Maintaining a personal website is a tricky thing. Blogs are fine, but I wanted a whole site that I could customize myself and call it what I want and put up more than just words and the occasional minimalist palm-tree-and-bicyclist image file.
Having the goals I have means this website must eventually become integrated with my life. I’ve got a lot going on and a lot more coming down the pipeline, so I need to find a balance.
It’s early still, so I won’t beat myself up.
But style matters. It does. I need to get my head around what my style currently is, what I want it to be, and how to make the two join up. I’m a big fan of Ernest Hemmingway’s advice, but I’m not a big fan of taking one man’s advice as undeniable truth. I guess that means I’ll treat it as guidelines to stick to, but I’ll break those goddamn rules anytime I feel like.
I’m working on shorter paragraphs. Can you tell?
I’m coming to a point where soon I will really start to push traffic here. I’m not doing much of anything yet to get visitors, and my site stats will back that statement up. When I do start advertising myself like some Las Vegas strip club owner, I’m not going to want “visitors.” I’m going to want repeat traffic. I’m going to want eager readers. I’m going to want, for lack of a less narcissistic term, fans.
So when I really start hitting up social media and e-mailing everybody I’ve ever come across with the whole hey-look-at-me-I-have-a-website message, I’m going to want a strong start. I’m going to want to impress. I don’t want just another blog. I want a destination website.
I want people to come here for something they want. I won’t beg people to look at my website. That’s not sustainable.
This website matters.
Content is king, but style creates the kingdom.
This entry was posted on March 26, 2011 at 3:24 PM and is filed under Big thoughts, Internuts and bolts - SEO and social media, Operation: Move to California as Soon as Possible, Operation: No Day Job by 2016. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.