Wanted: Staff Writers for Website In A Weekend

May 2, 2010 By 6 Comments

(Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes)

Starting Monday, May 3 2010, Website In A Weekend will have 5 authors on staff, posting monthly on Mondays and 2nd Wednesdays.

These five people – bloggers – are an excellent fit for Website In A Weekend. Each author writes on important topics, each has a distinct writing (and speaking!) voice, each has a track record in blogging long enough to establish their credentials (street cred, really), and, frankly, each is good enough such that he or she has no need to post on Website In A Weekend. It’s simply a win/win for everyone.

As it turns out, I’m sure a couple of these folks will be familiar to you… but others won’t.

Gabe Young

Gabe Young Gabe Young is a business professional with an entrepreneurial spirit. Gabe has an MBA and managed IT departments in the Fortune 500, creating strategies and tactics for some of the most popular websites. Visit Gabe at Free Blog Help dot Com.

Gabe’s articles will run every first Monday of the month.

Anna Vera Williams

Anna Williams is a blogger, webmaster, photographer, and poet. She has lived and traveled in four continents, and currently lives in a forest, in the Pacific Northwest. Visit her personal blog, view photos, or read poetry. Anna offers website development and related services.

Anna’s articles will run every 2d Monday monthly.

Aaron Pogue

Aaron Pogue is the creator of Unstressed Syllables, a general writing advice site featuring interesting, useful articles on topics ranging from business to storytelling. His decades of experience in creative and technical writing makes good writing easy for you.

Aaron’s articles will run every 3d Monday monthly.

Rachna Jain, PhD

Rachna Jain is the amazingly energetic entrepreneur driving Social Media Marketing Strategies, where you will find in-depth discussion of the latest technology and techniques in social media marketing.

Rachna’s articles will run every 4th Monday.

Dave Thackeray

Dave Thackeray Want to be a radio star? Guest on Dave Thackeray's InspiRadio, a unique business-focused online radio network. Listen live or check out the InspiRadio website for more information.

Dave’s articles will run every 2d Wednesday.

Would you like to be on staff?

There’s room for more, 3 more.

Here’s how it works…

Each staff author gets their own account, their own byline, their own biography box, and SEO optimal backlinks into articles on their website, as well as internal backlinks to their own articles here on Website In A Weekend when relevant.

As a staff author, your articles are yours. I do not hold your copyright. All I ask is the privilege of posting selected articles here on Website In A Weekend.

Insisting on uniqueness is the same as holding your copyright, and I’m not going to do it. Maybe the Really Big Bloggers can do this, but I feel very strongly that it would incredibly presumptuous of me to insist the same. And, honestly, I don’t truly believe you would give me your best work if I was going to take it away from you.

Are you a good fit?

If you’re interested, pitch me. Here’s what I’m looking for:

  • WordPress news maven. I would love to have someone who tracks news coming out of the WordPress community, and could – once a month – help people understand specific, practical benefits of new features and plugins. Note: your article here could easily be a summary of related articles you have already published on your own website.
  • Facebook expert. I already have one in mind… who I am ever so gently and assiduously courting… but I won’t wait too long. If she isn’t interested, perhaps it could be you. And this is important. Facebook tinkled in everyone’s Cheerios last week; you can’t not play.
  • Analytics or SEO expert. Either. Both. It’s time to start really stepping it up around Website In A Weekend! Who I’m looking for will have the ability to explain obtuse jargon in simple terms, and be rabid about precision. Bad (i.e., wrong) SEO advice is rampant. Simple is good, as long as it’s correct.

Take a look through these articles on guest posting and see if you’re a fit:

NOTE: This offer definitely applies to anyone who doesn’t have the time continue on their own blog, but has plenty of material and wants to continue to drive traffic on their brand, say, to their LinkedIn profile. If you’re a professional seriously committed to your growth, then let’s talk.

Remember: Everything you write for Website In A Weekend is yours. You keep the copyright, only granting use for your material to Website In A Weekend for the blog.

Filed Under: Building community Tagged With: ,

Website In A Weekend: Thursday evening – Get into the gate

January 14, 2010 By 10 Comments

(Reading time: 4 – 7 minutes)

It’s Thursday.

The day before you start the Website In A Weekend eCourse.

That’s right. You’re going to build a website this weekend.

Scary?

Could be. Especially if you aren’t prepared.

You need this checklist before you get started with building your Website In A Weekend.

First up…

Take care of the critter

Creature comforts are important. If your body lacks fuel, your mind will not work as well as it needs to work to get through this weekend successfully.

  • Food:

    I like to eat a big breakfast when I have a lot to do during the day. It helps give me energy for the whole day. With a big breakfast I don’t need to eat as much for lunch or supper either. What you eat is your business… if it were up to me… I’d make sure you had plenty of bacon and eggs!

    For lunch and dinner, plan on eating a little lighter than normal. Add more salad, take less heavy carbs: Pasta a no no.

    I like having a lot of fresh fruit on hand for snacking. Since I can walk to 99 Ranch, an enormous asian supermarket, I load up on cool stuff like dragon fruit, asian pears, kiwis, whatever else is in season. Ok, dragon fruit are really just pitaya, and from Mexico, but 99 Ranch is the only place I can get them, so I’ll call ‘em dragon fruit.

    More snacks: cheese, crackers, chips, dips… the usual. You have a lot to get done between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon. If you need to fuel yourself on junk food for a couple of days, you have my permission.

  • Drink:

    Water water water. You’re going to get dehydrated. Plan ahead to drink plenty.

    Stock up on fruit juice or sports drinks as well. These will help you stay hydrated and give you an energy boost.

  • Coffee or tea:

    Actually, I drink both. Far too much most likely! In any case, if you partake of either (or both), make sure you have enough on hand to get through until at least Monday evening! You won’t have time to go to the store this weekend, so you need to make sure you have the start of your following week handled.

This bears repeating:

You won’t have time to shop, stock up tonight to get through until Tuesday!

Get your infosystems ready

Next, collect up all your information about account names and passwords so that you can get to them easily. You’re probably going to get a couple more accounts over the weekend.

  • Gmail:

    First up, if you don’t have a gmail account, just go get one. Google provides some powerful and free tools that will help you learn about your blog traffic, where readers are coming from, where they’re going, and what they are doing while on your blog.

  • WordPress.com:

    You will need a WordPress.com account to take advantage of tools such as Akismet for reducing comment spam, and for using statistics internally on your blog. You will also get a WordPress.com blog which you can use for blogging outside your niche.

  • Social networking:

    If you have twitter or facebook accounts, we can hook them up to your new blog.

  • Paper, pens and pencils:

    It’s highly likely you are going to acquire even more internet accounts for various services. You will need to handle user names and passwords.

    The fastest way to deal with user names and passwords is paper and pencil. A notebook would be just fine. You can transfer everything into a spreadsheet later.

Hey! You’re starting the Website In A Weekend eCourse. Learn how to create and operate a complete WordPress-based website in a single weekend. Start here: Website In A Weekend: Friday Evening – Off to the Races. (If you already have a blog… “audit” the eCourse… you’ll find plenty to do.)

Get a head start on your blog

If you have anything at all written that you want to post on your blog, find it and put it somewhere convenient, somewhere you can get to it fast. Like, cut and paste fast. This will save you huge amounts of time on Saturday when you are writing your pillar content during the afternoon doldrums.

Lacking articles to post, write out a few dozen titles for articles you would like to write. You will use these to create categories. Categories help you keep your writing focused, and help readers find more articles related to what they are interested in reading on your new blog.

Above all, prepare yourself to work really, really hard for two and half days. You’ll be glad you did.

Now that you’re ready… take the next step: Website In A Weekend: Friday Evening – Off to the Races.

Lagniappe

You know, after you rack your brains for every conceivable task, and you’re sure it’s covered every which way to Dallas, somebody pops up with the obvious…

Hat tip Hat tip : Lori Franklin at Jane Be Nimble reminded me about Gravatars. Of course. A head smacker if there ever was one.

Don’t wait, get your Gravatar now

Read why you need a Gravatar in Who The Heck Are You? Get a Gravatar!, then head off to gravatar.com and make it happen.

Filed Under: Getting Started Tagged With: , ,