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Journaling and Writing in WordPress

If you have an interest in developing a web-based business, I suggest you post all your personal writing inside a blog. By constantly updating and posting to a blog, you are always developing basic WordPress skills--but these skills are developed on the side and as a knock on effect of just maintaining your journal or other projects. Honestly, working and posting in WordPress (once you learn the very basic skills) is actually quite fun. You just create a subdomain on your existing website and play. You can keep it all private or unpublished if you want.

I recommend that you not create subdomains on a business website for these purposes--unless you keep them totally private. Otherwise, your musings might show up in google searches for your business. It's also just a better practice to keep your professional website clean and uncluttered; even if the postings are kept private you are mixing the professional and the private in your mind in ways that may not be helpful.

Use Your Own Domain Built on WordPress.org If At All Possible

If you have zero experience and zero funds, you can start by creating a free blog on WordPress.com. This will teach you some of the very basic skills. You can always export what you write to a domain you own down the road. However, in general, if you can afford the costs of purchasing a domain name (about $12 ) and hosting the website (about $4 per month), I do recommend posting on a WordPress.org domain that you own. That way you are learning the WordPress skills day in and day out that you will use in creating your web business.

Write First Drafts Offline and Outside of WordPress

I always draft posts in a word processing program or note taking software (I use Microsoft OneNote)--and then copy and paste the post into WordPress. It's easier to do the writing offline, and then you have a drop dead backup just in case something goes south with your web-hosting service. I also backup the stuff in OneNote in the cloud.

Think Hard About Privacy and Who Has Access to Your Site

Keep in mind that anyone who has editor or administrator access to your Website would have access to your private posts. So, if there are multiple people accessing your site internally, restrict what you post (even privately) accordingly. Also, if you want to create an entirely private site, you can use plugins such as Page Restrict. (I have not used this product myself. This is just an example.)

Writing in WordPress Is A Lot of Fun and Builds Skills As An Afterthought

Posting all your writing into WordPress is a simple, creative, and systematic way to develop your WordPress and website building skills more broadly. The best part is that you develop these abilities as a side effect of simply keeping your journal and other writing inside of a WordPress site. Again, I stress, if these are private thoughts, but sure to mark the posts as private so only those you authorize can access your writing. Another nice side effect of journaling inside WordPress is that if/when you get a little courage to publish more, your writing is already teed up and ready to fly. (See some related thoughts here and here.)

Have fun!

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