I had a really good talk today with my good friend David Cooley. We have both been pretty busy, so understandably it has been awhile since we have touched base and had a good discussion. David and I share a lot of common interests as well as personal life situations. Both and I have a lot in common and achieve the same goals but in many cases go about it differently. (ie. 2+8 = 10 and 4+6= 10)
Anyway we had a great talk and discussed quite a few things, one of which being the update on GCDC and how I manage my time. David has a real good head on his shoulders as he pointed out that I tend to bounce around quite a bit on different ideas and projects. I’ll admit he is right and sometimes it is really cool to have a friend who can provide a little outsiders tip.
In our discussion, one of the things that got brought up is the fact that I am working way too hard to make a dollar. He reminded me that I should practice what I preached to him many months ago, and that is to just shut up and blog and have fun and basically let nature takes its course. Worry less about the stupid search engines and worry more about your readers or audience that you’re trying to target.
Granted, you’re going to want to have a search engine friendly blog, but just as I mentioned a last week in a previous post, making a site search engine friendly isn’t rocket science. Get the job done and then move on and start blogging and building your base.
Here is the thing about search engines… something that I tend to forget. If there is anything to remember in this post, remember this:
Search engines compensate for dummies. Meaning, only like 1% of the people that build blogs, pages and sites really know anything about search engine optimization. What remains are 99% of publishers who don’t know a darn thing about <h1> tags, inurl links, anchor tags, etc…
Search engines do not evolve around a 1% user base. Search engines learn how to deal with the mass of users who don’t know about search engines. In other words, you might not want to make your blog look absolutely perfect. David mentioned something today that really hit home… I hope he doesn’t mind me sharing. He told me that it might almost be better to blog like a dummy. Now, he’s not saying to act like a dumbass or anything like that. But what he is saying is just to tone things down a bit and act like an average blogger instead of someone who tries to make their code absolutely perfect and by the book.
This isn’t proven by far, but it is defiantly something I will totally consider. Google would never admit to something like this, I know it and David knows it… but one thing is for sure, if I worked for Google and found a blog or website that had everything totally perfect according to code, then that would make me want to look a little further into the site (thus being on Google’s radar).
I think more times that not, it is best to just shut up, be a blogger and blend in with the crowd, rather than making yourself stick out like a sore thumb. Some great advice today by David, thanks bud! Also I loved his post today titled, Wordpress Plugin versus Custom Programming. Included in this post is a killer list of plugins that you will find useful. Kyle, if you happen to run across the post, it would be a great mention for you on SlickMania.
What are your thoughts? Is it better to have a perfect coded blog or better to leave a few lines with mistakes? Is is better to stand out in the crowd or blend in with the crowd? I’d love to read your feedback on this one.
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Date/Time: 2-14-2008 04:46:26 Comment #11490
This is similar to a topic I blogged about recently, but I was talking more generally about working hard on your business. I really don’t work that hard at all on my business these days. I work much harder on my personal life which I feel is much more important. For a blog, I think that the quality you put out in your writing is ultimately going to have a much bigger impact than all the other stuff like SEO anyway so no I don’t think you need to work too hard at it.
Date/Time: 2-14-2008 06:15:55 Comment #11500
Garry another thought here, and I really have no room to talk as I do the same as you. But you may consider some old advice you once gave all of us (taking a key from David here), focus on one blog a month. Once you get it where ya want it do another, and so forth. I’ve learned so much from you and really do hope you start making that money. But like David states, if you earn money I hope you have fun doing it not stressing. I know how hard it is when you have things outside of blogging to worry about. Try not to stress so much, things fall into place when you begin having fun with it.
Another thought, Garry remember it was just last year that you began this journey. I remember you hoping on that Technorati train with me and I followed you along after that and have watched your blog grow from just a mere thought, to a seed and now to see it growing is amazing. Just look through your archives and see the trend. You may want to see what it was you were doing when you got the most hits, clicks, etc. When it was you were having the most fun and try doing something similiar once again.
Date/Time: 2-14-2008 06:17:40 Comment #11501
I didn’t know you were recording, lol.
I hope everyone realizes what we were talking about. I do not think you should have code that is not done right. But, I was talking more about the issue of spending all your time making your CSS perfect and tweaking this or that.
To me, you hit the nail on the head with
“making a site search engine friendly isn’t rocket science. Get the job done and then move on and start blogging and building your base.”
Date/Time: 2-14-2008 06:47:51 Comment #11504
SEO is important, but like you said, it isn’t needed. People often forget that SEO techniques are designed to improve your position ranking. If you are 5th on a keyword, SEO techniques can get you to third place, etc. Google is set up to spider your site, figure out what it is talking about, and rank you appropriately.
To be honest, I understand what David was trying to say, but I’m not sure that you can make your code to perfect. Google’s spiders don’t think, they just do what they are trained to do. The spiders are certainly set to flag certain things, but I don’t think this is one of them. I actually have a post going up early next week which talks a little bit about Google flagging websites/blogs, etc.
I have a couple sites I set up to practice keyword sniping. On those blogs, I actually don’t want the content to be useful. The site is filled with advertisements and affiliate links. I don’t want subscribers or anything like that. The thing is, though the content may not be useful, with SEO techniques I have had success driving search traffic to the website. My hope is they don’t find what they are looking for so they click an ad or affiliate link
I guess my point is that sites like the one I mentioned above are not flagged by Google. Should they be? I don’t know, but I would think Google would care more about that type of site than a well maintained site that has perfect code.
Anyway, I think this is a great discussion. Like I said in the post you linked to, SEO is good, but people also need to focus on natural traffic, which is SEO that comes naturally and doesn’t require any help from Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. Use a blog URL that is short, easy to spell, and very memorable. Make sure its dot com, etc.
Date/Time: 2-14-2008 07:52:18 Comment #11509
@Kyle, I hope you understood what I commented on.
“but I’m not sure that you can make your code to perfect”
I don’t think you can, but, I think you can spend way to much time trying. As far as the site you are talking about. I can tell you from experience, sooner or later, that site will cause you problems. Google is getting much better at catching those Made For Adsense (or made for any kind of click sites), and it is clearly against the TOS.
I have worked with a couple of Google Engineers and learned a lot about what and how they look at things. I had some killer sites that were built just like you said, and trust me, they are gone now.
Date/Time: 2-14-2008 09:42:44 Comment #11521
Kyle – “but I’m not sure that you can make your code to perfectâ€
David – “I don’t think you can”
I hope you all can hear the sigh of relief that I just gave. I could never in a thousand years ever get code perfect. Well, maybe in a thousand years…
Fortunately, David has looked at my site to remove some of the stupid mistakes I had, and the results have been interesting. Traffic is gradually improving. I have always posted every day or so, but now Google is spidering me within a minute or so of pushing that ‘publish’ button.
David’s GOOD!
As for me, I tend to spend more time on the things that I like – pretty colors, graphics, etc. and telling the happenings that I’m devoted to.
I found it interesting to realize that Google knows that 99% of us are dummies and compensates for that. Cool concept!
Garry, I didn’t realize that things had been going so stressfully for you. I want you to know how much I appreciate you and all you teach me. You and Angie have all my best wishes.
Sincerely,
Brennan
Date/Time: 2-14-2008 12:01:09 Comment #11532
@ Brennan,
LOL!!! I am ok! Just anytime you are Blessed with a new addition to the family, it kinda knocks you off your rocker for a few weeks to 21 years or longer! LOL!!!!
@ David,
Ha Ha! Falls under the same lines as, “Do your JOB soldier!” Yeah, basically, build the blog, make sure things are good for readers (as you stress) and rock and roll. Thanks for the off line help.
Date/Time: 2-19-2008 21:15:06 Comment #11708
I don’t get a lot of search engine traffic and have not been really pushing the seo optimization at all. However I do still get some and have managed to keep my Google PR at around 3. I wondered if this is due to me just being “normal” and not on there radar.