Reality check for bloggers...
Extremely true- although some people will say otherwise.
Quoting the words:
Statutory Warning #3: Content is not king.
No one is disputing the fact that content is important, but with 133 million blogs, good content is now given. Plenty of ‘good content’ blogs are suffering from lack of an audience and shall probably disappear without a blip (maybe even mine – assuming I qualify for good content). As with everything else in our commoditised world, the consumer is spoilt for choice and marketing is the differentiating factor. The old ‘you scratch my back…’ philosophy has left many a blogger bloodied and wounded. And now with the growing fatigue of Facebook and Twitter, where will we find our new Pied Piper from?
Some say content is king, if that was the case, a lot of bloggers would have been excellent writers by now and very people will not do lame asscrack stuff like creating controversial topics, making sensation and overexaggerting facts with masalas, recycling press releases, lame attempts to get facebook likes/twitter followers- and even indivine likes.
Read more. To those conspiracy theorists, nope it ain't from my blog, but from someone else:
Reason: CAKE!!!
At present blogging is a way of sharing things online for me... I don't worry much about traffic but I know wihtout visitors blogging would be boring. Somehow I cannot change the way I express myself for the sake of traffic either... so there I go about putting up blogs and being happy with whatever response I get. One thing I feel bad about my blog is that is mix up of many different things... but so is life. 
Nothing kills a blog with bad content than great marketing. But an OK blog with OK content can shine with great marketing.
I couldnt agree more with Arti. Yes, good content, adequent marketing will make it stick more. Then there are time bound issues like un-handlable growth which can either make or break the whole concept.
Content is an essential part of the pie. With sub par content, no amount of marketing will make the blog successful; may be only a small blip of success. Content and promotion should go hand-in-hand, wherein the promotion should be honest and genuine.
Each of the statements below are true:
- Content is King.
- Content is not the King.
Content takes the position of the king only when the content can be found only on that blog and nowhere else and is a source of information rather than just musings or stories. People would automatically link to these blogs or sites and content happens to be the King. In all other cases content isn't the king.
For example, take the example of the websites of IIT institutions. (They are not blogs but still would support my view). Most of them have a page rank of 9 even though they have not involved themselves in link building campaigns. The result is due to exclusive and useful content.
On similar lines, a blog wouldn't become successful just by great content. the content has to be unique and useful.
I always get a feeling that you're against marketing and promotion.
Good down to earth statutory warning, so network of faithful followers is important. Even in marketing a good product does not necessarily sell, but gr8 marketing will sell an average product. Philip kotler s funda of retaining a loyal customer or follower is the key to success.
True. Good Content alone cant take you to the top but is surely a pre-requisite. Networking and marketing and not to forget the UI is very important
Couldnt agree with you more. Good content, only, doesnt make a blog successful.Marketing is equally important. There are many blogs which have great content but dont gather the visits they should.
Very nice article, there, thanks for sharing .
