It’s nice to see one of these big blog memes make it to Irish shores. Both Gavin and myself were tagged by one Mr Halfdeck. Gavin put up a great post, so now it’s my turn.

So why do I blog?

1. One real reason.

   I’d really love to say I blog to make the world a better place but I’ll be frank. I blog for one primary reason – to draw attention to myself so that I can earn a living. You may or may not have noticed that I don’t have a sales/brochure site, just a blog with one or two very basic pages to whore my wares (I can’t stop using the word whore since SMW007 – thanks Lar ). And thus far it’s worked incredibly well.

2. To interact with others

   The real beauty of blogs, and the reason why I always recommend that clients start blogging to achieve better SEO results, is because suddenly we can all interact via the blog. Readers can comment, respond, argue and engage. Engagement leads to links. Period.

3. It’s just so damn easy

   OK. It does take some work, but think about it – WordPress installs in about four clicks. And I have to hand to the WP guys – it’s just such a worthy publishing platform. Easy, easy, easy, and very effective. Posting decent material does require some work, but the response you get in Point 2. above makes it all worth while. I have a lot of people to thank for that.

4. To help others

   Without insulting the profit perogative in Point 1. above, I do try to help others if I can. By publishing that help on my blog it may also be useful to someone else later on. You know those moments when you’re looking for a solution to some problem and suddenly you find it on a blog somewhere? So I put as many solutions up on my blog because information is only useful if you can access it. And there I have stumbled upon another reason why I blog. Search engines just bloody love blogs. I don’t mean normal love. I’m talking about infatuation love. Hey, I’m not complaining

5. Scrap all the above

   Here’s the real reason:

You can find that site at www.realex.ie.

Or at www.realexpayments.com if you are so inclined….

So why is Realex the real reason I blog? Well without crap sites like the Realex website I probably wouldn’t have too much to write about. You see blogs are the world’s Number #1 medium for that pastime we all love so much – the rant.

So here it is: I have a username and password to login to Realex Resource Centre. I don’t have the URL for the Resource Centre (client’s account). Do you think the site mentions Login? Anywhere?

But they do have a nice search box on each page. Search is so useful. I should know. But have you tried using the fantastic Realex site search feature? It’s really cool in a very deja-vu kind of way – no matter what you search for the result is always just a refresh of the page your searched from. No results to be found.

So there you are. That’s why I blog.

I was going to mention that I hadn’t been tagged before and then I remembered that indeed I had. And on that occasion I very rudely never responded. But I do hope that Pat has since forgiven me.

And finally here’s who I’m tagging:

1. Damien Mulley (probably one of the most interesting Irish blogers)
2. Pat Phelan (not because I ignored Pat’s earlier tag, but because I think he has fast become an authority in his niche, and I’m interested to learn what motivates him)
3. Lar Veale (OK – it’s not Lar’s blog per-se, but, again, I really am interested in what motivates business blogging)
4. Krishna De – another interesting business blogger, and I’m interested in the business side of things again.
5. Thomas Holmes – a really positive blog (the yin to my negative yang) and dual language to boot. Interesting from so many angles.

This is a great meme and I hope it spreads to more Irish blogs.