Why You Shouldn’t Care About SEO

There’s a post over on ProBlogger today debunking the use of traditional SEO practices (like putting keywords in your page titles, page descriptions, headers, etc.) in blog posts. They’d gone to town researching Google’s algorithm and the correlation between many long-standing SEO tips and tricks. The findings? Call in MIB, it’s time to erase your memory.

The advice? Focus 100% on your audience and visitors. Who’s reading your blog? What’s a great takeaway? What will they find useful? The Wendy-ized version of the three tips suggested are as follows:

1. When it comes to blogging, ignore the SEO experts and focus solely on creating the best damned content you can offer.
2. Make new friends. As in… linking was, is and always will be the best way you can build your audience base and search ranking. But don’t go on a spamming link building spree. Think this through and make connections and links to other blogs that make sense for you and your readers. Look at you adding more value!
3. Don’t ignore the SEO experts when it comes to your domain name. That shit still works. Pick one keyword, then find a domain name that works for you.

Care to read more? Check out the original findings and explanations as posted on ProBlogger’s Forget Everything You Think You Know About SEO by Mark Collier of DropMining.com.

The Scoop On Ownzee

I was checking out a new-to-me blogging platform, Ownzee. I wanted something that gave me more flexibility in terms of layout. Ownzee offers that. But, that’s about where the usefulness of the platform ends for me. The WYSIWYG editor is phenomenal, but at this point, it just won’t do what I need it to do.

The cool things about Ownzee:

• Super easy to create any layout you want. Overlay pictures, move text boxes around, create layouts like you would in Illustrator.
• Easy-to-use web editor. There are only a few buttons you can push. It’s pretty straight forward.
• Multiple fonts available. Block out a quote, make a cool headline. Attractive looking pages are pretty easy.

The drawbacks of Ownzee:

• Hosting only on their website. You can mask a domain name, but there’s no linking to specific posts if you do this.
• No custom themes or ability to create static pages. If you’re looking for an ongoing blog, it works. But, if you’d like to create an “about us” page, contact form, etc… it’s currently lacking in this platform.
• No integration of social networking plugins. Want your twitter feed in there? I don’t think it’s possible at this point.
• No ability to save drafts. I’m one to blog within the window I’m in, save the draft, read in the morning and then hit publish. There’s no drafts allowed with Ownzee. Once you’re done, you’ve got to publish your post right then and there.

Check it out if you want, I’ve got a couple of posts up on a blog I was trying out. I think they’ll be  moving over to a new platform relatively quickly. At least it’s only costing me $5/mo.