After reading maybe 30 or so blogs (of the 100 or so SEO blogs I have subscribed to in the last month) announcing that Danny Sullivan will be heading up Search Engine Strategies through 2007, I realize I jumped into a pretty saturated “everyone knows everyone else” search engine market. And at the end of the day (I only can blog during the evenings when I am at home due to policy), I realize that if I am to contribute something new to the table, it’s likely that I’ll stumble upon my “unique” voice sooner or later when reading someone else’s opinion.
While I think there’s nothing wrong with the 30 blogs that say pretty much the same thing (or link to each other as is the case in some instances — they’re all posted at approximately the same time, after all), my unique approach, given that I’m pretty new in town, will require something drastically different. As such, I will be bringing Techipedia a little broader for awhile to its intended arena: “Anything Tech.” I took a narrower approach for awhile as I experiment through writing my blog, but I feel as if I’m somewhat of an echo since headlines are the key to a successful thread. Success would mean that my blog needs something different — so I’m not approaching my blog like I do others by skimming the threads in my feed reader and thinking to myself after reading the title, “Hey, I saw a similar topic already; let me skip this one.”
With that said, I want to place emphasis on the importance of headlines. The idea for any successful SEO campaign is to “know your user.” As the end user reading a lot of blogs, I’m seeking news (and trying to absorb as much as I can — I have a long way to go). As soon as I see the first announcement that Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion, seeing the same announcement again and again is redundant. I understand that a lot of bloggers are not necessarily writing for audiences like me (people who read approximately 100 “similar” SEO blogs) and want to be newsworthy bloggers. However, if you’re going to tell me something and want me to read it, make that headline stand out, or else I will skim it like the other similar posts in order to catch up and find something worth reading.
I know that most of these posts are not bringing anything new to the table — but blogs are like news, and anything new goes (even if it’s a little late in blogosphere time). The point is not to overlook something big and important, and I understand that.
But I’ve learned a lesson (or two) from this.
- A blog’s success depends on that killer headline: If I had something truly golden to say about Danny Sullivan during the time of this big SES announcement, how could I guarantee that someone would be reading it? I couldn’t. If my readers are like me, I’d be moving onto the next topic after seeing that the this topic has already worn itself out on me.
- In order for my blog to stand out, I need something different: My initial approach was not the best. I’m not an experienced SEO. SEO is a recent growing interest of mine, but I certainly cannot say that I have any authoritative voice in the area of SEO. Blogging about it exclusively, therefore, would probably have me posting a lot of things that are redundant. In fact, I bought this domain before I knew what SEO even was, so….
- Write what you’re passionate about, and write with a different flavor: What is it for me? Technology. Tech news. Tech websites. Gadgets. Obviously, it’s not about being or seeming repetitive, which is probably the biggest challenge to any new blogger. When you start blogging, your audience will come from the novelty of what you can contribute, but if you’re simply echoing a larger authority, it won’t do you any good in terms of your personal success.
Granted, I won’t deviate completely off the path that I have begun to pave, but my intention is to have a blog that is updated frequently — and with new information that will bring you back here on a regular basis.
