My mother doesn’t own a blog. She doesn’t even read blogs. In fact, she thinks the Internet is a big waste of time. I’m not sure that Mum would be able to turn a computer on. My guess is that she would press the right button, but probably wouldn’t know what to do next.

So you ask me: “What the heck is this post about then? If your mother is a computer illiterate, how can she teach anything about being a successful blogger?”

Your question makes sense. But read on.

Mum knows her daughter very well, like any good mother should. She is aware of my online projects. She knows I hope to succeed as a writer, and that I’ve been using blogs as auxiliary tools to reach my aim. She may not be particularly interested in the blogging world, but she certainly is very interested in my progress and in my happiness, for obvious reasons. Therefore, when she noticed that I was spending more and more time blogging and less and less time resting, she started to complain about it.

I didn’t listen to her (you know, I’m an adult woman, I can take care of myself, I know what I’m doing etc.) and went on sacrificing several hours of sleep. I thought my time would be much better spent on blog posts, blog promotion, blog reading, blog commenting, blog networking… you get the idea. My body and my mind would send me some opposing signals, which I tried to ignore. Nevertheless, my increasing health issues wouldn’t go unnoticed by Mum. And one day she decided that “the adult woman who could take care of herself and knew what she was doing” would have to listen to her.

This was her reasoning:

1. You can’t be a full-time writer/blogger because you also have a day job, which you just can’t quit for the time being.

2. You can only write and blog in your spare time.

3. Writing and blogging are not the only things one should do in her spare time. Human beings usually have other needs.

4. Sleeping certainly is among those other needs — and it’s very, very near the top of the list.

5. Lack of sleep has a negative impact on your health, and at last will make you fall ill.

6. When you fall ill, you won’t be able to do any blog-related activities until you recover.

7. Wouldn’t it be wiser to rest a bit more and write a bit less, thus keeping yourself healthy enough to continue your projects and eventually succeed in them?

Bingo!

But it all could have been summarized in this sentence: “No health, no success.” And yes, she made me listen to it too.

There you have it. Although I’m still an adult woman, and I still can take care of myself, maybe I don’t always know what I’m doing. An outsider’s perspective just might be what I needed at this point in my online endeavors. Because I’ve read all sorts of tips on how to be a successful writer, blogger or Internet marketer, but I’ve rarely found any advice regarding some basic aspects of my life that might also have an impact on my online activities.

Karen Zara

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Filed under: Blogging, Guest Blogging | 3 Comments »

People have been driven desperate by the recent news on PageRank penalties suffered by many prominent bloggers who also happened to be great link sellers.

PageRank in itself has always been an interesting subject. You may visit dozens of blogs and follow hundreds of forum threads, and still you’ll be likely to find some fresh views on this topic. Some people will try to give you tips, others will dismiss those same tips, and many will just speculate and/or express their anxiety.

PageRank is also a good subject to write about when you aren’t particularly inspired, and it’s almost sure to draw your readers’ attention and even get you some search engine traffic. I know what I’m talking about: Google sent a few visitors to my blog Karen Zara Dwells Here, just because once I wrote a tiny innocent post asking whether a PR update was going on or not. No one cared to reply, but at least I got some unexpected traffic. And it was unexpected indeed: I didn’t have search engines in mind when I wrote that post; I simply couldn’t think of anything else to write about at the occasion, hence I posted the first thing I could come up with.

It seems however that this new wave of blog posts about Google PageRank isn’t the result of a “collective writer’s block” that induces bloggers to write about the first obvious thing they can think about.

But is the whole blogosphere really that concerned about PageRank itself?

I don’t think so.

It can all be summed up in one word: money.

People have become slaves to PageRank, but as far as I’m concerned, even a PR0 site might reach good positions on search engine result pages. My blog had no PR when it made it into Google’s first page for PageRank-related keywords, thanks to that tiny post I mentioned above. Granted, it hasn’t remained on that position for long. But you see, getting there isn’t impossible after all.

So, why does everyone worry so much about something that won’t necessarily affect their search engine ranks? Because many advertisers rely on PR to evaluate a site and decide whether they’ll buy ads on it or not. A lower PR in many cases will mean less advertisers, leading to financial losses. I’m sure if it all was just about “status,” “trust,” “influence” and the such, most bloggers wouldn’t care at all, as long as they continued to make money out of their blogs.

There seems to be an easy solution for the whole problem: just “nofollow” the links you sell. Since you won’t be passing link juice onto your advertisers’ sites anymore, you’ll be on the safe side (at least in theory, because with Google you never know). Nonetheless, if so many advertisers are mainly interested in the link juice they can get from certain pages, why would they pay for links that won’t help them achieve a greater PageRank? As you can see, we’ll have it again: less advertisers = less profits.

What many people don’t realize is that there will always be advertisers who will want to buy traffic, instead of PR. Those are the ones a webmaster or blogger should try to attract.

When people rely on external ranking systems of any type to offer value to their advertisers, they become vulnerable to issues that they don’t have any control over. But you do have control over your blog’s content. You also are in charge when it comes to promoting your blog and generating traffic for it. Why don’t you take advantage of your own power?

Instead of jumping on the PR-fear bandwagon, just let it be. You’ll make better use of your time and talent by producing good content, networking with fellow bloggers and building a loyal readership. Use your traffic stats as your own ranking system. Then you’ll be able to show your prospective advertisers just how valuable your audience is.

Good luck!

Karen Zara

Filed under: Blogging, Guest Blogging | 6 Comments »