Often, I am asked: Why blog? Why bother with blogging and bloggers?
1. Blogs offer alternate views.
We are supposed to trust MSM because they have editors and all sorts of checks to make sure that news is accurate and impartial. Can we?
Let’s say you read this article about a project to build artificial coral reefs and relocate corals in danger of peril. Commendable, you might think, as I did. After all, “the dredging would have damaged the corals and muddied the waters, threatening their survival had they not been moved”.
And if you haven’t guessed, there is a ‘but’.
But later in the day, I came across Ria Tan’s post: Large debris on Labrador explained?
The project sounds nice in theory but something somewhere seems to have gone terribly wrong. I would have been none the wiser without Ria’s post, without this alternative view.
2. Blogs have Google juice
Ok, I admit up front that I’m plugging my mum’s cakes.
Still, I’m telling it as it is. This morning, my mum was sharing over breakfast that a stranger found her blog and ended up ordering Sugee Cake from her. (Most of my mum’s customers are through referrals and my aunts’ personal marketing efforts.) Apparently, a search on Google for Sugee Cake brings up a lot of entries from Malaysia. This woman was looking for homemade Sugee Cake in Singapore.
Good thing my mum blogs. Her entry is the 6th in Google for “Sugee Cake”.
The lesson here: Blogs have Google juice. If you have a minority cause, a niche expertise or an alternative pastime, you should blog. It’ll help you be found more easily through search engines and if you play your cards right, you can build a community of like-minded people through your blog.
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Kenneth, your mum blogs and makes sugee cakes which are good enough to sell? Wow. Got to visit her blog and look see look see. You should bring some samples (cakes not blog articles) for our next FOYers meet. As you know, nothing works better than word-of-mouth, especially after the mouths have tasted good food.
Yes, I will do that. =) When are we meeting next?
Haha, following your instructions, I’ve found it here already.
wow! ur mum’s cakes look really yummy and sinfully tempting!
i gather she takes her own photos aside from blogging? they’re really nice and sharp. she must taken some tips from you
my mum has been attending computer classes organised by Bishan North CC. aside from checking her email and googling for info and recipes, she hasn’t mastered blogging yet. :p
perhaps it’s a blessing so i’ll be reading entries complaining abt her kids..hehe!
She took some photos while attending a chocolate-making class. Most of the other photos are mine. My dad and sis took a few too, when I wasn’t at home at the time. Family effort.
Ah… heheh… our parents can pick up new tricks! Just have to be patient. Still quite amazed and proud that my mum blogs.
When are you expecting Number 2?
Haha! Family effort…well, it’s all worth it since all of u get to sample the goodies after the phototaking
No. 2 shd make an appearance come End Dec…so let’s see if it’ll be a Xmas baby or a New Yr baby