PROBLOGGING: MAKING
MONEY FROM BLOGS
A weblog (or simply blog) is a website that
'publishes' or features articles (which are called 'blog
posts', 'posts', or 'entries'), written by an individual or a
group that make use of any or a combination of the following:
· Straight texts
· Photographs or images
(photoblog)
· Video (videoblog)
· Audio files
(audioblog)
· Hyperlinks
Usually presented and
arranged in reverse chronological order, blogs are essentially
used for the following purposes:
· Online journal or a
web diary
· Content managament system
· Online
publishing platform
A typical blog has the following
components:
· Post date -the date and time of the blog
entry
· Category - the category that the blog belongs
to
· Title - the title of the blog
· Main body
- the main content of the blog
· RSS and trackback -
links the blog back from other sites
· Comments -
commentaries that are added by readers
· Permalinks -
the URL of the full article
· Other optional items -
calendar, archives, blogrolls, and add-ons or plug-ins
A blog can also have a footer, usually found at the
bottom of the blog, that shows the post date, the author, the
category, and the 'stats' (the nubmer of comments or
trackbacks).
There are numerous types of blogs. Some
of them are the following:
1. Political blog - on
news, politics, activism, and other issue based blogs (such as
campaigning).
2. Personal blog - also known as online
diary that may include an individual's day-to-day experience,
complaints, poems, and illicit thoughts, and communications
between friends.
3. Topical blog - with focus either
on a particular niche (function or position) that is usually
technical in nature or a local information.
4. Health
blog - on specific health issues. Medical blog is a major
category of health blog that features medical news from health
care professionals and/or actual patient cases.
5.
Literary blog - also known as litblog.
6. Travel blog
- with focus on a traveler's stories on a particular journey.
7. Research blog - on academic issues such as research
notes.
8. Legal blog - on law (technical areas) and
legal affairs; also known as 'blawgs'.
9. Media blog -
focus on falsehoods or inconsistencies in mass media; usually
exclusive for a newspaper or a television network.
10.
Religious blog - on religious topics
11. Educational
blog - on educational applications, usually written by
students and teachers.
12. Collaborative or collective
blog - a specific topic written by a group of people.
13. Directory blog - contains a collection of numerous
web sites.
14. Business blog - used by entrepreneurs
and corporate employees to promote their businesses or talk
about their work.
15. Personification blog - focus on
non-human being or objects (such as dogs).
16. Spam
blogs - used for promoting affiliated websites; also known as
'splogs'.
Blogging is typically done on a regular
(almost daily) basis. The term "blogging" refers to the act of
authoring, maintaining, or adding an article to an existing
blog, while the term "blogger" refers to a person or a group
who keeps a blog.
Today, more than 3 million blogs can
be found in the Internet. This figure is continuously growing,
as the availability of various blog software, tools, and other
applications make it easier for just about anyone to update or
maintain the blog (even those with little or no technical
background). Because of this trend, bloggers can now be
categorized into 4 main types:
· Personal bloggers -
people who focus on a diary or on any topic that an individual
feels strongly about.
· Business bloggers - people who
focus on promoting products and services.
·
Organizational bloggers - people who focus on internal or
external communication in an organization or a community.
· Professional bloggers - people who are hired or paid
to do blogging.
Problogging (professional blogging)
refers to blogging for a profit. Probloggers (professional
bloggers) are people who make money from blogging (as an
individual blog publisher or a hired blogger).
Below
are just some of the many money-making opportunities for
probloggers:
· Advertising programs
· RSS
advertising
· Sponsorship
· Affiliate Programs
·
Digital assets
· Blog network writing gigs
· Business
blog writing gigs
· Non blogging writing gigs
·
Donations
· Flipping blogs
· Merchandising
·
Consulting and speaking
The following are a few things
that you need to consider if you want to be successful in
problogging:
1. Be patient. Problogging requires a lot
of time and effort, not to mention a long-term vision.
2. Know your audience. Targeting a specific audience
or group is a key to building a readership.
3. Be an
'expert'. Focus on a specific niche topic and strive to be the
"go-to" blogger on that topic.
4. Diversify.
Experiment with various add and affiliate programs that enable
you to make money online (aside from blogging).
5. Do
not bore your readers. Focus on the layout. White spaces, line
spacings, and bigger fonts make a blog welcoming to read.
Certainly, it is possible to earn money from blogs.
One just needs to take risks, the passion, and the right
attitude in order to be a successful problogger.
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