It would be the cat’s pajama’s if creating an online business were as easy as putting up a Web site or starting a blog. However, unless your content proves to be a worthy resource that people can find online, it’s doomed to sit alone in cyberspace.
Building a valuable resource takes more than just the initial effort, and something else that most blogs lack: Cohesion and usefulness.
When people search for information, they want relevant content based on the theme they entered. Think about the last time you entered into a search. You were probably not looking for somebody’s latest blog post, or someone’s latest 140 character tweet. You wanted a resource that yielded evergreen information based on your theme. You’d also be pleased if you found a website that had clearly organized categories (Web pages) where you could quickly and easily find what you were looking for.
Old posts = yesterday’s news
A blog may certainly be engaging and worth your time (many are). If the writing is clever or funny, you might linger and explore for a few minutes. But what do you explore? Going back through past posts creates the unfortunate feeling that you’re reading yesterday’s news. You keep wondering: How relevant is this info?
A content-based website is more fully fleshed out. It offers relevant information organized in categories and developed. It is useful and cogent. You don’t feel like you’re wasting your time while you’re there. You learn something.
Are we anti-blogging? Hardly. Blogs are great fun. They give you a way to sharpen your writing skills, deepen your understanding of your subject as well as your audience, and they can be very productive. For example, I’m using this blog to record and create the contents of the Cookbook, one post at a time.
Look at the Online Business Cookbook homepage (you’re on it). This is, by all accounts, a blog. However, we’ve categorized it into four sections: Recipes, Ingredients, Cuisine, and Appetite. These sections are updated and developed as the site progresses. Each of our blog posts are categorized, and in addition to appearing chronologically, they’re also and placed into one of these sections.
I’ll go into more detail about creating evergreen information in another post.
Meantime, if you’ve got a blog, how do you make it relevant so that people will find it online? And if you have a website, how do you keep it fresh? Tell me how in the comments. I love hearing from you. 
