This isn’t one of those posts where the author says “sorry I haven’t been posting much lately but now I’m back and plan to start writing more”, although I haven’t and I do. Those posts are usually written in a burst of inspiration or guilt followed by never posting again. The post I’m writing now is happening during a semi-ketogenic stupor so it must be genuine and long lasting.
Over the last seven years I’ve been blogging, I’ve waffled about why I was writing in the first place. I originally named the site RyanRandom because I had so many interests and wanted to share them with others. I didn’t want to be tied to a single topic. However, I later felt compelled to write primarily about geographic information systems (GIS) because that was my profession. All the blogs about blogging tell you to be consistent with your subject. Pick one niche and stick to it so your readers won’t get confused. This way you’ll establish yourself as an expert in your field.
The problem is I don’t want to only write about GIS or programming. Those things are still important to me and I’ll still write about them. But what about art, poetry, fiction, photography, gardening and design? I certainly don’t have the time and energy to create separate sites around every interest (although I might change my mind tomorrow). For now, this site will be the central place for all my work. I’m just not that interested in followers, shares or Google rank.
What I’m trying to say is that going forward I’m making a concerted effort to blog my passions rather than just my profession. And instead of a consistent subject, I just want to be a consistent writer. I probably could have just said that in the first place and made this post a lot shorter. But then it wouldn’t have been at least 300 words which the SEO gurus say it should be to establish subject authority.