content-less content

There’s nothing like a rocking chair, a top floor view and the soothing regularity of the No.23 bus to lure a girl away from history revision and over to bloggy procrastination.  Joli House is just perfect for this purpose.  I can kid myself that it is both productive and worthwhile, therefore a valid diversion from AS level crap.

Even the day before 2 AS level exams.  Great idea!  (She says, still typing at 10pm).

My topic for distraction today was ‘Motivation’ and how I seem to have lots of it.  I get asked about this all the time so the scope for blogging was rich really.  1000 words and 4 number 23 buses later I had the makings of a post, or so I thought.  Ever written something that made total sense at the time but left you under-whelmed later?  A last check over before hitting publish left me with that WTF feeling.  Can barely even make sense of my own train of thought so good luck to anybody else trying to follow!

Anyway, my post about motivation was quite possibly the least motivating 7 paragraphs I could have inflicted on you. It wasn’t a list of hints and tips; nor was it particularly relatable.  Jeez, it wasn’t even a humourous rant.

It was a nothing post. ‘Content-less’ content.

Us bloggers are all about the content.  Or are we?  If you were to google ‘How to start a blog’ or ‘How to grow your readership’ you’d see the phrase ‘content is key’ over and over.  You can work social media, pin down SEO and try all the other tricks but in the end it all comes down to content.  Original content.

And here comes the whinge.  (Because y’know, when in doubt, rant).

Am I imagining it, or is content becoming a little lightweight?  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect every blog post I read to be a epic, I don’t need to be crying with laughter and I definitely don’t need to agree with your views.  But I would kinda like to feel informed.  Not informed in the ‘educated’ sense of the word; I’ve enough of that on my plate!  God knows, if you looking for writing brilliance Joli House is not to place to find it.  I mean more that I leave your blog thinking ‘that was new’.  And by ‘new’ I don’t even mean exciting, just not Blogging Hints & Tips on repeat.  The same list of the most basic SEO tips, reader engagement hints or whatever.  When I see stuff like this it I can’t help but think that the blogger is trying to play SEO games and is blogging for Google hits or Bloglovin saves.  It’s what I mean by ‘content-less content’ and it’s the reason I no longer click through or save posts about blogging on Bloglovin: the same list of 5 or 6 ‘must-dos’ everywhere.  I love posts about blogging but these days I rely on sites like The Nectar Collective and IFB for their fresh information about blogging resources and ideas.

I guess this is how blogging is evolving.  People see what they think is a winning formula and try to imitate it.  Often they take the most obvious element and run with it.  Let’s take Hannah Gale as an example.  There is nothing that this girl writes that I don’t love.  It’s often hilarious, always relatable and has more than a hint of crazy.  Easily copied formula then yeah?  No, because no-one else is Hannah Gale.  We can all have a crack at lists but without the flair for nostalgia, we’re unlikely to nail it in the way she does.  They say that imitation is a form of flattery but to be honest, I think it rarely hits the mark.  And OMGGGG don’t even get me started about the girls who adopt Zoella’s mannerisms on their own YouTube channels.  You know exactly what I mean.

I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m always looking for long meaty posts to read – I love the short, chatty light-hearted stuff equally!  Just don’t fancy being lured over to the same old, same old by a snappy title.  My textiles teacher said to me a little while ago that she ‘reads my blog for something to do when there’s nothing on telly’, and I wasn’t quite sure how to take it at first!  Chose to see it as a compliment though, that at least there could be a small amount of entertainment value to what I write. :P  I’m not saying that I’ll ever get round to SEO tips and blogging revelations, but if/when I do it’ll not be until I have something new to offer.  And it won’t be another ‘motivation’ post with zero motivation whatsoever, either.  That shall forever remain in the drafts folder, don’t worry!

lily kate x

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