Dead End Blogging: Blog Charlatans vs Blogging Truths

Introducing the new occasional series called “DEAD END Blogging”… What is DEAD END Blogging? When you’re driving you occasionally will see this street sign …

It clearly indicates that the road ahead ends soon, and that you will have to turn back and take another route to your destination. This series of short posts encourages bloggers (myself included) to avoid the many dead ends on the way to blogging success.

The Blog Charlatans: Do you always buy those claims?

So you bought that the latest PDF book on how to blog, you signed up for the latest traffic/hit generator, or you subscribed to the latest email/twitter course in the hope that they will make you a better blogger, bring you oodles of traffic and fame/wealth/success, or whatever. You eagerly open your browser to read the information, and as you do, you read the words… sign up for my next course/pdf/website to gain further insights into how to blog successfully. Hey, dude, wait a minute! I didn’t even find out anything in this PDF file, and you’re already exhorting me to buy the next course!

Congratulations, you have just found the upsell… in other words, this is a likely BLOG CHARLATAN! In fact, if you browse many of the extensive E-Book repositories or numerous website offering such products, you’ve probably already become blind to the first signs of a blog charlatan – the hype, the promises, and the evocative images on the front. These are carefully chosen to help you make an emotional decision, not an intellectual one!

Keeps you younger looking EVERY DAY!

These sites are basically dishonest (legally not, though) but they play upon the same instincts that you see in TV advertising. Let’s give you an example from TV: a beautiful young lady swears that her moisturizer KS-200 helps her stay young and beautiful much longer. The TV cuts to close ups of the young lady’s skin, enhanced by digital imaging (read: photoshop, premiere), all to convince you that the product is worth the claims made by the manufacturer, and all despite the fact that the young lady has been using the products for only one or two days (the shooting of the commercial!). Her skin looks young because she is young: it’s that simple. It’s manufactured coincidence that the product also makes the same claim to youthfulness.

So here are some claims that you might find suspect:

  1. “Get Targeted Traffic And High Pr Backlinks Automatically
  2. “How did a social worker earn $2000 per month?”
  3. “Need more traffic to your BLOG? Join ***.com the internet’s largest BLOG traffic generator!”
  4. “Affiliates Makes $19,859 In One Month”
  5. “The Ultimate Guide To Blogging Riches”

While each of them may contain an element of truth, there is very little reason to believe that following the plans will necessarily help you fulfill those claims.

I’m not claiming that I have achieved any of these steps or goals, but I now understand more clearly than ever that they are more important than any of the blogging charlatans out there. If you follow the charlatans, you will end up driving up numerous dead end streets and lanes. Each time you will have to back up, turn your car around, and reorient yourself as seek a new route. I guess this is what this post is doing for me.

For more reading, check out the principles of finding your own voice.