Vegan activism is not for everyone. When engaging with non-vegans in an attempt to explain the what, why and wherefores you need to have your ducks in a row. Some years after I became vegan I asked myself, “how can I help spread veganism passively, every day?”. I soon realised writing is one of the most powerful ways to achieve this …
How Can I Help Spread Veganism?
You can help spread veganism far and wide by writing engaging, thought provoking content and publishing on your own website. Passive activism like this works for you 24/7 and when you know how to position yourself at the top of the search engines, your voice will be heard!
Before the dawn of the internet age, the most effective way to make your activism heard was through direct action and protest. By causing an inconvenience to people’s daily lives your message might make the headlines, if you’re lucky.
Incidentally, in the UK they’ve recently passed laws to stifle peaceful protest if they think you’re being too disruptive … but surely that’s the whole point! An advanced democracy should not be going down this road.
Direct action is still a very effective option but we now have another extremely potent string to our bow in the form of the world wide web. Information technology has enabled instant communication across the entire globe.
… and words are supremely powerful.
How Can I Help The Vegan Movement?
So here’s the uniquely special thing about writing and publishing on your own blog or website. Once your content is out there and attracting eyeballs it is working for the cause 24 / 7. Every single day your activism has the potential to reach people.
If you can write your content so that people will see it in the search engines like Google and Bing then you have an unprecedented opportunity to spread the vegan message.
You don’t need to be a professional writer or worry about the rules of writing. Pretty much anything goes online. Language changes all the time anyway so you don’t need to be restricted by how you think you should write.
And if you want to start a sentence with the word ‘and’, go ahead 🙂
You may also like: “How To Make a Vegan Shut Up!“
Getting Your Message In The Search Engines
Let’s get one important thing straight here. There is absolutely no point spending time and energy on creating amazing vegan content if it’s going to be buried on page 10 of Google.
90% of people never move on to page 2 of the Google search results to find what they’re looking for, let alone page 10.
Some analyses have this figure as high as 99.2% while others suggest it’s more like 75%. Only Google knows the real figure but we can be sure page 1 is where the eyeballs are!
So how do we achieve those coveted page one positions in Google? Well, we have two options:
- Pay for the privilege.
- Use SEO to acquire free exposure.
The first option is great if you have plenty of money to blow on advertising but it can get expensive really quickly. You’re often up against big business with their million dollar marketing budgets!
Most vegan activist bloggers do not have the resources to consistently go up against the insane competition in paid search. When a single click could cost you a dollar or more, you can see it doesn’t take long to blow even a relatively large budget.
The days of penny clicks on Google are long gone I’m afraid.
Yes, there are some clever people who still eek out cheap traffic from the search engines but it’s a game of constant maintenance and spreadsheet analysis to ensure you’re getting the best bang for your buck.
I certainly don’t want to spend the limited time I have to devote to the cause, pouring over Excel files looking at click through rates and all the rest of it.
I just want to write!
SEO – Search Engine Optimisation, Explained
So that leaves us with option 2; search engine optimisation or SEO, as it’s known in the trade.
SEO is the art of creating engaging content focused on specific search phrases people use when trying to find the information they want online.
It’s a simple idea with almost infinite complexity!
Back in the day when Google and the other engines were just in their infancy, SEO was easy. You could throw up any old content and get ranked on page 1. It didn’t even need to make sense and a lot of it was pure spam.
But Google soon got wise to this and rapidly fought back against the junk content because it negatively affected the user experience.
Many website owners lost entire livelihoods overnight when Google made an update to purge their databases of the spam. It was known as the ‘Google Dance’.
Your SEO Need Not Be Complicated
When you start learning about SEO it can seem like you need a degree in computer science to understand all the nuance.
‘Meta tags’, ‘backlinks’, ‘nofollow’ – the terminology alone scares a lot of people away.
But you don’t actually need to worry about the minute details of SEO. You just have to follow a few simple rules when researching and writing to give yourself a better chance of ranking than 99% of your competition.
The thing is, most people look at SEO and write their content with the search engines in mind. They lose sight of the human behind the search phrase.
They end up writing to please the machine.
Big mistake!
The search engines are focused on user experience because it’s real human beings who pay their wage bill every month.
So guess what? If you focus on the human and write accordingly, Google will reward you with free visitors to your website.
… and that is a very valuable place to be!
Learn How To Research, Write & Rank In Google!
As I alluded to above, SEO is a massive subject and has evolved into an intricate skill which you could spend your life trying to master.
But you don’t need to become a ninja SEO warrior in order to get free exposure for your writing.
Yes, there are a few basic rules you will follow and a few basic steps to complete when researching but it’s not difficult to do.
In fact, anyone can do this if they have the knowledge of these simple steps.
It doesn’t even take that long to identify potential targets for your writing, meaning you can devote most of your time to creating that amazing vegan activist content!
Where can you learn these SEO skills?
Well, you could study the subject yourself, using trial and error to work it all out. This will take many years and you may never hit the jackpot.
Or you could join a friendly community of writers who have already spent those years honing these skills and who will pass this knowledge on to you.
It’s the membership site I belong to and I can honestly say, the wealth of experience on here is truly mind blowing. There are so many learned people ready to help you with any question you might have.
This website will teach you the skills you need to get your content in front of as many people as possible without spending a penny on paid advertising.
I highly recommend this genuine resource to anyone who wants to get involved in passive vegan activism using the search engines.
(a quick sidenote: the membership site is geared towards making money from your website, which is great, but the skills taught are applicable for those of us who just want maximum free exposure online via search engines like Google and Bing)
Take a look at the free 7 day trial and dip your toes in to see if it’s for you. If you join through this page I will be notified and I will help you as much as I can.
After all, the more vegan websites we have out there, the better!
Thanks for reading and I hope to see you on the inside 🙂
Rohan.