Kill Your Blog? Only if You’re an Idiot

grim reaper 300x225 Kill Your Blog? Only if Youre an Idiot REMINDER: Tune in tomorrow for Monty’s Trick or Treat. I will reveal a trick to increase your traffic and a treat to increase your earnings. It will be 100% free. Keep checking back.

I was chatting with John Bruns, a friend of mine who runs GreenConnected.com, this morning about my blog and blogging in general. He pointed me to a recent post on Wired by Paul Boutin, a correspondent for the Silicon Valley gossip site ValleyWag. The article is called "Kill Your Blog".

Paul makes the case that blogs are "so 2004" and that social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are the new forms of web expression.

I have to say, this is one of the dumbest articles I have read in a long time.

In the article, Paul interviews Jason Calacanis, who made millions from his Weblogs network and who shut down his own, personal blog in July.

"'Blogging is simply too big, too impersonal, and lacks the intimacy that drew me to it,' he wrote in his final post."

This may be true. Blogging has become more impersonal, but the wealth of knowledge AND the amount of fresh content that they produce on a daily basis is beyond comprehension.

"When blogging was young, enthusiasts rode high, with posts quickly skyrocketing to the top of Google's search results for any given topic, fueled by generous links from fellow bloggers. In 2002, a search for "Mark" ranked Web developer Mark Pilgrim above author Mark Twain. That phenomenon was part of what made blogging so exciting. No more. Today, a search for, say, Barack Obama's latest speech will deliver a Wikipedia page, a Fox News article, and a few entries from professionally run sites like Politico.com. The odds of your clever entry appearing high on the list? Basically zero."

Dead wrong. I myself have a personal blog on credit repair. I am currently ranked #1 out of 31,600,000 results on Yahoo for a certain, popular "credit score" keyword.

Granted, you have to know your audience and for whom you are writing...otherwise known as keyword selection. You don't have to be an SEO expert (even though I am) to know that, if you search for "credit", your odds of reaching the top of that heap are slim-to-none. You have to be intelligent to properly use a search engine, which may be part of the problem with Paul's search above for "Mark". Either that or he is purposefully using such a broad term in an effort to skew the results and make his point...but it doesn't work, as intelligent bloggers can see very easily.

Junk in -> Junk out

"That said, your blog will still draw the Net's lowest form of life: The insult commenter. Pour your heart out in a post, and some anonymous troll named r0rschach or foohack is sure to scribble beneath it, "Lame. Why don't you just suck McCain's ass." That's why Calacanis has retreated to a private mailing list. He can talk to his fans directly, without having to suffer idiotic retorts from anonymous Jason-haters."

Hmm...if you're broadcasting your beliefs or opinions to the world, you have to expect some criticism and the occasional Debbie or Donnie Downer. If you don't want criticism then don't blog.

If you can't take a little bloody nose now and then, stay on the porch.

Sure Twitter is hot. I use it myself. If you think you can really express yourself in 140 characters or less, then feel free to kill your blog. I cannot.

Facebook is hot too. Still, if you think Twitter and Facebook are spam-free, guess again. How many times to Facebook users have to see the cheesy, insensitive weight-loss ads placed by affiliate marketers? How many times do I have to see that I am now being followed on Twitter by "Bambi" the web-cam model?

Blogging is still hot. Where else can you learn how to make money off of YouTube's Video Your Vote campaign? Heck, just last month Bankrate.com bought the Bankaholic blog for $15 million. Sure, the seller used a few black hat tactics to promote the thing, but is there still money to made in blogging? Absolutely.

So why did Paul Boutin really tell you to kill your blog? I'm guessing "link bait".

Why does Paul's article lack credibilty? Because he writes for a blog.

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