400 Personal Development Blogs… 12 Made the “A-List”
Do you realize how many blogs there are about personal development (PD)?
I realized I had a lot of personal development blogs in my bookmarks that needed to be ‘managed’ as FireFox calls it. I wanted to clean house, but also examine the blogs that were there to see if I could come to any conclusions about the PD blogs I found there.
I fired up FireFox and opened 400 PD sites in tabs which took nearly 30 minutes to load since I’m in Thailand and we have slooooow ADSL internet service all over the country.
As I cruised through the sites I decided that the PD folder name would need to change. I named it the “PDS” folder. The new initials stand for, “Pretty Damn Same”.
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I then made another folder called, “A-List”. And another one, “B-List”. I also went into my Google Feed Reader and made folders matching these bookmark folders. I set the default folder to read upon opening Google reader to “A-List”. These are blogs I want to read everyday regardless if I have time. B-List I read at least every other day. PDS I might open once every couple of days.
I looked at:
- Originality and quality of topics
- Ease of blog use (design, formatting)
- Writing format… spelling, sentence flow, organization, layout, colors
- Blogging “voice” or personality in the writing
Here are my conclusions…
I chose 12 sites that were good enough for the “A-List”. Sites I included were very A-List and most would even make the A-Listers A-lists. Sites like Seth Godin; Problogger.net; Entrepreneurs-Journey.com; Natewhitehill.com; StevePavlina.com; Scott Adam’s blog (Dilbert comic creator, and I have no idea how he got into my personal development folder except that he has some unique views on topics of reality which I enjoy profusely); and others… I also included some up and coming blog authors that I believe are doing original work and putting a lot of effort into creating original, timeless material. I’ll keep those quiet for now because I want to watch them a little while longer before I start throwing endorsements their way.
29 sites made the “B-List” and I think I was very generous because overall the sites in this list were each missing some major piece of the puzzle, mine included. I think I need to define a tighter focus for my blog because I’m blogging about positive issues, life issues, reality, PD, lifehacks, and more topics. Would be better for me to narrow it down more. I’ll keep an eye on this B-List since some cream will rise to the top and some of them will grab an “A-List” spot in time. Aim for Awesome too?
The rest, I didn’t count them, went into the PDS folder.
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Most of the PDS sites didn’t have the following:
Easy on the eyes formatting, text, ad placement, graphics, colors, etc. There’s no sense of any of that with most of the PDS blogs. It hurts to read them because I’m expending effort to conform to someone else’s idea of how things should be. Odd colors and huge bold fonts turn me off really quickly. Having every feed subscription service that exists on the planet is not necessary. Get a feedburner.com feed! Listing your archives by month is virtually useless to anyone. Listing archives by week or day should be considered criminal behavior. Oh, one more thing - please, for the love of cold turkey, DON’T name your blog something with the word “money” in the domain. Please… please… for me, please…
Smart ad placement. The amount of ads on a typical blog is atrocious. Not just the number, but the placement and the choice of ads. The ads should almost compliment your site. They should almost add something… the ads on most blog sites take away a lot of the easy-to-read format a blog has before ads jump all over it.
A VOICE. Yeah, there was just writing… there was no person behind it that I could find. This turns me off a blog quicker than spit. I found roughly 70% of the blogs I looked at to have no personality, or ‘voice’ behind them.
Unique content. I’ll say it just once… you cannot copy someone else’s ideas, topics, titles, or words, photos, graphics, slang, or anything else as you write your blog posts. You must create something that is unique and contributes to the minds of those of us that consume content everyday by reading blogs. I feel myself getting much dumber as I read a post that I know I’ve read 60 times before at everyone else’s personal development blog. Make me smarter for having read your blog, not wiping up spittle as I daydream about Haagen Dazs Coffee ice-cream instead of digesting what you’ve written.
I’d guess that in my PDS group there were about 10% of bloggers churning out original content. In my B-List I believe everyone was creating original content, but some of the ideas and ways they talked about them were very “Tony Robbins” or other guru that has already used their own unique language before to describe things. There is a lot of copying of the style of ‘the greats’ because the ungreats think they can reach greathood by copying ‘the greats’. It may or may not be true. But, if you reach greathood having copied ‘the greats’ everyone will know and you won’t be so great.
Clear focus. What exactly was the blog about? Most blog owners think that by blogging about making money sometimes they are going to make money by doing so. That’s a wrong assumption for the most part. Your blog must be entirely focused on one area. That area can be large, but, when you start crossing over into other areas - what would someone come to read your blog for? They don’t want to see Sam’s ideas about “politics, dog ownership, AND money making.”
If you are going to choose a blog about telling others how to blog or a blog about how to make money online you really had better dig in for the long-haul because there are 1000 awesome sites already blogging in that space. AND, you have hundreds of thousands of bloggers competing for that small space. If you don’t specialize within that space - you’ll be lost and never become an A-Lister or a B-Lister. I’d conservatively guess that you have a 1 in 1000 chance to make it as a “how to blog” or a “how to make money online” blogger. And that is against a LOT of good competition… 999 other “I want easy money in my pocket for writing full-time” type people that also want to be the 1 successful blogger out of 1000.
I’ve seen more than a few top bloggers say something incredibly ridiculous like, “if you start your blog now - there’s no reason, with persistent effort you can’t be making a living from that blog in a couple years.”
HUH?
No reason? If I had the finger strength I’d sit here and tap out 100 reasons you likely WON’T be making a living from your blog. My blog is supposed to be focused on the positives… but you know what? Reality kicks in when I read something like that.
That is one of the most misleading things coming out of top bloggers’ mouths these days. If I hear it again I’m going to go Rambo-type all over someone’s comment section. If necessary I’ll remove them from the A-List. I’m dead serious.
;) I’m usually not dead serious about anything - so if you ever see me say that, it’s a joke… OK?
It is incredibly difficult to rise to the top of any popular blogging category. Please believe that. Please only tackle such a thing if you have something unique to offer and you have or know people that have a head full of techy things you must know to get your blog up to speed and then to be on top of the game.
In summary…
I can generalize from these few conclusions that the rest of the blogs out there are going to be similar to this group of 400 that I have in my bookmarks, but actually my 400 site sample (approximately) is a few steps higher than typical PD blogs since the ones I put in my bookmarks folder had some redeeming quality (at least 1) when I first put them there. I’ve stumbled on thousands of other PD sites that didn’t get added to my bookmarks. So, those have been weeded out already. I’m guessing that my bookmarks include some of the better blogs - and none of the utterly worthless ones.
It seems to me, and not just from this exercise, but from the last year of reading personal development sites that there are so many bloggers just copying everyone else’s ideas, lists, points of interest, topics, and the rest of it. I know some A-Listers have already expressed similar ideas and apparently I’ve come to the same conclusion. If you read enough blogs in any subject I think you’ll come up with a very similar conclusion. The blogosphere is JAMMED with the same kinds of content just being recycled by everyone in the space. There are very few people that care enough to, or that have enough energy and resources and depth of experience to write unique content day after day after day for years.
A-List blogger Steve Pavlina is perhaps the greatest producer of unique personal development content that I know. He has something like 600+ articles on personal development for you to read for free. How cool is that? 600 articles is a couple of books. Though his writing style isn’t quite what I really enjoy reading, apparently there are like 2 million people per month that visit his site.
Best of Life!
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