Whether you’re just starting out as a blogger, or have been publishing for years, one thing matters to the success of your blog. It’s not a content strategy, it’s not an editorial calendar, and it’s not information architecture. It’s not your ads, your ebooks, your Work With Me page.
It’s not your blog’s design, or the witty pictures you include for visual interest. It’s not infographics. It’s not even, to a certain extent, your snappy title.
It’s your writing. Fail your writing, and you fail your blog.
This isn’t a secret sauce post. When I started writing, years ago, I had no idea what Voice was. There was no concept of SEO – I was journalling on paper. Even when LiveJournal happened in the late nineties, I wasn’t writing to get found, or to grow a business. I was writing to share information. That this sharing turned into a blog, which eventually became more professional in tone, and now moves towards a proper, considered content platform is completely incidental.
The evolution of your writing happens by itself, if you let it, as you write.
One thing I can tell you for certain, as a Search Optimization professional – your content is independent from your strategy the same way a battle is independent from the battle plan. What happens in the text – in the struggle for rankings – is what matters more than how well you plan your deployments, organize your silos, or define your verticals. What you write is what matters. All other benefits are incidental.
I’m not telling you to ignore SEO – not if you want to get found.
I’m asking you to take a long, hard look at what you’re writing, and consider – beyond the mechanical “add a title tag, this needs an alt tag” aspects of search optimization – the benefits of the words you’re using to publish your thoughts. To publish your business. To publish your life.
Why are you writing this post? Why does that page need more links? What benefit are you providing your clients? What possible purpose does that eBook have, if your blog is poorly written?
What have I missed that I should have added to this post?
Image by the Wandering Angel.