I only posted this rant as a last resort. At first, I thought that maybe I was just coming across a few bloggers who didn’t know better. But then I realized that I was running into them on a regular basis. The offenders? Blogs that only post reviews and affiliate hype posts.

Any of my readers know that I rarely post reviews or posts specifically generated to sell affiliate offers. Why? Because I actually value my readers and their time. With that said, I am tired of coming across blogs that post nothing but reviews and updates about their “coaching class” or offers they learned about through their class. I personally feel that these so-called mentors are helping overcrowd the blogosphere with copycat junk posts with little or no value.

I hate to say that about these coaching programs because I have a few good fellow bloggers who I feel close to because we all started blogging at the same time. But the ones in my actual circle who have attended these programs do not offend or they would not even be in my circle. The ones I am complaining about are the new ones I keep coming across in the past week while exploring the “100 comment challenge” participants. There are a couple on there who do nothing but try to make a buck blogging. What’s wrong with making money blogging? Nothing… if you don’t alienate your readers. By providing value with your blog, the money will come if you want it to. There is no need to force feed your readers and hope that one of them takes out their credit card and checks out on ClickBank.

What’s wrong with providing a valuable reading experience and interlinking to an affiliate offer every now and then? It is much less obtrusive and you are much more likely to build a community this way.

Want to avoid turning off potential readers?

Here are a few steps to ensure that I will comment when finding your blog:

  • Do not post reviews only (unless you are a review site, which should be named “reviews” and not a blog).
  • Comment notification is a must have feature. I am less likely to comment on a post where I will not be notified when someone replies to what I have said. I like to take part in conversations, and frankly, you are probably not that memorable in a huge crowd of blogs that I visit daily. I need to be reminded to visit you.
  • Give me love: I prefer blogs that use CommentLuv as blog commenting is not only about forging relationships but also for promoting your own blog content or websites. Give me some incentive to leave an informed comment that gives your blog substance.
  • Popup craziness: I am all about having an inline popup in order to help build your newsletter. But I do not want to see that popup every single time I visit your blog. There are plugins out there like the one I use which set a cookie and will not display more than the time I set. In my case, it is currently set to display to a single visitor once per month.
  • Give me a reason to subscribe. I have subscribed to blogs before only to be presented with nothing but newsletters containing affiliate reviews. How horrible! I thought I was subscribing because you were going to actually spend some time writing something with value rather than trying to milk the money out of me.

I am sure I can come up with more turn-offs. But I don’t feel like it at the moment. It is actually bringing me down into a bad mood.

Your chance to vent!

Let me know what makes you want to puke when you visit a blog.

Rant: My latest blogging annoyance

About the author

Brandon Connell wrote 393 articles on this blog.

I am an author, blogger, investor, musician, and internet marketer among other things. I believe that one person can do many things in life. Check out my local search marketing company at Leads2LocalSearch.com when you are done browsing here.

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