This is Day 1 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, a group project 50+ other bloggers are doing together in an effort to help each other become better bloggers. You can read more about it and still sign-up to participate here.
Welcome fellow 31 Days to Build a Better Blog bloggers!
And if you’re not officially signed up & participating in this group blog project, welcome to you too. Even though you won’t benefit as much as you would if you had signed up, bought the 31DBBB e-book, and fully committed to this project, everyone who reads & discusses any of the 31 posts in this series should be able to glean some insight to help them become a better blogger.
Day 1’s lesson and assignment is all about writing an “elevator pitch” for your blog. It’s a great place to start this series because it forces each of us to give our blog an identity.
What is an Elevator Pitch?
“An elevator pitch is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds or 100–150 words).” —Wikipedia
Find Your Focus
One of the most common reasons blogs fail is due to lack of focus.
General speaking, people read blogs for one of 3 reasons: to learn, to be inspired, or to be entertained.
This may sound harsh, but if you blog “about life” or “whatever’s on your mind,” unless you’re a celebrity nobody outside your family and close friends is going to read it. The focus of your blog should not be on you, but on how you can help your readers.
Writing your elevator pitch forces you to answer some essential questions:
- Why are you blogging?
- Who are you blogging for?
- What are you blogging about?
My Elevator Pitches
I am not only facilitating this project, but I’m actually going to do all 31 days both for this blog, Christian Web Trends and for my personal blog, LiveIntentionally.org. So, here are my elevator pitches…
Christian Web Trends discusses news & trends in technology to help Christians communicate more effectively.
At LiveIntentionally.org we encourage, challenge, and discuss how to create the life we want for ourselves rather than allowing circumstances and other people to dictate who we are, how we feel, and what we do. We do this by discussing books, inspirational stories, and life lessons.
What do you think?
Discussion
Since this is the first post in this series, go ahead and take a moment to introduce yourself in a comment. Tell us
- your name
- the name of your blog
- the URL of your blog
- the elevator pitch for your blog
- any thoughts or questions about elevator pitches
The Extra Mile
A few other things you can do to take your blog, other bloggers, and this project even further.
- Reply & give other bloggers feedback on their elevator pitches
- Tweet, share, & bookmark this post. (You could win a $25 gift card!)
- Write about your elevator pitch and/or about elevator pitches on your blog.
- Ask & answer questions about blogging but unrelated to elevator pitches in the forums.
288 Comments
Sage, I visited your site but could not find an rss subscribe link. Only e-mail. Please let me know if I have overlooked it. I am creating a new folder in my google reader and labeling it 31 DBBB so that I can keep up with everyone's blog as we take our journey together. If you don't have an rss feed you may consider adding this feature. I am one of those subscribers that chooses to keep my e-mail inbox empty and the rss feed let's me read at my convenience without missing anything.
Lookin' forward to ridin' with ya.
The link by my name is wrong. It ishttp://larrywestfall.com
Bruce do you have an rss link for the blog? The only one that I saw linked my to your twitter page.
🙂
Or I could write more about Creativity. Which is a goal. But because that is a side blog I may not get to it until next year. 😉
Thanks for your comment and the encouragement.
Hey L.L., Look forward to reading your blog even after the 31 days is done. 😉 Thanks for the comment on my website.
A ghost blogger is someone who gets paid to write someone else's (or a company's) blog. I do the writing, but my name is not on the site.
Actually, I don't think those things are unrelated at all. Your life is in Him, right? That means your whole life. There are no times that are not sacred in the life of a Christ follower. If you want to make running the primary thrust of your blog, that should work well for also bringing in how that relates to others, your role as a father, and of course following Christ permeates everything.
Great pitch, Rob. It sings! And thanks for inviting me. I'll bet this is going to be great.
I visited the site and it looks like you have entered you blog url instead of your feed url. I assume when your formatted the rss link it asked you to enter your feed url. If so, go in and paste this instead and see if that works. http://justapen.wordpress.com/?feed=rss2
My name's Cindy Skillman, I live in western SD and am involved with an organic/house/simple church. I've been blogging for a couple of years, and I think the blog has improved as Jesus has revealed Himself to me more and more.
The book talked about two "elevator pitches," one very short–so I'm using that as the subtitle for my (newly renamed) blog: Journey into the Son
Bread and Wine from the Bridegroom for the Perfecting of His Bride
The longer version I placed on my "about" page is as follows. Any suggestions, etc. welcome.
Journey into the Son is about exploring Jesus and our relationship with Him. It's about feeding on Him as the Tree of Life and walking each step in Him, 24/7. As we walk together in Him, we display His characteristics more and more both to one another and to the world around us. He will build and knit us together into His house, His body, His bride. Here you'll find His words to me, my own ponderings on Him, and even an occasional slice of life and my observations on how that relates to Him and how I see Him in it. Occasionally, I may offer some practical advice in the art of hearing from Him and making time to sit with Him and have a cup of tea and just chill out and enjoy His closeness.
It's 130 words long. The book suggested between 100-150 if I remember right. Do you think it's too long? Does it ramble? Is it understandable? Note that this blog is targeted toward the church, so I've made no effort to make it "seeker friendly" in terms of language, symbolism, etc. I used to do that, but explaining every single symbol made it way too wordy, and it's not the unsaved who are reading this in any case.
Thanks so much!
Cindy