Blogging Insights NF #50 “Conversation is King”
TODAY’S QUOTE: Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about. ~ Cory Doctorow
So there I was at the start of this post and realized — I don’t know what SEO means. I don’t think I ever knew what it meant. Ouch. What a stunning admission! So, I googled it. It means Search Engine Optimization. And you know what? I still don’t know what it means. It’s like some foreign expression. I’m sure everyone else gets it, but to me it makes no sense. Not even a little bit.
How do you “optimize” a search engine? Is that like creating hashtags to drag in visitors who would otherwise have no interest in your blog? Does this have something to do with “categories” and “tags”? If that’s it, I’ve got tons of categories and tags. Duplicates, too. When I try to delete then, WordPress freezes. You can add anything, but WP isn’t good about the whole deletion thing.
I have no idea what “conversation is king” means either. Is it referring to blogging? Is it about writing or writing style? I’ve always said the writing is really just talking on paper — or in this case, virtual page — so is that it? Otherwise, this is meaningless. I don’t do “buzz.” “Buzz words” — the whole concept — makes me feel sick. It’s seems a total trivialization of all the things we’ve tried to do as bloggers and writers.
I love comments and I love responding to them. But buzz? Really? I’d hate to think I’ve spent the past 10 years just to get some “buzz” going. That sound silly — childish — for something to which I’ve dedicated so much of my time and heart. It seems silly to say “it’s all about buzz” after publishing more than 210,000 posts. Surely there’s got to be more to it than that.
I have no idea who Cory Doctorow is or what he/she does — or why she/he can make a statement like that — and why it should matter to me. Regardless, as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter. To me, content is what blogging is about. I’d rather write a good quality piece than generate any amount of buzz.
Buzzing is for bees. I don’t do buzzing.
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Categories: #Blogging, #Writing, Anecdote, Challenges
SERENDIPITY: SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
More than 20 000 posts?
I am so impressed!
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I have never quite understood the SEO thing. I would never try to artificially add “buzz words” or phrases to the content so that something will show up on someone’s search engine. I choose categories that I feel accurately reflect what an article is about and I pick tags and hashtags that might be words or phrases someone would be searching for. In last week’s article, I added tags and hashtags for Ohm and Nanon, the two young Thai celebrities, because I knew that people are searching for them, but I used their real-life story as an example because it was of interest to me. Seeing their public admission of friendship is what prompted me to write the article in the first place. Their fans picked it up off Twitter. I have no idea if anything in the article made it show up on any search engine.
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If it really is all about “the buzz,” I’ve been wasting a lot of time for nothing. If that’s what all of this work has been about — a buzz — it’s not what I thought I was doing. As far as I’m concerned, it’s about issues, story telling, analysis, and context. No buzzing.
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I think you are on the right track and readers would agree.
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If I’m not right, I don’t care. If it all boils down to “buzzwords,” I don’t care. I’ll just do what I do. That’s why WordPress is full of blogs that were opened one week and were gone a month later. They were all buzz and no content.
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So, of course, I had to find out who this Cory person was. Turns out he’s a Canadian-British blogger and science fiction writer. He has quite the Wikipedia page.
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Yes, but for all that, with all the reading I do, I’ve STILL never heard of him and why should I take his advice? If all of this — all 210,000 posts — are about “a buzz”? Is that it? That’s NOTHING. That’s “water cooler” chatter.
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Tell ’em, Marilyn!!
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So I just went and looked at his “novels.” And I realized not only have I never read one, I never will. Not my kind of writing. And what the devils is “Boing, Boing”? He must have a lot of buzz. I’m not much into the whole buzzing thing, whatever that means.
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Boing, Boing. I guess he needed something to jumpstart his readers. Not me, either.
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Oh, you just said ‘my thoughts’ in your last para. I too associate buzz with bees.
I feel exactly the same, but I also have no problem to simply ignore more and more of the stuff I see and read. I’m talking about the stuff of ‘no interest, no relevance, no weight’. I go for posts like yours, and also only when I can concentrate and have the time to interact.
So: what means SEO? Stuff Everything Or? 🙃
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The reduction of everything to such a trivial level is ugly. And so much of what on the web now IS completely trivial. I’m sure the reason I’ve never read anything by this guy is exactly because I read about his books and say “Nah, not worth the bother.” And I move on. I’m not sure having a big Wikipedia page is a recommendation, either.
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I’m with you, Marilyn… stick to the basics and love what we do, it doesn’t need to be more complicated than that…
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To me, this has ALWAYS been about trying to talk about things that matter, even when done in a lighthearted way. About the buzz indeed. The people who are doing the buzzing don’t care about anything that matters — at least not to me. Writing matters. Good writing matters even more.
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This is so true, Marilyn…
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Ah! So well said my friend. I don’t think SEO matters or that it makes any difference to the way we write/ blog.
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Even after reading about it, it STILL didn’t make sense to me. It’s like an unpaid version of a cheesy ad campaign. If that is REALLY what it’s all about, it IS time to give up. But I don’t think it is. I sure hope not!
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I think it is only relevant to the business blogs, those who want to make a ton of money or become very famous!
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You tell ‘em, Marilyn. 👍
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Every now and again, I write a piece I’m proud of. It’s well-written, tight, and says something true and honest. If it doesn’t generate buzz, I will run it until it gets noticed because I know it’s good. If what we do ISN’T about content, it’s not worth the effort. But I think it is more that that.
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