Jill Whalen, whom I respect and admire was ranting about dumbass SEOs telling clients to blog about anything and everything just for the sake of search engines. I fully agree that blogging on stuff solely for the search engines alone is not a worthwhile endeavor, but I came away from the article with another message that bugged me. The thing that gets me about her article is I can’t help but get the feeling Jill is discounting many niches that are worthwhile to blog about.
In the rant Jill writes:

“If you sell laminating machines or door stops, should you really be writing articles about them? No, no, no, no, no! Why would anyone in their right mind want to read an article about door stops? They wouldn’t. Nor would the search engines.”

“Real content is simply the information you supply on the regular pages of your website. The pages that explain your products and/or your services. The pages you presumably already have on your website. Those are the pages you are supposed to be optimizing, not fake pages designed for search engines. To fix your site you don’t need to add articles.”

Well I can think of a number of reasons why someone would write about laminating machines and doorstops. Number one is because laminating machines or door stops may be their business. Just because you don’t care about them doesn’t mean a good number of other folks don’t care. Lets say I have a manufacturing business and sell door stops. I make over 150 styles of door stops and gross 8 figures every year. I have major customers including contractors, builders, home improvement chains, mom and pop shops plus Mr. & Mrs. Smith that are building their first new home. All these folks are buying loads of door stops and are actually looking for information on my products. I am coming out with a new line of commercial grade door stops in an oil rubbed bronze finish. The thing is a beauty that I have had many requests for, I want to tell them about it! I also had a popular value grade door stop that I am sad to say had a brass finish that was chipping off. Well I am going to replace these for folks with a better one, I want to tell them about it! My products may be boring to many but I do have news that my customers would like to hear.

So you may say, well that’s a big manufacturing business and you are talking about a simple store that sells door stops. Same thing applies here, they have a customer base that includes many local contractors and home owners. They may have a new line of satin nickel floor mounted door stops that will be very popular or a new safety stop that local schools and hospitals should know about. Of course they also have cabinet hardware and door & window hardware that people are asking many questions about. It would be nice to write about and answer these questions and create some loyal customers in the same process. There may be a national story on the evening news about faulty hardware, chances are something was left out or not quite on target. It would be nice to have a place to tell it the way it is and manage your store & business reputation.

My biggest fear about Jill’s article is that it may scare the “little guy” away from writing about something they really want to write about for the right reason. Trivial things for some people are not so trivial for others so I don’t think we should put down one persons door stop. What is the right reason for having a blog and writing articles about door stops and other trivial little things? Connection & communication. Connecting with readers, communicating with customers, connecting with and making friends, building trust and relationship, and providing information that someone might find handy one day. Don’t take the blogging tool away from folks because they don’t have a sexy product or service. It’s just an easy way for folks to get words on a page, including a regular product page. Blog articles can be used and embedded anywhere within a site. And lastly, writing these articles, connecting and communicating with folks can and will be beneficial with the search engines.

By the way I want to thank the Custom Rubber Corp, supplier of custom rubber molding and rubber injection molding services and Cal-Royal manufacturer of hardware for the images I used.