I was visiting a blog a little bit ago and the author was talking about “A” list bloggers, specifically John Chow. He then gave his thumbnail interpretation of the posts usually found at Mr. Chow’s blog (which, by the way I’ve never read personally). He bemoaned the fact that Mr. Chow provides no insight on what it is that made him what he is today in the bloggosphere. Apparently, Mr. Chow is very successful and earns a nice living from blogging.
Well, here’s my idea of what makes you an “A” list blogger — it boils down to two things –content and originality. One of the things I saw discussed on one blog (not either of the two mentioned here) is some piece of software that will take someone else’s article and shift the wording around so that it appears to be “original content” primarily aimed at the search engines. That’s NOT original content. That’s copying and is despicable, deplorable and disgusting. I mean REAL ORIGINAL WRITTEN-BY-YOU content (that hopefully has correct spelling and mostly correct grammar).
Ok, so Mr. Chow talks about what he has for lunch or dinner fairly often. Well, eating is something we all have in common, so blogging about it makes him human and approachable. Not all original content has to be riveting. I think you can be forgiven for the occasional boring post — that’s one that’s even boring to you. And let’s face it, not everything you say is going to be scintillating, titillating or riveting to every reader, but the fact that YOU are interested in what you’re talking about is what’s interesting to your readers.
You do not have to be an expert on the subject at hand — I’m certainly no “A” list blogger — but I blog daily and sometimes several times a day. I give it my all and hope that shows through in my posts. I often talk about mundane things — those are things that make us human and connectable to our readers. Being a know-it-all and writing in a superior tone is a turn off for most folks, so write like you’re talking to someone, not like you’re preaching or lecturing. We all got enough of that from our parents.
So, now you have my opinion of how to become an “A” lister –
Write, write and write some more.
Write from the heart, write from your core.
When you do this once, do it some more.
When you’ve got it down pat, then you will score
Visitors, Robots and Page Rank galore
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Before joining Entrecard I had never paid much attention to John Chow. I ran across his blog from time to time, just as I ran across Problogger looking for tips. The vast majority of blogs on Entrecard are new to me. My favorite A list blogger is Perez Hilton, but I am mainly just jealous of his incredible success.
There was a book a couple of years ago titled No One Cares What You Had For Lunch, which has a lot of idea for blog posts. I never read it, as I never saw anything wrong with talking about what you had for lunch.
I’ll have to check Perez Hilton out!
I did read excerpts from that book that I found somewhere on the web. It had some interesting concepts to it. That phrase was mostly a catchy title.
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Lol. Perez Hilton deals mostly with celebrities and whatnot; too much for me to handle.
But yes, I agree: content and originality heps you make your way to the top.