This Is Exactly How I Built My Own Blog Platform

In summary: I had a blog on one platform (bearblog). My tweets lived on X and have been manually transferred over to my blog for years. Two newsletters going out to two different lists. A podcast floating around. Old pages nobody could find. If someone Googled me and wanted to actually see what I do, they’d have to be a detective to piece it together.

You know that junk drawer in your kitchen? The one with the batteries, the menus, three phone chargers, and a random mystery key? That was my whole internet. This week I cleaned out the drawer. And I want to walk you through exactly how, because I think most of you have the same messy drawer... or at least that’s what I’m telling myself

Step one: I dumped everything into one pile. I exported every single thing I’ve ever written. Old blog posts. Every tweet. Every loose page. It came out to 1,191 files.

Step two: I built a little machine to do the boring part. Instead of touching 1,191 files myself, I had a simple script read every one of them and sort it out automatically. Is this a tweet? A blog post? A page? Put it in the right bucket. Easy peasy.

The part I’m MOST proud of is a nerdy little thing that matters more than it sounds: it kept all my old web links alive. So if someone had a link to a post from 2022, it still works and points to the new home. I didn’t blow up years of Google traffic to get a nicer site. All this was done in a few minutes and it seriously would’ve taken me an entire summer to do this a couple years ago.

Here’s the whole thing on one picture:

The site kind of runs itself now. Cleaning up the past was step one. The real magic is that going forward, I do the work ONCE and the site fills itself up.

Watch how little I actually have to do:

• I hop on a call and hit record. My recorder (Fathom) grabs it and writes up the whole thing, and that becomes a podcast page. I didn’t touch it.
• I fire off a tweet like I always do. That tweet automatically shows up as a post on my site, with a link back to the original. I didn’t touch it.
• I send out Sunday Doughnuts (that’s this) or my local newsletter. The issue quietly archives itself on the site so people can read past ones. I didn’t touch it.

So could you do this? 100%, yes. I’m not telling you this to show off a website. I’m telling you because this is a HUGE help and if you can figure this out for yourself, you can genuinely become a content machine AND help others do the same.

Here’s the superrrr-simple version for you: One, pick ONE home. A single site that’s the front door to everything you do. Not five links in five apps.

Two, drag your old stuff there instead of leaving it scattered. And when you move it, keep your old links working. That one boring detail protects everything you’ve already built.

Three, connect the things you ALREADY do to that home so they show up automatically. You’re already tweeting. You’re already on calls. You’re already sending emails. Point those at your front door and let them fill it up.

You don’t need to be technical. You need to decide that your work deserves one place to live instead of getting lost in the junk drawer.

I put it off for years. It just took an afternoon.

Go clean out your drawer.

Until next time... Stay in the fight, Kevin