Angelina Pelova (AKA Angie K)

Blogger’s Dilemma: To Please Google, My Readers or Myself?

Now that I have been blogging for a year, I decided to try and analyse what I do well and what – not so much (in my post from last Friday, “My Blog is One Year Old”). I established that what I have succeeded in is connecting with tall people and their admirers, while more could be done about my connections with readers not that interested in the “tall” topic. In other words, with the “normal” blogging world. This did make me feel, frankly, a bit useless, so I swore to myself to make more efforts to publish “proper” posts that more people can relate to – regardless of their height. This is why I started writing the blog in the first place: to prove that there is more to tall people than, huh, being tall. And I thought I did that well. Or so my stats showed, as well as fellow bloggers’ engagement.

Which is where I hit a brick wall. I appear to have got it all wrong. Or so it seems, judging by basic SEO rules I only recently learnt about.

Apparently, for a blog to rank well in terms of search engines magic, it has got to be focused around one thing. One topic. In my case, that would be “being tall”. This is what can make it successful. And, let’s be honest, we all have those secret dreams of doing so well on our blogs that we will one day quit our day job and make a decent living from writing/working for the blog. We all know examples of power bloggers who have made millions this way, and we (or I!) would love to be in their shoes.

Right. Dream on. Until someone explains to you how SEO works.

A friend of mine, web designer and SEO magician, explained to me that I need to analyse the contents of my blog. Decide what my key words are, throw them around generously, spread the seed, so to speak, and wait for the harvest.

Piece of cake, I thought. Until he also told me that to rank well and be successful, I need to focus on my tall section. Which is where I sulked. Yes, by far, my stats show that this is indeed the most commercial aspect of my blog. When I publish a post about tall fashion, or, for that matter, anything directly related to hot topics for the tall community, my stats go bonkers. Seriously. 335 hits in a day just because I compared jeans from three fashion brands? Mind boggled. To me, this is a record I doubt I will improve anytime soon.

Don’t get me wrong. I do enjoy (a lot!) my “tall” posts, engaging with other tall (fashion) bloggers and tall fashion brands. This could well be the future of my blog, as far as my ambitions are concerned: to go self-hosted and become self-sufficient one sunny day. But is this all I want?

Those who do follow my blog will know the answer to this question. It is in the very title of my blog.

No, I don’t want to write about tall stuff only. This is what makes me different from other tall blogs – which I honestly like, admire and respect! No offense to anyone, and this is the best thing about blogging: there is space for us all on the World Wide Web. I am not even trying to compete with fashion giants (metaphorical giants, OK, not height wise!). There is no point in rediscovering the wheel, as tall fashion is a territory explored by many talented bloggers already.

So, I, maybe being delusional, think that I have found my niche. My blogging place under the sun. Which appears to also be what, apparently, confuses Google and its complicated algorithms. I am being inconsistent and not focused. I.e., not SEO friendly. Google won’t like me. Oh no! I will never be successful!

Still, strangely to me, I do get a fair amount of hits from search engines, Google in particular. So I can’t be doing it all wrong. And if I do… I know what I will say to that. F**k you, Mr Google. Yes, I would love to be a successful blogger, but I also want to be myself. I blog about what I like, and this is what makes me unique. Which, to me, is a good thing.

Maybe Google will agree with me one day. Or maybe not. In the meantime, I will keep writing. About what I fancy. Tall or not tall.

Happy first anniversary to me!

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Photo, as usual, lifted from Facebook somewhere. My favourite birthday card ever.

38 comments

  6. Happy anniversary. I’m with you on the SEO business. I can obsess about on those key words, write boring but SEO-friendly posts, and leech the fun out of my blog, or I can mostly ignore the whole thing and find other ways (I hope) to get the word out there. The way I pose the choice does pretty much announce which way I’m leaning.

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  7. I agree on the SEO business also, do what you comes natural to you not what Dr. Google says you need to do, if you start blogging for towards a target it comes out as forced instead of what comes natural.

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  9. I agree with the others who suggested that you continue writing about whatever you want. I have three separate blogs, this one and two others that are focused on specific topics. That’s where I pay attention to SEO and keywords and whatnot.

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