Why I choose to stay under the radar, for now.

In my last post I talked about the linkerati (term coined by Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz), the important people you should be targeting with your content, who help to establish your credibility and send you buckets of quality traffic. I also explored some methods that you can use to attract their attention, like news or entertainment pieces, controversy, and industry related information.

Today I`m going to look more closely at my blogging to see if I`m up to scratch and whether I do enough to attract the right kind of attention. Basically we`ll see whether I contribute towards MediaVision`s blogging goals and whether I keep “viral” in mind.

I can tell you right now that I fall very short in many areas.

An extremely important rule when blogging is: know your audience. Who are you targeting? MediaVision targets the big fish of the SEO pond. We want to be recognised as industry leaders and innovators. We want the likes of Rand Fishkin, Danny Sullivan and Bruce Clay to sit up and take notice of us. We want our site to be a permanent destination for them and not only a transitory stop over. To do that we have to write the right content.

Anything to do with SMO is hot at the moment, and a lot of our topics relate to it. But I suppose the question is, when I go about choosing topics to write about, do I actively look for topics that are hot or that I know will be hot, or do I only choose topics that I find interesting?

Do I, in fact, write for myself and not my target audience? And the answer (oh dear) is yes. When it comes to writing I break a lot of cardinal rules; this is just one of them. Sometimes it`s out of ignorance and I get better as I learn. Sometimes it`s because I think that rules for writing should be more guidelines than actual set-in-stone regulations. Sometimes I just plain forget.

There is, however, another rule (or guideline) in writing that I do try and stick to: write what you know. I know what I like and I know what interests me. I read more about those things, so I know more about those things, which is why I write about those things.

I have a few favourite resources that I like to use (DoshDosh, BruceClay, Searchengineland, Copyblogger, a few others) and I have a few RSS feeds (very few, unless it comes via my inbox I tend to forget about it), so I kind of know what`s going on in the SEO world.

My technical know-how is very limited so I tend to steer clear of those topics. I do occasionally dive into an interesting tech-related headline, only to emerge with my head muddled and confused. I cope better with abstract theory and opinions. The intangible stuff.

In many ways I`m still finding my way around the SEO world and that`s how I write, from a learner`s perspective. I don`t consciously target the experts because at the moment, I don`t have anything to say that they would want to hear. I have opinions (lots of them), but I don`t think that they are worth all that much at the moment. When I have to write an opinion piece I get very nervous because as much as I`ve learnt, I still don`t feel that it`s enough to validate my point of view. The last thing I want to do is come across as a vastly opinionated, histrionically dumb, dweeb. I don`t feel that that would serve MediaVision`s best interests.

Of course I would love to guest post on DoshDosh or see one of my posts on Search Engine Land (both of which would be the ultimate validation). It would be especially satisfying if it was for writing something controversial (I do love a bit of the old controversy) or offbeat, which leads to weeks of debate. And in time I may just do that, but for now I`ll work on learning as much as I can and scrounging up the confidence to comment (regularly) on what the experts have to say.