{this article has 489 words}
I read this question many times online, and I asked myself “what good is to write if no ones reads what I write?”.
When I publish something online, there is always one reader – me. I read everything when I write it and again before publishing. So, you see, I always have at least one reader. 1 divided by 0 is infinity. Which means that I have infinitely more readers than the persons who don’t write at all.
What does “reading” means? Reading a text means that the meaning of its words are transferred from the screen to the memory of a reader. Now, what if the reader is not human?
The second category of readers are the searching engine spiders. One plugin I use
https://lunlun.com/how-to-add-a-sitemap-your-site-if-you-use-wordpress/
informs the search engines that I wrote a new post, right after I hit the “publish” button.
The search engines spiders will read my words and place them in their memory. Having my words in the memory of the search engines is more important than having them read by one individual, who might not be interested at all in what I write, and got here by mistake. People can ask the search engines questions, and, in some cases, the search engines will answer with links to my site.
The third category of readers are the hackers. If a site is public, then sooner or later it would be accessed by some hackers. They might not comment and may try to stay invisible, but they’ll eventually come.
The fourth category of readers are the ones that I bring to the site, using advertising.
So, how to keep writing when no one is guaranteed to read what you write? Have you ever build a sand castle, even if were no guarantees someone will see it? And, worse, knowing for sure it will not last, as it would be washed away by the tide? What motivated you to spend time building that sand castle? And it was a castle, way more complicated than a 200+ words article.
I write articles for 2 reasons:
– for me, to remember how to do certain things, when I need to do them again in the future
(please pause for 1 second to either appreciate my honesty, or hate me for being selfish)
– for others, if they have the same questions as I did, hoping that what worked for me might help them answer their questions.
When you think of it, an issue is actually a question, for which you don’t have yet an answer. I prefer to think in questions, than to think in rants. An answer might solve that question, while the rant will just remind me of the problem, without actually solving it.
For me, those 2 reasons are enough. I take it back – the first reason is enough, and the second one is the bonus.