Digital Marketing and Creative Writing on the same site? “That’s like hypnotizing chickens.”

There are seldom things more painful than watching things you’ve written on go to waste. That said, if I’m lucky, I’ll have a few of those sitting around a Half Price Books store waiting for some next-gen culture-experimenter to give one of my creations a ride. At least in those cases, they’ll have history to show for it.

They say the internet is written in pen, but…

Mostly because of places like the WayBack Machine and all the aggregators that copy everything tweeted out of Twitter. The massive server farms owned by Google and Facebook and IBM and HP and the like remember as well – not to mention their international counterparts.

…the neglected projects become harder and harder to find. Especially when the domains expire, the servers go out of service, and the bills stop being paid.

My last two employers and last three projects we volunteered on are up and gone. They either shut down, didn’t pay their HubSpot bill, or had their primary domain 301ed over. Even Hanapin Marketing’s SEO Boy is no longer up and running. It’s not even 301ed over to their primary domain or to PPC Hero. The old Tech Foundry site we started up is 301ed over to Elevate Ventures. NWISM.com was a botched attempt at collaboration. The one we handed over, NWITweetup-now-NWIMeetup, is vacant on Ideas in Motion Media’s system.

For BakedFinn and BiziPorts, those directions are debated. Chris and I have been in different directions for years. I couldn’t say with confidence the future of our projects.

Take a couple di.
Guess what their sum total will be before the throw.
Roll’em hard and far.
Add’em up and pray for 7.

That’s about my guessing philosophy on those projects.

Not much harm. Not many fouls. We’ll sort it out.

As for the digital marketing content on my site, I was thinking about shutting it down as well

I didn’t want the digital marketing content on my personal site anymore. It crowded my free thought and writing ideas. I also found myself trying to always combine digital marketing and creative writing into the same post. It bottlenecked everything. Note to self: don’t try to be too clever all the time.

Seriously, 359 posts in over 8 years. Fuck that.

I started this site to explore ideas and research while I wrote books of blues. I didn’t start it to tell people how to advertise on Google. That’s supposed to be what I’m doing for myself: be my own client.

I started feeling Iggy Pop and thinking, “that’s like hypnotizing chickens.”

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Then again, if chickens can get hypnotized after all, maybe there are solutions to my digital marketing content problem. So I started considering alternatives.

I looked at the graveyard of past projects

The only thing that has endured this long has been my personal site. The only thing that will endure long after is my personal site.

I’m also found out I’m double state-taxed living here in California

When I put all that together, I realized that the Digital Marketing content I have is still of some use, the idea became simple: move all the digital marketing content over over to another subdomain: workwith.natfinn.com. It has my name on it, but now it’s allowed to solely be about digital marketing and not something too-clever-for-its-own good. Google’s figuring out the 301 redirects as I type. C’mon, Google. 7-come-11.

I also set up an LLC in California and am moving the digital marketing over to it.

Enough of that double-taxation shit. The rent is already out-of-this-world.

I’m waiting on the state now to finish the paperwork. Once the LLC is approved, I’ll say the name. It’s awesome.

In the end, content is power in digital marketing.

So whatever the projects are, be them BakedFinn, my books, or something down the road, channeling all the writing efforts into my own site, my own brand, will help raise tide of all the ships I board (paraphrasing Steve Dalton).

The trick will be to stay slow and steady.

Or, “Hold the vision, trust the process.” (added by Katie)

And take it one post at a time, per site.

Even two sites were infinitely less sites than what I used to try and consistently write for.

And now that they’re split, both sites are infinitely easier to want to write for. And, Google will love me more for reducing the keyword dilution thing…but that’s a topic for the other site.

Now, about that “Lust for Life”

And my giddiness over Trainspotting 2.

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That means I’ll have to finally read Irvine Welsh’s…

Last updated by Finn at August 3, 2020.