extreme webmaster evernerve

I have recently read an article that says if your blog post isn’t awesome, it’s crap. Well, I partially agree with that.

Arnaud, the author of that blog post said that

If your article is incredible and becomes popular, it will be read by numerous people, linked to, discussed about and referred to in other writings.

If it’s crap it will be read by little numbers of people, no one will link to your post, no one will discuss your article, you will not get many comments and people won’t care about what you have posted.

I would say that both of these statements are true, but still you have to take them with a grain of salt. Since there is so much discussion going around about achieving popularity on the Web, I would like to touch upon the subject of not-so-popular blogs and blog posts first.

Locally popular blogs

Image credit: Fly

Did you ever try to find blogs that are related to a specific place, a town, a county? These tend to be quite popular within their geographic area and have a steady, faithful following.

I have found many brilliant posts on local blogs: They are top-quality, whether they are about one’s life, or commenting on local events, discussing politics, poetry, etc. They are incredible. And they are not necessarily read by hundreds of thousands of readers. In fact, a hunderd readers per day is probably a lot for these blogs. Are they crap because of that? Of course not! They just tend to a specific public.

I have noticed that many local blogs tend to have much more comments than globally popular ones (if the ratio of readers/comments is taken into account). And people care more about these blogs and their authors because they usually know them well, either from their posts or in real life. They care also because they can relate to the blog and its subject matter.

The popularity of local blogs can be seen in most of the non-english speaking countries, especially European ones. A lot of people who don’t speak English very well stick around the local blogosphere, which is only natural. That’s why blogs that aren’t famous can have high quality content and be popular, within certain limits.

Globally popular blogs

The big league, the elite ones: How do they do it? Not by chance, but by applying the three principles:

1. Studying
2. Hard work
3. Marketing

Studying the successful

I had once seen an interview with the guy who wrote most of Britney Spears’ hits (I think it was Max Martin, but I’m not sure). He said that he systematically studied the hitmakers such as ABBA and Michael Jackson to see what a #1 hit was made of. He studied the rhythm, the samples, in short, every component of a hit song.

Hard work

The KLF, the group that was globally popular during the late 80’s/early 90’s succeeded because they made their music according to specific rules. They even wrote a funny book about it called The Manual: How to Have a Number One the Easy Way.
Sure enough, there is always some talent involved, but this amounts to 5% or 10%. Most of it is hard work. Bill Drummond from KLF said a something that is a universal truth:

If you want to do something, go and do it! Don’t wait to be asked, don’t wait for a record company to come and want to sign you or a management company.

Successful people know this little “secret”: You have to work, to apply yourself if you want to make it. Top bloggers write a lot and read a lot. And they make mistakes. Most of the successful blogs that I read have started from scratch, were poorly designed and the content was not-so-brilliant to begin with. But they plodded on and finally reached the point where they stand today: global popularity and success.

Local blogs achieve success through sheer passion: People who author them write because they feel the need to put their feelings and observations into words. They have an unrelenting drive that makes them blog each day. And by consequence, they become successful, through trial and error, and it wasn’t even planned! They worked on their blogs consistently and improved each day.

Marketing

It is also true that brilliance alone can’t bring you global popularity. You can become popular locally without marketing, because someone from your vicinity will notice you sooner or later — either through comments left on other blogs or local blog portals and communities.

But global popularity requires marketing. You can excel at what you do, but if you don’t push your blog or product aggressively, you won’t get noticed. Stars are made. They don’t come out of the blue. This is how it functions today.

The incredible and the banal

Image credit: Tea and Oranges

Incredible things always appealed to the masses, from time immemorial. Why do you think that legends about miracles-makers and knights in shiny armor exist? Because when something remarkable happened, people were drawn to it like to a magnet! It momentarily broke the banality of their everyday routine!

Extraordinary events and persons tend to stick in people’s psyches because they are, well, extraordinary. Today, such events either happen or something a little bit out of the ordinary gets blown out of proportion by the media. Just look at the tabloids: They existed before the Web and still they are the same thing as the blog posts, and viral videos that are viewed millions of times.

History repeats itself

Arnaud concluded his post with these words:

It will be interesting to witness the evolution of the mind’s banalization. 10 years from now, what will be the top searched keywords? Which stories will make the headlines? How far can we go?

That made me think. What I wondered is, Will we have fine arts in 10 years? Will everything become sensationalist crap? Well, no.

People who visit art galleries, who read philosophy, don’t blog as much as you and me. They have their own playground. And what was true before, is true today, as well as tomorrow.

Do you think that during the Renaissance in Europe, people were more wise, educated, enlightened? No, the majority — the masses — they were uneducated, their lives followed a routine (it was either working in the fields or in some stable, you get the picture).

The rich people, the elite of that time, like the Medici family in Florence, they commissioned talented artists like Michelangelo to create masterpieces.

The only thing that changed today is the technology. Remember, the Web was created by Tim Berners-Lee for the convenience of the smartest physicists — so that they could communicate without having to travel each time they wanted to discuss something.

Thanks to mass production (and exploited low-cost labor), the Web became accessible to billions of people. But do all these individuals discuss art and philosophy? No, they surf for latest breaking news and such. In essence, nothing has changed.

You can always make it

You can still become successful, and you will be able to do so decades from now. Because people come and go. Websites come and go. I know because I managed to break into an already saturated market. I just applied the three rules: Study, hard work and marketing.

You will always be able to recycle old content and market it as new and you will always be able to attack it from a new angle and make something new out of it. The possibilities for success are unlimited. Apply the three rules in your life and you will succeed.

So, your article isn’t necessairly crap if it isn’t incredible. It just wasn’t marketed enough. Quality content gets noticed, even if it isn’t incredible.

Stephen King or John Grisham didn’t need a Nobel prize for literature to sell millions of copies of their books. They just know what works. And they are dedicated to their work. The rest is marketing.

So, if you are not the next Nobel prize winner, make yourself a genius!

One more thing: Share and network. I have written an entire article based on the observations and comments that I had in mind when I read Arnaud’s post. Writing an article and linking to his post adds value to both of our blogs. It is much better than leaving a comment only. Like I said: Read and write. Ideas will come by themselves.

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