Don't blog like a Douchebag - SEO isn't everything!

I’ve been blogging for quite a while at this point. My first post on my German blog dates back all the way to 2009! A lot of things have changed in that time, from the available technology to the web itself and society as a whole. So I guess it’s only fair that blogging as such would also have gone through a similar change. There’s an argument to be made that blogging was already past its peak when I started back in 2009, since platforms such as Facebook and Twitter had already begun their meteoric rise, although they were not yet seen as quite the cancerous growths they’ve since shown themselves to be. Compared to the simplicity of these platforms at the time, the likes of blogger.com, LiveJournal or WordPress suddenly seemed clunky and archaic.

Why do I bring this up now? This isn’t exactly new information. Well, for the last two and a half months, I’ve been working my way through a sixteen week coding bootcamp that is designed to prepare me to move into full stack software development. I can hear a certain someone giggling up on whatever cloud they’re on already. The crowning glory of this course is a large capstone project, a full stack web application that combines front-end design with HTML, CSS and JavaScript with a fully-functional backend built on Python and a PostgreSQL database. To say that I’m terrified at the prospect of this would be a considerable understatement! One of the ideas for such a capstone project is a blogging platform, which would of course combine all of these elements. And that’s what set me off on the wild goose chase that ended with me writing this post. 

The same coding course that spawned this JavaScript Battleship clone was also the genesis of this blog post!

Basically, a fellow student reached out to me because they knew that I was already a blogger and they were looking for tips and hints on how to get started. I provided them with what little I had, mostly a few of my own blog posts and a copy of an old eBook that I’d gotten from WordPress when I first started using that platform way back when. However, as I started reading through some of the online resources I’d gathered up for them, I noticed just how bland and formulaic most of the more professional blog posts had become. Seemingly every single one had a title that started along the lines of “Seven things to know about…”, “What I learned from…”, “Ten steps that will change your…”, and so on.

The reason behind this is of course plain as day, the dreaded SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. And I’m not going to deny that these methods work, I’ve used them myself in the past and did actually see higher visitor numbers on those posts. However, I’m going to be honest with you here: I find these types of titles rather off-putting. Granted, you may rank higher in search results, but is that really worth having your blog posts look like they were written by some poor sod in a content mill?

For starters, SEO isn’t the be-all and end-all. Of course, everyone wants their blog posts to reach as wide an audience as possible but to be frank, Google isn’t the type of traffic generator it once was, not with the company force-feeding everyone Gemini AI search results as if they were trying to turn their users into digital foie gras! Content is still important, even in this age of raging AI mania, and what good is a good listing when you can’t retain your visitors? 

And how can you best retain your visitors? By writing content that is interesting, engaging and, most importantly, authentic. Now, I know this is easier said than done and honestly, it’s something that I still struggle with myself, even after nearly five hundred posts across all of my blogs and a writing “career” of sixteen years at this point. Damn, I feel old! The best bit of advice I can give in that regard is to style your writing as if you were talking to a friend and telling them a story. Even in this day and age, a blog is still primarily a personal medium, so don’t be afraid to let your character shine through!

In the same vein, write about subjects that interest you personally. It may be tempting to jump on every new content bandwagon that is driven through the internet, but chances are that there are already far too many people hanging on to said bandwagon for you to get a foothold. So why not write about your personal interests or passion? It’ll make it easier for you to find content, and chances are that there’s an audience out there on the internet waiting to hear about it. Granted, this approach likely won’t make you rich, but especially if you’re running, or planning to run a personal blog, financial gains should be the farthest thing from your mind.

I get that people want their blog to reach a wide audience. I want that for my blog posts. But something is lost when statistics start to intrude into what should generally just be fun.

One thing I hear time and time again is people saying “I wish I could write like you!”. Many people seem to think that you need to be some savant to start writing, when nothing could be farther from the truth. Any writing talent I might have is the result of literally decades worth of practice, as well as being a voracious reader. I’ve been practicing writing as a hobby since, at least my teenage years. Starting a blog can be a daunting task, and chances are that, in the beginning, most bloggers are going to feel like an octopus in free fall, arms and tentacles grasping in every direction, trying desperately to get a foothold. Sort of like how I feel when trying to code in JavaScript! The only real bit of advice I can give you here is to practice, and keep practicing. There’s a technique I learned a few years ago that I can highly recommend to deal with this. 

It is called Freewriting, and it is actually really simple. The principle is to sit down and simply start writing. Don’t worry about content, or phrasing, just write continuously for fifteen to twenty minutes. The goal is not to produce a workable draft of anything but simply to get words onto a sheet of paper, an empty document, or whatever else you’re writing on. I guess that walls will do as well, if you have no other alternatives. Once the allotted time is up, stop writing. You can then review what you’ve written and pick out any ideas or phrases that you want to develop further and turn into a blog post. I actually practice Freewriting myself at times. For me, it’s a tool to get past writer’s block, a phenomenon I’m only too familiar with, but it’s equally suitable to simply get some writing practice in, especially since no one is going to read it except you.

Finally, don’t take things too seriously. Blogs by their very nature are still a mostly informal medium, no matter how vehemently corporate communications consultants, Medium hustlers, LinkedIn "gurus", or AI addicts might try to tell you otherwise, so try to have a little fun while writing. Throw in the occasional joke, snarky remark, or light-hearted quip. The last thing you want is for your post to read like it was composed by some suit-wearing corporate twat, and I honestly can’t believe that it took me this long to get that particular turn of phrase in! 

I’m going to leave things here for now. This blog post is already far longer than I’d originally intended it to be, but I guess that’s bound to happen if you’re passionate about a subject. So don’t sweat it, just start writing!