Bookmarked Give your blog a name by .
Here’s a trend I’ve noticed as I’ve been collecting blogs for my blogroll spins: lots of people just use their first and last name along with the current page title in
<title>. I think you could be a bit more creative with that for a few reasons. I get it, for some folks, this is an identity thing. It probably also has something to do with SEO, especially if this is your main presence on the web and that for which you want search engines to pick up your blog when your name is searched for. But there are other ways to accomplish that.
I’ve been thinking about Anne’s post since reading this back in March. I’ve used my name and domain name as my primary identity online since 2008. This website was a portfolio and a bit of a professional profile for a long time. Even when I started writing blog posts on this domain back in 2014, they tended to skew toward designy/front-endy topics.
Now my blog is whatever it is now. I recently found myself describing it as a digital scrapbook, where ideas on web design collide into music recommendations and book reviews or the ups and downs following the New York Mets. Just depends on the week. It’s a bit messy and there is very little “content strategy,” but at any given time, my front page represents who I am in that moment. I really wouldn’t have my blog be any other way.
That said, I’ve been feeling like it might be useful to have a more professional personal profile on the web again, while blogging “on the side”. Here’s a couple examples of this I know of:
- Joe Crawford has a tidy one page site linking to his LinkedIn and GitHub profiles, as well as his email. Joe’s longtime web and blogging presence is at artlung.com.
- Mandy Brown has two blogs: one is for her coaching practice at the lovely URL everythingchanges.us. Mandy’s longtime blog on reading and ideas from books is A Working Library.
- Leon Paternoster blogs at This Day’s Portion. Leon’s professional profile and work case studies are housed at leonpaternoster.com.
If I were to go this route, I’d probably migrate my blog posts over to a new domain name (I’ve been loosely brainstorming ideas), and redirect my RSS feeds (and greatest hits) to the new blog. The tiny branding consultant that lives rent-free in my head nags at me that the blog name should match the URL in some way, although this is not necessarily what Anne is arguing for.
I kind of unceremoniously missed the 15th anniversary of registering my domain name in February last year, but I am coming up on the 10th anniversary of my first blog post. As that milestone approaches, I’ve been thinking a bit about what I’d do differently (if anything) knowing everything I know today.
Leave a Reply