An Interview With My Blog Ego

I looked into the mirror and interviewed myself.

Me Q. – With the recent crackdown on outward bound links. will you be adding a “nofollow” attribute to all your outward links?

Me A – Of course not.

Me Q – Will you be still doing paid reviews?

Me A - Sure. If the price and topic is right for this blog.

Me Q – What about selling links, I’m sure you will be avoiding those to appease Google.

Me A- Hahahaha.. Of course I will still sell links if the price offered is right.

Me Q – You must be crazy! Don’t you care if you get banished by the Big G?

Me A- Let me elaborate on this one.

First, let’s imagine that my blog is a shop that I have opened up to sell books. I have many books in stock and the topics are all very interesting. At present, business is not too good and my customers are very limited, so I try various means to build up my customer base.

In order to let more people know of my shop, I will try to get the attention of others in the same field, like say, a stationery shop, who has lots of customers, because if people walks into their shop they might also notice that there is another shop selling books that they are looking for. Hopefully, they will hop over to my shop to browse at what I have to offer. That way, my customer base will slowly increase.

When I too have lots of customers, others too will also want to take advantage of what I have. They will approach me for permission to paste a poster or two in my shop front for a small fee. Some even wants me to air their songs over my PA system for an even higher fee. Is it logical for me to refuse? I mean, by pasting their posters and airing their songs, the books I sell are still interesting books. There will be no loss of value in the books I sell. On the contrary, stocks will probably increase and the choices of books will be wider because on the increased revenue.

Now, lets go back to the initial stage when I opened the shop and have limited customers. There is this very big and influential guy who has a firm grip on every business in town. Let’s call this guy Mr.G. Mr G is so influential that lots of business in town depends on him for survival by bringing them customers.

Mr G has no qualms or complains on the number of customers that he brings them as long as they play according to his rules. Sometimes he can bring them thousands each day as long they know and say what he wants to hear. They can have a lousy shop without any worthy stocks but still they get thousands of customers. That’s because when people are looking for something, they ask Mr G where these things are available. Mr G will direct them to their shop even if the shop is an empty shop or even if the shop is selling imitation and low quality products. All because those shops says and do things that Mr.G likes to hear. He does not personally go and check on those shops unless they are singing a different tune.

Since Mr.G is so powerful, lots of business people bow and kowtow to his every whim and fancy. He tells them, you should not go to other shops and drop hints that you are opened for business. He says you should not paste posters in your shop front. He says no airing of songs in over your PA system. If you do that, you are finished. He is going to ignore you totally. The majority has no choice but to comply quietly for fear of closing shop.

Me Q – Then aren’t you afraid of closing shop if you don’t play according to rules?

Me A – Of course I am. I am afraid of closing shop, but not because of Mr. G not sending me any customers. You see, in all new businesses, you don’t have any chances to do many things that Mr G dislikes, like pasting posters and all. The most you can do is dropping hints that you are opened for business.

So I will keep dropping hints all over town that I am opened. I will keep all efforts to promote my shop at every given opportunity. It is only when I have a huge customer base that people will want to paste posters and air their songs in my shop. Hopefully by then, I won’t have to look at Mr G’s face each time I want to paste a poster or air a song and if he choose to banish me, so be it.

Me Q – So what steps are you taking to increase your customer base so you won’t have to appease Mr G each time you want to do something?

Me A - Good question! At present I am trying very hard to increase subscribers. I am looking for ways to reward those who subscribes. Other than giving them good quality contents, I will try to give some free gifts too. So if you friends who likes what I have, do get them to subscribe via my RSS Feeds which I offer in full or better still, get them to subscribe via their e-mail.

Subscribing via e-mail is a very convenient way to get good quality contents from me. Especially so for those who hates surfing. Everything will be delivered to you without the hassle of you having to fire up your browser.

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