Successful Online Blogs

Posted on October 28, 2007 - Filed Under Blogosphere News

Recently, I have a number of friends who for various reasons are considering the Internet as a means to make money, and to use it to market their existing businesses. Large scale mergers and takeovers are commonly seen in the news, and there is no longer job security for long time employees in big corporations that are constantly scaling back or streamlining their operations for quick bottom line wins. These friends of mine are all highly qualified and experienced with knowledge that could make them authorities and influencers in their industries, and in like minded communities. And then there are friends who have found very niche businesses that lack the awareness and buy-in of the general public, and who have realised that traditional advertising ROI are falling short of expectations.

Before blogging took the Internet by storm, I would have advised them put their resumes out there, enjoy an early retirement, or work on their existing clientele / physical social network to market their business via seminars, workshops, etc. That said, bloggers have found a way to “sell” their information online by acting as consultants in their field of expertise, offering free advice while rolling in the advertising dollars. Its the same concept as free TV, except that instead of mindless entertainment, they provide information that add value to and enrich the lives of their audience.

Some of the successful bloggers who have managed to make decent money online are:

Shoemoney is a classic story of someone who stumbled onto the Internet and simply followed his passion. Inspired by Apple programming, he started a site on Macintosh gaming while still in college, and it became so popular that he was earning advertising dollars even then. After school, he went to big corporations but eventually left to start a business monetizing blogs. He has not looked back since, and today he has made an online empire of sorts and even sells his personal brand of memoribilia on his blog. He has at one time earned USD$300K a month from just Google alone, and has 12,708 subscribers to his blog.

John Chow is an individual who first set up his blog when he went to Canada to update friends and family on what was happening in his life. Then he decided to experiment at monetizing his blog, and today earns over USD$20K a month from it alone. He has managed to hit the 13,000 mark for subscribers to his blog and has 13,058 loyal readers.

SEOMOZ was founded by Rand Fishkin, and consists of a group of Search Engine Optimization professionals who offer Internet Marketing and SEO consulting to companies. This is an example of a successful blog that was built to promote a business and has been so successful that they have reached a readership subscription of 19,106.

Copyblogger is a site started by Brian Clark who gives out tips to copywriting. It is a great site with great focus, and Brian obviously knows what he’s doing and gives frequent copywriting “makeovers” as examples of how to get your copy right. He encourages readers to submit their own articles as well, and today has 26,486 readers subscribed to his blog.

Problogger is another inspiring story of how Darren Rowse first started his first blog out of his love for photography and to experiment with blogging. He fell in love with blogging, and his photography tutorial site was so successful that he started a business, b5 media that owns hundreds of blogs covering different channels today, and hires writers to provide information to these blogs. He also uses it to teach others how to master the skills of blogging and to promote the blogging medium on the Internet. He has the highest number of subscribed readers in this review of 33,682.

If you have been inspired by the stories above, do remember that it takes time and hard work to make a blog work. Both Shoemoney and John Chow took about 1-2 years to build their readership base and income to what it is today, and both of them are people with IT background. More importantly, all of these people were successful in making money from their blogs because of their passion and focus. That said, if you would like to see how far you can go in blogging and have a passion for sharing what you know and adding value to the knowledge of people in online communities, don’t let the how’s and technicalities of blogging stop you. You never know where it can take you.

Don't miss any of my posts by