Michael Haislip: Professional Millionaire

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Oh, man, if you bloggers don’t stop repeating the same trite advice, I am going to eat your first born.

Myth 1: You have to be passionate about your subject

Sorry, no you don’t. A trained monkey can spew out 500 words about anything in a few minutes. It’s that word–passion–that bothers me. Passion is for the bedroom, not for a website. How about we rephrase the myth. Let’s say from now on, “Though it helps to be mildly interested in your topic of choice, it doesn’t really matter either way.”

Myth 2: Focus on creating good content and the readers will come

Ha ha, nope. When was the last time John Chow posted anything of value? BoingBoing? ShoeMoney? These sites got where they are now by marketing and networking. There are hundreds of blogs with amazing content that are just languishing out there on the barren wasteland of Blogistan:

• Steve Olsen’s blog
• Pro Libertate
• Uncommon Sense
• Once Upon a Time
• Empower Women Now

Myth 3: Commenting on lots of blogs will draw readers to your blog

Here’s a bitter lesson in life: no one cares about your opinion. No one reads your comments unless it involves them either being insulted or praised.

Yes, you could spend an hour or two everyday commenting on a dozen different blogs, but what kind of posts are those going to be? How could anyone possibly write quality, thought-out responses on multiple blogs without spending most of their time doing it? No, the responses trend toward meaningless one-liners, such as, “Wow, I totally agree.” Yeah, that’s certainly enticing to a potential reader. Way to go, Hemmingway.
The one case where it pays to comment is on a site with the NOFOLLOW tag removed. Gee, I think I made a list of sites like that.

Myth 4: You must stick to a regular posting schedule no matter what

Look, I’ve seen so many crappy filler posts on so many blogs that I just can’t stand it anymore. If you don’t have anything on-topic to say, then don’t. Don’t post pictures of your cat. Don’t post pictures of your kids. Don’t post about what restaurant you ate at last night (I’m looking at you, John Chow). Just don’t post until you have a decent idea. Please, for the sake of us all.

Myth 5: The most popular blogs have the best content

Not by a long shot. Most of the big blogs got there using a variety of methods: first mover advantage, huge budgets, advertising, etc. Some of you have heard of the “long tail” phenomenon. That’s actually the back end of something known as a Zipf distribution. Basically, the largest sites get a disproportionate amount of traffic and links, which raises their popularity even more, thus creating an ever-growing spiral of mediocrity that threatens to collapse into a singularity of homogeneous posts about the iPhone and Paris Hilton.