It’s been a minute. Again. But, while I’ve been away, I’ve been doing lots of thinking about Light Audio Recording, what it is, and the new direction I think I’m going to focus on for it.
Here’s a ramble-musing that’s for my own benefit more than anyone else’s, I think.
The original direction
When I started Light Audio Recording, I had great ambitions. It was going to be a thing that inspired people to record music, and not be discouraged by being broke.
It reflected my own scenario at the time. I was between day jobs so I was broke. And I shared a one-bedroom apartment with my fiancée who became my wife, so I had to keep gear to a minimum.
I mostly write full rock songs, so I need drums. I think drum machines sound shit, and real drums can’t be recorded in an apartment. And I think plugins and amp simulators sound shit, so I want to mic up guitars too.
I thought I wasn’t alone, and wanted to document what I was doing, making a few bucks with affiliate links along the way.
To vary content, I included reviews, and tips about distribution and other aspects of recording music.
The direction it took
I put a lot into Light Audio Recording. The affiliate income was never enough to make it full time. But, I enjoyed writing, and I got really good at SEO-friendly writing – an important skill in my line of day job work.
The social media stuff never really picked up traction. But, social media has changed in the past few years. To gain traction on social media now, you need to be a personality. I have no interest in that.
When I got a full-time job, output slowed down. When my wife ran for city council, it slowed down more. Then, when my wife got pregnant, while running for city council, and we needed to move house, it came to a standstill.
When I had mental health issues early in 2022, writing was part of my self-care. Oh damn! This is the first time I’ve publicly acknowledged that I needed a little help with my mental health!
But then aforementioned baby stopped mostly sleeping, and was mostly awake. I spent more time with her, introducing her to music. She likes The Jam, but is less into Weller’s solo stuff; Taylor Swift’s 22 is the best thing to ever happen to her ears; and she prefers the original 1994 recording of Live Forever to the 20th anniversary remastered version.
This meant I had less time for writing.
The new direction
Which brings us to now.
While all the Light Audio Recording social media channels are dead, I still get email updates about the search performance of this little site. And people are still visiting the site.
As I looked more at what people are looking at, it’s the reviews. Despite not writing anything new for months at a time, my writing is so SEO-friendly, people are still finding the site. That’s cool!
As can be seen from the screenshots above, ain’t nobody coming here to learn how to record music badly.
With more digging, I was able to pull together a whole case study for day job portfolio about how well my review writing performs in terms of SEO.
With that, it makes sense that when I do find time for a little bit of writing, it should be what people are already finding me helpful for.
So that is Light Audio Recording’s new direction: focus on reviews, written in an SEO-friendly way.
In other words, I won’t put time and effort into posts about recording, or distributing posts on social media.
In summary: it’s all good
This perspective is all excellent, for all kinds of reasons.
My enjoyment
I like gear; I like browsing it, I like buying it, I like talking/writing about it. Of course I should focus on it.
Posts about recording had become boring
I bored myself writing them. While I still enjoy recording music, but I record the way I record, and it’s the same every time. It’s not fun to essentially rewrite the exact same posts about what instrument I recorded.
Perhaps it’s an age thing. I found a way that works, and that’s what I do.
Increasingly, it’s a time thing. I don’t have time for experimenting, so I stick with what I know. I also definitely to not have hours to spare to go somewhere to record drums. These days, I’ve sold out and use a drum machine – BandLab’s dry kit actually isn’t bad.
Social media is a shit show right now
I mean, it’s been a shit show for a while, but now it’s getting more public. Hopefully, it’ll be the end of it, and we can all stop being so stupid. It means brands will look for other ways to promote themselves, so maybe there’ll be demand for unsexy stuff like SEO and email marketing. It’s no harm for me to get shit-hot at that.
I’m not going to delete any of the social profiles I’ve set up just yet. But I’ll be removing reference to them when I’ve finished this post.
Professionalism
As I have noted, I use Light Audio Recording to stay sharp on SEO-friendly writing for day job.
Also in the context of day job, I always start by saying I’m a data-driven, audience-focused marketing and communications professional. “Data-driven” means making informed decisions based on available data.
This is that!
And now… let’s write reviews for people to find!
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