Do you wish you could have more time without spending hundreds of dollars on outsourcing?
That all of those little tasks could just be taken care of, and you didn’t need to worry about any of them any more.
Well if that sounds like you, you’re in luck.
If This Then That allows you to take lots of your daily tasks and automate them, completely, for free. No strings attached. Making your life as a digital marketer much easier.
Since finding the tool years ago it’s become one of the main components of my everyday life. And now, I want to share with you how you can use it too.
So if you’re interested in having more time and less worry, the free tools in this article are for you!
What You Will Learn
- What is IFTTT and why should you care?
- The IFTTT recipes I use to run a 7 figure blog and 10x my productivity
- How to use IFTTT for marketing success
- The best IFTTT recipes for SEO, Bloggers & Digital Marketers
Everything in this article is focused on helping you as a digital marketer – be it in content, SEO or elsewhere – make your life a whole lot easier.
What Is IFTTT?
IFTTT stands for If This Then That and it’s a completely free way to make you more productive and time efficient by automating some of the most mundane parts of your business.
The tool uses Recipes (also known as Applets) to connect different apps and tools to create workflows. Think of them like a chain reaction; when you take an action in one tool, another happens in the tool that it’s linked to.
For example if you were to active this Recipe, every time you used a specific hashtag on Twitter, like #work, that tweet would directly post to Facebook:
While this may only seem like a few seconds, it’s one of those tasks that have a positive impact on your entire workload after a few uses. And if you combine 10 to 15 of these across your workload the time savings really come into play.
The amount of tools that can be combined, for lots of different purposes, is almost limitless and applies to all industries and niches.
Just off the top of my head you can use Recipes for: Google Docs, Evernote, Pocket, Gmail, WordPress, YouTube, Medium, ESPN, The New York Times and all social media channels. And that’s really just scratching the surface.
This means you never have to repeat a repetitive task that you don’t want to. So, think of it like free outsourcing for the tasks you hate.
The IFTTT Recipes I Use To Run A 7-Figure Blog
If there’s one lesson I’ve learned over the years it’s this:
The bigger your blog the harder it is to remain productive.
You’re constantly bombarded with new and different time sucks that drain your energy and pull you in lots of different directions. So, I’ve been using IFTTT to help alleviate a lot of that stress.
In this section I want to show you the true potential of IFTTT by sharing with you the IFTTT recipes I use to automate my day-to-day marketing activities.
RSS Feed + Evernote = Automatically Curated Content
Every month I published an Income Report Roundup from various bloggers that have been tracking their income process. But what you probably don’t realise is that I don’t do any of the research for that.
Instead it’s all handled by an Recipe that delivers the information I need directly to my Evernote at the end of every month.
To do this I create an If This that states when a new article is added to my RSS feed with the keywords Income Roundup it triggers the process:
I then connect it to my Evernote to create a note with links to all of the relevant articles that gets delivered to me at the end of the month.
Meaning I save literal hours trying to find content with the relevant information.
WordPress + Evernote = Backup Blog Posts
It’s important to have backup copies of your blog posts. In the case anything goes south with your site, or hackers deleting all of your content, you should always have a fallback option.
For me this is using IFTTT to save my latest posts on WordPress to my Evernote database.
The first step is to connect up your WordPress account to IFTTT, and then select the New blog post trigger.
After that all you have to do is connect your Evernote account and have it save automatically once it goes live. Giving you a backup copy of your posts without any extra work at all.
Luckily for you that comes as a pre-made Recipe that you can set up in just a few seconds right here.
RSS Feed + Email/Text = First Comment Exposure
Blog Commenting may not give you the best return from SEO, but it does give you an excellent opportunity to get your site some much needed exposure.
The best way to do this is by being one of the first comment on a new post.
To do this is simple. First head to the site you want to comment on and at the end of their URL type /feed/. For example:
www.nomadicmatt.com/feed/
www.fluentin3months.com/feed/
www.deutschified.com/feed
www.expertvagabond.com/feed/
Then you add that URL to the RSS feed as the If This trigger. It’s worth checking the site actually has the RSS feed before you do that, mind you.
Depending on the importance of the site you can set this up to either email you instantly, or to text directly to your phone.
When there is a big, high traffic site I get a text directly to my phone so I can jump on and capitalise no matter where I am. But if it’s a middle of the road site I’ll get an email update and see to it as soon as I get chance.
Competitor Emails + Evernote = Deep Competitor Insights
In the blogosphere email marketing is super important. It’s at the backbone of every sale, every interaction and it’s where I make a lot of my money.
The same goes for your competition.
That means if you can study their emails you’re able to see exactly who they’re targeting, what they’re promoting and how you can steal some of their ideas.
This also serves to make you aware of affiliate options, copywriting lessons and when your competitors are about to make a large sales push.
To set this up, choose your email client as the If This trigger and choose the New email in inbox from option:
Enter the email address that they use to send promotional emails:
And then use Evernote as the Then that trigger to have these emails archive themselves directly into the app.
You could even log everything into a Google Spreadsheet so you have a database of relevant marketing emails to search at a moments notice 😉
IFTTT Tutorial: How To Use IFTTT
Learning how to use IFTTT is really easy!
You have two options when you’re using IFTTT; you can either use pre-made Recipes from developers, or you can create your own.
In my IFTTT tutorial I’ll show you how to create a tailor made Recipe to make your workday more productive.
Firstly to create your own Recipes you need to go to this link here, which will show you a screen like this:
What you’re going to do first is create the if this and then the then that portions of this by connecting two tools.
Let’s say you want to take a specific action every day that you keep forgetting about. Well, you can create an IFTTT Applet that will send you a reminder every day.
Firstly click on the + this section of the text and choose the date and time service:
You’ll then be able to choose the event that happens to trigger this process. For this example I’m going to go for Every day at.
I can then set the specific time that I want to process to be triggered at:
So as of 09:00 every morning this IFTTT will be triggered to take an action. But, what action is that going to be? Well that brings me to the next step…
You’re not going to need to click the + that section of the text:
And from the tools list you can choose where you want to be reminded. For me, email is always the best place for me to get a reminder, so I’m going to link this to my Gmail account.
But you could set it up to send you an SMS, a new note in Evernote, an alert on your calendar or any number of places that your attention will be focused.
On the next page I’ll select the action I want to take, in this case send me an email:
Then I can fill out the detail I want to receive. For this example let’s go for following up emails that I’ve sent out that need following up.
Hit Create action and there you have it. The next time 09:00 rolls around I’ll get a lovely little reminder in my inbox.
This is a simple example but the system is exactly the same for any Applet or process that you want to create. If you find an inefficiency that can be fixed, you can probably create a solution for it here.
But, if you don’t want to create your own Recipes, you can always use the pre-made Recipes people are already using…
The Best IFTTT Recipes For SEO, Bloggers & Digital Marketers
If you’re not sure what Recipes to make, or just don’t have the time or energy to do it yourself, you’re in luck.
Lots of people go out of their way to create and share their own personal Recipes and you can access them at the click of a button. Meaning you can maximise your productivity in just a few minutes.
In this section I’m going to share the 21 best IFTTT recipes for you to choose from. All you have to do is click the link, connect your accounts, and you’re ready to save time and effort.
Also, if any of these give you an idea for your own Recipe, you can just take the base recipe and use it to create your own in the future.
01: Create A Medium Story From Your WordPress Post
Sharing your posts on Medium allows you to get an extra set of eyes on your posts and drive traffic back to your site.
And now you don’t need to go through the process of formatting the same post twice. This Recipe automatically posts your new articles to Medium in real time.
>>> Get This Recipe Here <<<
02: Monitor Brand Mentions
With this Recipe you can receive an email every time your brand gets mentioned on the internet. Helping you find link building and partnership opportunities without putting in any work.
Simply head over to Social Mention, enter your keyword, and take the link from the RSS Feed.
Then take the link and add it into the Recipe. Now, once you get mentioned, you’ll get it delivered right to your inbox.
>>> Get This Recipe Here <<<
03: Email Alerts For Wikipedia Page Updates
Wikipedia is still a great source of building links. So, why not get updates when a page is being updated to show dead links, citations needed or other updates you can cash in on?
Simple change the slug of this Recipe to fit the page you want (that’s the bit in bold: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization) and you’ll get an update delivered straight to you.
>>> Get This Recipe Here <<<
04: Save Popular Posts From /TodayIlearned
Mining for content ideas can be hard work. So, how about getting them stored in your Pocket account instead?
The Reddit forum Today I Learned [tk] can be a great place to find useful information to use in blog posts and create topics around. All you have to do is check in on your pocket when it comes time to have an idea.
>>> Get This Recipe Here <<<
05: Get A Reddit Digest Of Every Top SEO Post
If you’re learning about SEO, or you’re in the niche, you can get every top performing article delivered right to your inbox as a digest.
Meaning you can create a reading list, curate content for roundups or get instant access to new and successful techniques.
You could theoretically change the SEO for whatever niche you’re working in too.
>>> Get This Recipe Here <<<
06: If Someone Comments On Your Post Receive It As A Text
Engaging with people is really important. But, it’s easy to miss comments when you’re trying to be active in multiple places.
So, if you’re commenting on a site that has an available RSS feed, you can add the link to IFTTT and have them send you a text as soon as they comment.
Meaning you can engage in real time, solve problems and create meaningful interactions without overlooking anybody.
>>> Get This Recipe Here <<<
07: Save Feedly Post Titles To Google Drive
If you have a premium Feedly account this is a great Recipe to take advantage of.
It pulls the headlines of all of the articles that show up in your feeds and saves them to a Google Spreadsheet. Why?
Well it allows you to:
- Track and monitor trending topics
- See high performing headlines and improve your copywriting
- See consistent content that your competitors are creating
- Generate content ideas for your own blog
It’s a super simple idea that comes with lots and lots of benefits.
>>> Get This Recipe Here <<<
08: Turn Trello Card Into Google Calendar Event
If you’re creating a content schedule and using Trello, this is a really invaluable Recipe to use.
Whenever you create a Trello card and assign a date or time, it will automatically be added to your Google Calendar and send you an update as the time comes closer.
This allows you to create a consistent posting schedule and never miss a deadline. Cool, right?
>>> Get This Recipe Here <<<
09: Archive Every Time You’re Mentioned To A Google Spreadsheet
Want to keep track of who’s talking about you in Twitter, and what they’re saying? This Recipe lets you do all of that in one tidy Google spreadsheet.
By following your Twitter handle or a hashtag you’re able to get each tweet that mentions those keywords stored automatically. Allowing you to track conversations and monitor your brand image.
It also gives you lots of opportunity to find new, interested, people to interact with.
>>> Get This Recipe Here <<<
10-14: Share New WordPress Posts To Social Media
Keep forgetting to share your posts on social media? Don’t worry, this solution is for you.
As soon as you hit the Publish button on WordPress your post will instantly go live on your social channels. Letting your fans get their dose of your content as soon as it’s ready.
Just click any of the links below to access that Recipe:
15: Tweet Your Instagram Images As Twitter Native
Share your latest Instagram updates directly to Twitter with this simple Recipe. That way you can keep up with multiple channels while using as few as possible.
>>> Get This Recipe Here <<<
16: Save The Tweets You Like To A Google Spreadsheet
One of the best ways to find new content (and marketing ideas) is to scratch your own itch and see what you like.
This IFTTT Recipe takes every tweet you like and puts it into a Google spreadsheet for you to look at a later date.
You can then ask yourself:
- Why did I like this Tweet?
- What can I use from it?
- Is there content that I can create from it?
And give yourself a good understand of what makes you – and potentially your audience – tick.
18-21: BackUp All WordPress Blog Posts
You can never have too many backups of your work. Anyone who has ever lost thousands of words and never been able to retrieve them will tell you that.
But luckily you can now save all of your finalised WordPress posts the minute that you publish them. Meaning you never have to worry about losing all of your content again.
I’d recommend using two or three of these to make sure you’re covered, or just connect it to your favourite tool:
Wrapping It Up….
I hope by now you can see that IFTTT is a great tool to help you be more productive without needing to outsource any of your work.
And, the amount of Recipes you can create really is endless!
The best way to use this tool is to find the real problems in your workflow and then connect two tools to make the problem go away.
Which are the best IFTTT recipes for you? Which ones have you created that work well? Let me know in the comments…