Yesterday I talked briefly about the Blogger pyramid. Like I said I think we are in the section D right now (check out yesterday’s post to see what I’m talking about). How do I know that we are in Section D? Take a look at the comments on many tech blogs out there.

Do you notice anything?

Many of the comments are other bloggers. Sometimes, it seems like bloggers are the only ones reading some blogs. Some bloggers spend a lot, if not most of their time writing about other bloggers. And I always ask myself, what good does that do me if the only people reading my blog are other bloggers.

If I want to make money online by blogging and search around for tips, it would eventually lead me to a “make money online” blog. Probably John Chow or Darren rowse, someone that blog about that kind of stuff daily. At those blogs I find all sorts of good tips and apply them to my blog. But there’s a problem, if every visitor I have are bloggers, they know about all the same tips I have applied on my blog. They read the same stuff. They are immune to ad placement tricks, signing up for different programs, etc.

Right now, I have what some has called “ad blindness”. When I visit websites, I completely ignore most advertisement without even thinking about it. I’ve noticed that since I’ve been blogging, my “ad blindness” has grown that much more. I think what I’ve said above is why that is happening. I know from things I have tried on my blogs and what I have read where most ads are placed on most WebPages.

Ad blindness is still not the only thing. To be honest, there are a lot of subjects to blog about, so having bloggers as your main readers isn’t so bad. The whole idea about appealing to bloggers, I think, is recognition could potentially bring in more readers.

Blogger A notices Blogger B and writes about blogger B. Now Blogger A’s readers will check out Blogger B.

We all know that’s how that works, nothing new there. But how effective is it if every reader on a blog is a blogger…

And every blogger reading your blog, has all bloggers reading his (or her) blog.

Let’s be honest, every blogger is looking for a way to bring traffic. If you aren’t one of the A-List bloggers, then you are a groupie looking to get noticed . So many bloggers are visiting other blogs looking for some sort of benifet. Traffic, PageRank, Backlink. I think causes an imbalance.

Example of how it is suppose to work.

  • Blogger A writes an interesting blog post.
  • 20 people comment on the post, 10 of which are bloggers.
  • 5 of the commenting bloggers go back and write post sometime in the future that link to Blogger A’s post.
  • The other 5 commenting bloggers leave interesting comments that keep the conversation going on that blog post.
  • 2 or 3 non blogger commenter’s subscribe or bookmark your blog and return from time to time.

In that example it works out for everyone. You gain readers, you gain bloggers interest and the potential of more readers from other bloggers. That’s how it should work, but in all reality, this is what I have noticed lately…

  • Blogger A writes a blog post
  • 20 Bloggers comment, all of which only commented because Blogger A’s blog is “Do Follow”. They are looking for a quick backlinks.

In that situation, nothing at all is gained. Trivial traffic. Trivial conversation. Chances are, the bloggers that commented didn’t read past the first 2 sentences of your post and could care less about what you had to say.

It’s imbalanced. All take and no give

If you take a look at really successful blogs, things work like it should. They get it, they understand the blog ecosystem and they make it work. But they are a very inclusive group. You have to work hard and build a name for yourself before A listers begin to include you in their ecosystem.

Once again, I want to remind you that I’m talking about “business” bloggers. Bloggers looking to “make money blogging”. Hobby bloggers have a whole different mindset. Much of what I’m talking about here is pretty much meaningless to them.