Jan 15 2009
The Two Types of Bloggers Who Will Never Win Readers : Part 1
The First Type: The Catablogger
This blogger has a product to sell. He has read in some eBook that blogging about a product is an effective method of selling it.
So, every post he writes is aimed at selling his product although it may be in the guise of offering valuable content.
I read in another blog that this type of blogging is called catablogging. I guess it’s a blog that contains a catalog of products.
The catablogger tries hard to pretend he is offering valuable content to his readers. But with every post he makes, he reveals the card up his sleeve. His readers discover that he’s not a writer, but a salesman out to get their money.
The salesman makes a fundamental mistake when starting a blog. He fails to understand that people don’t visit blogs to buy products.
I’m not saying there aren’t bloggers who are successfully selling their products or that of others. I think these bloggers succeed because their first priority is providing their readers with useful content. And they don’t sell products, but recommend them.
When a recommendation comes from someone readers trust and respect, they’ll likely take action. These bloggers also seem not to mind whether you buy the products or not. They don’t force you to sign opt-in forms or provide links to sales pages or keep bombarding you with emails promoting more and more products.
They are bloggers first and sellers second.
Readers can easily sense whether yours is a content blog or a catablog. In a catablog, every post says in between the lines, “Hey, read this quick and click on the link below to buy my product.”
I visited such a blog recently. This blog talks about how you can create content quickly. The whole motive seems to be to hoodwink your readers into believing that your `shortcut’ content is genuine.
What’s interesting is at the end of every post, there are three clickable links. Two links take you to sales pages of quick content creation products the blogger is selling. The other takes you to an opt-in page for a free eCourse which will eventually ask you to buy something else.
The blog was only active from 2006 to 2007. I noticed that there were instances of even two daily posts.
A content creation blog fizzling out after a year? Can you beat that?
If the blogger claims he can teach others how to create quick content, then he should be doing it himself with his blog.
The blog could not win long–term readers because every post was aimed at selling the same products. There was no genuine intention to provide useful information to the reader.
The blogger on his part would have quit after his primary purpose – selling his products – was not fulfilled.
If you’re a blogger just starting out, remember this for your own good: Readers don’t like to be taken advantage of. The moment they learn you’re luring them into something that benefits only you, they leave and look for another blog. When they leave, you lose them forever.
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Excellent ideals here and I agree. I hate blogs that are just there to sell misc products and the rest of the site is garbage.
So true. What a turn off to run into one of these blogs. They come off like cheesy car salesmen or annoying telemarketers. It bugs me to click a link on their page to visit an affiliate page or more cheesy looking sales pitch that screams run in the other direction FAST.