Disappointed With The Thirty Day Challenge
A few weeks ago, I heard about the start of the highly popular 30 day challenge program by Ed Dale and co. If you are not familiar with the 30 day challenge, Ed Dale and his colleagues try to teach you how to make money online in less than 30 days. You won’t be making a million, but the goal is to make your first 10 bucks. I thought the program started on a high. The training material about Google Reader and Twitter is great, and I still recommend you looking at them here. You simply get familiar with a few must know marketing concepts such as SEO, Web 2.0 services, and social bookmarking. So I do give the initial few days of the challenge two thumbs up.
But in the last few days, I have been disturbed by how the emphasis has become on trying to use blogging and the social media to push “waste content.” I am sure many marketers make money on the web by running automated WordPress blogs and SEOptimized Squidoo pages. But I personally don’t see any benefit in rehashing content and pushing them on to the Web just to make a quick bucks. I know Ed may have made decent money on the web, but I am not too sure he is made it with the approach he is suggesting in his videos. At the same time, rehashing content is pretty much the same as creating waste content, and that is not good for the Web. Just like with the nature, you can ruin the Web by introducing toxic wastes to it, and that’s how I feel about rehashed content.
Think about it. You go to the Web, searching for the word ‘Vintage Electric Guitar,” hoping to find a useful article on the topic. What you get is a bunch of sites that are search engine optimized but provide absolutely no value whatsoever. That’s what I call waste content. I think the program has a huge potential, and I am sure there are many of you other there who feel Ed’s approach is absolutely acceptable as long as you are making money. I personally don’t feel that way (and I have nothing against Ed as I barely know the gentleman).
The moral of story is, creating true value for your readers is a tactic that will absolutely work no matter what Google is doing with its algorithm. If you write content that others want to consume, there is a good chance that you won’t be slapped by Google. At the same time, you can develop a group of loyal readers that will come to you no matter what Google does. It really comes down to what you want to do with your online business: would you rather make a few bucks in a short time or build a long-term profitable business? I’d rather do the latter.
