The WordPress 101: I’m in a bind, and you benefit!

(Reading time: 4 – 7 minutes)

>>>UPDATE 3/22/2010: Article count pushing 300.

>>>>UPDATE 2/10/2010: If you’re coming in all the way from Cleavage, leave a note below. Article count is now 257. Almost daily posting since this article was written.

>>>UPDATE 7/2/2009: Coupons are gone! Subscribe to Website In A Weekend and never miss future offers!

My Need is your Benefit. Let me explain.

You have — at your fingertips — about 35 95 great articles about WordPress here on Website In A Weekend. But you’re going to get more. 66 6 more, 101 in total. Why 101? Why not? 101 is a great number!

And, these are 101 Pillar Content articles! There’s already over 120 articles in total, but these 101 form the cornerstone for Website In A Weekend.

Here’s how my need benefits you, big time…

Those of you keeping up with the newsletter…

(which should be all of you, if not, you should sign up right now and come back)

…will recall my little secret project:

Now, The WordPress 101 is really for you. It’s useful, it’s relevant, it will save you time and help you make money. It’s free, don’t worry about that, but you have to step up, take some action. You decide what YOU want to read, then tell ME what to write. You’ve been meaning to get this “blog thing” handled for what, months, right? A year? Longer? No more excuses, NOW is the time!

Here’s how it works…

Let’s back up a bit… you need to know the “whats” and the “why-fors.”

I have this friend Sean, who goes by the moniker Deacon sometimes, and he runs a little secret design website. He would kill me if I linked to it, so I won’t. You’ll just have to trust me. And besides, he’s so secret, I’m going to win a little bet we made, because even if he wins, he won’t be able to prove it because it’s so secret. Here’s what I bet:

I bet him that I could write 101 Website In A Weekend articles faster than he could make 101 art dohickies, or thingamajigs, or whatever it is that artists make.

Ok, I admit that my original notion was 101 really cool website links to, say, customer’s and friend’s pages. But I found out Google would call me a spammer and spank Website In A Weekend. That’s very uncool of Google, but Google owns The Interwebs, not me. So, links are a big no-go.

Clearly, I needed to find something else, fast. Something that was doable. Something Google would give me treats for, instead of stealing my candy.

Now, I have it: I’m going to write 101 articles on WordPress, right here on Website In A Weekend.

See, I can write a lot of cool articles on WordPress, but they might only be cool to me. Stuff like how the WordPress inner loop works. Or how to refactor WordPress plugins. Since I think all of WordPress is cool as a moose (I can say stuff like “cool as a moose” because my kinfolk are from the country)…

Now, we’re both happy.

I get great article topics, you get the help you need.

There is no obligation on your part. How could there be? I’m doing the work, you’re not! But since I really want to beat Mr Top Secret, help me out here… and… I’ll give you

on the topic you suggest—or any article on Website In A Weekend. It’s easy to help, just fill out the coupon and send it in. If I write on your topic, I’ll email you my contact information directly. Actually, I’ll email you anyway just to thank you for your suggestion. Smart bears will sign up for the useful newsletter too (mostly “All Original Content”).

I have no earthly idea how this is going to work out, so I better limit the initial round of articles to the first 5 suggestions I can write about. Once those are finished, I’ll make another coupon, for another 5 suggestions.

This is cool… I’m not going to tell him about this little offer either. Because he was just bragging the other day that he already did 21 cool art doodads (which are probably top secret too). He’s about to walk through my door here in a minute with a bag full of goodies from Trader Joe’s, so I need to wrap this up.

There’s the door bell… I’ll back in a bit.

Heh… Mr Top Secret just left… and I got the goods! Sean’s finished 21 of his art doodads. It takes me anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple of hours to write an article, and he can make several doodads in a day. But he has to find people to give his doodads to, and that’s going to take time, so I figure we’re square, even though I’ve got 35 articles to his 21 doodads.

And I didn’t tell him anything about our little agreement here, OR about my Coaching Coupon.

So, let’s you and I get to work here, and show Mr Top Secret what’s what!

ps: Sean is very cool, and always full of surprises. Once he unveils his work, I’m going to tell you ALL about it, just as soon as I can, even though it has nothing whatsoever to do with WordPress. He’s even promised me the #1 doodad when it’s done. I’ll post a picture.