A huge part of blogging is reading — not only mainstream media publications but blogs as well. With the blogging boom seen during the past few years, it is not always easy to decide which blogs to read and how often. And with so many people claiming to be an expert of sorts, whether the expertise is real or imagines, information from blogs can get overwhelming. Just consider the blogging tips from two high-profile blogs.

The first, written by Ryan Caldwell, was published in Performancing. He says that to earn $100 per day from Adsense, you must:

1. Pick the Right Niche: I can’t overstate this. Traffic=Money. Your niche should be capable of driving a lot of traffic.
2. Bait Like Hell: SERPS drive traffic and bait drives the SERPS.
3. Be A Freak of Nature: Get up at 3am, start working and don’t stop until 10pm. If you don’t have enough to do, then either you’re not in the right niche, you’re lazy, or you need to educate yourself on how to…
4. Build Your Footprint: Interact, interact, interact. With people and social media systems. Comment. Vote. You know the drill. Just don’t stop.
5. Target Powerful Eyeballs: You know your niche and you know the important people in your niche. Make sure they know you. And don’t stop there. Make sure Fox News knows about you too.
6. Link-Out Like A Loose Lemon: Just keep linking to other sites in your niche. They might or might not link back to you, but they can’t ignore you…12 months later…
7. 12 Months Baby, 12 Months: Work like a horse for 12 months. If you make it, you can start to relax…cuz everyone’s coming to you now.

My immediate impression was that such tips would be embraced by writers of blogs who have no original, relevant and valuable content to publish because the tips are nothing but GIMMICKS. It’s great to be able to earn off one’s blog but does that necessarily mean a blogger cannot churn out great content and earn at the same time? Trust me, it can be done. Yet, there simply isn’t anything in Caldwell’s tips that even remotely suggests that content is, first and foremost, what makes a blog valuable. In fact, the tips teach how to ignore the issue of relevance and originality and, most of all, that blogs and blogging are about information and the exchange of information. Numbers 4, 5 and 6 especially made me want to puke. It’s a litany of be-seen and just-to-be-seen gimmicks. Well, I suppose that if the only intention is to make money, the intrinsic value of a blog is irrelevant. But not all bloggers follow Caldwell’s model.

Consider one of the most popular posts from Brian Clark’s Copyblogger. On top of the list is The Law of Value which states that “Your blog must provide value to the reader by addressing a problem, concern, desire, or need that the reader already has. Fresh, original content is critical.” And if that alone does not earn respect, the fifth and last in the list, The Law of the Story, says that “Stories are the most persuasive blogging element of all, as they allow you to present a problem, the solution, and the results, all while the connotation of the story allows readers to sell themselves on what you have to offer.”

Caldwell’s tips, as far as I’m concerned, lower the intrinsic value of blogs, destroy the credibility of bloggers and insult the intelligence of readers. I’m not exactly a fan of Copyblogger but Clark’s tips are ten notches better than Caldwell’s.

I don’t think I’ve missed anything at all in not having visited Performancing for several months.