Calvin’s Hub

So you’ve been blogging for quite some time now and you think you can grasp the ins and outs of creating a successful blog. Are you ready to quit your day job and go pro with this “blogging” thing? I’m not. But if you are, which path would you choose?

Over the past couple of years I’ve been blogging, I realized that there are two kinds of full-time bloggers. Two distinct styles to make your blog earn for you. One is noble, the other one less noble (but not necessarily illegal). Like the duality in the Star Wars universe but they do not complement nor oppose each other. Just co-exist.

So which path are you going to take?

The True Blogger

Here’s a person who blogs with passion. He treats his blog as his own baby, not wanting its image to be tainted nor compromise its integrity for the sake of easy money. He writes to inform, to share and to inspire and to voice out his thoughts and opinions without malice.

It’s not that easy to gain followers and be successful but once you get the ball rolling it is highly rewarding. And it will only lead to bigger things.

PROS: He earns respect from “netizens” and other bloggers which in turn, indirectly fuel his blog’s success. Visitors leads to advertisers which leads to income and with success comes more opportunity to make a difference in his chosen niche. Consulting offers, talks at seminars, and fame usually follow. Lots of perks actually!

CONS: It’s hard to gain ground. It’s easy to give up. It takes time (years usually) to be successful as a true blogger.

INCOME: $2000 / month is easy once you start having direct advertisers and it can go up to $5000 / month. Not to mention income from side jobs generated by your success.

The income rate here is in the Philippines. Advertising rates (including Google AdSense) differ based on the locality of your blog’s audience.

The SEO Blogger

Here’s a person who blogs just for the sake of earning money. Nothing really wrong with that. He manipulates and maximizes the potential one can earn from different online ad networks (Google, TLA, etc.) to the point that his blog doesn’t resemble anything that he stands for anymore.

One day he will be posting about UFC fights, the next day it’s about Gossip Girl then Naruto then NFL or even lottery tickets. Anything just to gain tons of hits from Google. He writes about the hottest topics out there even though he has no real interest on it.

He creates multiple blogs (splogs actually) with automated instructions to pull content from different sites while earning money from it. Blogspot is the biggest enabler of SEO Bloggers.

PROS: It’s easy once you get to understand how SEO works (which is not that difficult). You don’t need creative juices to write a successful post, just hard, boring work. It is addicting once you start earning $100 a day.

CONS: Burning out is a big possibility. You need to manage your blogs regularly to be on top of Google’s list. Once you stop even for a week, you will feel the difference in your income. You won’t have any real and lasting community. Google WILL penalize you eventually which will hurt.

INCOME: $1000 / month is normal. It can go up easily depending on how diligent you are in scraping content from other sites or how many blogs/splogs you own.

Conclusion

These are the two major distinction on how you can earn money online with your blog. It’s not easy to go pro in blogging unless you want to take the less noble but  more travelled road which is being an SEO blogger. In fact, I used to try being one for a really short time but it’s just not for me.

I don’t have anything really about SEO bloggers. Income is income. I just don’t like it when they are classified as real blogs when all you see are TV shows, or diverse breaking news which will point you to their other sites which will eventually ask you to answer a survey before viewing the content. That’s just too low for me.

My suggestion? Stick to becoming a hobby or part-time blogger like me. =P

You might also want to read my post about The 3 C’s of a Successful Blog.

Thanks Abe for some of the insights on this thing.

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Filed under: Blogging Experience, Think About It