOT WORKING? HERE’S WHAT TO DO

Why All 4 of Google’s Micro-Moments Are Actually Local

Posted by MiriamEllis

When America’s first star TV chef, Julia Child, demonstrated the use of a wire whisk on her 1960’s cooking show, the city of Pittsburgh sold out of them. Pennsylvanians may well have owned a few of these implements prior to the show’s air date, but probably didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about them. After the show, however, wire whisks were on everyone’s mind and they simply had to have one. Call it a retro micro-moment, and imagine consumers jamming the lines of rotary phones or hoofing it around town in quest of this gleaming gadget … then zoom up to the present and see us all on our mobile devices.

I like this anecdote from the pages of culinary history because it encapsulates all four of Google’s stated core micro-moments:

I want to know – Consumers were watching a local broadcast of this show in Pittsburgh because they wanted to know how to make an omelet.

I want to go – Consumers then scoured the city in search of the proper whisk.

I want to buy – Consumers then purchased the implement at a chosen retailer.

I want to do – And finally, consumers either referred to the notes they had taken during the show (no DVRs back then) or might have turned to Julia Child’s cookbook to actually beat up their first-ever omelet.

Not only does the wire whisk story foreshadow the modern micro-moment, it also provides a roadmap for tying each of the 4 stages to local SEO via current technology. I’ve seen other bloggers pointing to the ‘I want to go’ phase as inherently local, but in this post, I want to demonstrate how your local business can decisively claim all four of these micro-moments as your own, and claim the desirable transactions resulting thereby!

Understanding Google’s definition of micro-moments

Google whisked up some excitement of their own with the publication of Micro-Moments: Your Guide to Winning the Shift to Mobile. Some of the statistics in the piece are stunning:

• 65% of smartphone users look for the most relevant information on their devices regardless of what company provides that information,
• 90% of them aren’t certain what brand they want to purchase when they begin their Internet search,
• 82% consult their smartphones even after they are inside a chosen store,
• and ‘how-to’ searches on YouTube are growing 70% year-over-year.

Google defines micro-moments as “critical touch points within today’s consumer journey, and when added together, they ultimately determine how that journey ends,” and goes on to identify mobile as the great facilitator of all this activity. It’s simple to think of micro-moments as a series of points in time that culminate in a consumer arriving at a transactional decision. For local business owners and their marketers, the goal is to ‘be there’ for the consumer at each of these critical points with the resources you have developed on the web.

Let’s reverse-engineer the famous tale of the wire whisk and put it into a modern technological context, demonstrating how a hypothetical cooking supply store in Pittsburgh, PA could become a major micro-moments winner in 2017.

A variable recipe for local micro-moments success

I want to be sure to preface this with one very important proviso about the order in which micro-moments happen: it varies.

For example, a consumer might decide she wants to patch cracks in her ceiling so she watches a video on YouTube demoing this >>> looks up the name of the putty the YouTube personality was using >>> looks up where to buy that putty locally >>> buys it. Or, the consumer could already be inside a home improvement store, see putty, realize she’d like to patch cracks, then look up reviews of various putty brands, look at a video to see how difficult the task is, and finally, purchase.

There is no set order in which micro-moments occur, and though there may be patterns specific to auto body shops or insurance firms, the idea is to be present at every possible moment in time so that the consumer is assisted, regardless of the order in which they discover and act. What I’m presenting here is just one possible path.

In quest of the fluffier omelet

Our consumer is a 30-year-old man named Walter who loves the fluffy omelets served at a fancy bistro in Pittsburgh. One morning while at the restaurant, Walter asks himself,

“I wonder why I can’t make omelets as fluffy as these at home. I’m not a bad cook. There must be some secret to it. Hey — I challenge myself to find out what that secret is!”

I want to know

While walking back to his car, Walter pulls out his smartphone and begins his micro-moment journey with his I-want-to-know query: how to make a fluffier omelet.

Across town, Patricia, the owner of a franchise location of Soup’s On Cooking Supply has anticipated Walter’s defining moment because she has been studying her website analytics, studying question research tools like Answer The Public, watching Google Trends, and looking at Q&A sites like this one where people are already searching for answers to the secret of fluffy omelets. She also has her staff actively cataloging common in-store questions. The data gathered has convinced her to make these efforts:

1. Film a non-salesy 1.16-minute video in the store’s test kitchen demonstrating the use of a quality wire whisk and a quality pan (both of which her store carries) for ideal omelet results.
2. Write an article/blog post on the website with great photos, a recipe, and instructions revealing the secrets of fluffy omelets.
3. Include the video in the article. Share both the article and video socially, including publishing the video on the company’s YouTube channel (*interesting fact, it might one day show up inside the company’s Google Knowledge Panel).
4. Answer some questions (electric vs. balloon whisk, cast iron vs. non-stick pan for omelet success) that are coming up for this query on popular Q&A-style sites.
5. Try to capture a Google Answer Box or two.

Walking down the street, Walter discovers and watches the video on YouTube. He notices the Soup’s On Cooking Supply branding on the video, even though there was no hard-sell in its content — just really good tips for omelet fluffiness.

I want to go

“Soup’s On near me,” Walter asks his mobile phone, not 100% sure this chain has an outlet in Pittsburgh. He’s having his I-Want-To-Go moment.

Again, Patricia has anticipated this need and prevented customer loss by:

1. Ensuring the company website clearly lists out the name, address, and phone number of her franchise location.
2. Providing excellent driving directions for getting there from all points of origin.
3. Either using a free tool like Moz Check Listing to get a health check on the accuracy of her citations on the most important local business listing platforms, or complying with the top-down directive for all 550 of the brand’s locations to be actively managed via a paid service like Moz Local.

Walter keys the ignition.

I want to buy

Walter arrives safely at the retail location. You’d think he might put his phone away, but being like 87% of millennials, he keeps it at his side day and night and, like 91% of his compadres, he turns it on mid-task. The store clerk has shown him where the wire whisks and pans are stocked, but Walter is not convinced that he can trust what the video claimed about their quality. He’d like to see a comparison.

Fortunately, Patricia is a Moz Whiteboard Friday fan and took Rand’s advice about comprehensive content and 10x content to heart. Her website’s product comparison charts go to great lengths, weighing USA-made kitchen products against German ones, Lodgeware vs. Le Creuset, in terms of price, performance for specific cooking tasks, and quality. They’re ranking very well.

Walter is feeling more informed now, while being kept inside of the company’s own website, but the I-Want-To-Buy micro-moment is cemented when he sees:

1. A unique page on the site for each product sold
2. Consumer reviews on each of these pages, providing unbiased opinion
3. Clearly delineated purchasing and payment options, including support of digital wallets, Bitcoin, and any available alternatives like home delivery or curbside pickup. Walter may be in the store right now, but he’s glad to learn that, should he branch out into soup kettles in future, he has a variety of ways to purchase and receive merchandise.

I want to do

The next day, Walter is ready to make his first fluffier omelet. Because he’s already been exposed to Patricia’s article on the Soup’s On Cooking Supply website, he can easily return to it now to re-watch the video and follow the recipe provided. Even in the I-want-to-do phase, Walter is being assisted by the brand, and this multi-part experience he’s now had with the company should go far towards cementing it in his memory as a go-to resource for all of his future culinary needs.

It would be excellent if the website’s page on fluffy omelets also challenged Walter to use his new whisk for creating other dishes — perhaps soufflés (for which he’ll need a ceramic ramekin) or chantilly cream (a nice glass bowl set over ice water helps). Walter may find himself wanting to do all kinds of new things, and he now knows exactly where he can find helpful tutorials and purchase the necessary equipment.

More micro-moment variables

As we’ve seen, it’s completely possible for a local business to own all four of Google’s attested micro-moments. What I can’t cover with a single scenario is all of the variables that might apply to a given geography or industry, but I do want to at least make mention of these three points that should be applicable to most local businesses:

1. Understanding how Micro-Moments Begin

The origins of both I-want-to-do and I-want-to-know moments are incredibly varied. A consumer need can arise from something really practical, as in, it’s winter again and I need to buy snow tires. Or, there can be public/cultural happenings (like Julia Child’s cooking program) to which consumers’ ultimate transactions can be directly traced. To discover the sparks that ignite your specific customers’ micro-moments fires, I recommend delving further into the topic of barnacle local SEO — the process of latching onto existing influences in your community in order to speak to existing wishes and needs.

2. Investing in mobile UX

Google states that 29% of smartphone users will immediately navigate away from any website or app that doesn’t satisfy them. 70% of these cite slow loading and 67% cite too many steps to reach information or purchase as reasons for dissatisfaction. On November 4, 2016, Google announced its major shift toward mobile-first indexing, signaling to all website publishers that Google sees mobile, rather than desktop, as the primary platform now.

Google’s statistics and policies make it irrefutable that every competitive local business which hasn’t yet done so must now devote appropriate funds to creating the best possible mobile user experience. Failure to do so risks reputation, rankings, and revenue.

3. Investing in in-store UX

Though my story of Walter touches briefly on the resources Patricia had built for his in-store experience, I didn’t delve into the skyrocketing technology constantly being pioneered around this micro-moment phase. This would include beacons, though they have so far failed to live up to earlier hype in some ways. It could involve the development of in-store apps. And, at the highest echelons of commerce, it could include kiosks, augmented, and virtual reality.

From shoestring to big-time, micro-moments aren’t so new

KFC may strive to master I-want-to-buy moments with chicken-serving robots, Amazon Go may see micro-moments in checkout-free shopping, and Google Home’s giant, listening ear may be turning whole lives into a series of documented micro-moments, but what makes sense for your local business?

The answer to this is going to be dictated by the competitiveness of your industry and the needs of your consumer base. Does a rural, independently owned hardware store really need a 6-foot-high in-store touch screen enabling customers to virtually paint their houses? Probably not, but a well-written comparison of non-toxic paint brands the shop carries and why they’re desirable for health reasons could transform a small town’s decorating habits. Meanwhile, in more competitive markets, each local brand would be wise to invest in new technology only where it really makes proven sense, and not just because it’s the next big thing.

Our industry loves new technology to a degree that can verge on the overwhelming for striving local business owners, and while it can genuinely be a bit daunting to sink your teeth into all of the variables of winning the micro-moment journey, take heart. Julia Child sold Pittsburgh out of wire whisks with a shoestring, black-and-white PBS program on which she frequently dropped implements on the floor and sent egg beaters flying across rooms.

With our modern capabilities of surveying and mining consumers needs and presenting useful solutions via the instant medium of the web, what can’t you do? The steps in the micro-moments funnel are as old as commerce itself. Simply seize the current available technology … and get cooking!

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Article source here: Why All 4 of Google’s Micro-Moments Are Actually Local

How to Delegate SEO Work Effectively

Posted by zeehj

Whether you’re the only SEO at your company, work within a larger team, or even manage others, you still have to stay on top of your projects. Project management skills aren’t and shouldn’t be exclusive to someone (or some tool) with the title “project manager.” I believe that having good project manager skills is essential to getting work done at all, let alone delivering high-quality work in a timely and efficient way.

In defense of management

Freakonomics Radio released this podcast episode in October called In Praise of Maintenance. The TL;DR (or TL;DL, rather) is that our society rewards innovators, but rarely (if ever) celebrates the maintainers: the people who get sh*t done, and do it reliably, often without anyone’s noticing. This podcast episode confirmed what I’d been feeling for a long time: We don’t award enough praise to the good project managers out there who keep engagements moving forward. And that’s largely because it’s not a sexy job: it’s not exciting to report to stakeholders that necessary services that have been reliable for so long are, as always, continuing to be reliable.

It’s only when things aren’t running smoothly does it seem project managers get recognition. A lack of a rewards system means that we’re not teaching PMs, Consultants, Account Managers, and more that their excellent organizational skills are their most valuable asset. Instead, the message being communicated is that innovation is the only praise-worthy result, which oftentimes may not be essential to getting your work done. The irony here is that innovation is the by-product of an excellent project management framework. The situational awareness of knowing how to delegate work to your colleagues and a repertoire of effective organizational habits is vital if you ever want to free up your attention to allow for the headspace and concentration ingenuity requires.

Sound familiar? Lately I’ve been focused on the idea of a cluttered headspace, where it feels like everything on your to-do list is floating ephemerally around in your head, and you can’t seem to pin down what needs to be done. Of course, this isn’t specific to just professional life (or consulting work): it can happen with personal tasks, which can present their own set of organizational challenges. Regardless of your professional role, crunch time is exactly when you need to put on your project manager hat and get yourself organized. Read on to find out the tools and tricks I use to stay on top of my work, and how I delegate work when needed without losing a personal touch on projects.

Manage projects with tools that work for you

What do you do to make that process easier? One Slack conversation that seems to always come up is which project management tools do we use (and which is best). I take the annoying middle-ground stance of “whatever tool you use is best” and I stand by it (don’t worry, I’ll get to the actual list in a minute): a tool is only useful if it’s actually used.

So how do you get started? It’s always important to have preferred methods for project tracking, note keeping, and reminders. Depending on your role and learning style, you may find that some tools work better than others for you. For instance, while I have a few tools I work with to stay on top of client work, I also have a clear plastic desk cover that I can jot down notes and reminders on. Here’s a breakdown of the tools I use to manage projects, and the needs they meet.

• Inbox by Gmail. Yes, it’s different from classic Gmail. The two greatest aspects of Inbox, in my opinion, is the ability to snooze emails until a specific day and time, and save reminders for yourself (e.g. “Check in on Ty’s progress for the page speed audit,” or “Watch the video in this link after work”).

  Why are these my favorite Inbox features? Both functions serve similar purposes: they tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it. The ability to snooze emails and save reminders for yourself is invaluable when we’re talking about headspace: this way, you can use your email as your to-do list for any given day. If you know you don’t have to respond to someone until X date, there’s no reason their previous email should sit in your Inbox taking up space. As a result, I use Inbox as my personal assistant to remind me when I need to jump back to a deliverable or respond to a client. It’s possible to reach Inbox zero on a given day, even if you have an email awaiting your response. Just snooze it and attend to it when you really need to.

• Google Drive. Sure, not a sexy or new tool, but it’s my home for everything. Not only does GDrive cover all the file types that I need (Documents, Sheets, and Presentations), it also allows for easy, real-time collaboration on files with your colleagues and clients. If you like to nudge people to do things, too, you can assign contacts work to do from your GDocs (just highlight text, click the comment icon to the right, and insert the @ symbol with their name). If you’re crafting a presentation with a colleague, for instance, you can assign slides with questions for them. I recommend tagging them with your question and including a due date for when you need their answer.
• Tools my colleagues love:
  • Trello. It’s not my personal favorite, but a lot of my teammates love using Trello as their to-do lists, or even for tracking web dev or SEO projects. If you prefer text over visuals, you can also try Basecamp (which I tend to prefer).
  • Asana. Another great project management tool — I tend to use it on a project basis rather than a to-do list. If you’re a developer, you may prefer JIRA.

Of course, it’s possible to manage and delegate work without these, but I’m of the mind that pen, paper, and email can only get you so far, especially if you want your delegation process to be somewhat automated (think tagging colleagues in comments within documents, or assigning projects to them within standard project management tools like Asana).

How to delegate effectively

Tools can only get you so far: any good delegation process starts with a conversation (no more than five or 10 minutes) about the work you need and a great brief. The conversation establishes whether your colleague actually has the bandwidth to take your work on, and the brief goes into greater detail of what you actually need done. The brief format I follow works for a large number of different deliverables — I’ve used this same layout to delegate page speed, technical and backlink audits, and content briefs to colleagues. Below are the fields I always include, and the type of information always provided:

Subject: [BRIEF] Work I Need Done

Deadline: The precise date and time you need it, with enough time for you to review the work before delivering it to your stakeholders or your client. If it’s something like a page speed audit, I would allow up to a full week to review it and ensure that it’s in the best format and all the information is correct. Of course, it also depends on how familiar the delegate is with projects like these — if they’ve done a number of audits for you in the past, they may know your style and you may not need as much time to edit their final work.

Output/Deliverable: The format in which you need this work delivered to you. Maybe it’s a Google Doc or an Excel Spreadsheet. This brief format can work for any output you need, including more creative pieces (do you need a video edited to :30 seconds in a .mov format? A photo edited to certain specs and saved as a PNG or IDD?).

Expected hours: This may be the most challenging element of the entire brief. How long do you anticipate this work to take, start to finish? Keep in mind the experience level of the person to whom you’re delegating. Is this their first SEO technical audit, or their 30th? You will almost definitely need to check in with your delegate a few times (more on that later), so how long do you anticipate these meetings to take? Just like the deadline timing estimate, use your best judgment based on work you’ve done with this person in the past, and the type of work you’re assigning.

Relevant materials: This is where you can provide additional articles or tools that should help your colleague do the work you’ve assigned to them. Some good examples are 101 articles (like ones on the Moz blog!), or a tool you know you always use in projects like the one you’re delegating (think SEMRush, new photo editing software, or Google’s Keyword Planner).

Check in with your delegate along the way

Once you’ve delivered your brief, the next step is to make sure you check in with your delegate along the way. Even the most experienced person can benefit from added context, so whether it’s an in-person meeting or a five-minute call, touching base shortly after delivering a brief is necessary to ensure you’re on the same page. Beyond kicking off a project, it’s important to have check-ins along the way to stay on track.

At Distilled, we like to follow a check-in model at the following completion points:

• 1% (kickoff conversation);
• 5% (validation of process);
• 30% (ensure you’re on the right track before you invest too much time into the project);
• and 90% (final editing and proofing).

Not only is this good to keep everyone on the right track, it’s even more valuable both to the person delegating and the delegate to know how much work should be completed at which points, and how much detail is required as you give feedback.

In many ways, great project management and delegation skills are really future-proofing skills. They allow you to be on top of your work regardless of what work (or life) throws at you. You can be the best SEO in the world, but if you can’t manage your projects effectively, you’ll either fail or not see the greatest impact you otherwise could achieve. It’s time to ditch praising the model of a lone innovator who somehow “does it all,” and instead truly celebrate the maintainers and managers who ensure things remain operational and steady. Often, our biggest problems aren’t best solved with a complex solution, but rather a clear mind and supportive team.

A large part of turning projects around comes down to improving the project management process, and being organized allows you to juggle multiple clients and acknowledge when you’re at capacity. Without a solid foundation of project management skills, there is no groundwork for successful innovations and client projects. The next time you’re looking to bolster your skill set, do an audit of how you manage your own work, and identify all of the things that prevent you from delivering the best work on time.

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Article source here: How to Delegate SEO Work Effectively