Do you realise that you are a member of a privileged — or even endangered — minority? That is, the minority of people surfing the internet right now who have the time (or the inclination) to read this.
I write pretty well, if I say so myself, and the prose flows easily and understandably. I’m also incredibly modest (it’s one of my better qualities).
Despite this, however, I’ll be very lucky indeed to get my audience for this very post into three figures.
People like me, who make a living telling others what they need to do to get the world beating a path to the door of their website, say constantly that “content is king”. Unless your website is interesting, no-one will ever come to it.
Truth be told, except in a very few cases, even if the content is good, no-one will ever come to it. Reluctantly I must admit — though it dents my already tiny ego to say so — content may well be king, but the vast majority of web users are republicans.
Now I read a lot of blogs, and forums, and Tweets, and profile pages, and I have to tell you (be sure you’re holding on to something firm mas you hear this) that there is an awful lot of rubbish on the web.
Some of it is just poor technique or sheer inability to write, some of it is taking the piss, including scraping other people’s websites for text and printing it verbatim as their own work. There is a word for people like this: plagiarists. (Actually, there are several words for people like this, but plagiarists is a legal term which I can use in a U-rated blog).
Still more is content simply for content’s sake: just writing empty, meaningless drivel, designed to con a stupid search engine that a site has been updated and there are lots of splendid new keywords — Hotels in Toledo, Earn $$$, Get V14gra Cheep — to take note of, and index.
They may actually throw in a picture (see image, left) which has very little to do with the article — usually an attractive young woman in a state of near undress — because sex sells. (Actually, studies show that women find images of women more appealing than images of men, just as much as men do, the obvious conclusion being that, yes ladies, you’re all closet lesbians at heart!)
As I come to the end of this tirade, I’m tempted to conclude that this rant itself is just more wasted electrons helping to clog up an already overcrowded internet, and rightly deserves the tiny number of readers it gets. What does that make you, dear reader, for having read this far?
Nevertheless, you have to admit, I’m funny. If only in the head.
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