Blog Exercises: List Your Resources

In “Blog Exercises: What Are Your Reference Articles” your blog exercise was to identify your reference articles from within your site and list them on a Page or in a post as a reference list. Today’s blog exercise is to identify and publish your resources beyond your site, the reference material and sources you count on for your site, specialty, and industry.

By featuring your resources, you become a source, a reference and resource to your readers and others.

In the early days of the web, people wanted to be the only resource, the one-stop destination. This didn’t last long as the magic that created the web is based upon the practice of sharing. The more you share the work of others, the more valuable you become as a resource.

There are many ways to share your reference and resources with readers. If you have a set list of solid references and resources off your site, consider creating a Page listing them. Group them together by commonality and purpose such as I have with the many resources on Lorelle Teaches such as WordPress and Resources.

You may also wish to write a blog post featuring a collection of reference and resource material off your site. Smashing Magazine specializes in such post. Examples include The WordPress Community Offers Advice to Beginners and Exploration Of Single-Page Websites. I’ve written many including the popular “Hundreds of Resources for Finding Content for Your Blog,” “Blogging Resources and Sources to Help You Blog,” and “Blog Resources for English Language and Blog Writing.”

The key to creating a good resource list is to group the related topics and sites together. You may feature the list as a list, include it with words explaining why you recommend these resources, or with screenshots as well to create a visual connection to the content.

Your blog exercise today is to create a resource list post or Page on your site featuring external references.

Experiment with this model. Consider doing one the traditional list format, then make one with the same list with screenshots and explanations of each link in the list. If you have many resource collections, consider releasing them once a week or once a month in different formats to see which style your readers respond to the most.

If you blog this exercise, remember to include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.

You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.

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