Home Blogging Tips Dear Blogger – Remember Me?

Dear Blogger – Remember Me?

June 19, 2012 By Filed Under: Blogging Tips 39 Comments

Dear blogger,

Lately your posts have become more difficult to read.

Your sentences no longer flow and I struggle to make sense of your words.

So much so that I know instantly what you are attempting to rank for in the search engines by reading your first paragraph.

It didn’t make much sense, but hey, you have always written such great stuff in the past that I thought I’d give you another chance and continue reading another paragraph or two.

Swallowed up in the keywords, battling for your front page position, was the flimsiest of advice. Not value, like you used to add.

Has value for the reader gone out of fashion?

Do you know something that we don’t? Or maybe you have forget about me, your ideal reader? Y’know, the one that will buy all the products your create? Did you forget me?

Or maybe you’ve found your new ideal reader?

Are they are not human? Are they just search engine spiders? How much did the search engine spider spend on ebooks last year? Human beings will be spending $3 billion a year by 2015. I haven’t got any stats on what those spiders spend, Google keeps that a secret ;)

What happened to me? Me being the centre of your world, sharing your posts, commenting away? When did I cease to matter to you?

Did you even notice I was gone?

Did you start the downward spiral that goes…

“OMG my traffic is down… I’d better optimise my next 20 blog posts”

“Woo-hoo… my traffic is up but my comments are down… never mind, comments never made me money”

“Woo hoo… my traffic is still up but my social shares are down… never mind, Facebook likes never made me any money”

“OMG my bounce rate is 99% and my newsletter subscriptions are down… what the frick do I do??? I know, I’ll optimise the posts some more and get more traffic”

If that sounds familiar, then my dear dear blogging friend you are fast tracking your way to blogging hell. The next thing you’ll be doing is purchasing all the traffic getting plugins you can find…

Writing for search engines is like becoming an addict. Sure, you have the highs but soon enough it takes it’s toll and you think the only solution is more of the bad stuff.

Any former addict will tell you how hard it is to come down from your high. Any top blogger will tell you how easy it is to slip over the edge and forget who your ideal reader is.

Don’t let it be you. Start writing for me again.

photo credit: Jayegirl99

Buffer
Filed Under: Blogging Tips Tagged With: ,

Subscribe by Email

Join over 25,000 smart readers every month and never miss a single post! Enter your email address below for free daily updates (we respect your privacy and will never spam you):

About Sarah Arrow

Sarah Arrow is the managing editor of internationally renowned Birds on the Blog, listed by Forbes (3 times) as one the top websites for women in the world. In her day job she blogs about very unsexy transportation issues in her role as communications director of a same day courier company and social media marketing. Her goal is to get on the AdAge blog list. Her first love was Twitter, it's now G+. Shhhh! Don't tell Twitter she's left...

  • SuzeStMaurWrites

    Oh, Sarah, are you ever singing my song. This is so, so, true, and so sad – that bloggers lose sight of their real audiences and write inane garbage that even, I suspect, would make the search engines burst out laughing. Well done you, for making the point in a humorous, poignant and powerful way.

  • http://www.RyanHanley.com/ Ryan Hanley

    Dynamite Sarah Arrow … Straight Dynamite.  When I see this I’m done and I don’t come back.

  • http://primefit.org/ Mary C. Weaver, CSCS

    I’m loving this. But is my inability to write for search engine joy keeping me hidden? People who search for “weight loss” need to read my posts. But 90 percent of the time, I’m talking about one of myriad aspects of weight loss without necessarily using the term . . . Sigh, heavy sigh. Well, I’d rather be found by a few real humans than an army of spiders.

  • http://everydaygyaan.com/ CorinneRodrigues

    A much needed post @SarahArrow . It’s so easy to get caught up with pushing the ‘product’ and forget about its quality. Another thing I’ve come across recently is having someone write ‘Tweet this’ after every four sentences in their post!!  Do they really imagine that they’re such founts of wisdom – that we’d want to tweet 10 sentences of their post? ;)

  • http://online-english-lessons.eu/wordpress/ Angela Boothroyd

    Very good points, Sarah, and I love the way you’ve written them in such an emotive way.

  • http://kuratur.com/ MsPseudolus

    This post was written for me :)   I’m contemplating how to approach a new blog I want/need to start. You (and a couple other great bloggers) have helped me dodge a bullet. Thanks!

  • SarahArrow

    @dannyiny thanks Danny :)

  • Leon

    G’Day Sarah,
     I first became serious about direct mail about 20 years ago, One of the things I learnt was the importance of using the word “you” in all its forms.
     
    Of course, to use this word most fruitfully, you need a clearly defined, narrow target market: what you define as the “ideal client.”  I remember Al Ries and Jack Trout saying years ago that you should spend all your marketing money only on prospects in your target market. Don’t spend a cent anywhere else.
     
    I wonder if the real problem is that some bloggers don’t have a very clear idea about theis “Ideal client”.
     
    Regards
    Leon 

  • http://templatefaerie.blogspot.com/ Sarah Payne

    This is exactly how I feel about a lot of blogs. Sure—SEO has its purposes. In fact, I’m just discovering how to better optimize my blog. But what’s really important is the value you offer your readers and the connection you form with them.
     
    When I started blogging, I was very depressed when my traffic didn’t skyrocket on my first post. But writing, sharing my ideas, and connecting with readers and other bloggers (which is what blogging is REALLY about) is what’s important to me now. Even if my blog doesn’t get 1000 views a day, at least the few readers who do stumble upon it will appreciate what I have to say, and don’t have to put up with keyword stuffing and regurgitated content. That’s my view.
     
    Sarah

  • http://dannybrown.me/ DannyBrown

    Do I know you? :)
     
    So true, Sarah – I’ve lost count of the number of blogs I’ve unsubscribed from because their author has become lazy, and just mailing posts in (not to mention ignoring those that put him or her there).
     
    Here’s to continuing blog journeys together, as equals.

  • http://dannybrown.me/ DannyBrown

     @Mary C. Weaver, CSCS Hi Mary,
     
    You can still be found without writing specifically for SEO. Some ideas:
     
    - Are there specific weight loss areas you can concentrate on? So, for example, instead of optimizing for “weight loss”, your content and SEO becomes focused around “benefits of gastric bands” (that’s probably wrong altogether!)
     
    - When writing a post, don’t go with the obvious “Benefits of gastric bands”. Instead, think conversationally – the title can be “Gastric Bands and Their Benefits on a Weight Loss Program”. Now you’ve not only got “benefits of gastric bands” in the title, but also your main keyword of “weight loss”.
     
    - Replicate this approach in the copy – “if you’re looking for effective weight loss solutions, gastric bands are right up there with…”. It’s not robotic SEO, and the words are close enough to have them be really strong for search engines too.
     
    Take this site, for example. We’re called For Bloggers By Bloggers, and yet it’s “best blogging tips” that we win with on the search engines. So, URL and selective SEO definitely works.
     
    Hope that helps!

  • http://dannybrown.me/ DannyBrown

     @CorinneRodrigues  @SarahArrow Oh, that annoys the CRAP outta me!! It’s up there with pop-up boxes as my pet peeves – dude, if your content is good enough to share, trust me, I’ll share it. Anything else and you just look desperate. :)

  • http://everydaygyaan.com/ CorinneRodrigues

     Thanks @DannyBrown  – I thought it was just me. I asked someone to do a guest post and he had twenty links back to his own content. You can bet he’s not doing another post on my blog again ;)  

  • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

     @DannyBrown Who me? Nah…
    I think it’s a variation of lazy called “lost site of my goals”. That can grow into OMG! I *have* to monetise my site.. sell, sell, SELL and then it goes downhill at an alarming speed.

  • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

     @Leon I think that’s exactly the problem Leon, a lot of bloggers have no idea who their target audience is, how to target them etc. So they copy someone else. And then it all starts to collapse around their ears because they don’t know their ideal reader from a packet of biscuits!

  • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

     @MsPseudolus you’re welcome :)

  • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

     @Angela Boothroyd Thanks Angela :)

  • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

     @CorinneRodrigues  @DannyBrown those signature links drive me nuts! I had one guy submit a 6 line guest post and a 12 line bio. So I binned it. He then sent me a stream of emails (all longer than proposed guest post) because he didn’t understand the problem that I had with his offering!

  • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

     @Ryan Hanley  Sarah Arrow thanks and yes, it has a horrible effect on the traffic

  • http://www.saraharrow.co.uk/ SarahArrow

     @SuzeStMaurWrites thank you :) and perhaps we need to consider that perhaps they never knew their audience…

  • http://primefit.org/ Mary C. Weaver, CSCS

     @DannyBrown Thank you for those tips–they make a lot of sense. :-)

  • gingerconsult

    @bcoelho2000 Blogging should be about your audience not the traffic numbers and SEO. This is a great reminder. Dear Blogger…Remember…

  • bcoelho2000

    @gingerconsult When I catch myself focusing too much on page views, I ask: what if ONE page view changed someone’s Life? How do you measure?

  • gingerconsult

    @bcoelho2000 I measure by the feedback I receive from my audience. If I’m on the right track, they will tell me

  • bcoelho2000

    @gingerconsult That’s why I follow @KISSmetrics because they place PEOPLE at the core of what they measure!

  • bcoelho2000

    @gingerconsult That’s a great way to do it Jen. What we don’t know is the impact our words and actions have on those that don’t comment.

  • gingerconsult

    @bcoelho2000 True, and that’s why you must choose your words carefully and be one who inspires with your prose

  • gingerconsult

    @bcoelho2000 Yes, I know about @KISSmetrics – great outfit. It’s people not numbers that count.

  • bcoelho2000

    @gingerconsult Yes! What a privilege and a gift: to be able to turn words into inspiration so others can become all that they can!

  • gingerconsult

    @bcoelho2000 It is a gift, and yes, even if you write one blog that turns a perspective, that’s all the feedback you need.

  • bcoelho2000

    @gingerconsult as you once said “we do it not for the applause but for the cause”! But it’s still great to know that our work is appreciated

  • gingerconsult

    @bcoelho2000 Indeed. That’s exactly the phrase, not for applause but for the cause. Thanks, Bruno.

  • http://billdorman.me/ bdorman264

    True dat; you should always write from the heart and soul without regard to rankings. Don’t be ‘that guy.’

  • http://billdorman.me/ bdorman264

     @DannyBrown Hey, you knew I was lazy when you met me………..

  • http://everydaygyaan.com/ CorinneRodrigues

     @SarahArrow  @DannyBrown Gosh! Talk about having a thick skin! Perhaps he needed to put out an ad for a trumpeter instead? ;)  

  • http://www.ipnostudio.com/ Andrea T.H.W.

    Google will be surely remembered as the worst enemy of the net, especially of quality. But it can also be that the blogger creative vein has emptied and it’s time to stop blogging or to blog about something else. At the end no topic is infinite and there must come an end. Imho. :)

  • SarahArrow

    @debragould thanks Debra. That took me a year to write!

  • Pingback: Blogging With The Search Engines In Mind. Part 2 | Web Traffic Solutions for Network Marketing | TrafficCpanel.com

  • http://youngblah.com/ Amit Chahar [ youngblah.com ]

    Just stumble upon this searching for something else, great article. If you write for readers, traffic will definitely increase and so your income.