The Gospel According To Rhys - Colwyn Bay North Wales Web blog About Sport, Wrestling, PHP, SEO, Social Media & Networking

Photo: Black Lamb by Andy Butkaj. Used under the Crative Commons Attribution Licence 2.0

At times, blogging annoys me. Just the Lemming nature of blogging in that whenever one of the A-Listers posts about something, the amount of bloggers who immediately post about it. Two big things that have appeared this weekend have been Dealdotcom (incidenatlly before I continue – I acutally kinda like this, I just wouldn’t justify a post with it) and Blogrush. The first one promises money, the second promises traffic. Both offer an affiliate scheme, nearly 80% of posts under the “Money & SEO Blogs” Category in my feed reader have been about those two things. It drives me nuts, and at times I was screaming at my blog – “No, not Problogger as well!“, like there was some wierd internet Zombie that was devouring the blogging ability of the sphere’s biggest and best bloggers.

There were black sheep in the flock that bucked the trend, who blew the heads off of the Zombies with sawn off shotguns, and for that I am greatful. There are more, but these are the Black Sheep Bloggers who defy convention and post about what they want, stuff that’s genuinely useful, or stuff just to entertain us. Not stuff that is designed to make them a millionaire overnight.

Also, they are in no particular order

1. Bloggrrl

Bloggrrl bucks trends. Anybody who can relate blogging to masturbation will and is a massive two fingered salute to those who take blogging far to seriously and are so desperate to network that they end up forgetting what’s important, the blog. Guarenteed placement in this top 10 for one post. Whilst lesser blogs were blogging about Dealdotcom, she said why she wouldn’t bother. Hell, even I succumed to their promises and put up a banner ad. Who else’d run a competition which encourages you to send in drunken photos of yourself? Bloggrrl is here to stay.

2. Rich Minx

Rich Minx is a smiling beacon of fun in a world full of serious “make money bloggers”. Sure, she can be serious, and her blog has a number of serious posts, but a lot of them are semi-serious, and really rather clever and funny. I find it good if I can usually inject my dry/crap British humour into a comment box, I usually can with Shona.

3. Bush Makel

Bush shows what happens if you keep to a structure, and it works. He does deviate, but most of his posts are his interests, which are technology and business. Specifically video gaming and problogging. There are other topics, but by and large they fall into those two circles. His content is always unique, not regurgitated rubbish seen on other blogs, plus probably one of the only people who can give me a run for my money on Street Fighter II. Bravo!

4. Jem

“Ultimately better than you” is the tag line, and it happens to be true. Jem has a Pagerank 6 blog, more readers in a day than you get in a year, and has an army of die hard groupies that make John Chow’s look sparse. Difference between her and Chow is that she does it all for free. She doesn’t feel the need to plaster adsense boxes accross her blog, and she doesn’t feel the need to hide affiliate links in posts, she blogs simply for the hell of it. She probably could make a fortune, yet doesn’t, and for that I respect her.

5. Gnomeynewt

The Queen of the “How To” Group Writing Project is another unique up and coming character of the blogging world. Sarah AKA Gnomeynewt has achieved success in quite a quick period of time. She’s a great web designer, and has been designing websites for a number of years now. One of her interesting posts when every blogger was redesigning was not to redesign herself, but to look at the redesigns. Surprise surprise they were all rather similar (including yours truly, I guess I’m a lemming too!).

6. Nate Whitehill

Nate Whitehill is an interesting enigma of the blogging world, and that’s because – whilst popular – he isn’t a super mega star, and still gets by. Where Nate really shines in his ability to effectively market his blog, himself and his companies. Nate doesn’t chase the odd affiliate sales or plaster his sites with Adsense, he sells blog designs. A comment on a recent post of his summed up his blogging ethos the best: if people were digging for gold, Nate would be selling the shovels.

7. Kumiko

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the owner of Cash Quests – so much so that I made a point about it in a post. The fact is that because she is so controversial is why she’s successful. She has always maintained that her prime focus on her blog is to make money, not to be liked. Whilst her rather blinkered way of blogging may have it’s downpoints, she unmercifully at times says what we always think.

8. Han

I have to put Han in here, but allow me to justify. Most of the blogs mentioned above buck the traditional trend of Money Making Blogs and Metablogging by being more personal. Han’s gone the other way. She started out as a personal blogger, but has gone onto advertising. She has recieved a bit of flack for what she’s done (further response here) but still does it. They can’t be affecting her blog too much, as she has recieved praise for her designs on a number of Web Design Galleries

9. Geedos

Geedos is another personal blogger who really caught my attention when he quite literally beat a lot of money making bloggers at their own game. Basically, he spammed John Chow’s blog like it has never been spammed before, pissing off no doubt people who comment under the names of “web design templates” and “money growing online”. I have talked before how misguided I believe some of these individuals are with SEO and things like that, so it did make me chuckle.

10. Ad Tracker

I know, she blogged about Dealdotcom, but I put that down to inexperience. I love it when a blog has purpose, her’s was to win a bet, could she make a profitable blog? By week 8, she spent $15.54, and she made $19.18, so technically that has been profitable. Hurrah! See, when people announce that their “Goal is to make $100,000 in a year”, it’s probably going to struggle to make it, if at all. When your goal is to “Make more money than you spend”, then it’s far more easier, and more my way of thinking. For bucking the trend A.T. I salute you.

No doubt by putting “Sheep” in the title I have set myself up for comments about me doing umentionables to sheep (you know, being Welsh and that), I can say to that – “Grow up”.

Any other blogger who sticks up two fingers to the world?