Passing the Litmus Test

You’ll notice on the side bar that in lieu of a blogroll, I have a little section called Passing the Litmus Test. Instead of 50 or 60 blogs, there are 8 or 9 blogs on that list.  These are blogs that have passed my personal litmus test in my feed reader:

If you were to delete every blog in your feed reader, which ones would you still keep..

In other words, does the blog make a difference? Would I notice it if it was gone? Putting in it perspective, in my Netvibes Feeds, I have something on the order of a hundred plus blogs, which I mostly read, in different tabs. How many of them would I miss if they were gone? Not many. The blogs that pass my litmus test make me think, help me do business better and give me a better understanding of the online world. You know what else is interesting? I’ve actually met or at the very least corresponded more then a few times with the majority of the people on that list. Maybe that’s part of the reason why they pass my litmus test – they come off as real human beings, who understand the importance of providing real information, interacting with their readers and not trying to follow the crowd.

So to every other blogger in the world whose ego I may have just rubbed the wrong way, here’s what you can do to get on my, or anyone’s for that matter, must read no matter what list:

1. Stop echoing what other blogs are saying and adding your $.02 – that’s what comments are for. This seems to be especially rife in the gadget world, where BGR, Engadget or Gizmodo will break something and everyone else just sort of links to it. Chances are your readers were reading that blog way before they even heard of you. Add something of value already.
2. Dare to talk about things that others are ignoring -Aaron is the only A class SEO blogger who really dissected update Vince – no one else seems to have touched it at all.
3. Be yourself. Apparently (I’m new to this) blogging is all about having a voice. If you’re following the line in whatever is your niche, chances are you come across as pretty boring. Why did you start blogging again?

It’s really not that difficult. Actually it just requires a lot of hard work to become an overnight success..

So either start passing my litmus test, or do Google a favor and shut down your blog – they need the indexing power elsewhere.