Today’s Read

BLAH!

Maybe it’s Friday, maybe it’s that donut I just had, but I could not find one good article worth sharing with you today. I have about twenty different keyword Google blog alerts that I look through every morning. That equals about 100 blogs that I at least look at.  I can usually find five or six that I really like, and usually share with you the top three. Today though, I had a big zip.

What I Found

I found posts to how to auto follow on Twitter, about twenty sites that gave the same top ten list on how to improve your website, and about ten more on how to market your site the “Right” way on Twitter. I found nothing good about usability, and the only real post that I like, and came up in my alerts was mine, Twitter Vs. Google? There is Another. Even my post failed to give usability or design tips. It was a simple prediction that Facebook will soon be the king of the net.

List Advice

Because 80% of the blogs I looked at today were filled with lists here is my advice to bloggers that think they will get a lot of traffic from them. Lists work great. They make for quick information for the reader, make a good draw based simply on title, and are pretty easy to do. Your right, they do generate traffic for your site, unless of course, it’s already been done, more specifically, done to death.

Before cranking out your next list for your readers or potential new visitors do a little market research. See if there are already a dozen blogs posts with the same list that you want to do. See when they were done. Avoid using similar titles, and don’t forget to make your content special. Three repeated items in a top ten list that match another top ten list is like playing with fire. Don’t do it, or at least word it way differently. A final note, make absolutely certain that you do not copy.

Copying content is a big killer for two reasons.  The original author, and those that follow the original author will see your content as copied crap. The second reason is that those searching for a list such as yours has most likely seen another list or two already, and one of them could have been the original.