The past day and a half has seen the SEO blogosphere lashing out against the narcissism and endless self promotion of blogging. Ironic, I know.
But I think there is a serious concern here. Let’s face it, I read the blogs every day, and I’m blown away by how many times a blog can write about the same topic over and over again.
Much like the search engines, I think that there are first tier SEO blogs, second tier SEO blogs, and then everyone else. When I think of a first tier SEO blog, I think of SEOmoz, Search Engine Land, etc. Second tier blogs would be Rimm-Kaufman, Shimon Sandler and SEO by the SEA, etc. Third tier and the smaller blogs that are just trying to gain traction. In this post, I just want to talk about the differences between the first and second tier blogs.
The first tier blogs make their name by posting tons of content. The emphasis tends to be more about being SEO writers, kind of a journalistic role. Much of the content is pretty basic, and that makes sense for the business model. These first tier blogs are either trying to sell SEO training or sell their advanced content, so by keeping the free content basic they maintain freshness and recency while building a basic readership, of which some will purchase the more advanced stuff. Unfortunately, a lot of the free content about how to be successful in SEO talks more about how to be an SEO blogger than be a SEO practitioner. This kind of “everyone wants to be a blogger” bias can’t be good for the business model, and it’s really only valuable for a very small subset of an already small community. I will say, however, that these blogs are great for beginners, and if it weren’t for them I wouldn’t have become hooked on SEO.
The second tier blogs, I find, don’t post nearly as often. They don’t appear to be as concerned with being SEO celebrities. But when they do post, it tends to be very good, in-depth, advanced content. Where the first tier blogs generally have posts of a few hundred words, the second tier blogs are like essays. These second tier blogs tend to come from SEO consultancies that focus on practicing SEO and writing on the side, as opposed to writing about SEO and practicing on the side. Most of my reading of advanced concepts come from the second tier blogs than the first tier blogs.
When we think about it though, it’s really not that strange of a concept. Think about when people are looking for news content on the internet. Sure, there are a handful of people who read more advanced analysis from sources such as The Economist. But many more people get their news from CNN.com, which is much simpler and easy to digest. Sure, advanced content for SEO exists online, but the simple stuff drives more traffic.
