I’ve been a small time supporter of Kiva for a while, and recently I’ve been focusing on those entrepreneurs who grow coffee for us or those in the coffee business.
But just supported a new borrower who’s growing coffee in Honduras, one of my favorite coffee origins. See the jpeg for more information. Take a look for yourself.
I was starting to think of constructive ways I could develop this site a few days ago, when I was going through the archives. A few years ago, when this site started, there was a lot of interest in personal finance blogging. Some of those sites are still around, and doing well; others have fallen by the wayside.
InvestorBlogger was one of those sites… but for various reasons got sidetracked first by ‘making money online’ then by the Google shenanigans. Later, I spent a lot of time developing my coffee site out to a full site. But with the Google mistreatment of many sites, the new methods of socialising, and improving tools, InvestorBlogger kind of took a back seat for a few years.
In future posts, I’ll detail some of what happened during those ‘sparse years’.
The good news is that I’m now reloading InvestorBlogger, with material & tools that I’ve purchased and created along the way… and for those of my faithful readers who’re still here… thank you! I hope that your faith will have been rewarded.
But I’ll be honest, the weight of 1700 posts in this archive makes me feel like there’s a huge weight on my shoulders… some of which resolves around my desire to make a readable, cogent blog for readers. How on earth can I do that? How can readers find useable material on this site, given there are so few tags and search is hobbled somewhat? I have no idea!
But if you stick with me, I’ll try to find ways to present this content in ways that are interesting, topical and perhaps a little technical, too.
It really makes no sense to cull websites for keyword phrase stuffing if it’s using commonsense words … coffee maker is a distinct term from coffee (my niche), and though the term ‘maker’ denotes both a machine or individual, in an article that is about coffee makers, leaving out the word ‘coffee’ really makes no sense at all.
So, if you are writing about coffee makers, you also have to include other phrases like coffee spoon or coffee beans, if it’s Google’s intentions to stop keyword stuffing like that, then I’m afraid most sites are ‘stuffed’ (to use a colloquial UK slang meaning borked).
I think the only thing that Google is really concerned about is the searcher, and like the focus on the link (in PageRank) or the click (in Adsense), Google is looking for the USER/READER/SEARCHER and will use whatever algos ‘seem to pull that out’.
The problem is that an algo is no substitute for the fickleness of human nature, the cacophony and inconsistencies of human wants/needs/desires… and while Google may get close at times in mimicking reality (perhaps at an individual level), they will only mimic reality not capture its entirety.
We only have two defences against this onslaught of quasi-AI algo-fakery: our brand and our relationship with our readers. By building our relationship with readers and stating, clarifying and publicising our BRAND, we can & will be able to beat Google’s algo-nonsense.
So build a brand INTO your website and go find your audience, wherever it is. Google’s search engine is fast becoming a very dangerous place to be, as each of us waste our precious hours wondering what we did wrong each & every time the Panda strikes.
The only thing we did wrong: we spent too much time chasing Google and we failed to satisfy our customers properly. That’s it. That’s all.
So get out there, read the A&R and make your readers HAPPY. Make them delighted. Make them want to come back. Make them NEED to come back. And may Google get ‘stuffed’ instead.