A Smart Use of Blog Search Optimization

You can find a lot of advice on the web of incorporating common search terms in your blog to help drive traffic. That's fine, if seeing a parade of uninvolved bodies is what you seek. But if you're a writer, you want to engage people. However, the advice can still stand: incorporate search terms. Just do so in a way that makes sense for what you write.

In my food blog, I've recently found an uptick of of traffic coming in from web searches. What surprised me was that they were all for a product called Vacuware. This device is a system for storing food in a container or bag and then removing all the air to preserve it better. I had reviewed the product, but then I had reviewed many products. Yet people kept coming in for this one.

I went to the Vacuware site to see if there was a new model. Instead, I noticed something about seeing the infomercial. The company was pushing its products on television, and some number of people were going to the web to look for reviews - like mine. In fact, I just did a Google search for "vacuware" and "review." My blog listing was literally the top match.

This wasn't good for Vacuware: I had panned a bad feature that they had admitted to me had serious shortcomings. But it did help me me realize how to write what would normally fit on my blog in a way that uses advertising and other aspects of popular culture to drive more readers. Find what's happening in the world that connects to what you you cover, and then anticipate what an audience will need and search for. In my case, I didn't know about Vacuware's television campaign, but I could have and then asked to see a review unit as a result, figuring that someone would want to know whether the device worked.

I set up the headline in the blog entry when I first wrote it to improve searchability. It says "Review: VacuWare Fresh Food System." I wasn't adding search tags at the time, but I'm going back to add some to those reviews, at least: vacuware, system, review, product, vacuum, and storage.

The idea isn't to become the literary equivalent of a prostitute, but to think from the view of your intended audience and anticipate its needs. That helps you provide what they want, which means they'll be heading to your site.

Dangers of Boilerplate Contracts

Writers often look for boilerplate contracts. Some want a document for a client; others think that having a "standard" document will help them better understand what they receive from clients, particularly publishers. I understand the motivations, but almost inevitably the results are risky because the writers don't understand the limits of what they seek.

One is that the agenda of the entity presenting the contract will affect how it is written. Any writer who has received a contract from a publisher knows this, but the same is true for documents you find on the web. For example, I remember once reading through an example magazine contract offered by a writers organization. It called for payment not on acceptance, but simple receipt of an article. Receipt? That's like asking someone to pay for a car before they get to turn the key to see if it works. Payment on receipt is completely unrealistic and even unreasonable for the publisher, yet one writer after another now thought that this was a realistic approach. Chances are that there were some contract purists who refused work because they couldn't get such ideal terms.

Another problem is that boilerplate contracts are generally so generic as to be almost unusable. They almost never cover all the areas you need to address, and you also have to wonder whether a really good lawyer is going to create such documents for free use. When I needed a collaboration contract, I did start with a boilerplate - and then proceeded to double the length with all the areas I knew I needed to cover. Only then did I go to a publisher lawyer and get help with a final draft - and the lawyer added yet additional considerations.

I've often seen writers, even very experienced ones, trying to cut corners and get away with something they found and a free review from a writer's organization. Yet the very same people would shake their heads at someone trying to sneak by with non-professional writing. The same reasons apply. If you need a custom contract, you need to invest in setting up a proper contract, which will force you to consider problems before they occur. If you can't afford to get professional help, then either you're not doing enough of the given type of work (so the cost of the contract is reasonably spread over a number of assignments), or you're working for too little. Cutting corners might work for a while - even a long time - but eventually you get burned, and it's a cost that all the money you saved will never equal.