I have been blogging more than a decade and have seen a lot in the blogging world. In the niche on blogs about blogging, I am seeing a lot of blind leading the blind. What I mean by this is that there are first time bloggers trying to teach others based on next to nothing in knowledge about the blogging world.
In fact, it is bad enough that there are guest posts galore on many big sites that scream novice blogger who just gathered and slopped together articles from more experienced bloggers to create their own version. For me, it is really a huge show of how lazy people are and why we have so many bloggers asking how to tell if their content has been stolen or scraped.
Come on people!
If you are going to teach people something, you HAVE to have adequate knowledge and not, excuse me for saying… bullshit your way through blogging. In fact, some of the big sites that I read, I only subscribe to those authors who actually have real experience, and ignore the other trash published on the sites.
Yes, it is awesome that people want to make a living from blogging, but really… its a waste to your readers and future readers time if you do not put in your hard work. Blogging takes knowledge and for those serious about it enough to want to make it a career, and even teach others, you have to have experience under your belt.
So, for those who just started blogging in the last six months, you really should be contacting an experienced blogger and learning from them on what to do in order to become the next successful blogger. Once you have that experience, you do not have to worry about duplicate content, or search engine optimization. You will work on developing your blogging voice and engaging with others.
As a better suggestion, as you are building that experience by spending hours reading and blogging on what you read, you can reference articles you read and summarize in your own words what you learned and why others should read that blog post. This builds a reputation between yourself and other bloggers, as well as builds your own authority… saying that you are learning and wanting to share what you learned.
Another thing is when you start your blog, rather than become a guest blogger, become somewhat of an intern for another site. Learn from that authority blogger and strive to produce articles on par with that blogger while developing your own blogger voice.
Blog owners in return should be buckling down on guest post submissions, and carefully choosing bloggers who will add to their site’s voice, rather than detract from it with mediocre articles. While it is great that any blog owner would open their site up for guest blog opportunities, it is a double edged sword that really can hurt, especially if the guest writer is not in it for their own blog, but perhaps a company. Those type of guest bloggers are being paid to publish their re-written and many times spun articles throughout the blogosphere. They care diddly squat other than getting their money.
So, with this advice I have given, I am sure since you know the niche on blogs about blogging is a very competitive one and you probably think my advice deters you from becoming that next big blog informational resource. No… my advice is to make you realize that you MUST practice, read, write, connect, and overall strive to become a better blogger.
You can become popular off of writing and sharing and connecting, but how long will you be able to keep up producing articles if your return on investment is not there? Blogging as a career is NOT glamorous and it DOES take time and dedication like any other startup business. Your readers are not stupid and will see what you are in time.
How long have you been blogging? What is your niche? What have you learned as a blogger?
This is something that experienced readers run into regularly. Acceptance of truly novice guest posts – that try to act as though they are pros – can severely harm the host blog. However, because these blogs tend to build up a community of “more of the same” they appear to have activity when what they really have is a bunch of posturing, chest puffing and people enabling others to do this.,
If you’re a novice blogger… it’s still very possible to serve as the reporter and content curator… but you must learn how to do it.. how to cite works.. how to link to others and not be afraid of linking to those who know more than you do. You must be willing and able to have the posture and chutzpah to give credit where it’s due while still acting as a news source for your audience.
Kim
Amen Kim, amen!!! 🙂
Examples would be good with this article. Though also a bit dangerous. It’s not always apparent to me whether someone is a true authority or scraped it together. Well unless it’s in fields where I’m really knowledgeable like investing, books, writing, marketing or publishing. I would guess it happens a lot with SEO(as I see a lot of similar posts).
I don’t entirely agree with the suggestion to stick to curating as a inexperienced blogger. Everyone has a subject he’s a expert on and there was an earlier blog on this site, suggesting doing some crazy shit. I like that, I want to do some things totally different and stand out in that way. Good or bad. While not setting up my blogs or articles in the industry standard way.
Still it’s a difficult discussion since some of the experts have tried many paths and arrived at their current format/setups because of many other experiments resulting in failure. It’s not only the result of copying eachother that many blogs look alike. It’s probably also what works after trying everything 🙂
When you are blogging about blogging and begin… you are certainly NOT an expert. This was directed clearly to bloggers who are teaching others how to blog better. You certainly CANNOT do that if you just began to blog for the first time.
That’s true ofcourse. My mind wandered over all types of blogs that are teaching, since I read them a lot and some things still really ring true.
No being an expert teacher about blogging at the first try of blogging is highly unlikely indeed…
though I think extensive writing experience is certainly helpful or in this case experience teaching writing.
btw, anyone know where does this comment section grab my profile picture? I thought it was on gravatar but it isn’t showing so far.
Nm fixed, sorry about the last post.
Hello Nile
I think it is important for companies to blog to keep their site fresh, interesting and informative for their clients. However I also feel that not all sites though are worthy of monetizing! I like your direct style of writing, I much prefer it to people who write in a flowery round the house manner! Thanks for sharing :o)
Personally, I blog for Bleacher Report. I do it because I follow the New York Islanders hockey team and enjoy writing about sports. Unfortunately, there isn’t a huge following for the Islanders on that site and I am their most experienced writer for that team. My main goal is to grab more followers on Twitter. Do you have any advice what I can do to grab more of a following for my blog posts?
Thank you for sharing this post. It is hard to figure out whether someone is an experienced or inexperienced blogger, when they can be quite convincing sometimes. People should not give advice to others if they are inexperienced, as individuals may take this advice seriously.
I have been blogging for 2 years now. In that two years I was able to build free and self hosted. I thought I have enough knowledge but after reading this. My point of view change. I have to continue learning new things about blogging. Thanks to this post.
Since starting out with blogging in general I have realized there is a definite learning curve when it comes to creating content for a blog. There are so many factors that have to be considered when writing a post including keeping it interesting and real enough for people to keep reading. I have always been told I could write book from my experiences in life. I figure that blogging would be the next best thing. Should be interesting to see how it turns out.
Recently I have seen many people are just spinning rather than writing. A blog needs much hard work and concentration to rock and to keep the readers happy. Nice post.
yes! every blogger need to learn from the experience bloggers to improve own blogging style.
Thank you Nile for bringing this up. I cannot tell you how many people come to my blog that I want to reciprocate to. But, I cannot because of things you have mentioned above.
There is nothing worse than the amateur blogger giving advice. I see to much of that myself lately and the result being one pushy sales blog.
Guest bloggers? I had a few on my blog only because they were good dear friends that I wanted to share with my readers. As for me doing guest blogs…Yikes…I get emails every day from people I don’t know. I will not guest blog unless I know the person well and we have a close connection.
O.K. I’ll stop my rant here,
Donna
Hello Nile
I think it is important for companies to blog to keep their site fresh, interesting and informative for their clients. However I also feel that not all sites though are worthy of monetizing! I like your direct style of writing, I much prefer it to people who write in a flowery round the house manner! Thanks for sharing
I’ve been blogging for 10 years this December. Personal blogging for family and friends for the first 7 years, and business blogging for the past 3. But the more I read others’ blogs like yours, the more I see I could do with my blog to gain a greater readership. Thank you for the kick in the pants!
Willena Flewelling
Hello Nile
You highlighted a very common problem and one which is mostly overlooked by bloggers. Internet has become a vast ocean of ideas and it’s almost impossible to separate stones from pearls. I’ve myself seen many “Gurus” who teach blogging to newbies. I would like to share one example. Last year i came across a website which is considered an authority about blogging. They claim a daily readership of 25000 but when i checked their number of visitors from some independent sources and traffic checking tools it was between 800-1000 visitors daily. Naturally a question arises that how can i trust an author if his whole concept of business is based on lies. Unfortunately the majority of websites which dispense free blogging advice use similar tactics. I’d thank you for this wonderful article and would advise that first of all a person must focus on increasing their knowledge of a subject and read about it on a regular basis before blogging about it as you also mentioned in your article.
Great points. The quality of the content (and the information presented being accurate!) in posts can be neglected – especially on some of the larger websites that seem to be all about just pushing for posts to be queued up.
Hey Nile I totally agree. I only subscribe to an expert’s blog. This is a great tip for bloggers out there to really get to know their material. It’s a win-win situation, because when you become an expert, you end up getting a wider audience as well as sample products/ relationships from companies.
There is always a room for improvement even for expert bloggers. I have seen a lot of blogs accepting guest posts, and you are right, some blog owners fail to double check the quality of the blog post which is very unfortunate because it could have an effect in the overall image of the blog.
Hi Nile
Great post and I understand where you’re coming from Nile. Unfortunately a lot of newcomers think they are expert when all they’ve done is read a couple of books. So called Social media experts who have tiny followings is another example that irks me.
You r right. It’s hard to find a good advice when you first start learning about blogging… when it’s so much hype and so-called wisdom out there.
Nile, your idea about a beginning blogger seeking to become an intern for other blogs. The truth is, though, that we all had to learn somehow: from the first ugly blog post to less ugly blog posts, and hitting a home run every once in a while. However, your advice about novices staying humble while they learn their craft rings very true.
You are very true Nile. This process will produce more blind leading the blind. It may decrease the quality content.
I’ve only been blogging for about a year so these are some great tips. I was thinking about having guest bloggers, but now I’m going to have to rethink the idea and possibly eliminate it all together. I would like to know if there is a way to check for spun articles because many of them are written where you can’t tell and they also read well.
I have been trying to get in to blogging but when you blog, don’t you have to have a niche and then speak on that niche due to keywords and then people finding your site? This for me is frustrating if that’s the case because I feel repetitive. I have read that’s what you have to do. I don’t know.
I learned that bloging can be quite hard. Learning from own mistakes and expiriences. Just dont quit.
Nile! you thinks exactly like a Google Panda! 😛
You are also very strict about web spam just like Google! 😀
But seriously, Any blogger should not write anything until he have a strong grip on it.
Hi Nile,
I agree with you on very point you have argued on teaching bloggers from an experienced perspective
You know that blogging is just like an art. Now .So much involve you yourself so much you get.Nice tips to work on.
I’m relatively new to blogging and found that just loving to write is a good start, but it takes much more. My niche is computer repair and computer how to guides. Thanks for sharing this insight into the blogging community.
Hey, weren’t you that girl that started pixelled.com or something? I vaguely remember my friend’s site was hosted on yours. Of course, that was ages ago.
You have a good point about guest posts and just the general decline of blogs these days. A lot of it is just an excuse to paste a carefully rewritten ad that’ll be placed elsewhere (and being a repeat would drag the site down too).
i just started my first wordpress website a few weeks ago. This is some interesting points u make in your article.. haven’t even heard of guest posting before 🙂
I started my blog after my friend suggest to have it. So, i started using blogspot. I just wrote what i think, what i heard from newspapers. i am a student, so i have a lot of time. I’ve been reading other people blog, join their conversation, asking them question and met with them. Then, they suggest me to write on particular topic/niche.
Some people think it’s easy to blog and to make it as a full time job. It’s a struggle and it’s not an easy-money thing unfortunately. You can’t just write “good” content and expect the money to come in right away 🙂
As a newbie blogger… i REALLY owe you! 🙂
You’ve said it well again. It isn’t easy to blog, it’s a very serious profession which you must dedicate yourself to. Thanks for the great tips as always.
Hey Nile,
nice post and Thanks for sharing this post with us. Yes, we have to learn from other successful blogger and also have to Learn from own mistakes and experiences.