A Blog Without Focus is a Blog Without Purpose, Sometimes

Back on July 22, I wrote that this blog "will be my blog on other blogs."

It didn't take me very long to lose my focus. I started making Apathetic Lemming of the North a repository of links and micro-reviews of Web pages I found interesting. Fun, but not what I had in mind.

More to the point, the re-purposed blog would probably be of interest to very few people, other than myself.

If a blog's author has no purpose other that self-gratification, picking a topic and sticking with it aren't important. The blog's only intended reader is the author, and the author presumably won't willingly spend time writing about anything the readery won't find interesting.

For all other blog authors, it pays to keep the reader in mind. At some point I'll probably harangue about spelling and syntax as aspects of readability. Now, I'll focus on - focus.

Three Reasons to Stay on Topic

• Attract readers
  Search engines 'like' contentually consistent pages
• Display relevant ads
  Contextually sensitive advertising services, like AdSense, choose ads based on what's found on the page
• Bring readers back
  You're more likely to return to a blog that's rich in relevant content, so are your readers

Readers are like prospectors. They remember where they found rich collections of content, just as prospectors remember where they found rich deposits of gold.

I'll try to take my own advice, get back on track, and stay there.