Seeking Eternal [youth] Online (SEO)

Maybe you, too, have tried to launch a website from scratch?

I’ve a notebook by the side of my keyboard. In it are handwritten notes like: “navigation menus how?”, “recaptcha on forms!!”, “core value”, “focus keywords”, “excluded by noindex tag wtf!”, “don’t forget featured image!”, “SSL but why not showing on site?? wtf?”, “wtf is a sticky post?”, “DNS is where??”, “Gravatar not connecting, why?”, “site not coming up on Google wtaf??”

I don’t normally swear that much.

Despite the cursing, I think it’s excellent to learn new things. I like a challenge. When I decided to write a blog of recipes to pass on to my daughter, I knew I wanted a certain aesthetic. So many food blogs look kinda similar (sssshhh!). I wanted an aesthetic that appealed to me, as a consumer. I decided it was worth the investment to get a theme from 17th Avenue. I worked my way through their tutorials.

And then I thought, so many food blogs sound the same (ssshhh!). And when I started building, I realised the algorithms that enable your post to be found can dictate the number of words in the content! There’s a reason there’s a pattern to blogs. Software was CHIDING me about my sentence length. SLAPPING MY WRIST over passive voice. EXCLUDING me from SEO because my descriptions were perhaps not generic enough. And I thought, yeah … nah.

I’m going to do my own little thing over here in the corner, and try be creative within the limits.

That said, I’ve revised every post slug and meta description I’ve posted so far because I had a lightbulb moment about SEO. And, happily, I may have made progress in fixing that pesky noindex thing. I still have a list of things that need fixing. The problem is so many resources online are in tech speak. I started to think maybe I should write a blog about writing a blog?

So while the primary purpose is the recipes, the secondary purpose is the learning. The third purpose is to have FUN writing, because that’s my bag. And the fourth, as per Henry Ford, may just be eternal youth 😂

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”

-Henry ford