There is something magical about a good blog. The content draws you in, inspires you, informs you. It engages you so much that you ponder a post well after you read it, or are drawn to comment without a call to action.
The fact of the matter is, many blogs go unread. On a daily basis, bloggers put in hours of work to their websites. Yet, very few of these blogs are read on a widespread basis.
The mainstream, popular blogs are read by thousands of people on a daily basis. Most of these websites can afford to produce several posts a day to keep reader interest high and readers coming back. Usually, these websites have amassed a good amount of financial support through advertisements and such to continue building their websites’ influence.
But I present to you a different perspective today. You should support the unread blogs more often than you support the mainstream blogs.
Some small-scale or unread blogs offer tremendous value and are strikingly different than the mainstream.
Instead of getting a re-written news story, smaller-scale blogs that offer rich, original content are out there. Think about discovering a great smaller blog—In a way, it is discovering a diamond in the rough. When you find a blog like this, it’s important to take note and even add the website to a RSS reader if you enjoy the content enough.
If the website truly produces great content, the website will eventually get discovered, but this is not always the case. A quick rundown of Digg shows that most content comes from the mid-major to the mainstream blogs. Rarely, you will find a post from a small-scale blog on the social bookmarking website.
Smaller-scale or unread blogs often have no financial motivation.
It’s amazing how much the financial approach can have on the quality of content on a website. Think about it: if no one had to pay for work (and likewise, no one received financial compensation), how many Americans would remain in their jobs “for the love of what they do”?
Blogs that are considered the mainstream or very popular bring in the cash. Have you thought about how much the financial aspect has had on your favorite mainstream blog?
Most small-scale blogs that receive little or no compensation do not produce content to keep up advertising revenue or the cash flow. And quality posts that are produced without the financial aspect as a main driving factor should be commended.
Fewer posts could be considered a good thing.
Generally, smaller scale blogs don’t offer content on a daily basis, and that could be a welcome aspect. If fewer posts are being “churned out”, the quality of the articles or posts has a better chance at being useful, interesting or different.
If a small scale blog produces too many posts, it could have an adverse effect on the comment count. Comments drive smaller blogs—not necessarily the traffic level. If too much content is produced, people may miss plenty of well-written posts as they fall off main blog pages and into the archives.
What are your thoughts on small-scale blogs? Do you take time to contribute to them?
