I have posted this article in the blogging section, but I assume it’s as valuable as advice for anything we do online (even in real life). I see way too many people try to mimic others, copy sites, copy articles, take an idea and use it too, just because they think their copycat site would be as successful as the original.

We talk about the car on the John Chow blog, even if this is just an example: we can refer here to many things, not just stealing a famous header idea. So the guy makes lots of bucks. OK, let’s find a prototype car, the most UFO like the better, put it in the header and see what else we can take.

Does ProBlogger have a new skin now? Cool, there’s the old one he used, let’s use it too and make the blog as similar as possible. Does someone have a nice brand? Nice, let’s see if we can mimic this too.

I assume you can consider yourself to be someone when another webmaster steals something for you. Even if my ego would be “pleased” with this, I am still getting angry seeing that people lack any creativity and just like to borrow from others.

Why shouldn’t you copy anyone and be yourself?

• YOU ARE JUST A COPY - if you think anyone will recognize you as “someone” then you are wrong. The moment you copy someone that much you’ll just be “the one who’s copying John Chow”, or any other site.
• IF THEY ARE SO WELL KNOWN, IMAGINE SOMETHING WAS UNIQUE - people tend to not remember too many similar things, but recognize uniqueness as soon as they see it. JC is that guy with the weird car and the make money online blog. He’s also got a hard to forget face and when I think JC I already have his imagine before my eyes. If you copy him, I’ll first have his image and then think “ah, wait, isn’t this that guy who’s trying to be JC?” Do you really want to be a wannabie?
• A COPY IS ALWAYS WORSE THAN THE ORIGINAL - I know you dream of being the biggest earner online, the best human on earth, but by copying someone like this you are just being a “copy”. If someone is that big as to be widely recognized, I assume there’s also a lot of value. No matter what we comment on his blog or even person (never met the guy, anyway, would be pleased to shake his hand though), John Chow (got him as my example now) is well known and respected. Maybe for the charisma or the fact he’s making the money we’d like to make too, fact is there are no 2 John Chows. And if you’d like to be that second one, believe me we’d laugh.
• YOU ARE DESTROYING YOUR OWN CHANCE OF BEING UNIQUE. I have 6 years of working on my sites. Some are small ‘brands” themselves. No, I am not known as others, but I am known for me. I still have people telling me “oh, I know you from there” or “oh, you’re the one who’s created x site? How could I forget it?” Even if our small brands are not Nike or Coca Cola, we do have a chance to be someone else, unique and why not recognizable.

So, before you look for that car to put on your forum header or anything that would mimic another project, try to see what makes that project good (content, promotion, brand etc.), try to find an alternative and improve on what you already know might work. No one said you shouldn’t open a webmaster forum or a make money online blog, even if we are kinda tired of them. As long as you have the talent, imagination, focus and passion maybe next year we’ll talk about you. Who knows, maybe in few years others will put on their blogs your unique image or my Japanese castle. As long as we do try to be SOMEONE on our own, it might happen

Filed under: Blogging by ramona