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Don’t Blog About That Which You Understand Not

Don’t Blog About That Which You Understand Not

It must be the time of year. End-of-yearitis. A time when everyone must share their SEO success tips in a last ditch effort to drag traffic through the door of their blog. My feed reader starts filling with blog post after blog post promising me that their words would make my blog a raving success.

They have no freakin’ clue what they are blogging about.

I came across one article that got a lot of Diggs and was showcased across several bookmarking sites among the top 25 or so tips for successful SEO for search engines. Guess what numbers one and two for the best SEO techniques were?

What can I blog about that I know nothing about today?Number one tip for search engine optimization? Looks count.

What?

Number two tip for search engine optimization? Choose complementary colors.

Huh?

Search engines don’t care what your site looks like. Readers do, search engines don’t. They don’t “look” at it. They blindly go through gathering information.

The best tip on SEO you can get is make sure there are no road blocks in your underlying code to stop a search engine from crawling through your entire blog.

Was that even in the list?

No.

The second best suggestion is to include keywords, search terms people use to search for what you are writing about, in your post title and post content.

Did I find anything about keywords? Nope! That nary got a mention. Only tips for a blog’s looks and buying “professional” WordPress Themes or paying a pro to design your website if you want to get ahead in the Google PageRank game.

Please. Don’t embarrass yourself by not knowing a thing or two about SEO before you blog about it.

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I don’t blog about building cars. I don’t blog about curing cancer. I certainly don’t blog about religion, though I might have an opinion or two. I also don’t expect the Pope to blog about WordPress. SEO I know about. If you don’t know what you are blogging about, why blog about that which you understand not.

Sure there is the “blog as you learn” factor, but then you aren’t an expert, so don’t blog like one. Blog like the student you are.

When I visit a blog post titled “Search Engine Optimization Expert”, however it is worded, I expect to find serious expertise, not someone chasing link juice. I’m your reader. Don’t disappoint me.

I don’t care what you are an expert in, blog about that. Make your blog the source for your expertise. Share your opinion, your experiences, but tell folks you aren’t an expert if you are not. Let the experts handle the expert stuff and let you handle your expert stuff.

There is so much clutter on the web, why add useless information you honestly know nothing about to the trash pile. I know you want the link juice. I know you want to be dug by Digg. I know you crave getting StumbleUponed or Twittered about, but let’s stop the nonsense and get down to the meaningful, original content.

Are there any original thoughts left out there?

View Comments (15)
  • Who knows what the people at Google are working on, next year the page rank might be defined by how the pages uses colors ;-)

    My guess is that the blogger decided to play expert in an area that feels like the area where there are most money to be made by blogging. But I agree SO much with you, blog about what you know or just DONT blog.

  • Sometimes I wonder how in the world a keyword produced websites in the top 10. There are times they are completely unrelated.

    Thanks for the great post I enjoy reading your various post.

    JB

  • ;)

    I love articles about seo like your example Lorelle.

    Because I’m a seo and so I have many,many customers in the future.

    ;)

    This days it isn’t necessary to know something it is only necessary to have good friends in a social bookmark community and your blog is fast as the wind in the top ten by technorati or digg or yigg in german or something else.

    I’m sure you and soemtinmes tillt at windmills. ;)

    kindly regards
    Monika

  • Sounds like a curious example of “link bait” to me, I was watching to see if you fell for it too, but no. Good job! There are many people who aren’t quite as “literal minded” in their strategies, it’s whatever works, not whatever makes sense and works. Sort of a modern version of the freak side show – who would go to see that? But everybody does…

    Nice to discover your blog, I’ll be back for actual useful stuff to read!

  • Oh, I believe there’s still plenty of original thoughts out there in the blogosphere. All you have to do is navigate your way to any Irish blogger’s site and you’ll see what I mean. :)

    Okay seriously, There’s always those who do just as you say and if they get into the search engines at all they stand out like the proverbial sore thumb (must be those coordinating site colors they paid for). I find these type of “experts” myself in my daily “walk-a-blogs” and the majority of them seem to be a bit on the young side. I relate these bastions of knowledge to the same ones who leave those “one hit wonders” of a comment similar to the ones you mentioned in your “How NOT to Comment on Comments” post.

    But I can see how you might feel that the blogosphere is getting cluttered up. How many new blogs are begun each day? I can’t remember the exact figure but it ranged in the high 100’s of thousands. Still, there’s always going to be good content out there, we just have to hope the folks who write this content can get up to speed on real, quality SEO so we can find them.

    In the meantime I do believe I’ll head back to the clutter that’s my blog, get to work on coordinating my colors and writing up useless information. Perhaps I’ll even attempt to lower my 97% SEO score a bit just to fit in with the new trend. I need visitors!

    Thanks for another great article Lorelle and please forgive my offbeat sense of humor. :D

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