What are your strategies for SEO?
I will be honest and say that even after researching Search Engine Optimisation I have little idea how to consistently implement the strategy. If you are looking to make money from your blog then it’s a prerequisite for success but if you are writing for a non paying audience you don’t really need it.
I have tried to use it on occasion to optimise the title and to optimise my tags, but it has had little effect. I think there’s a couple of main reasons for this. First of all I haven’t tried to apply it consistently and second my blog is far too difficult to categorise because I write about such a range of subjects. If there’s a clear theme to your blog Search Engine Optimisation can no doubt help you to increase your audience. (As an aside, you increase your audience, you don’t grow your audience because the former is a verb and the latter is a noun, and nouns are not acceptable in the place of a verb in any circumstances! Rant over!!)
Whether you try Search Engine Optimisation or not, the most important thing is the writing itself. If it gets people to read and most importantly revisit your blog then it will find it’s audience. I don’t have a clear theme and I don’t have a monetary incentive. If either of those parameters change then I will look again at SEO. Until then I will concentrate on the writing and not get distracted by the algorithm.
Extended Review Part 1 Thrones EP by Karmaa I wanted to start this review with a shout out to Karmaa’s regular collaborator, the producer FPN Norway. He has been working with Karmaa for 5 years, and there is no doubt that his ability to give her the widely diverse sounds you hear on every track […]
Extended Review Karmaa – Thrones EP
Karmaa is one of my favourite modern artists. She is an American rapper, singer and songwriter who made one of my favourite songs of the last decade, Work in Progress. She is funny, angry and never less than brilliant. You really must give her a listen even if it’s not your usual style of music. It wasn’t something I expected to be so excited by, but it’s just brilliant. The Spotify artist link is below and I can’t recommend her music strongly enough. The Q&A in the linked post is great by the way.
What’s the weirdest movie you’ve ever watched?
I have found that two types of subjects for films or TV series have become increasingly less palatable over the years, those involving significant amounts of violence and those involving deliberately weird confounding stories.
To be honest I have never enjoyed violence in entertainment but now, a scene of excessive or unnecessary violence will cause me to turn a film or TV series off never to return. If a review mentions violence I won’t even start to watch it. If a director is famous for violence like Tarantino I won’t watch anything they make, so although I am sure that they are well made films I will never watch anything of his. The same goes for programmes like Happy Valley which has two actors I really like, but whose focus on violence made me decide after a few minutes never to watch it again.
I used to enjoy weird films but I don’t have the patience to wade through them anymore. As I have got older and as the world has got more confusing I want to escape from inexplicable stories and watch things that are straightforward. I am happy to entertain fantasy and frequently watch films like that but there has to be an internal logic that I can follow. I used to enjoy weird horror movies but I have stopped watching them entirely. I enjoy certainty and stories with a beginning, middle and end.
Media is an escape from the outside world for me and given the violent and unstable age we are living through I need to be comforted not challenged by my viewing. I can appreciate that others have very different reasons for watching the types of films I avoid and I also appreciate that I’m no doubt in the minority but it is better for my peace of mind.
Tell us about your morning routine.
My mornings are now far less focused than they were when I was working. When I was going to London 4 days a week, I got up at around 6 and had a cup of tea, got ready for work and left the house around 7. I was never ready to have breakfast so I didn’t eat until mid morning at work.
Now, I have a series of tasks that need to be done. I get up at more varied times than I used to but I generally don’t have anyone else getting up for at least half an hour. I have started to read books every morning before my phone is switched on in order to ease myself into the day. Sometimes I read social history books as part of an effort to reflect on various aspects of ongoing learning. I will generally prepare breakfast for my wife and if she’s going into the office I will do her packed lunch. Along with this I do my yoga and my Bullworker exercises. Some mornings I don’t follow all these tasks and I know I don’t have any real excuse, but I am trying to be as focused as possible.
