The finalists have been announced for the 7th Annual Weblog Awards. Note that these weblogs are definitely not lost balls. I mention this for two reasons. First, it makes good SEO sense to say something about it. Search engines loves for bloggers to link out to sites like that so consider this a little prayer to SEO heaven. Praise Google.

The second reason is these blogs make excellent resources for anyone trying to create useful blogs. You won’t find too many laptop battery niche sites in these offerings. I like to gaze upon the flawless designs. No rehashed themes in the bunch. The content is meaningful and interesting. Not spun out of Word Slicer and Dicer Pro ver. 2.

Seems like you could learn a lot from these blogs in terms of what works. Meaning, how are the ads laid out? Do they use Adsense? Where is it placed? How often are they updated? What kind of content are they contributing?

When I think of blogs I classify them into two general groups. Useful and not so useful. How do you know which is which? If you are inclined to bookmark the site and actually visit again then it passes the definition of useful. If you do not feel any movement in your mouse towards the bookmark button and your first thought is to click an Adsense ad that is front and center, then that site is most likely not useful. It’s just a penny drop.

Now, I realize there are folks building niche sites day after day and are doing quite well with it. Though I can’t really think of anything that I’d rather not do right now than re-write articles and build links. Not to say I’m not doing it, I just find it boring and mind numbing.

I’ve studied quite a few blogs over the last few weeks. I’ve noticed repeatedly that there is a lot of borrowing and linking going on. Tons of the most popular blogs simply report on the news or interesting articles written somewhere else. Boy is that time consuming to try to find interesting things to comment on. But who doesn’t like to surf and read? Anyone can do this. And it’s not like you have to write 400 words everyday.

I think if you try it you’ll find it to be much more fun and interesting than trying to build niche PLR article sites. No, you won’t have overnight success. But I promise the search engines will find you much more interesting to index.

Remember when you first started out in this racket, everyone said to build sites on what you love? You probably thought “yea that’s great but I only love so many things. The idea is to build far and wide.” So how has that worked out for you? Still updating the 30 niche sites you built since November? Yea, me either.

So go back to what you love. Blog the crap out of it and see how it works out for you. Comment on the news. Grab a product and write swell things about it, convincing others why they should buy it too. Keep it simple. Write because you want to. Because you have something to say. People will find you. People will read.

When I decided to start Lost Ball I thought I’d be happy having 10 people a month drop by. Never did I think anyone would care what I wrote. Maybe they still don’t care what I write but people keep coming back to see if I’ve got anything interesting to say. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. Some people agree with my rants. Some don’t. But it sure is fun to write what’s on my mind.

I just think you should take a look at these blogs with real content. See if they can inspire you to build a blog that you really care about. Just start one. You can still spam the web with your niche article sites to help you pick up your Adsense pennies.