The Death and Defacement of a Blog

“Wow,” was the first thing I thought when I found this site. I mean, there are just no words to describe what runs through your head when you see something like this. This site is obnoxious in every way you can imagine, and way too eclectic for its own good. On top of all that, it seems to be abandoned. I wonder why..?

So, let’s talk about the background on this dead blog. It’s actually scaring me just a little. I mean, what is this, the Goth Know-It-All site? I can’t read it too well, partially because I have terrible eyesight, but mostly because they used a very skinny font, in red and white, on a black background. WHY would anyone do this? I feel like I just might have an epileptic seizure looking at this mess.

Here’s my next big problem. The content is all over the board. How can you write about Dating, Finance and Real Estate all on one blog? It was nice of them to categorize it neatly, but a blog should really focus on one main topic. Seems to me like someone is so full of themselves, they can’t even choose one topic to be an expert on. At least when I feel like it’s my turn to be the expert (like now), I stick to one topic.

Notice that I keep saying “they” instead of “he” or “she”. That’s because I can’t figure out who owns, runs or posts to this blog. The only user seems to be Admin, and Admin doesn’t have a profile or a contact page. Why do I keep finding bloggers who want to remain anonymous? Is it because you’re too embarrassed to reveal who you are?

Some Other Things That Suck:

-  There’s no RSS Subscription. That’s okay, I didn’t want to read what you have to say anymore, anyway.

-  There’s a Blogroll. We at RSS Pieces hate Blogrolls. They are like poison. I have been hearing an awful lot lately about Realtors wanting Blogrolls, and I keep having to talk them out of it. All you’re doing is adding more links to your home page, so that Google will think you’re a spammer, essentially. 

-  There’s no Site Map. How do I get back Home? Should I click my heels and hope for the best?

-  There’s no list of popular posts. Though, judging from the lack of comments and the apparently sudden lack of interest in blogging on behalf of the blog owner, I think it’s safe to say there are no popular posts anyway.

-  No Spam Filters on the Comments form. If people actually knew this site existed, can you imagine the amount of spam they would get?

-  No social bookmark buttons. Ever hear of Digg?

-  I touched on this one earlier, but let me reiterate that the Contact Form is MIA, and so is the name and profile of the blog owner. I hope you don’t want to ask them anything.

I, however, would like to ask the incredibly secretive Admin something: Why is your site called Deface Death? You aren’t talking about death, or anything close. Perhaps the site should have been called Ridiculous Ramblings About Nothing At All.

That’s all I have to say. Go ahead and shoot me your ideas on some other crappy blogs that I can make fun of. If you want to be anonymous about it, you can email me. If you’re brave, leave it in a comment. So far, I’ve been pretty disappointed in the lack of bravery I’ve seen. It seems that no one wants to “out” anyone in comment form.  Hmm…  Maybe you all should read our post on the 10 Features of Sucessful Blogs to remind yourselves what a bad blog looks like.

Looking forward to next week’s WTF…

Erin

Yesterday was an exciting day. I finally got to meet the much-anticipated Joe and Rudy of Sellsius when they stopped in as part of their Blog Tour USA. We laughed, we cried, we had other strange emotions, and all in all, it was a pretty unproductive day! But we did have fun, and met two really cool guys. 

At the RSS Pieces office, Joe and Rudy had the pleasure of meeting the fabulously attractive staff, which was all dolled up for the occasion. Rudy brought his video camera and taped everything we said. I mean that. EVERYTHING. Car rides, conversations, the tour of our office, introductions, etc. And no photo opportunities were missed. It felt a little like what I imagine Paris Hilton felt like when she was hauled off to jail and the paparazzi were everywhere. The Blog Tour USA blog should have some pretty interesting photos later, so go check it out.

Jessica and I then took a trip to the RV for the official tour, and to drop off Joe and Rudy so they could head off to Tampa. Amidst Jessica’s expert traffic-weaving and an interview brimming with personal questions (all caught on tape, I assure you), we finally managed to arrive at the RV. And what a messy RV it is! Joe and Rudy are in need of a maid. Anyone want to volunteer? Boys, I hope you clean that thing up before you get back home, or your wives will be awfully disappointed! We had a quick tour, I believe Rudy called it the “spinning tour”, and we got a lesson on how to operate a dinosaur of a tripod, belonging to Joe (because Rudy conveniently “left his at home”.  Riiiiight). We also have a sneaking suspicion that Joe was taking pictures of Jessica’s zebra-striped heels while we were lounging in the RV… We’ll be checking the Blog Tour USA blog frequently to see if we were correct.

Joe, showing us his bed and explaining to us that the floral pillowcase was his wife’s idea, REALLY!

The guys posing for us in front of Joe’s bed.  You don’t even want to SEE where Rudy sleeps!  All I have to say about that, is “Why do you need a roll of paper towels in your bed?”

This was taped to the front door of the RV.  We asked about it, but they weren’t talkin’!

Joe and Rudy, we had a blast, you guys are a lot of fun, and you’re welcome back any time! Thanks again for visiting us and have a safe and wonderful journey to Inman.

First, let me explain what a blogroll is for those of you who don’t know. A blogroll is a list of other blogs and websites that you like and want to recommend to your readers. You list their sites as individual links that your readers can click on. It’s a sweet gesture, but not at the expense of getting your blog banned by Google.

I’m going to break this down for you in English, because I know all that tech-y geek talk can be confusing sometimes. We’ll use Google as the example, because they’re the biggest search engine anyway. Google doesn’t like excess links on your Home page. Your other pages don’t matter for this purpose. Just focus on the Home page. Check out your Home page now, and see how many links you think there are. If you’ve got nothing better to do, maybe you want to count them? I wouldn’t, but, “to each his own”, right?

Okay, now that we’ve looked at all the links on the Home page, I can explain what’s wrong with blogrolls. A blogroll is a list of links. Links are good, if you have less than 120 of them on your Home page. I actually recommend trying for around 100 links, just to be safe. Once you go above 120 links, Google essentially considers you spam. You don’t want to be spam, do you? I didn’t think so.  Aside from removing your blogroll, here are some other ways to reduce the amount of links on your Home page:

      – Use page breaks on each post, and limit the amount of links you use in the section that precedes the page break.

      – Don’t use links in your titles. I cannot believe how many people actually do this!

      – Minimize the links in your sidebars. You obviously need to have something in your sidebars, so put an Archives menu, a Popular Posts menu, and a list of Recent Posts. That should be sufficient to get your other posts noticed and keep you on Google’s good side.

Read Also: Does Your Blogroll Suck? 

Still feel like you need the blogroll? Well, how about this as an alternative: create a Links page on your blog. You can store the links to all your favorite sites there, and Google won’t penalize you for it. You could put 9 million links on that page if you want! I wouldn’t recommend it, though, because nobody is going to be THAT interested in checking out all the sites you recommend. RSS Pieces has a blogroll of sorts, under our Portfolio page. Luckily for us, all of our favorite sites are sites that we built!

What I Did

I recently started a series of posts called the Weekly Whiskey Tango Foxtrot of Real Estate Blogs, which I lovingly refer to as the WTF. I basically find a really awful blog somewhere in cyberspace and explain all the things I see. Of course, as you all know, the things I see are huge mistakes that are killing these blogs. I write a list of all the mistakes and explain why they’re wrong, and how they can be corrected.  It is then up to the blog owner to either ignore me or fix their mistakes.  I made a conscious effort to NOT select business or real estate blogs, as my intention was to be unmerciful in my critique.

Sometimes the blog owner will fix their mistakes, in which case, I will retract my verbal “attack” and congratulate them on having a blog wonderful enough to send home to Mom. Other times, the blog owner gets mad and issues a ridiculous rebuttal, and of course, I respond.  I can’t let them think I won’t stand my ground, right? And, finally, unfortunately, some blog owners simply choose to ignore me. That’s okay, they’re only hurting themselves.

At the bottom of every post in this series, I also ask my readers to recommend a bad blog that I can critique. I think it’s a pretty obvious assumption that you’re more than welcome to recommend your own blog as well, though I can’t see a logical reason why anyone would want to do that.

The Result

Some people are livid.  Some people sent me fan mail.  Some people wrote about how they felt in posts of their own and in comments on my blog. But, hey, they’re talking about me all over the place right now, because they think what I did is “taboo”. Read what they had to say about me at Bloodhound Realty. I personally want to thank the kind folks at Bloodhound, and Lani for writing that article, because it drove HUGE amounts of traffic to my post. The Bloodhound piece really got people interested in what I had to say, especially when she refers to my use of the word “sucks” as “foul language”.  And people were probably so shocked that a company is being called out for using “foul language” that they had to come see for themselves exactly what I said. I hope my recent visitors weren’t too disappointed. They did get an awful lot of buildup simply to see the word “sucks” on my blog. Oh, well. 

I want to give you an example of exactly what this “bad publicity” did for the RSS Pieces blog and, more importantly, for me as a blogger. Unfortunately, I didn’t know that the article condemning me was going to be written, so I couldn’t have possibly had the foresight to take screen shots of my hits to the most recent WTF prior to this article’s release. I wish I’d known. I’ll just have to give you the information and cross my fingers that you’ll believe me. And if you don’t, well, you’re a cynical one, aren’t you? 

Prior to the release of this article, I had a little over 400 views on my second WTF post. I pimped out (Is that considered foul language?) the post on RealEstateVoices.com and Digg.com. That was all I did. Once Lani’s article hit cyberspace, my views jumped dramatically. Right now, I have 1511 views to just that one article. That’s pretty impressive, because the first WTF (Lani was referencing the second one) only has 397 views currently. That might seem like a sad little number to some, but you’ll have to remember that this type of post is generally not RSS Pieces’ style, and things like this take time to catch on. In addition, this is a series, and most series-style posts get very few views on the first post. Series posts have somewhat of a snowball effect, where they take off after the first few of its kind. Each new addition to the series will get more views than its predecessor. And I can guarantee you that this particular series will now do extremely well, simply because people will want to see what I say next. 

If you happen to be one of our lucky clients, then you already know that one of the features on your Dashboard allows you to see where your viewers were just before they came to your page. So, I can tell you that almost all of the views to my second WTF post came straight from Bloodhound. Thanks, guys!

As for what happened to me personally, people know my name. Lani called me “sassy” on her own blog (which I think is a fairly accurate compliment.  Thanks, Lani!) which helps to build a reputation for me, and, more importantly, I received about 15 emails from readers that thought the series was hysterical.  To be fair, I got some creepy email as well.  But I’ll credit that to my new found infamy.  You take the good with the bad sometimes.

Read also: Are you Contagious: Viral Marketing 101

The Conclusion

Contrary to the popular belief, all press IS generally good press. At least it is for me. You could say the same for my targets as well, since they probably only had about 8 views in their entire blogging lives until I wrote about them. I’d love to see how many hits they’ve gotten since my posts hit the net. I’m sure they never would have gotten that kind of traffic if I’d left them alone.

Just look at all the mainstream celebrities. Take Lindsay Lohan. She goes to rehab every other week, and the whole world is in love with her. Britney Spears shaves her head and traipses around half naked, and everyone’s watching. Paris Hilton is locked up and whining like a four year-old, and you KNOW you’re checking her status on TMZ.com all day. Don’t deny it. Controversy is working for them. Maybe you think being controversial is a bad marketing strategy, but I guess you have to be able to handle the negativity and ride it out. If you can’t ride out the bad, you can find yourself in a sticky spot. People love to hate.  Basically, they love to be emotionally engaged, so while I wouldn’t suggest taking a critical approach to all your blogs, I do recommend causing a stir from time to time with a controversial piece.

Read also: How to drive traffic with blog wars

What You (Should Have) Learned

Marketing is what you make it. You just have to have a strategy, a back bone and thick skin. If you take the safe road all the time, you will have a harder time becoming a household name and gaining a loyal following.  Especially at the beginning of your blogging career you need to rock the boat a bit to get people to read you, to become emotionally enagaged in your writing (either because they agree with you or because they disagree with you), and to anticipate your next post.  If you do decide to be a bit controversial, some people are going to dislike you. But, it’s better to have a few people dislike you than not know who you are at all.

Run, Wayne, Run!

My first impression of Wayne’s blog was, “Well, this isn’t bad…” and then I started browsing.  And, well, it kind of IS bad, but good at the same time (is that even possible?).  Wayne has picked out a bland, yet hip background (from the limited choices on blogger.com), and his page is easy to navigate and very readable.  He even writes well!  Kudos, Wayne.  One more thing to add to Wayne’s list of positives: he uses images in his posts, and they’re actually relevant to what he’s writing!

Alright, enough with the niceties.  Wayne, I’m glad you’re staying fit, but no one cares about your running hobby!  Nor do they expect you to explain to them why you failed to run at any given time in your life.  One of the most important things in a blog is the content.  Please refer to our post about keeping your readers interested with good content.  It makes me mad to have to tell you that your topics suck, because your writing is really good.  You have a good blogging persona.  So, that being said, your topics obviously suck because you don’t get any comments.

Your labels are hysterical, but in a bad way.  Hope you don’t mind me borrowing this:  “Labels: landscaping, shrubbery, trees” from your post titled, “Why I didn’t run this weekend…”, or this:  “Labels: muscle soreness, prairie dogs, running, trails” from “Ice baths, prarie dogs.”  (By the way, you spelled Prairie wrong.)  Are you expecting someone to come to your site (which is about running) and do a search for Prairie Dogs or Landscaping?  Wouldn’t you find that a little odd?  I know its redundant, but your labels should be more generalized, like “running, Chicago, sponsorship” if you went running in a marathon in Chicago, that sponsored something.  If I want to hear your thoughts on that particular race, I’m not going to search for shrubbery.

The thing that cracks me up the most is that you have a Stat Counter on your site, yet you get no comments.  This leads me to believe that one of two things are happening here:  a) you have the counter because you’re hopeful that people will visit, but they’re not, or b) you actually DO have visitors, but they never leave comments because you have nothing interesting to say.  If the latter is true, I have to wonder (possibly aloud) why the visitors come back at all…?  I would like to know, just out of curiosity, how many visits you get daily.

Here are the other problems:

- No RSS Subscription options.  Again.  I’m seeing this as a trend among bad blogs.  We need to light our torches and take to the streets, hunting down the owners of incomplete blogs everywhere!  Who’s with me?   Anyone?

- No Search box.  You know, to search the content on the page?  Ugh, does anyone else feel like I’ve said this all already?  All this repetition is annoying me.

- No Contact information.  Wayne, how can I ask you those important questions about my running schedule if I can’t get in touch with you?  I mean, you don’t have to leave your cell phone number or anything, but an email address at least would be incredibly useful.

- No Social Bookmarking, no links to other sites, no links to other blogs…  To get recognition, you must give recognition.  It really is that simple.  I have to tell you that you did a good job with linking to other information sources, though.  But, these sources aren’t blogs, and they aren’t going to recognize you.

-  While the background is hip and interesting, it’s also way too common.  You aren’t going to stand out from the masses with a faded montage of dots.  

-  You don’t post often enough.  This could be another reason why your blog isn’t seeing any action.  Posting 3-4 times a month is not going to benefit you.  If you want to be a good blogger, you have to be dedicated, and post 2-3 times a week at least.  If someone reads your blog and finds it interesting, they’ll only come back a few times before forgetting about you.  If you don’t give them new content, that is.

Wayne, fix your blog.  It needs some love.  

Alright, folks, that’s it for this week.  What did you think of Wayne’s blog?  Not as bad as last week’s, but still bad.  Who’s ready for me to pick on a Real Estate blogger?  Any suggestions of who should be the first?  If not, I think I’ll go visit Posh’d and see what they suggest…

Go ahead and shoot me your ideas on some crappy blogs that I can make fun of. If you want to be anonymous about it, you can email me. If you’re brave, leave it in a comment.

Looking forward to next week’s WTF…

Erin