This is our new mantra when it comes to blogs. It came to mind when I was mooching around one of those nicky-nacky-noo-nah shops which sell nothing you need, but somehow you can’t help yourself!
There was one of those ‘words painted onto floorboards’ things which I’m sure you will have seen which says: Sing like no-one’s listening, Dance like no-one’s watching, Love like you’ve never been hurt, blah, blah and then presumably you can Hang it in the kitchen like no-one’s looking.
I consulted our big brother Google to see how many people should be reading a blog, just to try and get an idea of how well or how badly our blogs were doing. There are masses of stats about blogs, there are loads of articles about how to write great blogs, how to create a snappy title, chunk the information into bullet points etc, attract the reader with an amazing image, all a complete waste of time. So there has to be another way.
People do not have the time, I don’t have the time. Blog titles rattle round my brain, I write ideas down in the middle of the night, scrap those ideas in the morning, and sometimes feel creatively constipated to the point where, no matter how hard I strain, nothing actually comes out.
The measure surely has to be this: amid the sea of self-promoters and the companies with teams of social media superstars, how do you stand a chance? Answer: you don’t, not really, so deal with it. Be clear on your own objectives when it comes to blogs, if you’re trying to be a self-styled expert on a topic, you’re going to create a lot of pressure for yourself. Whilst you may have a few ideas they will soon dry up amid the day to day ‘other stuff’ that we all have to manage.
So liberate yourself! Forget about the reader, trying to please the reader, worrying about what the reader might think – bin that! The objectives for us is to create content that people can identify with, written in language that people can understand and of course we will try and please big brother Google in the hope that he might throw us a few SEO crumbs so we can claw our way up the rankings.
