How to blog your career without breaking your budgets Bill Sodeman billso.com

Why should I blog about my career? We live in a culture of evidence It's your duty to yourself to document what you've accomplished People have selective memories about their work lives A career blog can help you recruit and keep clients and customers A career blog can help you find new opportunities, even when you aren't looking for them

Make your blog into a knowledge base Make your blog an online extension of your interests Write articles about specific issues or topics Write about events and conferences that you've attended Mention and promote your publications and books

What kinds of content should I post? Written work Your own writing Opinions and criticism about other peoples' writing Multimedia Links to your own podcasts Recordings of your presentations, talks or performances

Blogging and teaching I developed my blog to post URLs, short articles and content for my courses One stable place where I can keep my link I disable public comments on course-related articles o FERPA: federal student privacy rules

What's all this about a budget, then? Money Money might buy you more money Most Americans don't save enough money to get them through a layoff or health crisis Time You can save time, but you can't save time Money can buy you time... sometimes Time becomes more expensive as deadlines loom

Where should I host my WordPress? You can buy or ask for WordPress setup help install4free.wordpress.net o Vounteers who will set up a basic WP site for free, for non-commercial use only Many webhosts offer WordPress as an option o This is a good plan if you want to host other services from your own domain name o DreamHost WordPress.com offers free and paid hosting o Limited range of plugins o Excellent support and bandwidth management Hire an SEO

How much time will my blog take? Budget 5-25 hours for startup and learning how to use the blog software Budget at least 1 hour for every day that you post content How many articles can you write in an hour? Do you enjoy or dread writing? Write articles ahead of time and keep them in inventory o Google Docs o Drafts in WordPress

Don't make blogging your life's work You're blogging about your career Set some limits on how much time you devote to blogging and social media each day Keep a calendar or journal Get away from that computer!

How many blogs do you want to write? Uniblogging or portal Post or link everything into one single blog Easy to promote and find This may help your Google PageRank if your blog covers a narrow range of topics Multiple blogs Labor intensive, even with WordPress MU Focus on specific topics might improve PageRank Hosting multiple blogs from the same web host or IP range might not help your PageRank

Public or private? What kinds of information should you post on your blog? o The gag test o The auntie test o The newspaper test o The TV test Who should have access to your blog?

Who is your audience? Public You don't care who reads your content You want everyone to have access to your content You need investors or customers Private Friends and colleagues Closed social networks Anyone who wants to maintain their privacy Blogging under an alias Your nervous lawyer

Marketing and promoting your blog Choose a URL that meets common sense tests List your blog URL on your social networking profiles Use Google Analytics or other tools to track visits Link and article exchanges Google AdWords and other ad networks

Why is my blog's domain name billso.com? It's easier to spell and remember than my last name Short domain names are easier to type billso was my corporate address for 3 years

Should you include advertising on your public blog(s)? Can you can generate enough advertising income to make the ads worth your effort? o For most bloggers, the answer is no Will your audience tolerate the ads? Does your blog fit into a narrow set of keywords?

Managing your content Use tags as keywords Be consistent with your tags Develop a tag dictionary Use tag clouds from your site and other blogs to find and fix your tags Use categories to manage access to your blog career-related rant humor

Questions? Comments? billso.com