Update 2018: Eight years later, I've broken (and still break) every single grievance on this page. LOL. I guess experience can give some perspective on why bloggers do the things they do.
The post title may come off a bit harsh – I can't say I really hate these things about people simply trying to brand their business, blog, website, or service online. There are actually very good reasons for these things that they do.
But because they are proven to work, EVERYONE does them, and some people do excess. Unfortunately, I play into the game as well, so I'm not immune to such criticism. So without further adieu, here's the list.
1. No Dates on Posts, Repeated Posting of Same Content
There are several ways that marketers ‘revive' old content. One, is simply to remove the dates from the posts on their blogs, and tweet or share old content. Without a date, it's hard to put the content in context, and it seems 100% fresh.
But after following a few ‘top marketers' for less than a few weeks, and reading much of what they had to offer on their blogs, I discovered that they were in fact sharing OLD content with me. At first I was confused; it was like I had gone into some kind of time warp. I kept thinking to myself…wait a minute…I could swear I've read this somewhere before.
The other thing they do is to take the same information and re-purpose it into a different format. I read one bloggers post about how to be effective on Twitter, and less than a week later, this particular blogger sent me something else about the top 3 ways to get the most out of your Twitter account.
Wait a minute – isn't that the same thing? To me, it seemed like he had essentially taken the same information from his head, written it in two different formats, and posted it in different time periods. Of course, he had removed the dates from his blog post as well, so I couldn't see which was the original, which was newer, and which was more relevant today.
2. Clickbait Lists
It's a proven format, and everyone knows that “Top X” lists work well. Add a bit of a dramatic title, and you've got a high CTR (click through ratio), easily digestible content, and you've made structuring your blog post easier on yourself as well.
But the other day I was scrolling through someone's blog roll and those were basically his whole blogging strategy.
- Top 3 Ways To Alienate Your Followers
- 5 Ways to Get More Exposure On The Internet
- 4 Things You Should NEVER Do as an Entrepreneur
- 7 of the Best Pieces of Advice For New Bloggers and 2 of the Worst
And so on and so on.
I guess if it works, I can't knock it too much. Looking at content in this format post by post, it's not bad at all. But looking at a whole blog and seeing that this is the ONLY format of choice, in my opinion, looks a little tacky.
3. Too many posts
When is posting too much? Well, I'm not sure if I can quantify it, but I do know that posting more than one blog post per day is pretty annoying.
OK I GET IT YOU HAVE QUALITY CONTENT YOU WANT TO SHARE!!!!!!1!11!!
This one blog I follow posts 10+ times per day. They obviously have a team of writers and are REALLY trying to get the message out there.
It IS quality content, and I DO read some. But honestly, I could see within a day or two that it was a team of bloggers, not a person, and that their goal was not to share interesting and engaging content with me, but they are looking for hits, views, stats, clicks, and are going to want to market me something down the road.
I much prefer a really, really, good post every once in a while, as opposed to being bombarded every day with pretty good stuff.
I too am guilty of writing every day, and I'll admit, it's hard to find balance. As online marketers, we need to be able to reach our audience. We need to blog regularly, and give people the content they want.
But I have unfollowed, unfriended, and muted more than one blogger because they are simply doing TOO MUCH, and if I do it, then other people probably do it too, and it might be something you want to watch out for.
Nathaniell
I totally agree with the posting too much comment. It drives me batty! I can’t keep up with 10 posts a day from someone. I can’t even keep up with more than one. And usually when there is more than one post it is rubbish. There is a schedule function in wordpress so I’m sure other blogs have that capacity and people need to learn how to use it. Some of my fav blogs only post once or twice a week and every time I see their posts pop up I am excited and off reading it right away as I’m eager to hear what they’ve got to say as they aren’t blabbing on constantly. I’m aiming for 3 times per week. Not sure if that’s too much or not but it’s what I’m going with at the moment.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks so! Unfortunately, I’ve fell victim to my own criticism. I post once, sometimes twice a day. I also do lots of shares. It’s really hard to get off the content mill. The more you write, the more exposure you get. The more exposure you get, the more money you make. I don’t like that I do it, but I do like having all that traffic.
But I have unfollowed several other people since I originally posted this, so my feelings haven’t changed much. Personally, I hope to eventually slow down with content writing and focus more fewer, longer, more thought out posts.
I think writing 3 posts per week is plenty. Just enough to keep people’s attention, but not too much to scare them away. Traffic might be slow going at first, but stick with it, and eventually you’ll see results.