This is a guest contribution from Jade Craven.
The blogosphere has changed so much over the past decade. I curated Bloggers To Watch column here on Problogger for four years and it is phenomenal how much has changed since I wrote my last post in 2012.
In that time, popular bloggers have pivoted multiple times. Social platforms have risen and fallen. It is a fascinating time. So fascinating that I asked to compile another list of bloggers that haven appeared on my radar.
This post features bloggers who have gotten my attention over the past year. It doesn’t reflect the top bloggers online. Rather, it’s a list of bloggers that have sparked my interest and is heavily biased towards the marketing niche.
Sol Orwell
Sol Orwell is someone that has gotten a lot of attention in the entrepreneurship space over the past 2 years. To quote from Smart Passive Income:
Sol’s built his career across a dizzying number of spaces. He’s a master at building authority in a niche, identifying community pain points, and crafting businesses that meet those urgent needs
His latest project, Examine.Com, garners around 70,000 visitors a day and is a seven-figure business. Normally, such figures would put me off recommending him. However, his work stands out and he can teach you a lot about networking and selling products. His post about How I made my guest post a massive success [CASE STUDY] blew me away when I first read it.
It is refreshing because his work doesn’t repeat the passive income rhetoric. If anything, he rebels against many of the common themes in the marketing niche. To quote from his about page:
Having a one-time launch of $50,000 does not make you a guru, nor does making $2k/mo from your websites make you a passive income genius, nor does getting 2000 visitors a day to your site make you some kind of traffic genius.
You can learn more by checking out his blog at SJO.com
Ryan Holiday
Ryan Holiday is a writer and media strategist. I initially discovered him via his first book Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator, where he shows how blogs control and distort the news. As a blogger, I found it useful to learn how I was being manipulated.
He’s written extensively about his business experiences. The following posts have helped me immensely:
- From Zero to 35,000: How I Built A Big Email List Exclusively About Books I Liked
- How I Did Research For 3 New York Times Bestselling Authors (In My Spare Time)
- Behind The Book Campaign: How to Sell 30,000 Copies in Six Weeks
- The Notecard System: The Key For Remembering, Organising And Using Everything You Read
Lately, his work has focused on what we can learn from philosophy. I believe everyone can learn from the principles of Stoicism, which he explores at Daily Stoic.
You can learn more by visiting his blog at RyanHoliday.net
Emilie Wapnick
Emilie Wapnick wowed attendees of the 2106 Problogger Event with her talk about bringing multiple passions/interests into one blog. In 2015, she gave her TEDx presentation about why some of us don’t have one true calling. I believe that was her reaching her tipping point. Since then, interest in her work has exploded. The release of her book, How To Be Everything, this year will spread that even further.
You can check out her top resources for multipotentialites at her Start Here page.
Ramit Sethi
Ramit Sethi is a New York Times bestselling author and founder of iwillteachyoutoberich.com. Over 1,000,000 people read his material to learn how to use psychology and systems to live a Rich Life. His work has helped me change my relationship with money.
His work has been featured here in the past via two guest posts by Michael Alexis.
- Ramit Sethi: I Will Teach You To Monetize (In 6 Steps)
- Ramit Sethi Exposed: How He Earns Millions Blogging
His blog posts are brilliant but I also love it when he is interviewed. Here are a few of my favourites:
- How Creatives Should Negotiate via Tim Ferris
- How Ramit Sethi Launched a Product That Generated $5m in a Week via The Hustle
- Why The Loooooong Sales Letter Works And Other Surprising Sales Hacks via Mixergy
Now, he’s helping his readers create a low-risk and automated online business at his new site, Growth Lab. I highly recommend following it.
Sujan Patel
Sujan Patel is a leading expert in digital marketing. He is the co-founder of WebProfits, a growth marketing agency, and is a partner in many software companies.
It is so easy to be intimidated by Sujan’s experience and breadth of knowledge, especially if you are at the start of his blogging career. Don’t be. He is a prolific writer and content curator and shares so many useful resources via his Twitter account. He contributes regularly to Forbes, Wall Street Journal, and Inc.
Some of my favourite posts include:
- 10 Brainstorming Exercises to Generate 100 New Blog Post Ideas
- How to Validate Demand for Content Before Creating It
- How to Secure Guest Posts on Big Publications (WSJ, Forbes & HuffPo)
Find out SujanPatel.com
Neil Fahey
Neil Fahey is one of my favourite Australian bloggers. He created Bushwalking Blog in 2008 to provide detailed reports of his hikes. In 2011 he expanded the scope of Bushwalking Blog to cover all things hiking, from how-tos and trip reports to news, outdoors photography, safety, and gear reviews.
What I find fascinating is how he leveraged his growing popularity in the outdoor niche into other online businesses. In 2013, he launched a hire service for personal locator beacons – a product that many hikers need but can’t afford to purchase outright. Later, he created an online booking site for nature-based walking tours at AussieHikingTours.com.
So many bloggers look at traditional methods of monetization such as advertising, affiliate income and developing online products. Neil has taken a different approach to meet the needs of his audience. I think we can learn a lot from his experience.
Alexis Grant
I featured Alexis as one of the 20 Bloggers to Watch in 2012 describing her as a “publishing powerhouse.” Well – I was right! She has blown me away with the work she has done since then.
Mid 2013, she launched her new blog The Write Life. She shares more about the behind the scenes development of this site in the bottom half of the websites about page. The site has since become one of the premiere destinations on the web for writers.
In 2015, her content marketing company was acquired by Taylor Media, the company behind the popular The Penny Hoarder blog. She became the Executive Editor, running the editorial side of the company. In 2016, the site was named the #1 fastest-growing private media company by Inc. 500.
I believe she will be accomplishing great things in the coming year, and beyond. You can follow her journey at AlexisGrant.com
Over To You
What bloggers are you watching in 2017? Any trends piquing your interest? Please share in the comments.
Great list.
My favorite bloggers are: Ramit, Sujan, Ryan Holiday – all of them are included here and I miss Neil Patel and Derek Halpern.
The list mainly contains the super powerful bloggers who are creating some great content for the community and they are making $$$$ from their sites.
Great compilation.
Hi Jade,
I am watching myself….j/k LOL ;)
Love this list and love Sol’s message. Now if you have 20 minutes….here’s why:
I blog from paradise. That is my life. I blog from places like Thailand and Fiji and Bali for months at a time. I have retired to a life of island hopping. Through smart blogging. I teach folks to do the same. Sweet. That is my sell, my benefit, my promise. It is a tangible dream but no figures latch on to it. No traffic stats or income stats or email list size. I never cared about the stats. Here’s an income claim; I just made $2.78 through Amazon. Sold another eBook. Super duper :)
Seriously though; no number makes you an expert or authority and even though I make boasts like other bloggers sometimes, because I do things from ego/mind sometimes, I realize that if you can help someone in any way, shape or form, you are an expert. An authority. Seriously. Tough idea to get because folks seem to PERCEIVE experts as having attained some status or lived their dreams, but some of the best advice I ever received was from struggling bloggers or miserable bloggers, or failing bloggers.
NOT because they showed me what not to do, but because they showed me where I could help folks, how I could better serve, how I could be more generous and how I could live my dreams. You may or probably never will hear of these experts, but goodness, they changed my life’s path in a miraculous way. They had no big email list. They had little profits. Supposed nobodies. But they gave me advice that helped me get on Richard Branson’s blog, helped me land on Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Huffington Post, Fox News, Pro Blogger, Blogging Tips, Neil Patel’s blog, John Chow’s blog, I freaking spoke at NYU (what non dignitary speaks at NYU????) and all those places where many of the folks on this list have not even appeared.
I say that not to brag, but to show you that you can reach stations in life that few reach by humbling yourself, by not caring much about status or money or fame, and by seeing blogging authorities in folks who either offer amazing advice to change your blogging trajectory, or who gift you with the pain points you neglected to hit on, that help you compassionately connect with your audience, which helps your star shine and which helps you help more folks.
This is why Sol’s advice vibes with me, big time.
3 years ago I struggled online. I actually earned a full time income but lost the passion, the fire. I released an eBook called The Blogging Manifesto. Felt inspired to release it. 4 months after the release, I sold 4 copies. 1 copy a month. I was crushed. I braced myself and asked for feedback on the title of the eBook on Facebook. One of my friends said it sounded boring, why not something like “How to Retire to a Life of Travel and Make 100K” or something like that.
In that moment my life changed. I trashed my old make money online blog, built a blog and brand named “Blogging From Paradise”, bought that domain fast (thank goodness it was available) and added a tagline: How to Retire to a Life of Island Hopping through Smart Blogging
The IMer who gave me the advice was not Frank Kern but he was the greatest authority/expert/pro I ever came across because he was one of the guys – along with the help of gracious, pro bloggers like Donna Merrill, Lisa Sicard, David Boozer, Matthew Loomis, Adrienne Smith and Don Purdum – these are the very folks that helped me build and elevate a brand that helped me land on Richard Branson’s blog.
My IM Facebook buddy gave me an idea seed that helped me speak at NYU. It is crazy, how much a 2 second Facebook comment changed my life but it was because I was incredibly open to the moment, to the feedback and to the fact that his expertise, his knowledge and his authority did not come associated with a well known name, but a dude who could see clearly and guide me on my current path, said path taking me places online and offline I could never dream of.
I have no idea how much he made in IM in the past year. Or I have no clue how big his list is. But he is and will be the greatest authority I ever come across online because he pointed me in a direction I never envisioned I’d travel, if left to my own devices.
Thanks for sharing this list of pros, Jade. Good to see you around. It’s been a minute.
Signing off from Thailand.
Ryan
That was inspiring! Openness is key otherwise no one would have noticed that you were struggling with a bad idea.
Paul Jarvis (entrepreneur and web designer) – https://pjrvs.com/
His blogging strategy is kind different. If you want to be the first who can read his new blog post I recommend you to sing up to his newsletter, because he is sending a weekly article about topics like creativity, entrepreneurship and marketing. But he also publish his articles on his personal blog!
Aaron Orendorff – http://iconicontent.com/
I learned a lot from Aaron when it comes about guest posting. He post regularly on Mashable, Entrepreneur, Inc and other top publication. If you want to level up your guest post game, check him out.
Can vouch both are awesome.
In fact, I found Paul Jarvis through Jayden (writer of this article).
Aaaand I meant Jade, not Jayden. Sigh
Aaron is a rock star Robert. Super add.
Ryan
Hi Jade,
I have just started blogging and read a lot of different bloggers who are bigger than me. I love reading Pat Flynn’s blog, it’s extremely motivating and inspirational.
I love Ramit Sethi’s blog is awesome as well. I really don’t spend my time reading a lot of bloggers blogs. I just know who I like and I follow their blogs and podcasts.
I’ll definitely have to check out some of the other bloggers that you mention on this post.
Thanks for sharing and I hope you have a great day :)
Susan
I daily go through Brian’s Backlinko & Neil Patel’s Blog.
Thanks for suggesting.. iwillteachyoutoberich Blog.
I like the way some bloggers write and represent their content and inspired me to write a blog.
Great list!
I already knew some of them, but is great to add the others to my reading list :)
Thanks for sharing.
Brian’s Backlinko & MOZ whiteboard Friday are the best blog i like. Thanks for sharing bloggers to watch list and I hope you have a great day :)
Great list.
My favorite bloggers are: Ramit Sethi also i am following Neil Patel missed him here in this list. Couple of days ago i got to know about Ramit Sethi and read his blog since then i have started following him, He’s Growth Lab and I Will Teach You To Be Rich are great source for beginners who wants to make money online.
Also Love reading Ramsay’s Blog BlogTyrant
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for this awesome post jade. By the way Sujan Patel’s How to Validate Demand for Content Before Creating It is my favourite too.
Blogsphere is getting crowded these days and most of the blogs are mediocre in nature. They are just out there to make money. But you have listed some amazing bloggers who are making a real difference. Kudos to you and your effort!
It is always good to have a list, I generally follow all of them. They and their work, both are inspirational. Thanks for sharing this.
Hey,
Great List !
They have written amazing post on their blogs.
Started reading important posts of all the blogger.
Thanks !
Nice List Jade. This List is full of pro bloggers. I personally like Ramit Sethi. His articles are very good & interesting to read. As most said, you may have included Neil Patel’s Quicksprout blog & Brian’s Backlinko in the list. Their articles & tips are also amazing.
Anyways Thanks for the share.
Really a great list of bloggers! My favorite bloggers is Ryan Holiday. You should include Brian Dean and Neil Patel here.
Hey Jade,
I have known Sol, Ryan, and Sujan for quite a time know. They have provided some informative guides to their readers.
I like how Sujan tries to show their readers about the growth hacking through his videos. Video marketing is one his best forte.
Their journey from zero to thousands of visitors per day can teach many people.
It’s all about inspiration and how you manage to keep that spark alive.
Thanks for the list.
I am sure, people are gonna get some inspiration.
~Ravi
amazing list!
They all have written very amazing posts of their blogs. I think you must include Neil Patel in this list.
Going to read posts on the weekly basis.
Great list here. My personal favorite is Brian from backlinko.
I love Sol and Ramit! I had to talk to them for a piece I wrote for New York Times – great guys.
Sujan Patel is really an awesome guy.
Great list. I’d also include Brian Dean of Backlinko.
Ramit has been around for a long time – he can be a bit curt when getting points across, but he’s right most of the time!
Awesome list of references. Thanks for the article list.
Been focusing on Jeff Goins (goinswriter.com) and Michelle Schroeder-Gardner (makingsenseofcents.com) recently. Still enjoy the less crazy ramblings of James Altucher and every single word ever written by Seth Godin.
Thanks for sharing the list of bloggers, its always great to hear from the experts.
Really a great list of bloggers!I am currently researching on Blog Commenting sites related to my blog niche , Your Article is helpful , Thanks for sharing a list of Do Follow Blogs.