Do You Write for You, Your Readers or Google?

I mentioned last week that some of the most successful posts (at least in terms of popularity) were written when I simply wrote, rather than ones that I felt I had to write. Just yesterday, Darren Rowse talked about thinking like a blogger – in other words, not struggling to come up with posts, but actually changing your mindset so that you begin to get into that process of creating content.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I have to say that there are definitely times when I wonder who I’m writing to when I create entries. Way back when I wrote The Angler Fish (the eleventh entry ever!), I had no idea that it would end up well-ranked at Google. I just wrote, because I had a question that I needed answered, and I wanted to be able to find the answer later. There are other times, when I will put something together that is more of a tutorial. This may be for my own memory, but it is also for others to learn too. Finally, I will sometimes find myself writing for Google. Invariably, the last sort of post ends up being something that no one wants to read and Google will never index well.

Then How Do You Decide What to Write?

There are essentially very few types of content that I put together.

The first I’ve mentioned – it’s just something that I need to find the answer to. The Angler Fish was the earliest example of this sort of content. Along the way, there have been others. The second is when I have something on my mind, but it’s really very similar, and can easily be lumped into the same category. The American Community Survey is the perfect example of this sort of post, and both generally end up fairly well regarded.

While these inquiry posts can go a number of ways, they can usually be classified as family (such as The Angler Fish), consumer (such as Humidifier or Vaporizer?), political (such as American Community Survey) or technical (such as a variety of software posts, often involving Movable Type). These can cover a lot of ground, so while it might seem at first like a fairly small category, it’s actually quite large, and probably is my strongest area of interest.

Next are reviews. This might be a review of a restaurant or a hotel or some local event, or it might even be a piece of software or the latest hardware or other gadget that I’ve found. These types of posts are probably of the least amount of interest to most people, but I like to keep track of where I’ve been and what I’ve done, so I do put them up now and again. Scattered into the midst of all this are the filler posts, mentions of why the site isn’t performing well, or why I’m changing hosts or perhaps even what is happening in my life. Though this is probably how many blogs were started, and many continue every day, it’s likely the least common sort of entry that I write.

That’s Nice – But What Writing Style Do You Choose?

I have found over time that when I’m out to answer a question for myself, I typically will put a lot more effort into the answer, and generally will do a much better job explaining things and writing a quality post. If I find an answer that I think others might like, I’ll do a decent job as well. But if I find something that I’m writing just because I think it will be of interest to search engines, then invariably, it won’t do well for anyone. In other words, write good content and you will be recognized for it.

In my job as a Movable Type Consultant, I am asked with some regularity about search engine optimization, and while I am certainly not an expert, one thing I can say with some degree of certainty is that you can’t predict what will happen. Just today, Google pulled the rug out from under their affiliates, and though this isn’t directly related to optimizing your web site, it shows that the field is unpredictable. If you write content because you want to write content, you will be rewarded. If you do so in an attempt to game the system, you will end up doing nothing else.