Random

Search engines are becoming increasingly rigged systems, from the tactics of SEOs trying to climb the results to big spenders flashing cash to nab the most visible spots.

And despite being a massive hypocrite, ‘working the system’ myself through content marketing in my day job, I frequently find myself searching for [keyword + reddit] to get unbiased and unincentivised opinions in my downtime.

Furthermore, it seems that most of the top results chosen by search engines are faceless entities or brands with zero personality, producing guide after affiliate-powered guide. Which is why I was interested to come across Marginalia, a new option that tries to surface personal blogs and websites for entered queries.

The result? I [kind of] like it.

It feels a bit like browsing the web back in the good old days, more akin to stumbling around drunkenly in the dark before uncovering a little gem in the rough. In this way, the experience feels much more serendipitous, revealing some splendid thinkers and tinkerers that don’t play the normal SEO game.

It’s certainly not a functional experience when you really need a particular resource, but rather a great option when you want to dive down some random rabbit holes for pre-commercial online nostalgia.

Watched David Attenborough‘s Green Planet yesterday about how monocultures incite predators and reduce resilience to pestilence and disease. Why do farmers continue with this process if the risks are so high?

Well, it’s a story of increasing specialisation within the human race as we develop highly optimised processes to maximise profit margins and meet ever-growing demand. Funnily enough, I found myself thinking about the parallels with my freelancing and online business.

We’re constantly rewarded by niching down with maniacal focus. Serving one group of customers or solving a single pain point allows us to become highly efficient in what we do. But so too, we reduce our resilience to changing markets and shifting demands.

I routinely review my freelance activities and guiltily determine I’m doing too much – from SEO to paid ads to email marketing – I’m offering everything to everyone. One good thing about this inability to niche down, however, is that I’m somewhat insulated from a shifting digital landscape.

And even if diversification doesn’t lead to the same explosive growth, if we listen to nature, we learn it’s a far more sustainable approach in the long run (or at least that’s what I tell myself when I look at my to-do list today).

Working on your phone is underrated, or so I’m coming to realise. For ages now I’ve been procrastinating on my website projects, filled with anxiety when opening my laptop and being faced with a blank screen. The result? No work and no progress. Just vicariously scrolling social media and perving on other people’s websites and case studies. Hmmm. Case study porn.

Anyways, one day recently I got so fed up with myself that I just started writing an article in the notes on my phone. And before I knew it I had something I could put some sexy finishing touches to before posting it on my site.

Funny thing is – I actually enjoyed the process. I felt far less inhibited and the words flowed easily, as if I was writing a text message, leading to a stream of consciousness style experience and connections in the content I probably wouldn’t have made on a bigger blank page. Strange. What causes this weird but deeply pleasurable phenomenon?

I think it might have something to do with my growing tendency to be a crazy tab computer man with about a million of the little buggers open on my screen at any one time. As soon as I open my Brave browser I see all the tabs I had open in my previous session and because I have the attention span of a small cat, I’m soon chasing a spool of thread down a dark but interesting Internet hole, instead of doing the thing I had intended doing – writing an article.

One of the benefits of using a phone for writing is that I’m not ambushed by all these tabs and can focus on the task at hand. The other great thing is that I can still indulge my infinite need for distraction by having different notes for various articles and switching to another topic wherever I’m bored.

So yeah, phones and article writing. Who woulda thunk? As you have probably guessed, this little soliloquy was written on my phone, so yay for that.

• Bullet points are amazing
• They clarify your thinking
• They provide structure
• They’re easy to read
• They cut the chaff
• So get to the damned point