More Bad News on Blog Stupidity

One of my bigger pet peeves lately (and I have plenty) is the fact that too many people involved in blogging know very little about blogging. Judy Gombita of PR Conversations forwarded me a link to a blog post earlier today:

Bloggers are Big Cheaters

The post is essentially a rant (I always love a good rant) about bloggers using catchy linkbaitesque titles to simply then link to other blog posts, or using the common top ten list style blog posts.

Let’s separate myth from reality for a moment:

A catchy title does NOT equate to linkbait. Just because someone uses a title that naturally draws in clicks and visitors, it doesn’t mean they give a rat’s ass about whether they’re attracting backlinks to that post (the essence of linkbait). Instead, they’re trying to get one more pageview out of you or maybe, just maybe, they’re simply a typical blogger trying to pass along a good resource and their catchy title is to draw you in so you don’t miss it.

I’m not always one to give someone the benefit of the doubt, but reality check: blogs wouldn’t be such a popular medium if bloggers weren’t constantly networking, communicating, and promoting each other. It’s all about the viral nature of good content.

If they didn’t use a catchy title, would you click through? Probably not as many of you. It’s basic copywriting at work here, and people aren’t going to stop using something that’s effective just because you don’t like it (hell, if that were true, I’d make long sales letters go poof in a heartbeat).

The fact of the matter is that you chose to visit that source. When you see a link instead of direct content you have another choice to make: click or close. If it looks like you may be directed to a quality resource, one extra click certainly isn’t going to kill you… it’s just word-of-mouth marketing at work. As a matter of fact, there’s always the possibility that you wouldn’t have found the final resource without that bridge of a blog post.

And come on… if people can bitch and moan about having to click a link, I wonder what they’d have to say about search engines. That’s kind of their whole business model. Personally, I’d rather visit a link provided by a blogger in the niche who can make a reasonable suggestion than sorting through all of the crap results in a search engine any day.

As for top ten lists… they work. People like them. People read them. People link to them. People emulate them. They’re not going anywhere. Get used to it. Again, they’re not all intended to be linkbait… they were around and popular long before that term was coined and all of the chatter begun about them. The fact of the matter is that they’re an excellent example of good Web writing form. Bold subheadings, lists, etc. make for easy reading on the Web, so list posts are not only natural but they’re easier on the reader’s eyes.

So there you have it people… let’s start paying a bit more attention to the blogosphere so we don’t all look like a bunch of nit wits. Catchy titles = good thing. Linkbait = good thing (when based on quality content). Catchy titles do NOT necessarily equal linkbait: that’s your lesson for today. Stop confusing the two.

And now I think I’ll go brainstorm a few top ten list posts for my blogs…

EDIT: You can find this discussion continues over on Blog Gigs with Do Bloggers Preach What They Teach? which is in response to this post. My comments also follow there on that blog for those interested in giving their own 2 cents. And now I’m feeling somewhat inspired to do a post on blog controversy… maybe tomorrow.

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