Writing is Regal

“Content is King” may be an over-used term among techies but maybe you’ve never heard it. It refers to the fact that content – written and more recently video – is the primary driver of online traffic. This fact makes having quality content important. It’s more important than design, keywords, or graphics; all of that stuff ranks lower on the list.

Content being King gives me hope that while many parts of the Internet are increasingly automated by clever programming, there is still a place for me. I can write, and so long as content is on the throne, I have access.

Some days it is difficult to write anything at all. On those days I feel dried out on my topic of grant writing. That’s when I write about related topics like writing for the Internet or how to find a good chair for grant writing or about how darned sexy I feel (that’s right grant writers can be sexy too).

Scott Stratten, author of “Un-marketing” said in his keynote at the Blog World Expo Conference in Las Vegas last year that blog content has to be GREAT and if you aren’t writing GREAT content to just stop or slow down and write less. Scott asserted that nobody has ever read a really bad blog post and said, “That was terrible, but it was keyword rich.” Scott’s a funny guy, he’s Canadian and they’re a funny bunch (I know this from family experience).

When I run into a dry spell, I’ll sit down and just start writing. I know it sounds odd, a Canadian sort of thing like cheese whiz on toast or caribou coats, but it works for me. These narratives usually start out with something like, “I don’t know what to write today so I went for a walk…then I met a homeless guy who asked me for money and I told him I didn’t have any but he said, ‘That’s OK brother’, gave me a fist bump, and smiled before he walked away.”

I can get a lot of narrative out of that single interaction if I think about it just a little bit. I could write about thankfulness, homelessness, gratitude, acceptance, human interaction, living without technology, the economy, health, safety on the streets. That single interaction could be turned into any number of short blog posts reflecting on this man, his circumstances and my interaction with him. All of a sudden my blockage is gone and I am writing merrily away wishing I had more time to cover all the possible topics.

I try to remember another thing that Scott Stratten said – and perhaps it isn’t original, but I heard him say it first so it will be fixed in my mind as his from now on - “If you are your own authentic self, you have no competition.” Nice, I can live with that. Writing from my inner self is freeing in a way that helps me break out of the doldrums whenever I find myself there.

I like the idea of my content as King of the Internet, even if it’s read by a few, not millions.


Completely unrelated blog posts:

Bless His Cotton Socks

Ten Things Baseball Can Teach You About Grant Writing

Federal Grant Resources at Grant Goddess.com

Tweet

Photo Credit - Zsolt Zatrok Dr.