Online writing has been suffering.
I know this is mildly ironic, as I am blogging about this, but hear me out.
Unless you're using a platform such as Steemit or Tumblr that allows topic exploration for that domain, it's hard to discover new genuine blogs without very specific search parameters. Even so, Tumblr is an extremely complicated website and I have had no success with learning how to use it. With Steemit I've had a lot more luck.
Search engine optimization has brought the blogs made with the sole purpose of making money to the front of the internet. Genuine bloggers with interesting content who like to talk about their daily lives while making a few bucks have been pushed to the back, and unless the bloggers use search engine optimization or advertise, they have no way of being found if they are self-hosting, using their own domain, or using sites such as Blogger and Wordpress.
As someone who has blogged about my own life experiences and who has ghostwritten articles as a freelancer, I've begun to understand how difficult it is to get readers and earn even small amounts of money without search engine optimization. My blog is hosted on Blogger and I blog under a false name. I have this fact stated on there and tell anyone who's reading why: I need to remain anonymous while still being able to talk about very personal topics. If I needed to make a few extra dollars, I could theoretically sign up for Adsense — but Adsense has become almost useless unless you have a large audience, and I have less than two hundred views on my hit count.
Tumblr and YouTube have so many people that it's near impossible for smaller writers and vloggers to get any audience, and most websites rely on advertising for revenue. A platform such as Steemit, however, might be able to bring back worthwhile and profitable blogging for the average person.
Steemit's blockchain revenue system has already earned me a few dollars, and I have a grand total of 20 followers right now. Not only that, but every post I have made has recieved a minimum of one upvote that isn't from my account. I have readers and viewers on Steemit after only two weeks. On Blogger, after over six months, I have gained under two hundred views and most of them being from my visits to format, design, and occasionally share posts from my blog.
I believe Steemit may be able to reach a wide enough audience and revive the world of online blogging for everyone. It's already solved the SEO problem; the newest content under each tag can be viewed, and the tab with the newest content posted is one of the first places that I go to find interesting reads.
However, it's hard to find older articles that don't have many upvotes on Steemit. After about one day, the post will stop getting upvotes and comments and unless you search directly for it, you likely won't find older posts. The fact that Steemit is growing means that new features can still be developed without repercussions, so this situation might be solvable.
Thanks for reading, and keep on spreading the word about Steemit!
I believe there is a fundamental problem with steem in this regard. Once someone writes an article they only have about 12 hours to capture the votes which allocate steem to their account. Then the article can only be found by searches. From my experience, old articles rarely if ever increase in votes or page views. This forces writers to follow trends of the moment. Quality writing may take days but if someone posts at the wrong time their masterpiece will be lost in steemland forever.
Another issue is the whales who have control over the steempower and usually vote on cryptocurrency topics. Few of these big steempower holders are analyzing creative writing and appreciating talent. Just look at trending and hot to get an idea. An author could publish a best seller on here in a series of articles and be lucky to get more than a few hundred steem dollars. Subsequent viewers will come from internet searches and will not have a steem account so they can't vote. There must be a better way to categorize posts while eliminating the garbage. I realize garbage is a matter of opinion but is 12 to 24 hours of scrolling down the list really enough time to gauge the value of an article?
Thanks for the post. I hope this issue is brought up more on steemit.
I have to agree — a feature that leads to random posts could help solve this, and the option to specify a timeframe for each section could be great too, as well as an extended vote revenue time.
I would also like to see a feature that allows unlimited resteem. If an author owns their work then why not let them continue to resteem. Why would someone post original quality content only to be scrolled out of existence in a few hours? I am considering just copy and paste the same article and giving it another round to see what happens.
That would be quite interesting. Unlimited resteeming could be pretty useful.
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Nice article!By the way,I have upvoted your post,can you upvote my new post? Thanks