Yes I have a blog, I even have two! I create a blog whenever I have a specific subject which will take some time to achieve, and I post how I achieve it.
I now have two:
- www.clubvan100.webs.com/chris which is about our team of four, preparing for a non-stop 100 kilometer walk (30 hours!), for Oxfam Novib. This task ends this weekend, so after that, that blog is done for.
- I also have a second blog, which is a bit more private, as it is about me and my wife and our adoption plans. This project is now ongoing for five years, and also covers some holidays to the country where we are hoping to adopt from: China.
Both are in the Dutch language, so they probably make little or no sense to you anyway.

For me/us they are invaluable: They are a means to communicate to all our friends, without having to tell the same story over and over again, which is troublesome for both us, and our friends. The blodg for the sponsor-walk has proven to be very profitable, as we have collected over 5000 Euros (more than 6500 USD) for the Good Cause.

I like your plan on blogging without a date-stamp, but I found out that the 'pressure' of blogging each week in order to not let the blog grow stale worked very well for me to keep updating. I don't think I would have kept it going without the datestamp, so if I were you, I'd keep them.
Source(s):
www.clubvan100.webs.com/chris

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i do
http://optionsonthestreet.com
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I made up a Blog for our families when we moved from Canada to Europe. I used to post on it almost Daily about every neat, strange, silly thing we came across but the novelty has worn off.

Also, with things like Facebook and Skype, it's almost not necessary anymore, for us anyhow.
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I have two personal blogs.

One is an eclectic snapshot of all the various topics that interest me. It links to some of the things I do for work, but more generally just reflects what I think about at the moment...be it politics, movie reviews, recipes, or musings about my kids. I don't really have a "personal brand" yet-- but as I write more, I see myself evolving. It's been a fun and enjoyable process, and I some point I'll probably split off the more significant topics into their own little blog universes. http://saltandlemonade.blogspot.com/

I also have another blog that is used for more private reflections. It deals with a specific situation that's happening in my life. It's online, in case others can benefit from the experience- but the focus is on the experience- not me. Those who are aware of my situation can use it to follow what's going on, so I don't need to share the same details over and over- and it helps me to "process" as well.

I think your plan makes sense- its a way to try to control your online image--and hopefully it will be the first thing people find when they Google you--serving as an "introduction".
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Hi Rob Brown,
I have a blog which I use to track of my craft projects. It is something like I am talking to some people. I can't do regular postings because of my mood swings and struggle for day to day life. I spent a lot of time in Mahalo recently answering questions. I am kind of addicted to it.
But whenever a peoject is kind of going to finish, I get the feeling to post.
It is kind of giving me an idea of how am I doing, and what am I was doing all the time.
I checked the theme you were mentioning. It will be a good idea for you. If you want to use it as a "This is what I Can do" label, sure, it will help you.
If you have an interesting writing style, I am sure, people will read it and you will get benefit out of it.
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1)Do you have a personal blog?

Yes. http://www.woollytheblog.com/

I also manage the website & blog for our local Lions Club, for which I am the Secretary (won't post the address for privacy reasons, as my personal contact information is on the page). But this latter page sounds VERY similar to what you're trying to achieve - except instead of profiling a Lions Club, you'll be profiling yourself.

My first blog (the "woolly" blog) was started in late 2007 when I really needed an outlet for my humor writing, and my old Q&A site just wasn't cutting it. Sadly, I didn't anticipate life getting SO busy and draining a lot of the humor out of me. As a writer I just haven't had the spark or drive to update it in quite some time. But I leave it there kind of as my diary. It has served me as well as a journal. (Hmmm, maybe I SHOULD start updating it more!)

2.) Do you think that your personal blog helps you? If so, how.

Aside from being my journal, it also connected me with my family. It sounds strange, but my family (parents, cousins, etc.) hadn't really known me other than surface politeness shown on holidays. This was a chance for them to peek into a window to my brain. And most of them really loved it! So it was a very cathartic experience.

3.) Here's my plan, what do you think?

Since you're eliminating time stamping and intend for the blog to be drunk in all at once (more or less), I would definitely add a sidebar item for categories. Maybe even a tag cloud? Make sure that someone looking to know something specific about you can easily navigate right to it.

Make sure you have an "Images" section, a "Contact" section, and anything else that will appeal to your target audience (even if that is yourself!).

Don't be afraid to express yourself on this page! Put a large image of yourself front and center. Add some personality - your likes, your dislikes. Really make it your own, and don't try to be anyone else's blog. If you do that, your brand will shine through.

I think it's a great plan, and I think you're going to have a lot of fun, and take a lot of pride in your new endeavor. Just be true to yourself.
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I used to have a personal blog when I was a teenager. Now, I no longer update that blog. I intend to start a new personal blog to capture a whole new role in my life. However, everything is still in process. Then, I have a blog for my freelance writing career. That's all I have at the moment.

Personally I think that having a personal blog is great but I would control how much info I want to tell to the whole world. I would love to share stories and experiences to the world but not all of them. I like the idea of 'not posting too frequent' when it comes to personal blog because I don't think I would have so much to say about my to write a new post every day.
Source(s):
http://www.writingconsultation.com

my freelance writing career blog

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I've got two personal blogs right now, on is simply JHoard.com which I created I guess about a year ago, I updated it often when it was new (as I had nowhere else to post) but lately I only add rare snippets about different work I'm doing online (if even that.) Some day I'll put some time into becoming a better professional and update the blog... if that's what it means.

My other blog (and the one I put my time into) is my blog on TrueSlant.com, which is a startup belonging to Lewis Dvorkin he's got writers from the NYT, Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, the New Yorker etc... and me.

And too be honest I'm not doing to bad over there, I am constantly among the top performers usually neck and neck with well established writers such as Matt Taibbi and Miles O'Brien in regards to bringing in traffic and I don't even spam it here at Mahalo :D

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33749589@N07/3636581908/

With that said, I have only been blogging there for a month, so we'll see how long this luck lasts for. The only thing personal about that blog is that it has my name on it.
Source(s):
http://www.jhoard.com/
http://trueslant.com/jeffhoard/

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I have kinda wanted a personal blog for some time now, but I never got around to making one. I like the idea of posting about whatever you want online for the world to read, but like you I also value privacy and so I would worry about putting too much of my information out there.

I like what you said about Mahalo being a good community. I also feel like this is a great community. There are so many negative, immature people out there on the web, and somehow it seems like we rarely ever see that sort of thing around here.

I like you plan for the personal blog, something that doesn't have to be updated constantly, but more as something to show who you are. Good luck with your blog Rob. Let us know how it turns out.
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We have been dealing with some serious security issues for a while so I never wrote in a personal blog. I don't even trust very much in the privacy of a Facebook profile so I keep it down to a minimum of information.
However, I've decided that my alter ego (one of them, actually) should have a blog to write about the silly side of science and scientists.
One of the first posts was about the new emergency phone number in the subway. It was 31416, kind of difficult to remember unless you were familiar with Pi and made the association (Pi = P = Police).
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I have a personal blog I don't write in it as much as I should. I twitter more to make up for that and post my twitter posts on my site. Having a blog or CMS Site helps me keep track of interesting sites, articles hints and tutorials. I find it very useful for sharing that information. I would encourage you to do it, I personally don't do it as much as I should but I will be doing more. It is a good plan because good resource rich sites will good info are always hard to find. If you would like to have a look at my site you can go to http://www.optionkey.ca
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I do have a personal blog (http://fatmanfittown.com ) which I update only very occasionally. I'm not doing it for branding, money-making, or anything like that. It really is just for whatever strikes my fancy at any given moment. Mostly, it's lightweight stuff, but I do (rarely) post on somewhat heavier personal topics.

I don't really have the time to compete with the big blogs, and I have no ambition to do so. I'd be surprised if the number of people reading my blog runs into the double digits. :-) On the other hand, it's nice to have a bit of a diary/notebook/journal sitting out there somewhere in the cyberverse, even if it's not of any particular importance to anyone but me.
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I'm quite like you here, so I don't know that I have any good answers for your dilemma!

1) Do I have a personal blog?

Mmm.... probably the answer should be no. Actually I have a variety of blogs that I have started at various times on various topics. Some of them I updated regularly for a while, others more intermittently, but none that I frequently update anymore.

Also most of those blogs don't identify me at all, other than whatever handle I use on that system. Like you I'm pretty keen on privacy, and also keen to be able to let my hair down online without it being held against me.

Then again what do we mean by "personal blog"? Is a blog in which I write only about a favorite show a personal blog? Is a blog in which I occasionally write about my life, but mostly about thoughts on current affairs or reflections on things I've read a personal blog? Not sure what people mean by a personal blog specifically.

2) Do you think that your personal blog helps you? If so, how.

Now after having said that I don't have a personal blog, I'm going to answer this question: Yes. :)

I've met some great people and had some great conversations via wriitng on my blogs, and interacting with other people on theirs.

I'm guessing a blog could also help you in other ways, for example if you wanted to showcase your expertise on a topic.

Then there are questions about whether to have one blog where you talk about everything, or maybe a professional one and a more personal one, or have a blog for each topic you're interested in.

I've got no answers there. But I do have an observation... the narrower the topic the less often you're going to have any worthwhile thing to write about it.

For SEO one blog that covers everything may be hopeless, but at least you are more likely to write things there!

3) Here's my plan, what do you think?

Nice clean theme there. Good way to go for a professional impression.

The question I'm asking myself is... if you don't want to update regularly, and you're not expecting people to follow it, why make it a blog rather than a straight non-blog site? Obviously you could still use Wordpress underneath, just not structure it like a blog, or call it a blog. It can even have articles that you write from time to time. Just call them articles and not blog posts. :)

0) Any comments, shared experiences, insight, links to others who are successfully doing this...

Ok, I gave you some thoughts already, but let me see if I can find some blogs that I like and think work well for their owners.

Here's a few that I had bookmarked that are by normal (not famous) people:

http://pmgandhi.wordpress.com/
http://candide.blogsome.com/
http://jchyip.blogspot.com/
http://matthewman.net/

And here's a moderately famous guy who has a site with articles and such, not an overt blog. Which might be the way you want to go:

http://paulgraham.com/bio.html

-1) Ok, you didn't have a point (-1), but I forgot to give my two cents on personal branding...

The name is one thing, and branding is something else again.

I wonder about the pros and cons of pen names myself, but that's another story. However, note that Paul Graham is not too held back by having a pretty common name!

Actually @dannyjohnson gave you a terrific example of branding. He is not Danny Johnson. He is "Danny the computer guy". More specifically, he's "the guy" in Mobile, Alabama.

Even if you had the good fortune to be called Rob Calacanis, or Barack Brown, that is not a brand. It's just a more recognisable name.

I'm not going get too far into branding here, because the question was about a blog. But in terms of a blog name, it doesn't have to be robbrown.com, if that's even available.
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Sounds like you are looking to be well placed online when someone searches your name, or wants to see your work.

For this I would suggest you buy www.robbrown.com or something like that, even if you only keep a wordpress blog on it. You'll get a better chance to rank well, and it adds credibility to your online presence.

I personally have a blog, but it's not so much about me but a subject I'm very interested in - a XX century european writer. And the blog has helped me tremendously to be viewed by other in that niche (including some academics) as a credible person. So a well writen blog, which looks professional and his done with passion will certainly help you out.

But be advised that if you're looking to improve your online reputation that your name might be used in other places (even if it's not you), so you'll probably have some work to downgrade bad results, and enhance your own.
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1. Yes I have a blog,
http://girlgeekunderground.blogspot.com/
I used to used a facebook widget to automatically post updates to FB, but I thought that was too obtrusive. Maybe I’ll start that again.

2. Well, a personal blog helps me keep in touch with people I otherwise don’t keep in touch with. Let’s be honest, in this time in human history, people have a larger friend/acquaintance/ networking circle then they used to. People aren’t used to keeping track of the whereabouts of dozens of cousins, co-workers, friends, etc. I think it helps my old friends keep in touch with me, even if they’re just speed-reading and picking up blurbs then if they were getting nothing at all.

3. As for the personal archive approach, I recommend tags, maybe a method of organization. And you can micro-blog. For instance, you watch a good movie:
“Today I saw Transformers 2. This really takes me back to my childhood, even though the movie sucked.”
Basically, as far as personal branding, you could easily integrate your professional work
“today, I freelanced for this company, I feel very accomplished”…
With simple candidness and honesty. I’d also suggest different navigation panes: maybe ‘personal’ and ‘professional’, so employers can see what they want to see, family can see what they want to see.

I’d also suggest you allow readers to mark things as ‘interesting’, so you can organize your blog much like mahalo
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I've just started one.
There's not much to it now, but I'd like to add more. I'm not even sure where I'd like to have it hosted. I just started one there because it was easy enough. Thanks for asking the question.
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Only in the sense that I rewrite the home page of my website; http://sites.google.com/site/stansfreeebooks/Home every few days and mention what I have changed, added or deleted. I also am on Twitter now, morriss003, so that is a kind of mini-blog. I tried to make a real blog once, only to discover that I was not interesting enough to read my own blog.
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I don't have a blog yet! But I bought a domain for it. :P

Yea that's how I am backwards. I actually had to stock the one I wanted.

Isn't that horrible. I've had it for like 6 months now and still haven't put up a blog yet. Mostly because everybody wants extra money to host your domain.
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I have had a blog,
It was a pretty fun place to post, but then I had no readers, and well I kinda abandoned it. Exposing myself completely online like I did wasn't the best idea, and I have no clue why it would be interesting.
Now I started a blog about interesting things I read, learned, or saw, mostly focused on technology. I had to stop due to lack of time, but now my time is back and I will probably restart posting the interesting things I find.
As for making a blog for people to learn about you. That would not be my go to place for people to learn about me, an online portfolio or a google profile would do it. Unless I am looking for something REALLY in depth, a blog seems a bit useless, but if people want to know lot's about your personality, a blog is a way to go.
cheers!
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Hi Rob,

I do have a personal blog, at http://jfesmire.livejournal.com/. One of the things I like about it is that it has levels of privacy. I can have a post viewable by the world, by only my LiveJournal friends, or kept completely private. If I have some general thoughts or information I want to just get out to the world, I use the first; if I have a snarky post that I want only a few people to read, I choose the second; if the post is for myself only and I just need to journal, I use the last.

I don't think the blog helps me much financially. I've written several fantasy novels and have a very difficult time selling many, for instance. I have a desire to express myself and often to share thoughts with others. I also tend to be better organized if I write things down, even if it's as a journal entry I never look at again. So, in those ways, having a blog helps me very much.

I think your personal archive is a good idea, though I'm wondering how you will use it. Will it be a sort of online resume? It reminds me a little of my personal Wiki, http://jfcreations.wetpaint.com/, which I'm currently using as an art portfolio.

Depending on the nature of the information you're posting, you may still want to keep the date stamp. I'd have to see more to decide what I think about that.

Good luck!
Source(s):
http://jfesmire.livejournal.com/
http://jfcreations.wetpaint.com/

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I have a blog on my work at home job search site. Most of the time I post things that are relevant to a job search or saving money. Other times I post what ever I feel like posting.
Source(s):
http://lucrativelaptop.weebly.com/wah-blog.html

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I actually had a blog and became quite bored with it in the end so i stopped.Blogs for me are old hat like Mr t trying to you throw you helluva far it's not big and it's not clever and it aint never gonna happen now.
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I have a personal blog at http://wdawe.com. I have always maintained a website and eventually decided that I wanted to write and vent occasionally and the blog format was well suited for that. I worried about the low traffic levels, about 50 uniques a day but realized that the rare people who did comment found it useful. A few of my friends subscribe, some read it sporadically but most of my traffic comes from search engines. I try to keep the opinionated ranting to a minimum and post useful information but it is my personal blog so I post whatever I want. Having a blog helps keep me disciplined to write as I target at least a post once a week though Mahalo Answers cuts into my blogging time.

You might want to look at Posterous http://posterous.com, it's zero maintenance blogging. Spending too much time fiddling with themes and widgets makes it easy to avoid writing.

As for privacy concerns, I don't post about my wife or children because I don't think I have the right to expose them to the glare of the Internet. My blog is the nexus of the brand that is me.

Oh, and I have T-shirts. This one points to another domain that I bought because I thought I might want to break the tech. talk and the ranting into two separate blogs. Might still do that but not for now.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wayne_d/3534385863/
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1) I do have a blog that I rarely update I have not had it long and I do more messing with it than writing for it. (for reasons more clear later). http://dbiddie.wordpress.com/

2) I feel my blog does help me work things out and center myself. Not until more recently have I even shared it even existed. Often I do write for it and then I delete it after a day or never publish what i right. I started using twitter a little while ago and just recently joined the Mahalo community. Although I have spent a lot of time on the Internet reading forums and enjoying communities from afar (Linux enthusiast) I am just starting to come out of my shell on the Internet as well.

3) I really like you plan. I think having a site like that will become a persons "business card" to the world.
Source(s):
personal experience

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Hey Rob,

Let's see if I can help you out with this great question:

1) Do you have a personal blog?

A: Yes. It's just your basic Blogger template, nothing fancy.
http://mismike.blogspot.com (soon to be http://michaelpaul.me). I post to it _very_ infrequently, only when I come across an insight that I think lots of people would enjoy, or when I stumble on a computer problem that figure out the solution on my own because google didn't have the answer after 10 pages and multiple iterations of search proved helpless.

2) Do you think that your personal blog helps you? If so, how.

A: Sure, it helps out a little in the way of ad revenue. I earn about 50 cents per day from that little guy and over time it has grown to $58.65 in revenue. Clearly not a cash cow and definitely a dog as far as money-making blogs go, but that's not what it's about anyway.

My blog's mostly about posting tips and tricks that I find as I go through life. Most of them are about Windows, firefox, iphone, tech stuff--that is, until I switched back over to a Mac. Since the switch, I haven't had much to write about in terms of Windows quirks. I suppose I have a ton of cool stuff to write about the Mac side of life, but I'm too busy enjoying my experience to write about it, I guess. ;)

Oddly enough, I get the lion's share of my hits (and revenue) from a simple post I made about my repair experience with Maui Jim sunglasses.... and OH SNAP!!! If you search google for "maui jim repair" with or without quotes, I am the first google search result. I just found this out moments ago. Thanks Rob Brown for bringing this to my attention! No wonder that page dominates my Google Analytics.

Speaking of which, that's another thing I implemented on my blog. Google Analytics is nice because it lets you see which pages on your site are getting the most hits, least hits, etc. It also shows you where people are coming from, what OS/browser/etc they're using, which can be helpful depending on your goals. You probably already know about this, though, given your background that I just read on your Mahalo About Me page.

3)Here's my plan, what do you think? I'm thinking about designing a very quick wordpress theme that takes ques from this one: http://budurl.com/eh5p

A:
> Cool template... Simple and streamlined. Me likey. I'd also add the Mahalo Answers Widget to your page, which would earn you 50 points! And tell people about the great work you do here at Mahalo Answers ;) http://www.mahalo.com/answers/widgets

Q:
I'll be posting irregularly, so I'll omit the date stamp and archive in exchange for a clear and simple list of the most recent 20 posts along the right hand side under my photo.

A:
> Yeah, I think I like that. The date's kinda irrelevant if it's just information about you that is timeless.

Q:
My strategy wouldn't be to create a blog that someone would read day-to-day but rather a personal archive that could be viewed when someone was looking for information about me.

> Personal archive of information about you. Interesting. I'm kinda doing the same thing right now with http://michaelpaul.me (not up yet) but my idea is to create a landing page like http://channeldvorak.com , the home of one John C. Dvorak (you might have heard him on TWiT). My landing page, of course, would be much less than John's. More like a plain white page with big twittter, blogger, digg, Linked in, and mahalo icons, and an explanation about what each of them will take you to for those who are uninitiated.

In this way, I hope to provide one solution to people who say "where can I find out more about you?" or "do you have a blog?" or "are you on twitter?" that kinda thing. Not that anyone's asking, but someday.... someday! ;)

I love introducing people to the things I enjoy, so having one landing page is a nice way to do that. They might go, "oh, what's Mahalo Answers?" and boom, another user who might contribute great content.

Q:
Does this sound like a good plan?

A:
> Anyway, yes, this sounds like a great plan. It's simple and doesn't need much maintenance since it's WordPress. http://dreamhost.com is having a sale right now... get a domain and 1 year of hosting for less than $10! I think I may end up doing that for michaelpaul.me. Not sure yet.

0) Any comments, shared experiences, insight, links to others who are successfully doing this, and of course answers to my 4 questions will be greatly appreciated.

I'd go snag a great domain name and point it to your blog or host the blog there at your great domain. Your mahalo username (a great domain name for you) is still available in .org, .biz and .ws as of this writing. Any other great suffixes (like .info and .com) are already taken and since you're not in it to make a profit, those domains are more nice-to-haves than a must-have.

Hope that gave you similar and different perspectives on things as you introduce yourself to the world. Thanks for considering me for your best answer.

Mike
Source(s):
Personal experience
http://mismike.blogspot.com/
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/widgets
http://channeldvorak.com/
http://dreamhost.com/

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http://www.listensoftware.com/hrxp/totally_random_thoughts.asp

Total Random Thoughts
Source(s):
Business events

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Yes I do have a blog :)
http://www.laith-mardini.tk

And yes it does help me, I think writing is a liberating thing... for me it's the means in which I express my self best and let others really get to know me.
In my blog, since it's a personal blog, I write about anything, funny things I see, weird thoughts I have... anything! And even though I don't get many comments, since most my readers don't know who I am, but to see that some people spend a 30 minuets or so on my blog a day, for me that's enough.

Well, there are many themes to chose from, you're probably looking for something clean and just white. A simple search on Google can give you LOTS of other theme choices. And I would guess you know html coding (I wanna learn it, I just don't have much time), so editing a current theme and putting your own touch on it wouldn't be that hard.

Posting irregularly might be a problem if you're running a business, but since it's a personal blog, probably between you, friends and family... and of course other people interested in you, you can post whenever you think is right for you.

once you get a blog, join:
http://www.condron.us - to increase your blog's hits.
http://alphainventions.com - the same aim.

Join other websites such as:
http://www.blogcatalog.com
http://www.linkreferral.com
http://www.technorati.com/
http://www.mybloglog.com

And just have fun writing about what you like.
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1. Yes, I have a couple of blogs, with the exception of 2 (maybe 3) that I update on a not-so-regular basis, the rest just became like my google notebook. The 2 blogs that I update on a regular basis are http://fornoobs.info and http://www.kindawannadothat.com, they are both personal blogs. 
2. Yes, they don't earn money -- but it does force me to write, and read regularly about the topics of my interest. 
3. It sounds good. Designing your own WordPress theme is also a good exercise; You'll get to see what's inside WordPress (because you will need to spend a good deal of time reading the codex.wordpress.org); you will also have absolute control on how things should be presented and styled. Not to mention it will also force you to take a look typography principles, color theory and composition techniques (screen composition). 
t

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I do have a personal blog yes! It is my first attempt at doing so and it's purpose is to help motivate me to do better things to improve my health. So yes it is very personal and not many others would find it entertaining or even insightful.

http://mrkando-myroadtohealth.blogspot.com/

I felt the way you did that I should hide it but then I thought better of that and opened it up. That alone will help my motivation I think.

I think your plan sounds like a very good one. If I understand what you say it would display only identifying information about you with links to what you have written. This would indeed cause more people to read what you have to say instead of wading though your posts. I would do the same with mine if it were possible and I guess I am not sure it isn't. This will be only my third day at this.

So I guess I will not provide you with much input here except to say I think your plan is a good one. Any time you can summarize it is always a good thing. I wish you success with what ever you want it to do.
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I have a blog about our family that recently got some interest from others with the same last name, so I'm looking to maybe morph it into a blog about the extended family with different authors "reporting" on their parts of the family. This is insanely useful as I have started to reconnect with old high school and college friends via social networking, and they can read about the last 4 years of my family life in one place. Of course, cousins and grandparents and friends from all over still check in from time to time to see the latest. I post about twice a month (irregularly) which seems to be a fine volume for everyone.

I also have a "spiritual" blog - although not personally branded - for writing I do about spiritual issues specifically, which is great since I get to write out what's in my head which helps me and maybe gets someone else to think about that stuff.

Finally I have a "personal" blog, but so far everything there is in draft form in WordPress and not viewable because I find myself thinking about it somewhat obsessively. It's funny that I can spit out 1000 words about the kids' picnic, but obsess over 200 words of personal opinion. It does me good to get it out there all the same even if I have not clicked "publish" yet.
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Whew! Reading thru all those answers above has given me a pain in the neck! I don't know how much of what I'm going to write will be more helpful than what some others have already put down. There're some really innovative ideas, and terrific answers given already. But let me talk about my own ideas and experience viz. your predicament.

Firstly, Rob... coming from an advertising and SEO/SMM background, I absolutely agree with your idea of branding yourself. In fact, I am in the process of doing so myself for my own name (read brand name). Getting to your 1st question... yes, I do have my own blogs - in fact, 6 of them... (on every major blog site), but like you, the content is not much, and the updates are irregular. But unlike you, I don’t use any of my personal blogs to make money; I use them to create a buzz around my name, thereby making a brand out of it. How I do that follows further down this page...

To answer your 2nd query, once again, yes - I do think that the blog/s help me, as it keeps my name buzzing around the blogosphere, esp in the categories I write about, and put info out on, so that it consistently shows up in the search rankings.

Getting rid of the date stamp in lieu of the list of the most recent posts isn't such a good idea to me, as you might want to keep it for future usage. The reason I say so, is to let the search engine bots know that your pages are relevant to your assigned search terms, by virtue of their not being out-dated!

Another suggestion - since you intend to have a personal archive that could be viewed if someone came looking for info about you, I believe this could be done even without a blog that you need to update regularly. For instance, you can register with different social media and other such sites that are in synergy with your chosen are of interest/work, and create a profile on each one. These individual profiles together give an overall view of who you are and what services you have to offer, but are relevant for that domain.

For example, you can mention your software skills in the profile you post on a freelance site, but your reading interests can be detailed on a book-sharing/review site. This way, you reach your target audience, without the added baggage of extra information, which may be more than what someone is looking for.

Now, let me tell you how I'm achieving the same result through the simple strategy, as outlined above. Obviously, there may be some flaws, but by and large it has helped me turn my username into a "brand".

As you are probably aware, search engine ranking is key to an online presence, and eventual buying/selling of goods and/or services. And the cornerstone of SEO is not the copy and meta-tags (as commonly understood), but as I found out the hard way, it's the links... both those that link inwards to your site from the outside, and those that go outwards from your site to other relevant domains.

So, the basic thing to do is to link with and get linked to as many similar and relevant sites as you can. But that's easier said than done. In my case, since I'm an avid photographer (and have recently started a digital photography related website)... what I have done is to leverage my years of contributing to the relevant photography websites, including posting reviews, uploading my photos, writing critiques, posting comments, and the like... and what I never fail to do is to mention a link to my other profiles online.

For example, if I upload a photograph on Panoramio, I make sure to include a link to my Flickr Showcase of photos... if writing a critique for PhotoSIG, I enclose a link to my betterphoto account. Similarly, when I post comments on JPGMag, I link it to my Uber or Photobucket profile. Being an old hand at the digital photo biz, and having established myself as a photographer/critic, I have ensured that people looking for relevant info will find my name somewhere in the results list on a regular basis.

And now that I'm just starting with my own website for digital camera deals online, I have a readymade brand name and the buzz has already been created around it! Thus, I can now use this brandname as a springboard to get people looking for relevant content to click on my username as a link, sine it may already be known to them. The trick is to work within a niche area and make sure your content, other posts (comments etc.) and links are all aligned towards this one goal, that will eventually help you monetize the website that you set up for selling your services.

This is just one example of a niche I use, the others I work on, have to do with philately, Scrabble (the board game), content writing, affiliate marketing, and men's health. If you search for my username on Google, for example, you will see that 9 out of the top 10 search results cater to my work online... all leading to my profiles at one site or the other.

Pls note that I have not given any links as they are too numerous to list, and I don't want to be seen as plugging any service here. I can send you more info by direct answer if you like. Kindly bear with my delays on answering questions here... as you know, I am forced to take long breaks and answer only the most appealing questions, for some time now.

Hope this has helped you understand and hopefully implement a strategy in order to use the power of the web for a fruitful and result-oriented enterprise. Good luck with your future endeavours. Mahalo for taking the time to read thru my long answer :)
Source(s):
Tweaking long-term web-based biz ideas!

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