10:16
aaronchua
".but I also think it's important to remember that just because you get more value out of actionable content...not everyone's in the same position as you."
It is very true that different folks are looking for different stuff. So, this post is meant for me to clarify that, FROM MY PERSPECTIVE, why I think most of the blogging/online marketing/making money crowd is fluff.
I am a business guy from day one. When I was a fund manager with the government, I invested in nearly 200 real startups. The problems we are struggling with always have to do with the business, not the motivation. Real issues such as how to ship products on time, what features to include, how to get the first 10 paying customers, how to work with PR etc were the topics for many of our discussions. It is the same thing now that I am focusing on KooBits, the educational startup I am heavily involved with.
When I got into the blogging a couple of years back, I realised that the online crowd is entirely different. Many would like their blogs to be successful, whether in terms of money or traffic. However, most didn't want to put serious work into their web properties. Instead, I saw many bloggers passing of reading as 'working'. These reading time was pursued in the name of doing research, networking or whatever reason they want to give it. The end result is that nothing gets done. No content was produced and no serious outreach programme was put into action.
Due to such mentality, many sites about blogging/making money/online marketing become a game of appealing to these 'reading' tendencies. Most did it with bullet point content. 5 ways to get more traffic through youtube, 10 blogs you should read, my ultimate secret to something something. It was all meant to feed the crowd who reads more than they do. The end game of course is sell them something that requires them to read even more stuff. Perfect plan!
The sad truth that I found out was that there was more people who wants to read about success than actually putting in the effort to reach them. This is why sites such as socialmediaexaminer.com are so popular. They will do very well but this is not what I want my blog to be.
So, this blog will not be about motivation. If you want such stuff, get off my blog! This blog is meant to provide useful and tactical information to those who really wants to do business and make money online. If you want to read fluff, go to problogger, thinktraffic and other content sites that you can easily find.
To Justin specially
I appreciate your comment. It is objective and I can see where you are coming from. I hope you can see where I am coming from as well. It is my blog and I felt I have an obligation to call out what I THINK is fluff according to my world view. Of course, you can feel free to say that people needs inspiration but I seriously don't buy that.As to your specific comment about me attacking other bloggers to get traffic, I have to say that I am aware of such tactics and I am not using them here. I don't really care about aaronchua.com. Seriously, this is a personal space. It is not a business blog like your adsenseflippers.com where it serves as a sales funnel to your sites.
That being said, I do think your site has valuable content and that stems from the fact that you are writing from experience. The insights just come naturally. Many of the other blogs don't have real business experience so their main insights come from the blogging niche itself. That is not healthy and I don't recommend my readers to continue on a reading cycle.
In summary, this will be my last rant about this topic. Sorry about this folks because you might not have learn anything to advance your SEO or make money tips. Stay tune for the next post as I am finally ready to tell you the 10 viable niches you can get into. These niches are not your long tail type of niches (i.e. red microwave oven is NOT a niche). These niches are real industries that coming on their own and there are opportunities to established a foothold in the informational aspect of these industries.
3 comments:
I heard several "rants" over at adsenseflippers podcast, they just donot drop names I suppose: 1. when Justin talks about a guy who post monthly income reports that are deemed inaccurate or something like that, 2. on using a pen name and on matters of reputation 3 when a guy makes leverage of facebook ads to drive traffic to adsense sites., etc. I see no difference between those rants and aaron's rants here. in the end, it is all a matter of perspectives. and oh, i remember, justin commented on nichepursuits: "One thing you know about people that are being critical…they actually care!" peace people. :)
Hey Aaron!
You make an interesting point about posts on subjects like "motivation" and "taking action". You're mostly right in that "real" businesses don't seem to need to read that type of content nearly as much as IMers seem to.
Still...if you don't have a real business, things like staying focused and motivated do matter. I thin you and I would agree that these guys don't have real businesses, but most of them want to and if they can't get over themselves and buckle down they never will. (Many are not likely to, but that's a separate post, probably)
You're right in that our free content acts as a funnel for our sales and helps to boost authority. Talking about things you know well that are interesting to other people is extremely useful and I agree that bloggers should speak to what they know. Reading a food blog, for example, from someone that has trouble buttering their toast wouldn't be very useful to me! :-)
I don't think guys like Tom write about motivation or do list posts with the intention of perpetuating the "endless reader" cycle. That may be occurring, but I don't think it's their intention...they're just reading from other bloggers that write to bloggers and following their example.
Anonymous - Wow, yeah you're right! You know...on the one hand I've felt a little bad about not calling out the people I think are full of crap. On the other hand, I figure it's better to lay out the signs and examples of crap those people put out so that readers/listeners can come to their own conclusions. If I simply point a person out they might avoid THAT person...but it's better to show how to determine whether someone's a fraud than to point them out, I'm hoping.
I think it's true that people who are critical care to a point. Of course, there are your average trolls...but posts/comments like these aren't trolling...they're really intended to instill change, I think...and that's a good thing!
Hey Justin
Thanks for leaving such a thoughtful comment once again.
I agree that Tom has no ill intentions and I did mention that he is a good guy with a fantastic writing skill.
However, I am just concern that the blogging niche is driving him towards those useless posts that most other blogs about blogging are writing about.
I think his freelance post should be kickass given his experience!
Post a Comment