OK, I’m back
Well, that was fun. Nothing like a good sulk to brighten things up, eh? Here’s what happened…
I realized a few weeks ago that I hated this blog. Okay, maybe hated is too strong of a word. More like, I was annoyed with it. And bored. And I didn’t want to post anything. Couldn’t care less. And I couldn’t figure out why, because I was really excited about it when I set it up. What happened?
Well, that’s what I went off into my corner to sulk about. I needed some time off to think about what was bugging me and what I was going to do about it (pull the plug, start over, pick up where I left off…). I don’t think I’ve got it all sorted out yet, but I’ve got at least some of the yarn unsnaggled from the knot and it’s a start. (Besides, today was the first time I ran across something and thought, “I want to blog that,” Which I took for a sign saying I was ready to come back.)
So, what did I find while I was off ruminating?
Turns out, I was doing it wrong. All wrong. Disastrously wrong.
For starters, I started this blog to be fun. The minute it quit being fun, which was pretty early on, I should have known something was up. But I figured I was just getting lazy so I ignored it and kept going. WRONG!
Second, the reason I was doing it wrong was that, eventually I had hoped to ad a few ads, etc, to the blog in the hopes of earning a few bucks. Nothing fancy, just enough to pay for hosting and then we’d go from there. But somehow, by having that as an intent, rather than an option, the money got stuck in my mind and it changed the way I thought and wrote and blogged. I began to skew my posts toward the more “professional” tone. I started censoring myself so as not to be offensive or turn anyone away. I started tweaking the way the posts were laid out and even how I wrote them to be more “official” sounding…
In short, I started sounding and acting just like every other 2-bit, suckwad marketing blogger out there quietly and politely pretending to be just like all the others in the hopes that they’ll be allowed to join the herd and take their turn at sucking on what remains of the muddy, dung-infested sludge of the blog monetization watering hole.
No wonder I didn’t want to blog. I was turning into a pod-person! WRONG!
Now, don’t get me, er, wrong. There are some very good marketing bloggers out there. But here’s the key - they don’t look, feel or sound like anyone else. And they especially don’t look, feel or sound like that fly-swarmed bunch jostling each other down at the mudpit of marketing money.
Looking back, I realize that I had made two key mistakes. One, I didn’t take my own advice. And two, I took my own advice.
In the first instance, I clearly ignored the number one rule of blogging, which is: passion first, money second (if ever). You can’t blog with the hopes of making money out of it and believe that what will come out won’t blow chunks like David Hasselhoff at an all-you-can-eat burgers-and-brew-fest. Oh, it can work, if you’re very talented, very dedicated and very lucky. (And of course, if you’re solely after the cash and aren’t concerned with quality, well then, that’s doable…but then you would SUCK!) But that was never my intent in the first place, so like the adorable rodent in the image above, I was going at it ass-backwards and getting nowhere fast.
In the second instance, I took all the advice I was giving on creating a professional, tidy and commercial website that would attract traffic to make sales. Stuff like how to format my posts, how often to write, what to write about, how to write about is and so on. Which would have been great, if creating a commercial website designed to make sales had been what I was trying to do. But that wasn’t, and therefore it was the wrong advice to take.
So, now that I’ve figured all that out, now what? A few things.
1: I will finish the SEO for Bloggers series, starting up again on Monday, because it’s just good advice and because I hate to leave things undone. However, I will no longer be doing the summary/excerpt thing on the front page. Yeah, it’s perfect for a professional, commercial marketing blog. But the truth is, I hate it. So out it goes. I’ll use the “Read More” tag if I get long-winded or need to hide NSFW stuff below the fold, but other than that, it’s back to the standard setup. Nor will I be changing things to increase SEO or any other “business-y” status if it goes against what I really want to do, which is write a blog I consider to be fun, funny and straightforwardly saying what I want it to say. This is a blog, not a business, and I have to remember not to confuse the two.
2: If you’re easily offended, you might want to leave the room. I’m going to say things that may hurt your feelings. Not intentionally, of course. I’m not a troll, nor have I any intentions of becoming a “shock blogger” or any such thing. But if I think something sucks, I’m going to say it sucks. And if you just spent a gajillion dollars doing whatever it is I say sucks, that might sting. Of course, as always, this is all just my humble opinion and you can feel free to ignore me if you like. But I’m probably right.
Also, I’m going to cuss. Because dammit, some of you really deserve it.
3: I’m going to write what I want, how I want to write it. If that means a quick pointer to another site, then that’s all you’re getting. If, on the other hand, it means an eight-page screed against something that’s gotten my knickers in a twist, well, I promise I’ll use the “read more” tag so you don’t have to roll for carpal tunnel damages as you scroll past it. I will be funny. I will be geeky. I will be indignant, amused, awed, unimpressed and even indifferent. In short, I will be me. Yay, me!
4: I will worry about ads and other ways of making money off this damn thing when I get enough traffic here to matter. At the moment, I don’t. So booyah, one less thing to worry about. I may, however, start rummaging around in my holdings of affiliate programs and whatnot, first because there’s a lot of really good stuff in there that some of you could use, and secondly because affiliate stuff is easy and works off of far less traffic. I’ve just been putting it off because…well, because I was hatin’ on the blog and didn’t want to go near it for a while. Now, less hatin’, more bloggin’.
5: I’m back, beeyotches. Run for your lives!
Heh…that’s more like it.
Tags: Housekeeping, Announcements and Related Fussing About by Soni Pitts
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