What NOT To Do With Your Business Blog

Thumbs down to your products!

My name is on a lot of email mailing lists.  In the early days of my freelance content writing, blogging and internet business I read about the topic voraciously.  This is (was) a good thing…and a bad thing.

It was good because I was able to consume (and retain, miraculously) tons of information about building a blog, writing content that sticks and engages and relating to readership.  It was bad because I ended up on a lot of crap mailing lists from crap sites that wanted to sell crap eBooks, tools and advice.

Yesterday an email from one of the crap sites I was talking about.  I’m going to let it all hang out here and give you the information about the site the site that I’m talking about…  I can see the enemies lining up at my email inbox and comments section right now.

Website Review Information: 

BlogSuccess.com

Alexa Rank: 122,354 and a ranking in India of 39, 522

Page Rank:  ? (according to my Google Chrome add-on SEO Rank Status

FB Followers:  1,267

Twitter Followers:  256

Not at all an unpopular website.  Not the most followed, but certainly not the least.  Heck, they’re leaps and bounds above this site right now.

According to their about page, “Blog Success is all about helping people build and market their sites for the best traffic and profits possible in any market niche.  Follow us on any social network, subscribe to our weekly updates, and enjoy the actionable, high-quality, original blog marketing and content development expertise.  Read more: http://blogsuccess.com/about-blog-success/#ixzz2J2u1OwAG

Domain Name:  Great, are you kidding me?  11 characters and “blog success”…Holy Crap!  They’ve got a winner!

Except…

My Problem with the “Blogging Niche”

Except, you’ll never really have a successful blog if you start listening to what Blog Success is trying to sell you.

And you know what? The content on that site isn’t bad at all.  There are some really good posts by contributors that cover the Two Big E’s of content:  Educate and Entertain.  Really good stuff in particular are the posts written by Jack Humphrey on Blog Success.

So, why all of this talking great about a site that I don’t think is really worth the trouble to pay much attention to?  Well, it’s all in what they promote.

You see, on the internet and with your blog, YOU ARE WHAT YOU PUT YOUR NAME ON! It tells a lot about your site and the people behind it.  In this case…Blog Success lost me.

Email Marketing Just Trying to Sell A Product

Here is the first line of the marketing email sent to me from Blog Success this week:  ”Fire your Webmaster & Copywriter Today”

Ouch, guys…I’m kind of a freelance blogger and content writer. No, that’s not copy…however, that first line still got me a little ramped up.

But that’s nothing compared to how I felt about the email’s reasoning for “why” I would be able to fire people today…

Here is basically all the email said:  ”You see, there’s this plug-in!  And it’s great.  It does all the work that two humans can do!  You’ll never need a webmaster or copywriter to create a highly converting sales page again…EVER! ”

(Well, the email was actually 440+ words long with all kinds of hyperlinks and bulleted selling points.  The typica,l spammy, email marketing template junk!)

Sending the Wrong Message with Your Blog and Marketing

Thanks Blog Success…you just sent me an email that offers a bad product that supposedly makes me unnecessary!  No offense intended? Hmmm…  The actual offense is in the BAD sales copy of the email…

Now, I’d like to say that if you poll 100 copywriters and ask them if this plug-in could do what they do as effectively and with as much conversion then those copywriters would say “hogwash”!   But, then again, they’re copywriters and no profession on earth would like to admit that a plug-in could do what they do any better than they do! (Crap! That even confused me!)  Moving along…

Try this, though, if you have time.  Find 5 good copywriters and then 5 clients that they’ve worked with and ask them if they think that this magic copywriting plug-in would be as effective s the work done by those copywriters?  I bet they’d feel pretty hogwashy about it too!

This kind of plug-in may be good for some internet marketers and niche site builder wanna’-be’s who own sites with domain names like “www.blackandgreybriefcasewithahandlebysamsonite.com”, but let’s face it…this kind of tool is not going to work for legitimate business blogs who need real sales and ad copy.

Keep Your Product and Service Integrity within Your Business Blog!

My point here is not the debate of “good” or “crappy” or “automated” sales copy.  Nor is it about the quality of BlogSuccess.com as a blog or a website.  I still read their articles and learn a bit from them.  My point here is about what you sell and promote on your blog. Your blog is an extension of your brand.  It is a representative of you on the internet just like your employees are representatives of you when out in the field.  

The products and services that you sell should be top quality and aimed at a specific set of people…your customers!  Your ideal customers!  It will build trust and develop your internet integrity.

Be very careful about what you’re promoting and selling with your brand’s name and reputation.  Not everyone is as naive as I was when I first started!

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