Problogging: Making Profit from Blogs Starts Now

Problogging: Making Profit from Blogs Starts Now

A Blog is an online page or site that keeps and publish literature that uses any or a combination of the following:
–  Text Content or Straight texts
–  Photos or images (photoblog)
–  Videos (videoblog)
–  Audio composition (audioblog)
–  Hyperlinks

Blogs are usually presented in chronological order and are created for different reasons including:
–  Online Diary or personal journal
–  Keeping or managing content of knowledge or opinion
–  Publishing personal literature

Typically a blog contains the following fields for easy management:

–  Date of Posting – the date and time the blog was published
–  Category – the group a blog is classified on
–  Title – the subject title of the blog
–  Body – the main text or content of the blog
–  Comments – where readers place or post comments and queries
–  Permalinks – the online address or URL of the blog
–  RSS and trackback – links that connect the blog to other blogs or sites
–  Other optional items – features like archives, blog rolls, calendar, and page add-ons or plug-ins
–  Footnote – just like with regular literature this feature is available online to place text at the bottom of the blog and is often used to show the post creation date, name of the author, the category, and a summary of total comments or trackbacks.

There are various types of blogs that cover multitudes of topics in a specific field or category. These are some examples:

1. Personal blog – is the most common type and serves like an online journal or diary. It documents the bloggers personal experiences, thoughts, emotions and communication with friends.
2. Topical blog – usually covers technical or local niches and carries these singular theme in its content
3. Literary blog – also called a “litblog”. It can contain fiction, poems, quotes and other forms of creative literature. The most common are fanfiction blogs where bloggers create a “cover” of existing literature, movies and animation.
4. Travel blog – covers the journey in a blogger’s in his travels. Often kept by backpackers and is often used as reference by other experienced or first time travelers.
5. Political blog – as its name suggests it tackles political views and points, news and activism and campaigns.
6. Medical or Health blog – medical professionals have recently made their knowledge and services available through this type of blog. It includes articles on diseases: diagnosis, treatment and general information and it can also cover information about fitness and general health.
7. Educational blog – usually used by professors and students to keep lessons and research projects.
8. Personification blog – usually covers animals, insects and non-human life forms.
9. Research blog – contains academic articles and research
10. Religious blog – covers religious articles and information
11. Legal blog –also called “blawgs”, these cover case samples, stories and technical legal information
12. Media blog – are usually exclusives from news network or newspaper. They often contain exposes or falsehoods reported.
13. Business blog – a professional use of a blog used by businesses and entrepreneurs to market their products and services or support their corporate branding.
14. Collective or Collaborative blog – a specific topic written by a group of people.
15. Directory blog – a directory of different websites
16. Spam blogs – called “splogs”, as the name implies are just spam ads to direct people to other sites.

Blog entries are typically posted on a regular basis. The term “blogging” is the act of creating content, maintaining readership and engaging a community of readers, meanwhile, a “blogger” is the person or member who authors and keeps the blog

Currently, approximately over 3.5 million blogs are accessible in Internet. This number continues to grow because of the innovation and availability of tools that support blogging making it easier for experienced and new bloggers to start and maintain their blogs.  Bloggers are classified into 4 main categories:

–  Personal bloggers – the most common type who keeps personal blogs.
–  Business bloggers – usually entrepreneurs who utilize blogs to sell space for ads or market their products or services
–  Organizational bloggers – people who utilize blogs for communication with organized groups or religion
–  Professional bloggers – people who are employed or paid to blog also called Probloggers. They are engaged in what is called Problogging or Professional blogging.

Probloggers take advantage of these many money-making prospects for blogging and many more:
–  Sponsorship
–  Blog collaboration writing gigs
–  Reader Donations
–  Flip blogs
–  RSS ads
–  Advertising campaigns
–  Affiliate Programs
–  Digital support
–  Business writing gigs
–  Article or non-blogging writing gigs
–  Sales for Merchandise
–  Consultation and Speech writing

Here are some tips that help probloggers become successful:

1. Patience. The returns for problogging do not come immediately. It takes time and effort with a long term vision
2. Understand and target your audience. This allows you to reach and keep a good readership.
3. Focus on or build expertise. Focus on a topic that can lead your blog to be the go-to place for information and learning.
4. Apply diversity and explore affiliate campaigns or programs that can provide profit.
5. Keep it interesting and readable. Your layout considering line spacing, background and space, and font size should make it easier to read.

There are truly a lot of possibilities to earn from blogging. If you have the passion, patience and skill, this could prove to be worth the time and effort.