Unfortunately, I don’t typically follow my own advice or best practices on this website and write blog posts that will generate large numbers of clicks through something known “in the biz” as search engine optimization (SEO). If I did, I could probably generate all kinds of Internet traffic, unique page views and web page hits, just like I did last December when I blogged about the racist soap.

Of course, when you load up your blog posts with lots of keywords, Google could cast a wary eye on you and stop indexing your website. So it’s important when blogging for SEO to make sure your keywords, tags and categories are germane to the topic on which you are blogging.

For example, if I wanted visitors to come to this website exclusively to hire me as a writer/editor, I would make sure my blog posts were always loaded up with “skilled Indianapolis writer/editor,” or something like that. “Skilled Indianapolis writer/editor” would be a keyword phrase I would use in my first sentence, and perhaps even in the title. I would also use that keyword phrase, “skilled Indianapolis writer/editor” in the “excerpt,” which would function as kind of a teaser when the website contents were displayed on sites like LinkedIn or Google.

Blogging for SEO follows a different cadence of writing than say, an essay, because of the need to emphasize keywords at the top end. It’s as though every website post written for SEO is wearing a double-D. Forgive the metaphor, but I’m so plagued here with spam I tend to forget there are people out there interested in topics that have nothing to do with penis enlargement meds or treatments for tinnitus. (Back at you, suckers.)

Why I blog: Blogging functions as a creative outlet as well as a workout for my writing muscles. It’s a place to store things, like my Slow Food Files, which will one day be compiled into a recipe book. On the blog I can rant, though not without consequences, as the silly soap incident taught me. Finally, it’s a calling card. It’s a way of doing what I say I can do and of walking my talk. Darn the cliché, but sometimes the formula fits.

When you’re an opinionator like me (or opine-ator, depending on your opinion), it’s good to divulge where you’re getting those opinions. One’s news sources are crucial to developing rational ideas and arguments about the range of issues facing our society. I don’t claim to have any “pure” news sources, but I feel compelled to point out that some outlets are unfairly and vociferously vilified by monied interests BECAUSE THEY REPORT THE NEWS. That would be NPR and The New York Times, primarily, wrongly labeled as the “liberal media.” No, they are the truthful (albeit not perfect) media.

I try to avoid the so-called “24/7 media,” because it’s just a fact that the nature of being constantly on means they run out of news. Case in point: just last week I witnessed CNN reporting on the wedding dress Kate Middleton “might” wear when she weds Prince William next spring.

Good grief.  The report even included a lineup of the “proposed” dresses.

Such TV trash is proof that unless there’s truly breaking news, we are just filling airtime here, folks, and you know what they say about garbage in, garbage out.

Daily I consume The New York Times and The Indianapolis Star (real newspaper versions). I read The Nation magazine weekly and Mother Jones magazine monthly (again, real paper versions). I listen to NPR seemingly all day and all night long. I watch CNBC for stock market info, the CBS Evening News and local news programs every evening, FOX 59 morning news once in a while because it runs longer than the other stations and seems better reported, 60 Minutes, ABC’s This Week, Face the Nation, Indiana Week in Review, CNN for breaking news and the Daily Show and Colbert Report for sh**s and grins.

When I’m in another city I always buy a local newspaper, and recently treated myself to several days of The Washington Post. I check Google News for what’s aggregated, and have CNN and NYT breaking news alerts sent to my email. I receive Google Alerts on several areas of interest, including colony collapse disorder, chytrid, white nose syndrome, rfid and other topics I’ve written about in The Star.

I feel fairly schooled on the financial crisis, thanks to the NYT, which was reporting a “housing bubble” way back in the halcyon days of 2005. Which is proof that if more people actually read the news, there would have been fewer people shocked, shocked! at the resulting meltdowns on Wall Street.

I have to believe that the majority of people who consume digital versions of newspapers are not getting the best overall understanding of national and international events. Online versions make you choose what you want to read. But a newspaper allows your eye to meander across the page, so you might actually read something titled, “Pentagon Report Cites Gains in Afghanistan” (in today’s NYT on page A8 right next to “Names of the Dead” — all 5,804 service members killed in the Iraq-Afghanistan wars).

The digital version of this story just doesn’t have the clickability of say, “Lady Gaga to William and Kate: ‘Don’t touch my junk.’”

It also helps to know some reporters. This just in: “Was bck in knightstown today…. School bd member chewing out a bus driver on tape.” See Fox 59’s venerable Russ McQuaid for that report.

Happy Thanksgiving.