Bloggers worry about the wrong kind of duplicate content

There Are Two Kinds of Duplicate Content:  Which is The Most Dangerous?

It seems that everything most people do with regard to creating content and how they carry themselves on the web is colored by search engine “optimization.”

People worry about duplicate content.  “If I syndicate my articles all over the web, will I be penalized for duplicate content?”  (No)

But there’s another kind of duplicate content that will get you penalized by a group far more powerful than the engines – even Google!  Your readers!

This duplicate content has nothing to do with algorithms or math.  Nothing to do with the percentage of the exact same words showing up in more than one place.  It has nothing to do with search engines.

It’s all about duplicating the same exact ideas as everyone else in your niche.

It’s one thing to write about similar topics.  That cannot be avoided by two bloggers writing in the same niche.  But the worst thing your readers can think to themselves is “I’ve read this before.  This is nothing new.  I’ve just wasted time thinking this was something different.”

Bloggers will be on the same line of thought frequently throughout a year of blogging in the same niche.  That, too, is unavoidable.  That’s just chalked up to “great minds think alike.”

What I’m talking about is more akin to stalking than blogging.  A blogger wants what another blogger has (popularity, money) and they figure the best way to get that is to re-write the same exact posts as all the successful bloggers in their niche.

This can happen one of two ways:

1. The blogger genuinely thinks they are onto something new and doesn’t realize it’s been covered time and again by other bloggers in their niche.
2. The blogger knows this is the case, but thinks re-writing a title, pointing to different sites, but carrying on the same exact idea as the blogger before them is going to get them what that blogger has:  a following to make money from.

Here’s why this doesn’t work and why you shouldn’t do it:

1. People follow bloggers who teach them new things.  Or show them things they hadn’t seen before.  Or make them think, laugh, feel better, become informed, or entertained.  Bringing people to your site to see what is readily available on more popular sites that they’ve likely already seen is winning you no fans.
2. Blogs that are successful are usually more tied to the person behind them than any other kind of site on the web.  It’s personal.  People choose to follow one of two almost identical blogs because of the only non-duplicatable part of a blog – the person behind it.
3. Character, personality, and some sort of charismatic delivery of information is usually what turns visitors into subscribers and regular readers.

If you stumble upon a killer post by someone you respect and follow, as a blogger, your job is not to re-create that blogger’s wheel, but simply to point out that greatness to your readers.  Let them go see the original instead of pretending as though you came up with the idea yourself by re-writing their post in your own words.

There are many ways in which duplicate ideas for posts can happen by pure chance, organically.

But making it happen artificially by simply copying ideas from other bloggers without bringing anything new to the discussion is a mistake.

It won’t help you in the engines.  The original, bigger blogger already owns the spotlight there.

It won’t help you with building your readership.  Visitors will notice the similarities and the vacuum of new ideas quickly and go back to reading the other blogger.

A Key to Blog Success

One of the keys to successful blogging is turning people on to something different, new, and exciting to them.  Whether that be your delivery (because that’s the only new way to talk about a well-covered topic) or the fact that you bring something genuinely new to the topic, it is important that you consider these issues if you want to go big.

Tagged as: blogging tips, duplicate content, how to blog, pro blogging