When a person dies, we like to remember what they did in their lives, and this can be a source of writing ideas for your site. Whether it’s someone generally famous or someone well known in your business or simply someone you knew, the key is to find a memory that relates to something important to your visitors.
What lesson or lessons can be learned from this person’s life?
- What can we learn from their struggle to achieve?
- What important idea did they contribute?
- What action of theirs could we model?
- What attitude or character trait of theirs would be good to emulate?
- What clever way did they come up with a solution to a problem?
Not that you can’t inject some of your own sentiments about the person, but for a small business website, there needs to be something in the post relating to your business and the needs of your visitors/customers/clients. Pure memorial pieces should generally be left to personal blogs or social media. The value of the lesson is meant to be part of honouring or remembering the person – anything else is just mercenary, especially in the case of a well known person. You can’t simply trade off their name.
Referring to something well known about the person is fine – provided it’s a relevant, useful lesson – but all the better if you can find a lesser known nugget. That’s where I like to jot down notes when watching a documentary or reading a book about someone. Finding a great quote from the person can also be the perfect starting point for a memorial post, and sometimes that quote sums up the lesson from their life or gets you thinking about what the lesson could be.
The occasion of a well known person’s birthday or day of passing can also be the trigger for doing a memorial post that highlights a lesson from their life.
What's Your Take?