Have you ever been searching for a quick dinner recipe, find a link to something that looks delicious, click the link for the recipe, and then, instead of seeing the recipe, you see a whole novel dating back to the author’s youth? Why don’t they just give you the recipe, already?!
This is actually for a very good reason – and it all goes back to – money. Blog writing is a newer career that many people are turning to, and some people are very profitable with this endeavor – many making a great income. And there are multiple reasons why including antics from their youth is making them more money.
- Google Algorithms. Google changes their thoughts often on what determines which web pages they will recommend for the coveted first page for search terms. But we know that right now, each page needs to have a minimum amount of words to be considered “important.” A rule of thumb is a minimum of 300 words per page. So to feed into the Google Algorithms for optimal page rank, they are literally getting their word count up to improve their Google ranking. The higher the Google ranking, the greater the organic (free) traffic they are likely to receive. More traffic = more ads = more money.
- More Ads. Now that we’ve mentioned ads, serving ads on blogs is the most common way to get paid for website content. And the popular ad servers have rules about not stacking ads on top of each other. So in this pre-recipe novel, somewhere between learning to ride a bike and their first broken bone, you’ll likely find an ad. And the more content, the more places they have to neatly tuck ads. And, as we mentioned, more ads = more money.
- Content is king. Back in the 90s, we used tricks such as word clouds to write out all of the keywords we wanted our website to be relevant for, and that helped us to get onto page one of Google. Now, Search engines have wised up to this and want all of the keywords to be used naturally. For example – have you noticed how many times I’ve used the words “search engines” or “page rank” in this article? Not at all excessively or as a ploy, but this article will be relevant to search engines for those kinds of words because they are used in context with meaning. Those recipes use the words recipes, baking, dinner, etc. naturally within it – which helps get their website noticed.
- Engagement. Ultimately, this blog post is not written for Google, it is written for humans. I hope that you’ve found it informative and interesting (or simply skipped this and enjoy the pasta salad with your family). Bloggers are creating a community with their followers to establish a connection in hopes that next time, you will seek out their blog specifically because you want to hear their specific thoughts on it. And building a base of loyal followers is how you can really take a hobby into a career in the blogging world.
So, next time you get the novel, and you really, really just wanted to get the recipe, just scroll. This is their living – or they hope that it will be one day, anyway – and they are doing the best they can to build their empire.
If you would like to get started on your own blogging empire and need a website or would like to improve your search engine ranking, give us a call – we’d love to help!
And just for giggles, here’s a recipe that I make for my family; it’s super easy, and delicious!
Italian Pasta Salad:
1 pound mini bow tie noodles, cooked al dente
1 (16 oz) bottle Olive Garden Italian Dressing
1 pkg mini pepperonis
1 Red bell pepper, chopped
1 can of small black olives, drained
1 pkg mini mozzarella balls (or crumbled feta)
Boil the pasta until it is al dente. Then mix all ingredients and enjoy. Tastes even better the next day.
