“…the time has come to ask yourselves does your blog suck … and what are you doing to change it?”
– Michael Gray
Last Thursday I was planning on writing up a massive post about backlinking, but something else happened instead. And I decided that I don’t really care about my Google page ranking. For whatever reason, creating backlinks just doesn’t appeal to me.
Rather than paying someone to trick Google, I’m going to continue marketing my own website. Aside from the aspect of saving money, being my own PR agent has some additional benefits:
- I get to learn a valuable life skill.
Contrary to what Mad Men taught me, advertising is actually hard work. There’s a fine line between generating good publicity and being a cocky narcissist. Since starting this site, I’ve learned a lot about writing promotional material and interacting with readers. I’ve also learned a lot about niche marketing and appealing to specific demographics.
- I like to give back and build relationships.
Since nobody has to read my site, I try and offer incentives for those that do. This idea wasn’t of my own creation and I actually stole it from my childhood role model, Stan Lee. As a kid I loved how Lee gave Marvel a very fan friendly atmosphere and how he made readers feel included. I hope that my doing things like publishing a free booklet of juicing recipes, responding to comments, and following back on Twitter; helps to strengthen my relationship with readers.
- I already have (almost) top rated posts.
Because I often write about obscure subjects (and use the SEO by Yoast plugin for WordPress, which I highly recommend downloading), I’ve already got a few top rated Google posts. By researching and writing quality material, I’ve managed to do the same thing that backlinking does without spending any extra money.