death of the voiceover blog?

Death of the Voiceover Blog?Sometimes we as voiceover business owners are so focused on the operations of our business, the business of doing business, we neglect to paint our stores and sweep our steps.

The ‘stores and steps’ references our web sites. We often look at our sites from the back of the house instead of standing out front and looking at what the visitors see.

A while ago I wrote a blog post about checking out what your web site looks like by going to electronic retailers and calling up your web site on various computers, tablets and phones.

While that applies to web sites, that advice also applies to blogs.

I’ve had a blog since 2005 and in those 12 years, I’ve written a lot about voiceover, marketing and advertising (over 1,300 posts). That’s why I named the blog voxmarketising. In all those posts there are some real golden nuggets and some absolute crap. Trial and error, baby!

But one of the areas of blog management I had fallen way behind in was managing all the links I had listed on my blog to all my fellow voiceover bloggers. It was my way of sharing the blog love by listing their blog link, in the hopes that they would do the same. Some did, some didn’t.

But recently, I did a complete review of all the blogs I had listed on my site to see what blogs were still active and what blogs had given up the ghost.

Over 80 (EIGHTY) voiceover blogs were just cut from my web site because they hadn’t published in 3 or more years or because their bloglink just went nowhere any more.

There were probably 10 or so links that needed to be updated and they have been.

But 80 dead blogs was an amazing number.

Why so many? Based on what I saw and what I know, here are my theories

  • Some folks started blogging about voiceover because they thought they were supposed to for better web traction – they had no desire to blog and no point of view in their writing so they just quit
  • Some people clearly didn’t not make it in the VO business — so why blog about voiceover when one is now selling life insurance?
  • Some folks just got bored with the process of blogging

Sure there may be a myriad of other reasons and all of them are legitimate. Blogging is not mandatory in the voiceover or any other business (unless you’re in the blogging business, then I suppose it’s pretty mandatory.

But does blogging help or even impact a voice talent’s business? That depends.

From a broad perspective, blogging should help a voiceover talent’s business for SEO. If one is blogging about their industry, using a widely accepted blogging platform like WordPress (either as a blog or as part of an overall web site), that alone should generate attention from search engines like Google and Yahoo.

Digging down a little further, if a blogger’s content gains enough interest from a targeted audience and the blogger builds up a dedicated readership, that subsequent attention also generates positive SEO notice and builds the credibility of their brand and reputation.

So SEO is the only reason to blog? No, but it’s a big one because depending on what you write, you may enjoy some unexpected organic word search success. Sure you can buy word search, but organic is less financially cumbersome.

I think in voiceover, there are primarily two types of bloggers – thought leaders focused on SEO (and listening to myself, ‘er, um THEMSELVES speak) and then coaches who want to sell services and also enjoy some SEO love. Neither is bad. Blogs are a marketing tool…just decide what you are marketing what your audience wants to hear.

But what if you aren’t a coach and you don’t think you have a thought that worthy enough to lead anything? Should you still blog?

That’s a personal question.

Blogging requires some sort of commitment. Obviously time but, maybe more importantly, thought.

For bloggers, I think the smart foundation for having a blog should not be ‘what CAN I write about’ but rather ‘what do I WANT to write about?’. Because if you don’t have a real desire to write about something at least about 6 times a year, then blogging is not a tool for you.

Don’t worry, there are other marketing tools, but blogging will not be one of them for you. 80 of my voiceover peers, many of them well known to voiceover community, found that out the hard way. It was not the end of their careers, it was just the end of blogging….for them.

For the rest of us…full steam ahead.

P.S. If you check my blog page and see I’ve gotten the wrong link for your site, you can contact me at peter at audioconnell dot com. Of course, you DO have a link to my page on your blog site, right?!

P.P.S. If you have a voiceover blog that I do not have listed on my blog site and you would like it listed there (and you’re going to offer me a link to my blog as well) please let me know.

7 Responses to “death of the voiceover blog?”

  1. …i’m not even going to risk a peek, but wouldn’t be surprised if i’m one of your 80.

    aside from general laziness, my main obstacle is deciding what might or might not be worth anyone’s time reading. it seems there’s little point in me giving my sage advice from years of experience. the pro’s already know that stuff, and most of the newbies don’t want to hear it.

    so, to the detriment of my “clogged blog” and my SEO, i adopted the philosophy i picked up from Charlie Chan: “When have nothing to say, is best to say nothing.” rg

  2. Well written and content-worthy, Peter. Perhaps some other bloggers either have nothing new to add to the discussion or else they already said what needed saying. I’m glad you’re keeping on.

  3. This well written piece has really made me reflect on my own blog. It is difficult to keep momentum going with all those distractions; in my case making videos, doing all that social media stuff, podcasts, plus actually working on the business.

    However I am now going to sharpen the proverbial pencil and get back to crafting that next must-read post.

    Thank you for reigniting the spark Peter.

  4. Hi Gary,

    I completely, 100%, totally get that overwhelmed feeling of everything that needs to be accomplished…oh and write a meaningful, thoughtful blog post that everyone MUST read.

    One solution is to go my route and write all the time, forget quality and go for quantity. I’m not sure if that’s why nobody reads my posts. But that’s not the point…I have crossed something off my to-do list is the point! (Just kidding).

    I hope you’ll write your blog because you WANT to write, not because you HAVE to write. If it’s a chore, it will never work…you’ll resent the task and you’ll end up stopping again.

    So I hope it’s a positive thing for you to start writing again. Glad to to have provide the spark.

    Best always,
    –Peter

  5. Thanks Paul.

    As we see everyday on social media…EVERYBODY has something to say. Whether it’s worth reading is another story. That, however, has never stopped me 🙂

    Thanks for reading.

    Best always,

    –Peter

  6. Rowell,

    Yours is one of the rare cases where you DO have a lot to offer readers because you know so much!

    Your assumption that the pro’s already know it is wrong specifically because pro’s still go to classes to learn more and be reminded of stuff they forgot.

    They can also benefit when having old information presented in a new, relevant way. So don’t quit because you doubt your insights…they ARE GOOD.

    And so are you.

    Best always,
    –Peter

  7. Thanks for pruning the blog list – I too have run into lots of dead ends when looking for VO blogs so it’s really useful to have an up to date reference point.