Top bloggers can breathe easily in the blogosphere. Their famous blogs, after all, have reached the pinnacle of blogging success.
I would venture to guess that most bloggers would love to own a top blog. By “top,” I don’t mean a blog that is somewhat popular and known within certain circles—although millions of bloggers would hastily accept that degree of recognition.
I am referring to a blog that has mass appeal and widespread name recognition. A blog that would rank on any reasonably objective list of the top 250 most popular blogs in the world.
It might, however, be easier for some to attain top-level status within certain genres and niches, but it’s still an overall astoundingly difficult feat.
In fact, standing out from the blogger crowd is a daunting task due to the sheer number of blogs.
There are millions of individual bloggers, many of whom own more than one blog. In addition, essentially every web-savvy company, organization, and entity out there has a blog. Many corporate blogs are backed with large budgets and many resources.
And let’s face it, some bloggers are, well, just naturally better at writing, connecting, and expressing ideas and concepts in creative ways.
However, blogging is not about being better than others.
Blogging provides an opportunity for people to showcase expertise, share news and information, earn income, and connect with peers and readers.
Most importantly, however, blogging is a means of expression.
Bloggers contribute ideas, thoughts, and concepts for the world’s consumption.
I started my lifestyle blog, Suavington.com, because I wanted to write about lifestyle, cultural, and societal matters.
I am interested in the manner and method by which we live our lives. Lifestyle issues to me are those focusing on what we do and how we do things in life. As a lifestyle blog owner I try not to lose sight of what I am trying to accomplish and what I want to say.
I understand that bloggers may feel overwhelmed by the volume and vastness of the blogosphere. They may clamber to get to more illuminated levels–reaching for recognition.
Some bloggers may question whether their blogging is for naught.
Well, it’s not and here’s why.
Bloggers play a key role in feeding digital life.
Let me turn to a handy textbook from my bookshelf to help paint the analogy.
As explained in “Biology: Concepts & Connection, Sixth Edition,” by Neil A. Campbell, et al, there are two major types of life forms in the real biosphere: producers and consumers.
Plants are producers that manufacture their own food almost from nothing. On the other hand, animals are consumers that don’t make their own food; they have to eat other organisms for food.
Within the blogosphere, bloggers are producers who contribute substantially to the marketplace of ideas.
The blogger’s digital corpus, her or his blog, contains the content—nutrient-rich food—upon which “netizens” graze.
Sure, what’s delicious to one person may be somewhat tasty to others or not even palatable to others. A blog could produce succulent nectarines, earthy nuts, sweet berries, coarse grass, or the tartest of fruit.
However, in an abstract sense, the content is still information usually with some degree of sustenance.
As a blogger, along with other types of web producers, you help create digital material—threads of ideas, thoughts, and concepts—that in the aggregate constitute the fabric of our promising digital future.
But like plants, what bloggers need is light.
Even the most hardy blog species will eventually whither without some illumination in the form of feedback and recognition.
This lifestyle blog’s roots are setting, and its branches are extending upward towards the light, and it will ultimately produce the digital fruit folks will devour.
To the top of the blogosphere….
