I noticed in Google today that I have achieved an SEO perfect 10 for my name, meaning that every single result is a page that was created or attributable to me. Of course, since SEO glory can be very brief, I better hurry up and celebrate.

Finding the time to blog is not easy. It requires discipline and to do it regularly means finding a way to make it part of your daily routine. I have yet to fully embrace this, but I’ve done enough blogging to appreciate that there is a real value to putting the metaphorical pen to paper in order to publish your ideas.

For personal blogs, such as this one, blogging is a form of self-expression and a chance to be heard. The question of making time to blog is really a question of how important it is for me to do this. We all have the same number of hours in a day, and we must choose where to prioritize our time.

Every website should have a mission statement, and my website is no exception. To get started I used a template from the WordPress getting start guide, and because I am a big fan of lists, I’ve created a set of numbered fill-in-the-blank questions from it:

1. This website will be dedicated to X, Y, and Z,
2. and cover the topics of A, B, and C.
3. The audience will be ______ _______ _______.
4. I will be adding posts every ______ about ______ _______.
5. I am doing this because ______ _______ _______.

So I’ll answer them one at a time and try to explain each of my answers.

1. This website is dedicated to me, myself, and I,

It sounds funny, but no joke. This is my personal website to build my personal brand. So what, you might ask, is a personal brand?

Personal Branding is a way of clarifying and communicating what makes you different and special – and using those qualities to guide your career or business decisions. It’s about understanding your unique attributes – your strengths, values, and passions – and using them to separate yourself from your competitors or peers. In this sense, personal branding means clearly communicating the unique promise of value that you have to offer your employer or your clients.
William Arruda, Personal Branding Guru

I think this website will help me identify and communicate the unique promise of value that I have to offer.

1. and cover the topics of Real Estate, Internet Marketing, and My Life.

I am a real estate broker and own a real estate brokerage. I have developed multiple top-ranked websites and have nearly a decade of experience in information technology. I figure “my life” covers just about everything else I could write about.

1. The audience will be clients, peers, friends and family.

I decided to go with open-ended answers for this one because I honestly don’t know who will end up reading this. This could become a professional blog that occasionally gets personal, or a personal blog that is very professional. Only time will tell.

1. I will be adding posts every week about the local real estate market, how to market online, and all the cool things I do.

I think this is pretty self-explanatory. I hope to write a lot more than once a week, but a weekly commitment seems like a good place to start.

1. I am doing this because I have a need for self-expression and to have a public personae.

Putting it all together, here’s my edited mission statement.

This website is dedicated to myself and will cover the topics of Real Estate, Internet Marketing, and My Life. The audience will be clients, peers, friends and family. I will be adding posts every week about the local real estate market, how to market online, and interesting things I do like playing a Halloween Ultimate Frisbee tournament dressed in an ’80s tuxedo. I am doing this because I have a need for self-expression and to have a public personae.

That’s how long it took me to take a break from building websites for businesses so I could build one for myself! I first registered milancole.com on April 17th, 2000, and I thought I would build a site shortly thereafter. Of course many years and many websites later, I am finally fulfilling this dream and am excited to have a forum to express myself.

This new blog is going to about my life and my work as a real estate broker, real estate brokerage owner, general contractor, technology manager, volunteer, and whatever else I end up doing. I am committed to making this site a forum for honest self-expression and I hope that my readers will agree and encourage a lively debate.

To get started, I found this guide to getting started with WordPress which suggested answering the following questions:

1. What am I going to do with this website?

I am going to express myself and my work.

2. Who is going to read this?

Colleagues, clients, friends, and family.

3. What kinds of information will I be posting?

Real Estate, Internet Marketing, SEO, My Life.

4. Why am I doing this?

Because I want to and maybe it will help me make money.

5. Who am I doing this for?

Myself and my clients

6. How often am I going to be posting and adding information?

Weekly.

Thank you WordPress! Having a list of questions helped me to identify what this website will be about. I hope that it will evolve over time to reflect my growth and varied interests. The next step is to combine these answers into a paragraph that represents my personal mission statement, which is coming soon.

Image courtesy of nasa1fan/MSFC and Flickr.