If you want to have long-term success in the blogging game, you need to have attention. I just found this very relevant post. It’s entitled Links or Content? Nope, the Issue is Attention. In this post, Aaron Wall tackles the question that webmasters often debate: Which is more important, links or content? However, he argues that attention trumps both of those things. Here’s what he says:
The debate is flawed. Links or content alone are just one type of asset. You might be able to profit from either for a while, but ultimately the real measure of relevancy and staying power is attention.
I think he’s right. The internet is getting more crowded. More people are trying to make money online. More bloggers are learning internet marketing skills. Here is a list of over 100 make money online bloggers. I think most of these blogs were started less than a year ago. Information is easy to produce. Big offline publishers with massive amounts of quality content are starting to publish their content online. Therefore, attention is the most valuable resource right now.
You can have the best content but if no one knows about it, how will you make money or gain readership? You can be a marketing genius, but if your content doesn’t capture people’s attention, your marketing will be inefficient and ineffective. You can be the best link builder, but a blogger who has more attention than you will steal your rankings in the long-term because their attention will get them links faster than you can build them.
So, think of ways to get noticed. Write content that causes people to pay attention to you. Promote your blog in such a way that people don’t forget you. Don’t stop building links but also get attention because that is the best link building strategy.
Also, here are two principles that can help.
- Be bold.
- Focus. Don’t multi-task so much. Instead, “single task”. Much of the content and marketing that gets attention is well-planned and took much concentration and focused effort.