Big Buck Bloggers

Blog, blog, blog. Every thing you read, everywhere you turn you hear about blogs. Despite many thousand blogs populating the Internet there’s a pretty good chance you’ve never even seen a blog or been into the blogosphere. In this article series I’ll teach you what a blog is, how they work, who the big buck bloggers are (triple b’s), and how to start your own blog. Ready? Let’s go. Blogs Unlike web sites, which have many pages, blogs have only a single page or main page. Each entry or post is a text blurb that may contain links back to other sites, news stories, Podcast, whatever. When a new entry is added it goes to the top pushing all the other entries down the list. Blogs typically have a side bar which contain permanent links that the author can update weekly or monthly. Basically a blog is an online journal or diary that you can use to quickly post thoughts, interact with people, and more. It contains information that the author finds of particular interest. Blogs don’t have to necessarily be about a single subject. Blogs that don’t focus on a particular subject are known as ‘Free Form Blogs’. For example you could start a blog and post anything you come across each day of interest. It could contain images, web links, Podcast, video’s, etc. The blog would serve as an online memory or scrapbook for whatever snippet of information you want to remember. A blog can be anything the author desires it to be. One thing all blogs have in common is entries are read in reverse-chronological order. Blogs grow when other people also find the authors post interesting and they begin to post on that blog. People who regularly post to a blog are known as a community. Big Buck Bloggers Some bloggers start their sites intending to make big profits. But most bloggers started their sites because they found the topic of discussion interesting. Here’s a quick look at three big buck bloggers. BoingBoing boingboing.net BoingBoing, a “directory of wonderful things”, always ranks high in Technorati as one of the most favorite sites. But to be honest I’m not sure why. I visited the site and could not really understand what the wonderful things were about. Regardless of my lack of understanding for what’s going on with this blog Business Week reports BoingBoing is raking in $1 million a year. Now that’s a wonderful thing. I Can Has Cheezburger? icanhascheezburger.com This blog launched in January 2007 simply consist of photos of cats and even ridiculous captions. Although this blog was launched by accident it gets close to a million page views a day. It’s reportedly earning more than $5,000 monthly for owner Eric Nakagawa. Go Fug Yourself gofugyourself.com This blog, devoted to ridiculing celebrity fashion, made enough money ($6,240/month) through ad sales that its two authors, Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, quit their television industry jobs so they could mock full-time. These two young ladies apply a really complicated money making formula: They take celebrity photos from a wire service, add some funky comments about the getups, and click publish. The result according to Businessweek Online some 3.5 million unique visitors a month, a book coming out in February, and two full-time jobs. All the ads are sold through Blogads. One week of a bare-bones text ad starts at $60, and deluxe banners top $3,000. Cocks says what started as a goofy joke between friends three years ago has become a successful company: Suddenly our inside joke was turning into a business, and it caught us completely by surprise. To learn how to start your own blog read the next article in this series Blogging for Bucks. Rodney Goldston is an Entrepreneur, and Sales and Marketing expert with more than a decade of experience. He is the owner of the internet marketing website AskBigPapa.com which provides expert advice and support for entrepreneurs and small business. Do you need help growing your business? Do you need to drive more traffic to your web site? Rodney can be contacted via either of his web sites AskBigPapa.com or RodneyGoldston.com