Look around others' blogs and I always learn a thing or 2

Good article

I don't pretend that I've reinvented the wheel, but I like to think that my personal experiences and opinions make my blogs unique even if the topics themselves have been covered numerous times before.

I subscribe to a lot of blogs' RSS feeds and see the same topics covered day after day, but I keep reading them because the authors make them interesting by injecting their personality/opinions/experiences in each post.

What makes blogging fun and interesting is thatyou can put your own take on a much-discussed subject.

For example, I'm a freelance SEO writer. I have a 3.5 year old freelance writing blog. There are so many writing blogs it's ridiculous. But, I write from a first-hand point of view. No one is going to have my exact experiences with clients, billing, marketing, etc. While there many more established blogs in my niche, readers come to me b/c they like how I relay my experiences. And I read others for the same reason.

And, in the end, isn't that what blogging is all about — choices. IE, making the personal choice to write about what you want, and your readers making the choice to read and stick with you because of what you write.

Takes dedication, vision, perseverance and patience to get the bloggin up and running.

Good article

It is nearly impossible to cover one subject which has not been discussed or written elsewhere. How can one ensure that the topic has not been raised before? Google it? Even if there is a way, doesn't it stifle the effectiveness of a blog?

With hundreds, if not thousands of post written everyday, you end the day searching for what has not been written rather than writing something which has been discussed previously and yet still interest your own base of readers.

Unless of course you only post once in every fortnight because you spend the other 13 days searching for what's not in the blogosphere.

Just my thought..

My blog wouldn't be grouped together with other blogging advice blogs because

a)Unlike most such blogs, I'll be posting on things that are not covered, as much as possible. For example, technical sides of WordPress (more advanced stuff, that is). My readership currently consists of a few coders too, but apart from that, everyone else would be interested in that. Same goes for SEO and writing tips. I'll also try to write about those things that I wished posts were written by someone, back when I was a newbie in blogging.

This is because I see that many such topics have not (yet) been covered by PB, DBT or BT. And I have little to no monetization aspirations. I write only once a week or so even when I have time for more. Yes, there is an affiliate banner and space for advertising, but I have been thinking of pulling them down too. Doesn't help much on a 2 month blog.

I agree that Sumesh's site looks just like most blogging advice sites…. your popularity will depend on your voice, and what you write about….

I am shocked I have 161 subscribers in less than 3 months… thats crazy to me…. but I am providing some info and services for free that others dont specifically talk about, or go in depth above, or provide.

I enjoy your blog…. thanks a bunch. The South Park reference was good… it's all been done before.

Sumesh – I actually got your full name from your facebook which was noted on your blog. I usually try and mention the full name of someone I'm quoting but if you don't want your surname online I'm happy to remove it and just keep your first name

Theres no need to hold back here, I welcome debate and I welcome criticism too as long as it's constructive.

With regards to your blog, I'm not sure why it wouldn't be grouped together with other blogging advice blogs. In your header you mention blogging, seo, wordpress and writing. These are topics which most blogging advice blogs cover. I'm confused why you would think that people would see your blog as something different. I'm not ragging on you, far from it, I'm just curious as to why you don't think people will think it is a general blogging advice blog when you are promoting it as such.

With regards to the good old days, I'm not 100% sure what you mean by that. If you mean for me to be the sole author here then I don't think it will go back to that anytime soon. I am trying to post more often but I'm just too busy to post as much as I would like. Also, Amanda is a bit of an expert on the blogger platform and has been writing great articles for blogger users. I understand WordPress pretty well however Sarah is more more knowledgable than me and can explain certain things better than I can. I have a pretty good understand of most online and blogging topics however I am not and do not claim to be an expert on any given subject which is why I hope writers who can cover topics which I don't fully understand remain as authors here.

John – Thanks for the kudos. I'm glad you are continuing with your blog. I think it's impossible to start a blog on a topic which hasn't been covered before. As I said in my post, you cannot write your posts on the assumption that your readers read all those other blogs.

Great comments so far guys

Since the monitary rewards were a far second to our enjoyment of writing, we found that there was little we could write about on our topic (Spirtuality/Science/Unknown) that hadn't been discussed ad nauseum. Granted, it's a still a niche subject, but I didn't want to write things for the sake of writing it – I wanted the readers enjoy it too! So what could we offer that no one else could? Our opinion and personal spin. It would just be a crap shoot to see if we had return visitors or now.

Either way, we eventually would like to have our ads pay for our hosting (and of course generate traffic), so SEO is still important to us. I've found that even though there are many SEO sites out there, some just do it better then others on various days. It's better to have choices, in my opinion. Great article!

And that is one thing I aim to provide with Blog Creativity.

A couple of things before I analyze this post

a)Blog Creativity is not all about blogging tips. It contains my thoughts on various subjects, for example posts like "Are news websites worst in linking out?". There are also practical examples of using plugins which aren't widget enabled etc., and I have many more posts coming up with regards to SEO, SEO that bloggers should use for specific goals, CSS tips and solving CSS bugs (which I spend a large part of my time on).

If BC came across as a typical blogging tips blog, I should obviously change its branding. The header contains the words blogging tips, but only 2 or 3 of all posts have been strictly blogging tips. And I actually regret having written one of them, after finding a similar article on Problogger during a search later (to which I promptly linked, of course).

If you understood how Blog Creativity is positioned, I would appreciate it if you would update the post about it. Being cast in slightly negative (I hate hypocrisy, and this post almost makes me a hypocrite with regards to launching my own metablog) isn't fun

PS: I wonder how you got to my full name. I haven't left it on my comments. Perhaps my email and/or looking at Blog Creativity/TechZilo?

b)I did not mean to peck on bloggers at BT or say that content was simply rewritten in a different way. All I said was that many of the advice has been said elsewhere. If it came across differently, my apologies. Perhaps I should have conveyed the message better. I am of the view that the web and blogging topics are incredibly vast, and wasting my time on writing something that has been covered is not as good. I'd prefer to point my blog readers to that article with a link – saves me time, saves my readers the hassle of perhaps running into similar content twice. That is my philosophy, but something that I rarely see on the web. Most people write their own version and say it is just their own opinion. While opinion is good when it is majority of the post (think Daring Fireball), the opposite cannot be good. The opposite is what had happened at BT in several months, I am afraid.

Of course, my philosophy of above is applied only on Blog Creativity which is sorta un-commercial and a repository of my thoughts that others also happen to enjoy. On TechZilo, my technology blog which is monetized, things change vastly, and is similar to what happens at BT and others.

As I said in previous comments, most of these thoughts were not born today, but several months earlier. I've just been holding back because I am wary of reactions (though I know you handle it like a champ, which is why I commented here).

As regards posts which have appeared elsewhere and then on Problogger or Daily Blog Tips, I have comments on that too, but I think it is wise to relegate that to respective blogs or BlogCreativity (my blog) And perhaps unlike others, I don't always like what PB and DBT write.

In the end, the urge to write what others have written already comes up because of commercial aspirations like subscribers and page views that you already wrote, and if left uncared, could ruin a blog. Thankfully, that has not happened with BT. But I guess you'll refuse to take BT to the olden days, I guess, Kevin.