Blog Republic

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but originality wins the day

by Darren

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People copy you because they admire you. The more work you do online, the more likely you are to see someone copy you word for word, without attribution. In fact, “scraping” is so common, it’s almost completely unlikely that a website of any merit would be left alone. But the point of this post is not to have a diatribe about duplicators, but it’s to inspire you by the very fact of their existence.

People scrape content because they’re completely devoid of talent and creativity. The fact that such people exists, and are trying to make it in the same business as us “good folks” makes me smile. How can a schmuck make a living by collecting the scraps of superior bloggers? In the end, they won’t. The cause for celebration is the truth that most people are incapable of producing high-quality internet content, and even less are capable of sustaining the effort for any period of time. Fact is, most people are lazy, or uninspired and will throw their name on a half-assed effort in order to call it finished.

If you’re new to blogging (like I am), you’re confronted with trying two basic techniques to try and drive traffic to your website.

1) You can link to other blogs (you act like a hub that links to other websites in your category)
2) You can produce all of your content by yourself

I went with number one and I’m glad I did. As I search the BlogOSphere most days I have trouble finding truly unique or exciting stories to link to. I’m also beginning to notice many of the social elements of blogging in play and I see that people link to their friend’s websites a lot, regardless of quality. However, if that type of post is boring to me, I can’t be alone.

Producing unique content takes time, but the benefits should be dramatic. Useful content gets linked to by useful sites which send traffic and link reputation to you. I understand that a list of links is also unique and useful content, if done right, but I think you might have a harder time growing readership if there are many similar and better established websites in your space. In any event, whatever you do, make it as good as you can and make it as interesting and original as you can.

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