Answers to a few myths about blogging, pagerank and what not.

Lately there has been a real fuzz about Google’s recent vandetta against some of the more prominent bloggers in the world. Google penalized some of the biggest names in the business because they.. well, sold some text links.There are lots of myths going on in the world about pagerank, technorati-rank, and what not. Here are some real answers.

• A high pagerank in Google is really, really, really important. Wrong. Pagerank doesn’t matter all that much. Sure, it will help you to get included in some advertising programs (like Text-link ads), but this will change for certain in the future now that people see that Google really are just fuc**** with us. I will think that the number of RSS-subscribers will be much more important in the future in terms of advertising programs then Pagerank. I have had a pagerank 6 for a year. That didn’t bring me a huge amount of traffic. Forget pagerank. Make a better blog instead. Make a blog for your readers, not for the Search Engines.
• Getting on the Technorati top100 list bring a huge amount of traffic. Wrong. I was ranked #22 in the world according to Technorati, and was on the top100-list for a few months before Technorati removed me because all the in-links to my blog comes from my free themes which is being used by thousands of people. Technorati removes blogs like mine, which only have inlinks from themes, you know. Well, the traffic from being on the technorati top100 list was nothing to talk about. In general I could count maybe 50 (!) visits from the Technorati top100 list on a good day.
• You must have a huge amount of traffic to earn serious money on your blog. Wrong. Sure, a huge amount of traffic would help, but what is more important is what kind of traffic you got! If you got traffic that is very transparent and at the same time important to advertisers, you WILL make money. You could make lots of money just with a few hundred visits pr day. It’s all about the quality of your visitors. Let’s say you write about Apple products on your blog. The visitors on your blog would for sure be INTERESTED in Apple products, right? Well, wouldn’t Apple pay you for advertising on your blog then? When it’s all clear that you have their customers on your blog? Sure they will. And if your blog is really good, and your readers trust you when you write that the new iMac is a really good product, that would only trigger Apple further. Try getting quality-traffic, not just traffic. If all you want is traffic, you could easily manage that just be posting a few pics of naked babes. That will bring you lots of visitors, but the quality would be poor - and you won’t make a dime from it.
• Beautifully designed blogs make more money then the ugly blogs. Wrong. PerezHilton.com is one of the most ugly websites in the world. Still, he makes lots of money from advertisers. Think of BoingBoing, the biggest blog on the planet. BoingBoing have NEVER been anything to look at. Still, BoingBoing is making lots of money. What is important is that your design is EFFECTIVE. Really, if the design of your blog is ugly that doesn’t matter as long as you position you ads at the right places, and that your readers get a unique experience. Its much more important that the design of your blog is UNIQUE then beautiful.

Ok, are there other myths you know of? I’ll answer.