As I am sure many of you who manage or contribute to an online blog know, finding time to manage the blog can be a chore sometimes, especially if you have plenty of other irons in the fire. My situation is a little different in that I work from a home office and find myself running to my computer to post things when an idea pops in my head (which can be at any given time…).
I have had a vision as of late of growing some websites, or Internet properties, if you will, that are based on a couple of topics that I have an interest in. My goal is to grow these websites by adding content to them on a frequent basis until one day I have a hefty amount of content on them and viewership so that we can pursue some profit model scenarios such as monetization and direct ad sales.
This blog that you are reading now has been a learning ground for me as I get familiar with web2.0. Believe it or not I have gotten a lot of good feedback about this blog and have established quiet a few pretty good relationships through this blog along the way as well. I tend to blog about boring, web development, hosting type topics because that’s what I do for a living and usually where my mind is at the time but I do sometimes post things related to sports and the occasional funny video from time to time just for good measure. When I first started this blog I was basically picking up and resurrecting my old personal website that had all but fallen by the wayside to say the least. My goal was to just install WordPress and learn a little more about it but I soon got consumed by the whole web2.0 thing and here I am today, a rapidly growing readership and ever-increasing search engine climb.
One of the online properties that I mentioned earlier is already launched, I posted an entry about this site’s beta-launch here, it’s a NASCAR fansite / blog where I will post entries that follow my favorite sport as the year progresses. My partners and I had shared the vision for this project almost 2 years ago when we were dealing with a lot of people in the NASCAR community and as a result we purchased www.nascarview.com to hang onto until the time was right and we had a game plan for the site. Needless to say with the growth of Pleth the past 2 years we didn’t give the project a whole lot of thought because we have suffered from time poverty. About a month ago I picked up the project as a sideline job for myself to try to get it back on track and whoolah it’s now online in it’s beta form.
Now, I know that with my day to day duties as a partner and active web and software developer, finding time to manage content on another project is going to be a chore so I decided to make things a little easier on myself by coming up with a Blog Maintenance Plan to help me keep content coming into my new pet project. Here’s what I am thinking…
Establishing a “Workday”
Readers and Subscribers of the NASCAR View are going to probably hit the site or expect updates on Sunday Night immediately following each race, I can see this also as the best time for me to capture their online readership since their adrenaline is rushing after the Sunday afternoon race. I also know that a small percentage of readers and subscribers are going to probably sneak a peak at the site on Monday’s when they are at work. With all of this in mind I know that my actual work day is going to come on Sunday’s during the NASCAR races.
Staying on Task with the Project
Now that I have established the actual “workday” that I am going to maintain the site’s content I now need to decide what my tasklist for that day is going to consist of. If you visit www.nascarview.com you will find that the site is broken down into a few “sections” or “categories”. These categories are as follows: Driver News, Flying Helmets, Race Reviews, and Team News. On the website the “featured” story is always the Race Review section where I post a few paragraphs about the race along with some mentionable highlights. I also will be picking a driver from the race that has had a great performance in the race, bad luck in the race, or who is on a streak, I figure that this topic will be good to spark some good user generated feedback because everyone is passionate about their drivers. Also, I have a section on the site called Team News, this section is dedicated to whatever team that week that I feel is newsworthy, again, this is based on either a teams good luck or bad luck, whichever is more news worthy. The other category of the site that I think has the most potential for sparking user feedback is the Flying Helmets section, originally titled Hot Helmets, in this section I post info about the latest feuds, rumors, wrecks, etc., that so many NASCAR fans out there have grown to enjoy as the lifeblood of the sport. With these topics now defined, here’s how I go about making out my sunday afternoon task list…
My Tasklist for this project…
Below you will find a breakdown on all of the tasks I have in play for managing this project. Keep in mind that my goal is to take as little time out of my already busy schedule to manage this project.
Race Review: I open a new Microsoft Live Writer document and keep it open during the duration of the race so that I can make notes as to lap number, etc., that notable events take place during the race. This blog entry will take the longest to put together but it will be the first to go online because it will be posted as soon as the race is over.
Driver News: As soon as the race is over I will ask myself what driver is the most worthy for me to dedicate my column to based on that weeks performance. In most cases the winner or runner ups are good candidates but let’s say that a driver has a great day and runs out front all day long but has a flat tire on the last lap, he’s probably going to get the nod from me. This section is pretty much performance driver, again, either good or bad.
Flying Helmets: This section could potentially either be the easiest to write on or the hardest, a lot depends on the race. For instance, I don’t see my job after the Bristol race to be near as hard as it would be after the Loudon race, see what I am saying? Some weeks if the drivers all respect each other and get along just fine it might go blank, if that’s the case I might post an addendum to the past weeks entry as to how the drivers got along.
Team News: I will post this entry as soon as the Flying Helmets section because you never know, the helmets that are flying might be on the same team as we saw this past weekend in the Daytona Race. Usually this isn’t the case, but if it is then a pingback to the Flying Helmets Entry might be in order…
So, let’s see my sunday afternoon is going to be filled with doing something I would normally have done anyway, watching the NASCAR races, and at the end of the race while I am watching Trackside Live on Speed I can wrap up the rest of my work. Hmmm, given that i have a Flatscreen television in my office facing my desk, where I usually take in the races anyway, my day isn’t that much different is it?
I just thought that this was something good that I could share with all of my readers who manage their own Blogs or multitude of blogs and projects so they could see where my thought process and justification lies on starting a new project. In the next few weeks I am going to be posting a new project online that is still in it’s beta stages but will soon have some great regional appeal, stay tuned…
Questions or Comments?