Business Writing Exercise
Last week we talked about the content-based economy, and why you need a professional blog. Over the course of the same week, I set up three new sites for myself, and I’m already running a professional blog here.
That’s not unusual. It’s common for people who jump into blogging to discover that they have enough material to support more than one focused topic. In my case, it’s not quite so exciting — two of the blogs I launched only exist to support the e-Book Challenge, which will be running in August, and is essentially an off-shoot of the book I launched on Saturday.
The third…well, remember when I mentioned the Consortium a while back? I dropped some hints, but said that the full idea would take a whole blog post to describe. As I worked on that blog post, I started to realize it was going to be run to five or six thousand words. In other words, the full idea would take a blog to describe.
So I started a new site. Just that easy. Once you’ve got webhosting, adding a new site is as simple as buying a domain name (usually five to fifteen bucks a year), and creating a new folder on your server. If you’re running WordPress (and I am, no question), it’s usually a one-click process to get it set up, and then five to ten minutes to get a user account set up, a theme installed, and then get started writing.
When you do that (as I mentioned to my Creative Writers last Friday), one of the first and most important pages for you to write is the About page. It’s a standard page on your blog that tells new readers who you are, what you’re talking about on your blog, and why they should listen.
That’s your job today. Figure out what your first site is going to be about. If you’ve already got one, share us a link to your About page. If you’ve got a site but your About page is empty, fill it in and share a link. If you don’t have one yet, start with your About.
Tell us who you are, and what you want to talk about, and why we should listen. It’s an amazing starting spot. Once you have that nailed down, you’ve got a mission statement and a development plan all in one. Write an About page, share it with us in the comments, and then go find yourself a domain name.
If you’ve got any questions, share those, too. I may not be able to answer them all, but I suspect I can connect you with people who are.
Hey Aaron,
Kelly Diels told me about your site. I’ve been reading your posts for the last few days and love your insights. Looks like you’ve got alot of great advice on how to write good content. I also run a site called BlogcastFM, a podcast for bloggers. She recommended that I interview you. I imagine you’d have plenty of advice on how to write great content. Let me know if you’d be interested in participating.
Cheers,
Srini
I’d love to participate, Srini. Give me a couple weeks (if that’s not too much to ask), so I can clear up some of the work that’s been waiting for me to finish my e-Book.
But yeah, I suspect I can come up with a thing or two to say about writing.