I think that a blog, like any publication that I can think of, needs to build expectations from the beginning as to what type of things people will find there. It is kind of a compact with the audience/readership. The more radically the recipe changes, the more chaos that ensues.
Adding political or religious points of view – whatever they are -- is like throwing in a big handful of spices into the casserole – some will love it, but it isn’t for everyone.
I actually think that the SEO community is big enough, for example, for a full-blown “Hippie SEO blog†to start up that mixes in peace, love and protest photos with their SEO tips.
The key is that if you don’t start with that formula as part of your publication’s identity in the beginning than you are going to probably lose a lot of audience and goodwill as you transition to it. If I had a blog that was all buttoned up and then I busted out the rainbows and the anti-war messages on a regular basis, it would probably lead to an audience revolt. This is because an audience member is a participant in a blog, and it would be natural for many of them to feel ‘cheated’ or ‘deceived’ by devoting their attention to something that ended up being different from what they thought it was.
The same goes, I think to a lesser extent, with less controversial personal content that is unrelated to the “business†of the blog. For example, if I had an SEO blog and started to post chess puzzles every so often because chess is a big part of my life, I might lose some people that just get flat out bored scrolling past them. If on the other hand, I started that out as part of my identity, then my blog might build a bit slower but eventually I’d have a bunch of great chess playing SEOs hanging out on my pages.
