Early Sunday morning a dear friend asked me to explain what a blog is and to describe mine.
Midway through our conversation he asked me about my tagline and wondered if I should change it. Have you seen it yet?
A Writer Writes
Those three words are it. That is my tagline. I like it because it tells you who I am and what I am about.
When you combine it with the information contained on my About Me and Hire Me Pages you have a solid idea of who I am and what I do.
Could it be better? Could I improve upon this? Possibly, but I don’t want to get caught up in over analyzing things. I am not going to suffer from paralysis of analysis.
Remember, I would prefer to try and fail than fail to try. Beside if I want to change it is easy to do so. This is a dynamic environment and it is simple to make adjustments. Frankly those in business who aren’t prepared to move in a fluid and fast paced environment are asking for trouble.
I Almost Used These Five Words
When I was thinking what I should name this blog I seriously considered using A Business Blog For Humans. It was also in the running for the tagline.
I called the blog Joshua Wilner because as a writer/marketer I thought it would be useful to take control of mybrandonline and that this would help me do so. But I also want to make it clear that I write for people and not for SEO.
I am not interested in how many bots read, categorize and index these pages.
I want people. I write for humans.
My goal as a professional is to do my best to conduct business with people in mind. It sounds trite and like a silly cliche but I want to treat people the way I want to be treated and vice versa.
The goal isn’t to become the head of some soulless corporate behemoth that doesn’t care about what happens as long as the bottom line is met,
But at the same time I am not going to say that I hate capitalism and making money. I don’t think these things need to be mutually exclusive either.
More About SEO
SEO is important and bloggers should be aware of it but there are ways to incorporate it into our blog posts without making them unreadable. I hate keyword stuffed gibberish.
It is a turnoff and there is no point in driving traffic to pages that aren’t going to be read. It is like pulling people off the street into a restaurant filled with vermin.
You never want to be marked as that restaurant. That is the kind of reputation that will kill your business.
If you write a business blog for humans you won’t find yourself waging the sort of war that would be required to fix the reputation you get when you are marked as that business.
Write your posts with people in mind and good things will come from that.
What do you think?
Hey Josh,
I think you are becoming more clear on who you are. “A writer writes” just about says it all. Do you plan on blogging here about writing or business blogging or both?
I also love the focus on excellent content, rather than keyword soup. Google is more and more searching for good content above all else. I agree with Ralph. It’s the human side of the blogger we come back for. : )
Hi Judy,
I expect to offer a blend of content on business and writing. They offer ample fodder for discussion. If it goes half as well as I want it to it should lead to some great opportunities and provide much stimulation.
I am excited about the prospects.
Josh, I think SEO is fine if people use it correctly. The important word is the last one “optimization”. Write for humans first, then go back and make small tweaks like headers and key phrases (without stuffing or ruining the piece). Great writing and optimization can easily work together if you make the effort. The only real place you have to make a definitive choice is in the title. A keyword title can be “human” — but it is often hard to make it catchy too.
I think what many forget in the SEO discussion is that so much of what helps you rank is off page factors anyway. Focus on quality content and use SEO to tweak it so Google enjoys reading it as much as your readers.
Hi Adam,
I agree. I think SEO in moderation is fine but the problem I see is that many people want traffic immediately so they “abuse” it and hope that it will lead to the sort of traffic they dream of.
There is no doubt in my mind that they could and would do better if they focused on providing the quality content you mention. This is a marathon and not a sprint.
Josh, I think that humans are the ones that read, gain context and respond. What I can’t understand is what the point would be to blog in any other way.
Hi Ralph,
You would think it to be obvious but I have run into more than a few blogs who have authors that miss that.
Some of them are so intent on optimizing their blogs for SEO they create piles of gibberish that are painful to read.