Have you reached the blog reader stagnation station? Join the club!
Throughout my journey as an avid blogs reader, I have come across what I like to call: "The dumb, dumber and dumbest catastrophic blogging syndrome!" Let's discuss them one by one.
A Dumb Blogger Is Careless!
Some people see business blogs as a "fashion" or a trend! When blogs became popular, many businesses created blogs just to go with the flow and stay up-to-date.
The dumb blogger's only concern is to "dump" mediocre or poor content onto their blogs every blue moon!
The 5 No's of Dumb Bloggers
1. No Strategy
Dumb bloggers may (or may not!) know their target audience but when you ask them about their blogging strategy, their answer usually range between: "Huh!", "Say what?" or sheer silence!
2. No Value
These bloggers write out of a sense of obligation but they have a clear direction. Even worse, they never bather to examine their readers' reaction to their haphazard content!
3. No Interaction
Dumb bloggers are introverts! They never interact with other bloggers, seek guest blogging opportunities or reach out to influential bloggers in their industry. They prefer staying isolated in their own world.
4. No SEO
Dumb bloggers are extremists. Some of them would "stuff" their unreadable blog posts with keywords hoping to be found by search engines, while others don't use keywords altogether!
5. No Promotion
Social sharing has no place in the dumb bloggers over-crowded schedule. It's enough that they took the time to write content that no one will read! How dare you expect them to share it as well?
Symptoms of Dumb Catastrophic Blogging Syndrome
Yes, you guessed right: Victims of this disease suffer from zero traffic!
A Dumber Blogger Is Deceptive!
Dumber bloggers are very active on social media. They share their posts all over the place. They also know how to track their target market and "entice" them to visit their blog using compelling tweets and blog titles.
People buy into their sweet talk and run to their blogs in masses only to realize that they have fallen prey to a phony blogger who promises his target audience the sun and the moon but never delivers!
Symptoms of The Dumber Catastrophic Blogging Syndrome
Very high targeted traffic and even higher bounce rate! Can you blame the bounce rate?
The Dumbest Blogger Is Unethical!
These bloggers bluntly copy other people's content word for word! Some of them are so lame that they don't even bather removing links to the original blog!
It did happen with Garious that one of our articles was copied without the slightest modification on a PR 4 site!
When I tracked down the site, it occurred to me to Google some of their other articles and realized that the site owners are stealing content in masses! So, I emailed the other victims to warn them about what was going on. In the mean time, I sent a very harsh email to the site owner and asked him to delete our post immediately and he did!
Symptoms of The Dumbest Catastrophic Blogging Syndrome
Getting showered with nasty emails from the original content owners and when some of them make their case publically, these poor dumbest bloggers can kiss their online reputation goodbye forever!
Why Did I Put Them In That Order?
In spite of their carelessness, I believe that dumb bloggers are the best of the worst here! Why? Because they are getting zero traffic! In other words, no one has seen their dirty laundry. So, once they learn the ropes and revamp their blogging strategy, they can rectify the situation.
Dumber bloggers, on the other hand, lose their credibility in a heartbeat due to their false pretense . In other words, all the disappointed readers who didn't find what they were looking for will never come back and may also spam the blog they hate and let the whole world know that dumber bloggers are full of it!
In this scenario, the dumber bloggers' task is more challenging as they will have to work super-hard to regain their readers' trust.
As for the dumbest ones, nothing scars anyone for life more than proving unethical! These bloggers must change their domain names and start allover again with a clean slate.
Where Do You Stand?
Perhaps I presented extreme examples here but I suppose that any blogger that is not getting the desired outcome out of his blog falls somewhere in the catastrophic blogging syndrome. Use the symptoms of each kind to find out where you stand.
- If you are not getting the traffic you expect, pinpoint which of the 5 "NOs" of dumb bloggers that you need to turn into a "Yes!" in order to get the traffic you expect
- If you enjoy high traffic rates but people tend to bounce-not-browse, try to gain a deeper understanding of your target audience in order to meet their expectations and win them over
- If you are using other people's content in a way that they don't approve of, you need to STOP immediately. And the good news is that there are legitimate content "stealing!" techniques that you can use instead.
Dumb, dumber and dumbest bloggers serve nothing but contributing trash to the web 2.0 information avalanche! Do NOT be one of them! Strive to distinguish yourself from the masses and raise the bar NOW! Good luck!