The Right Direction

Today when I was volunteering at my local food co-op, I was reading one of my favorite daily blogs, Get Rich Slowly. J.D. Roth is a great guy and has inspired me to get more frugal and increase my income. He is reviving one of his older blogs about animals and donating the money to a charity.

After reading his post, Building A Money Making Blog: Preparation, as is my habit, I took some notes and read the comments. On of the commentators turned me onto Lee Wind's blog, The Zen of Blogging, which contributed to more notes and I finally got it. Consistency and focus are key in staying on course and moving in the right direction in life, why not in a blog.

I will be two score and ten on my next birthday and I still love pens and paper. Tactile and audible pencil lead scratching helps me plan and so I sharpened one up and made a few notes to finalize my plan. As part of my plan I needed to come up with a few reasons why I wanted to blog and ways my blog would pay me.

1. Making a few extra dollars from my writing would be nice. I intentionally work a part-time job at a place I love to give me a lot of free time. I live on a very limited income but would like to visit my grandchildren more often. I have received royalties from a series of genealogical books I have co-authored, but more money and visits to the grandchildren would be a good thing.

2. I love reading, learning new things and sharing what I have learned. I had way too many books before I downsized but I have been a lifelong learner. Sharing lists of resources, books, blogs, primary documents and files is something I will definately do in each post.

3. Making the blog a priority and fitting my passions has to be a part of the plan. I will post each week and on living in a rural area. It is a very general topic I am passionate about there is a lot to write about. There are a lot of subtopics, Supporting Local Foods, Entrepreneurship, and Preparing for Emergencies are three I know for sure I will cover.

4. Other rural dwellers also need a place to share their stories. There are a lot of other people like me who have made the conscious decision to either stay, return or investigate a quieter lifestyle. I would like them to come here and feel at home.

Now that I narrowed down the general topics and made a decision to commit to doing this, I just have to figure out how to get the traffic here. In an email I subscribe to, Yaro Starak of Entrepreneurs Journey and a regular contributor to Problogger.net recommends at least five "Pillar Articles" so that search engines send more visitors to find you. With my three main topics, I think three pillars will create a very strong blog. I just have to get writing and decide on two more. Stay tuned.