Are Blog Writers Selfish When They Paraphrase?

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

I recently read on a famous search engine optimization blog – yes it is one that you’d recognize (but one that I will not paraphrase for this particular blog post) – that, paraphrasing, most blog writers blogs have a selfish agenda, namely to secure business for themselves. Interesting, I thought, since the very idea of any business having a blog in the first place was for marketing purposes. Why shouldn’t blog writers and SEO experts use the same marketing strategies that we teach our clients to use?

Ironically, the same SEO blog on which this statement was made attempts to increase its business by securing customers in the same manner. Weird.

Is it selfish to do this? Is it selfish to market oneself with a blog, to communicate the principles of one’s business in hopes that one’s readers might pick up the phone and call you, ask you to perform services on their behalf? I don’t think it’s selfish. I think it’s smart. In the world of commerce, a service business performs in exchange for a tangible benefit. There’s a give and take. Marketers give of themselves in their blogs and readers give back by asking for help and patronizes those businesses that earn their trust. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?

Also, there is the factor of news. If a hot topics in an industry comes up, of course other blogs are going to paraphrase and link back to the source so the readers and audiences of that blog will learn the important news. If a blogger did not paraphrase at all, now there is no news, nothing interesting and the could provide a poor overall user experiences for that blog’s audiences.

What do you think about blog paraphrasing, is this selfish or a good blogging practice?