Keywords, SERPs and a Higher Purpose

This whole blogging project has started to turn into something bigger than I intended it to. When I asked some of my co-workers for advice on how to improve my blog's search engine ranking, I had no idea what it would involve. The industry I work in makes it seem like there's no reason to blog if you're not going to optimize it for the search engines; but after spending over a week searching GoDaddy.com for an available URL and using Google Adwords to try to figure out how to stuff my posts full of keywords, I decided that, quite honestly, I just don't care.

Seriously, there's an inordinate amount of information floating around out there about how to make your blog show up in the SERP (search engine results page) that someone sees when they Google a related keyword. This way, people you don't know can find and follow your blog. (Sidenote: Some of you are social workers or nurses who help people everyday in your line of work. I learn cool terms like SERP so that I can impress all of you with my "stunning intellect.")

I won't lie. It would be great (a.k.a. A huge ego boost) to have a lot of random people I dont know read my writing, but that's not the purpose of my entries. And maybe that's why I was feeling so much pressure to optimize this thing: I had simply gotten away from my purpose. I started this blog to encourage others through sharing stories about my life and how the Lord is working in it. But like I often do, I lost sight of that goal and started to pursue what the world thought I should acheive. (Apparently, this blog is a metaphor for my life.)

So, let this entry and my past week of blog posts (or lack thereof) serve as a reminder that when we get too far away from what we were created to do--glorify and honor God in all things--everything, even blog entries, starts to fall apart. Maybe this blog won't show up in the SERPs and maybe I'll never have more than a handful of followers (who I am very thankful for, by the way) but hopefully I'll look back on whatever this blogging project turns out to be and say that above all else, it served a purpose. And shouldn't that be something we all strive for?

Until tomorrow,
Jennifer Lynn