The Emperor’s New Suit
Content is NOT King. It’s time we overthrew this long reigning blog ruler. Sic semper tyrannis. Before the loyalists start sharpening the guillotine, let me explain. IMHO, there is no King to a successful blog, nor should there be. For one thing, success is measured in different ways. Success could mean a certain number of readers (whatever that is) or comments or new clients or Adsense money or simply recognition in the blogosphere. There is a big difference in each of these measures of success. In addition, personal satisfaction is its own blogging reward, even if no one is listening (right now or ever) and you don’t care to please or measure success. Maybe you’ll have posthumous blog success. Kafka did. No wait, he didn’t blog. Anyway…
Even if there was a King, I’d crown Quality, that elusive unzill (unzill is shorthand for another unZ word which upsets some people). If you argue content is quality, then say Quality is King & I won’t object as much. But others could also wear the crown: Passion, Humor, Novelty, Entertainment, Timeliness, Verve, Relationships and many others. Content is a naked emperor. Virtually everything is content, if you think about it. So proclaiming “Content is King” conveys nothing of value to me. Content must be dressed and made presentable to get a second look. How you dress your content will determine your success. Here’s what I mean— If 2 bloggers presented the same content but one always put it in fine print block text and the other in easily scannable bullet points–the scannable content would win more return readers than that fine print fellow. Same content, different presentation. Content is not King.
Furthermore, even if you have the sharpest dressed, most valuable blog content on the web, readership is not guaranteed. You can easily be overlooked. There are a lot of bloggers out there that just haven’t gotten the recognition (links) they deserve, because not enough people know they’re out there. If content were indeed king, they’d be widely read & linked. To those really good bloggers toiling under the radar I say read and apply the blogging tips that will get your blog in front of more people, if that’s what you want. Content is not a magnet.
So free yourself, break some so-called blogging rules, push the envelope & don’t feel pressure to follow the mad crowd. Make mistakes. The only king you need obey is yourself.
I am Arnaut who gathers the wind
and hunts the hare with the fox
and swims against the incoming tide.
(Arnaut Daniel, 13th C. troubadour)
Related Posts:
How To Give Value & Create Demand: S.P.E.N.D.
Excellent post. I read so many bad blogs where quantity wins our over quality all the time. I am glad to see someone promoting the quality blog post. Outside of Google who could care a lick about content, the rest of the search engines rank it very highly in their algorithms. Therefore there needs to be a solid balance between marketing the keyword relevancy to search engines and useful, readable, sticky content to readers. Who cares if you rank #1 in Google because you basically spammed keywords with junk content if once people click on your site they can’t wait to get off it because it is boring, useless or unreadable.
I concur, my emperor of good blog posts.
style, readability, freshness, market specific, and valuable information are all variables subject to each blog viewers uniqueness
I think it comes down to value.
Here’s my “Golden Rule of Blogging…” And by Golden Rule, I don’t mean something everyone should follow, just something I know I should follow.
What is the most valuable thing I can say right now that will have the greatest impact on my readers?
Works for me…
I too have gone full circle around defining a successful blog. Visitors? Page views? Google rank? New clients? Comments? Industry recognition? All good. Real success in my mind is knowing that I am giving readers something meaningful that they want and they are becoming better informed about our markets and industry.
In addition, there’s nothing better than providing a small bit of my mind that that gets people to think a little differently. Thanks jf for your recent comment. Makes this a little more worthwhile.
Value works for me too. It’s democratic. Not everyone shares the same value. And value varies. If I am about to buy a house I value home buying posts more than selling posts & vice versa.
What your readers find valuable may be quite different than mine or anothers. Readers gravitate to what they enjoy. It’s so darn subjective—it’s a matter of personal taste when you boil it down. If I were told to write on certain topics to get readers but the topics did not appeal to me, I wouldn’t do it. Neither would most people, I suspect. That would be blog slavery.
Even our readers value different things at different times. They may not always want a How To list. Maybe they need to hear us rant on something that will excite them to comment. I find that few comment on “How tos” or “List of best this or that”. It’s passive content, if you will. Comments come from stirring emotions and controversial topics. But both have their place. Both have value.
Ultimately I do not like blogging rules. I think the medium is too young to pigeon hole & it stifles creativity & innovation.