Okay, in all honestly, if you are actually in bed with the swine flu, you are probably better off sleeping, but if you are nurturing the tail end of a flu, or even just the common cold, you may be able and willing to get a few things done.

The other day I was feeling a bit under the weather, and for some reason got to thinking – what SEO work could be done from bed? Sometimes illness can wipe us out so all we can do is sleep the day away, but other times it is just bad enough that you wind up being stuck in bed, but lying awake bored.  I came up with a few tasks a sick site owner could work on while not requiring too much brain power.

This list is for those who want to be at their desk, but just can’t make it off their pillow. Laptop required.

1.) Content Creation & Blog Posts
Work on creating some new content to add to your site, or write that blog post you’ve been waiting to get started on. You may not be able to polish the content or articles you write until you’re back in your office, but depending on just how sick you are, you can likely get a good outline written out, and a bit of rough research to get you started!

At the very lest you can probably get some good notes on content ideas so when you are in that writing mood you can just fire away at the keyboard.

2.) Twitter & Social Media
Contribute to, and work on building up your social media profiles. This may be as simple as responding to a few tweets, Digging a few useful URL’s, or just reading and commenting on industry specific blogs. This kind of interaction often takes little brain strength, but can occupy a significant amount of time – what better opportunity is there then when you are lying awake stuck in bed.

3.) Competitor Analysis
If you are under the weather you most likely don’t want to dive into any serious competitor research, but why not do a few searches for phrases you target and poke around on some of the competitor websites. Take note of anything obscure or interesting that you may be able to apply to your site to help drive up rankings or improve your visitor experience.

4.) Keyword Research
While scanning over your competitor sites, take the time to note any industry terms or phrases of interest that you may not be targeting your self. Brainstorm for phrases that are relevant, but not used on your site to see if you can uncover any that may be worth targeting. Record any that interest you and check them against Google’s keyword tool and analyze further when you return to work.

5.) Proof Read Your Site
Not a day goes by that I don’t see a website with at least one typo. While correcting typos is unlikely to improve your search rankings, if you find that a target phrase is misspelled, it just may have an impact. Scan through and read your website noting any grammatical or spelling errors to be corrected when you return to work.

There you have it, 5 simple variations of tasks that you can plug away on while stuck in bed sick. Hopefully working from bed isn’t something that will occur often, but at least there are some easy tasks that can help with your online marketing while only minimally taxing your brain.