"The only thing worse than a woman scorned is a woman ignored." - Lenn Harley

I had "Call Lenn Harley" on my to do list for almost four weeks. It seemed like something was always getting in the way. An emergency here... a crisis there. A few days ago, while stuck in LA traffic, I finally made time to dial Lenn Harley and introduce myself. I had no reason for calling. But so many people had her on their short list of most respected real estate agents that I just had to speak to her. Wow.

It was a truly delightful conversation and Lenn is smart, engaging, open and has an amazing sense of humor. At one point in the conversation she said, "Google is fickled." I laughed out loud, because I had said the exact same thing in a comment on my It's Not About SEO. It's About YEO post. One person responded that it wasn't that fickle, but I really believe it is. And so does Lenn. I related the response to her.

"Well, of course it's fickle," Lenn said. "Google is a woman. It has to be a woman. The only thing worse than a woman scorned is a woman ignored. If you ignore Google, Google will turn on you. But if you treat Google right, give it strokes every day, Google will be a faithful lover."

You have to love the analogy. Thank you, Lenn.

This, of course got me thinking. Not about lovers, but bout Jeff Belonger. (Yes, I need to get out more often.) Jeff asked me a question via comment on Flickr-ing Local Photos: You Engaging Others (YEO). I told him I would answer it in a post. This is that post.

Jeff lives in a very small town of 12,000 people. He has limited local entities to blog about, and he has a rational fear. Jeff's question was this: "do I get very detailed?  Pick out say... a few restaurants?  All 10?  Do I just do 1 each day?  My 2nd post was on churches... there are like 11 in town, but I took pictures of like 4 or 5 of them and wrote little inserts.  Just looking for advice." My advice? Pace yourself.

You Must Pace Yourself

I've been telling Julie Ferenzi that her blog, Living In Plainfield is not a sprint. Jim Cronin said the same thing about blogging, "Blogging is a marathon.  It's 100 marathons.  It is not a sprint." So, this means you have to pace yourself. This is particularly true if you live in a smaller community. If you're not careful, you'll simply run out of things to talk about.

The Towsley Canyon Example

I do local content posts to serve as examples only. So my post, Towsley Canyon: The Perfect Family Hike, was written with a post like this in mind. Towsley Canyon is indeed a great place to go hiking with the family. But it's also a great place to go mountain biking, or cross country running, or to challenge yourself in a workout, or to take a church or school group. But if I put ALL of that into one post, I miss out on the opportunity to write 5 or 6 posts on Towsley Canyon, all with a different focus. Each post will attract a different part of the long tail. Each post will engage a different group of readers.

Google needs to be stroked.

There is nothing magical about a blog that makes it better than a standard web page for search engine optimization. Except that it encourages you to write new content and that's what strokes Google. That's what Google is looking for. You want Google to love you? Write. You have to write regularly about your target. You have to engage the readers. And you have to do it over and over again. Blogging is not as complicated as some people make it out to be, but successful blogging is harder than you think (read this).  Don't make it even harder by trying to cram everything into one post! 

"Google is a woman."

Lenn, I know you didn't think twice about spitting that out, but it's a brilliant observation. And I, for one, will never ignore her again. Because I'm not looking for a Google one night stand. I want a relationship.