Why I will never become a top blogger *UPDATED*
When I was in my local library the other day, I checked out The Complete Idiot’s Guide to WordPress. It made sense to do so. I’ve been blogging at WordPress for years now, so I may as well figure out what the heck I’m doing. Reading it demonstrated that I’ve already bumbled my way, idiotically I’m sure, to a fair amount of WordPress savvy.
What was new to me was the concept of marketing ones blog by writing about trending topics, which is a way to garner more search engine recognition. I’ve always marketed myself by sending emails to like-minded people promoting a specific post I think those people might find interesting, or by trying to get my articles published at larger forums, in order to get name recognition. In other words, I write about what I like and then hope others will like it (and me) too.
It turns out that, when it comes to driving traffic to my blog, I’ve got it bass ackwards. What I’m supposed to do is go to Google Trends or Twitter to find out what people are looking for or tweeting about, and then shape my writing accordingly. My problem, looking at this minute’s Google Trends, is that I either find the trending topics completely uninteresting (that would be Tupac, Denver Broncos, and the Miss Universe 2011 contestants) or, proving my complete disconnectedness from pop culture, I don’t even know who or what the trending topics are (Christina Hendricks? Lady Antebellum? Dr. Oz?).
My curse (or maybe it’s a blessing) is that I’m only willing to write if the subject matter interests me. I spent way too many years as an attorney grinding out briefs on topics that filled me with boredom or, depending on the case, despair. Even with the best will in the world, I simply cannot force traffic on myself by grinding out dreary posts that drop in key words such as puppies (although I must admit, I do love puppies with a passion bordering on the ridiculous), Whole Foods (a nice, expensive place to shop, but that pretty much exhausts what I have to say on the topic), or Jacqueline Kennedy (and I have to say I never did understand why my parents liked her, since she struck me as a society airhead).
Life is too short to create fake blog posts in an effort to drive artificial traffic in the hope that people will stick around to read the stuff that really floats my boat. Today’s post was my flirtation with trends. From here on out, it’s all about what interests me.
UPDATE: A glance at my facebook revealed why “Whole Foods” and “living social” are such hot terms right now. If you go to Living Social, you can get a coupon that entitles you to $20 worth of food for only $10 at Whole Foods. I think I’ll take advantage of that fine offer.
