Have you ever heard the saying, that when you bad-mouth a competitor, it actually makes you look bad and not them? Well, the same holds true when you decide to invest your time attacking competitors online.
It seems a popular way to gain traffic to YOUR blog, is to attack the top bloggers in your niche. If you piss them off, they may mention you, putting you on their readers / followers radar. If your attack is nasty enough, they may even blog about what you said. This might gain the attacker a short-term traffic spike, but at what cost? I honestly don’t think these people realise just how bitter it makes them look, to try and destroy a competitors credibility or dent the business, which their victim uses to put a roof over their family’s head, just for traffic.
Yes, if you identify that someone is making what you believe to be a mistake, it’s good to let that person know. A while back, Yael Rozencwajg from Yopps.com noticed an error with the way my blog’s email RSS was working, so she emailed me to let me know. She didn’t write a blog post to say what an idiot I was for missing the error or what a smart-ass she was for spotting it. That’s because her intention was purely to help me, rather than attack me in order to get a response that she could convert into traffic.
The law of return
As a person of faith, I have a great deal of respect for the world’s Holy books. In each of those I have studied, there is a belief that we tend to reap what we sow. This is something professional development experts refer to as the law of return. It works on the sound premise, that we tend to get back whatever we put out there.
Negative seeds (actions) produce a negative harvest (results) and positive seeds produce a positive harvest. For example, Yael’s kindness in taking the time to offer me some help, has just resulted in her being highlighted to my readership, in an extremely positive way.
Of course, the negative feelings we have about those who bad-mouth their competitors, are formed by that same law of return. Their attacks tend to damage themselves, rather than their intended victims.
I sometimes see people offering poor or misleading marketing advice. In each case, I write a blog post to ensure my readers avoid making mistakes by following that kind of bad advice. However, I do this without calling out the person. This means my message gets out, is seen in a 100% positive light and is actually more likely to be acted on. If I ever woke up feeling like I needed to attack Seth Godin or Jay Abraham, in order to gain readers, I would like to think I would recognise it as a sign that I ACTUALLY needed to work harder on MY OWN business.
Yes, you can gain traffic by attacking your more successful or better known competitors, but who needs to attract that kind of reputation?
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