PB122: Should You Blog Anonymously or Use Your Real Name?

Darren: Hi there, my name is Darren Rowse and I’d like to welcome you to Episode 122 of the ProBlogger Podcast where today, I want to talk about using your name on your blog or whether you should blog anonymously. Often people sidle up to me at a conference and quietly introduce themselves and say, “I blog anonymously. Should I?” Or, “I’m about to start blogging and I’m not sure whether to use my real name.”

Often these conversations happen in the corner of rooms and people don’t really want to be seen having them for obvious reasons, they want to remain anonymous and sometimes they don’t even tell me their real name. Today, I want to tackle this particular issue because I think there are some different advantages of using your name and different advantages of being anonymous. 

I want to talk a little bit about some of the different options that you have open to you that maybe are in between the two of either blogging anonymously or really promoting your name. You can find today’s show notes where I do have some further reading today at problogger.com/podcast/122, you can also subscribe there to get an email every time we update this podcast. I know some of you subscribe on iTunes and that’s a great way to get notified but we also send out an email to those of you who wish to do that and you can find that subscription option on today’s show notes. Again, at problogger.com/podcast/122 . Let’s get into today’s show. 

One of the choices that bloggers face when they are starting a blog is whether they use their own name and most bloggers at least ponder this. I suspect most bloggers just go on to use their name straight away. But for some bloggers in different circumstances, it’s a really tough choice, and one that people really do grapple with. To what extent they should use their name as well is another thing that people will be pondering, and there are a range of options open to bloggers.

At one end of the spectrum, you can blog under your own personal name, you can promote your name very prominently all over your blog. I guess the most extreme version is you may actually choose to use your name as the domain name and that’s probably a topic for another day. We will tackle that one at some point, but that I guess, obviously, is where you reveal who you are. 

A good example of a blog where the blogger uses their own name quite extensively on their blog is ProBlogger. Right from day one of ProBlogger, I revealed my name is Darren Rowse. I had my photo in my sidebar from day one and was very upfront about who I am. In fact, sometimes I look at my blog and think it’s a little bit too Darren-y, but it has become a very personal brand, I guess. That’s one extreme that you might like to use. 

That’s not the only way to use your name on your blog, obviously that blog is very Darren-y, ProBlogger is associated with Darren and that’s really what I’m trying to build there. But at Digital Photography School, my other blog, I still blog under my own name but I don’t really promote myself. This is the second option. 

You don’t hide your name. You don’t hide who you are, but you don’t really make the vlog about you, you don’t really promote your name. If you go to Digital Photography School, you’ll see every blogpost that I’ve written as a By line with my name on it. I think the About page has my name on it somewhere or at least it did when I started out. But there’s no real pictures of me on the sidebar. The blog is not really a Darren type blog. It’s not a personal brand whatsoever, but I’m not hiding my identity there. People can find it if they want. 

I’ll talk a little bit more about this in a bit, but really, the idea there is the content itself becomes the thing that people come for. It’s Digital Photography School, it’s not Darren’s blog. There’s another brand there that we are promoting. That might be another option that you want to consider. 

I’m going to give you some reasons why you might want to do that instead of making your blog a real personal brand in a moment. Another option, a little further along the spectrum is to blog under an alias or just part of your name and promote that. 

A couple of examples of this in the early days of ProBlogger, we had a writer who used to write fairly anonymously as Skellie as she used another name, someone else’s name that she just made up that is not her real name and her blog was under the same name. It was an anonymous blog, you might say. A little less anonymous is an Aussie blogger here in Australia who blogs as Mrs. Woog. She blogs at WoogsWorld. I will link to that in today’s show notes and she blogged there are Mrs. Woog for many years.

I think from memory, Woog, was her husband’s surname so she blogged as that. I have a vague recollection that she did come out and reveal her name back in 2010, although I’m not sure whether that’s public or not so I won’t actually reveal her real name, but she used that alias for many years but still used her photo on the blog.

This was a step between being fully anonymous where you don’t reveal anything about yourself. You don’t show your face, you don’t show a video. She does have a video. She does have her face on her blog as well. 

There’s some element of privacy there because originally, she didn’t reveal who her name was but she showed herself and alternative to this might even be using a maiden name or a married name if you have used your maiden name in a professional context as well, if you have a maiden name, if you have chosen to go that way as well.

I do know of a number of bloggers who use their maiden name for their blog, and for their personal life, they use their married name.

I guess at the extreme is pretty much like Skellie as I mentioned before, blogging without any name at all on your blog other than an alias. You allow your content to speak for yourself. If anything, people come to know you as that alias. I’ll give you an example of that towards the end of this podcast as well.

It’s interesting, most of the anonymous bloggers that I’ve come into contact with over the years, most of them have either stopped blogging because they found it really hard to be completely anonymous or became quite stressful for them because people started to work out who they were or they ended up revealing who they were as well.

In most of the cases that I can think of, the anonymous bloggers have really great reasons not to reveal their name in the early days, but as their confidence grew or as fear begin to diminish, they decided to reveal who they were. I think that’s probably the most common story that I’ve heard with anonymous bloggers. 

What’s the best option? Now, I’ve heard many people express opinions on this particular one because I think that several years ago being in a conference where I heard a speaker answer this question strongly arguing that the only real way to build a blog was to associate your name with it. In answer the question, they actually used me and Problogger as an example, saying something like, “When you think of making money blogging, who do you think of? Darren Rowse,” and they went off to talk about the advantage of that.

I can see where they were coming from, but I don’t think associating your name has to be really the only option that you have. I do think the spectrum of options that I’ve just gone through really are  all legitimate depending on your circumstance. 

It’s certainly nice, I think, to have your name associated with a niche. To be able to say, ProBlogger, Darren, that’s good. It opened up opportunities for me, but I don’t think it’s the only option.

Again, let me just quickly use my own examples to go a little bit deeper on this. On ProBlogger, as I said, I’ve always used my own name. It’s in the By line on my posts, on my About page. I’ve thrown out videos of myself everywhere, obviously this podcast, I usually introduce myself with my name.

As a result, it’s opened up some opportunities that perhaps wouldn’t have come if I haven’t used my name. Having my name associated with my blog has got me invitations to speak at conferences. I don’t know of too many anonymous bloggers who go to conferences because that entails them having to at least be there in person which reveals something of their identity. 

It also helps me to pick up consulting work in the early days of ProBlogger. I don’t do it anymore, but it certainly helps in the early days where I did offer that. It’s allowed me to make business partners and start businesses with other people. It’s opened up the opportunity to write a book.

Some of those things, you can probably do anonymously, but I think more opportunities have come my way because I’ve revealed my name on that particular blog. 

I guess the other benefit of having revealed who I am and being upfront about that is that for some of my readers, that’s helped them to make a more personal connection with my blog. I guess through sharing my story, it makes ProBlogger a little bit more relatable. It’s not just a site. It’s a person behind the site and when I meet people at conferences, people come up in a very personal way. 

I think that’s because they know who I am. As I say, some of those things may have happened by using a fake name perhaps, but perhaps not to the same extent. On Digital Photography School, my other blog, I took a very different approach from Day One. 

As I said, I used my name on bylines of my articles, on my About page, and probably on my Contact page, but I’ve never really gone out of my way to make that blog about me. 

This is even reflected in the name that I chose for the site, Digital Photography School communicates a brand that conjures an image of building a center of learning or a physical building. Some people even ask us where we are located, where’s the school. It focuses on a thing rather than a person. Whereas ProBlogger as a name, I guess, feels a little bit more personal. It feels like it’s either about a Pro Blogger or it’s for Pro Blogger. It’s a little bit more personal brand, even just the name of it as well. 

Digital Photography School, not a personal blog at all. What impact has this had? It certainly has had some impact. I haven’t had any invitations to come speak at conferences as a result of Digital Photography School. I’ve never been asked to write a book on the topic although we publish ebooks on that particular topic and a couple of them I wrote, but it’s never opened up those opportunities for consulting or any of those other things, but it has grown and it’s grown far beyond what ProBlogger has grown. Certainly, if I were going to say which would have been a more profitable decisions? Digital Photography School has been a much more profitable decision even though I didn’t associate my name with it in a strong way whatsoever.

I know that people still do have a personal connection with Digital Photography School, but they don’t have a connection with me. I’ve rarely had someone come up and go, “I just love what you’ve written on Digital Photography School.”

They tell me about the site and about how the content has changed their life, or they tell me about one of our authors who I do have as a regular author and how they’ve changed their life in some way. Some of those longer term authors, we’re a multi author site now. Some of those authors have had connections with readers, but I don’t really get that a whole heap either. It’s more about the content and it’s about the community as well.

I suspect some of our readers feel a personal connection with Digital Photography School because they are a part of our forum when that was active, or today they are part of our Facebook group. As I said before, in terms of traffic, Digital Photography School started two years after ProBlogger, I think it was 2006, but it’s about ten times bigger than ProBlogger today.

Purely based on the stats and a profit perspective, I think either option can work. Some people may argue that if I had associated my name with Digital Photography School a little bit more, maybe it would have grown faster but I’m not so sure. 

I guess ultimately what I’m trying to say here is that different topics or different styles of blogging might lend themselves to using your name more, but both can work. Both of the options can work and so can anonymous blogging.

There’s examples around the internet of people who have built full time incomes from their blogs who blogged anonymously. I’m going to give you an example of that in just a moment. When you are making the decision about how much to tie your personal name to your blog, and if you should at all, there’s a number of factors I would encourage you to consider.

Firstly, the topic. As I have just said, some topics probably lend themselves more to a personal connection in some way. ProBlogger I think lands itself. People want to journey with someone on this type of topic whereas Digital Photography School, it was more about the topic. It was about something else that wasn’t really relying on a person.

The style of content is another factor. As you think about the blog that you are going to create, what style is it going to be? Is it going to be a story telling type blog like ProBlogger in the early days.

ProBlogger was me telling my story and what I was learning as a blogger. As a result, I think it would have been weird if I hadn’t revealed who I was, whereas Digital Photography School is never a story telling blog. It was all about the topic first and foremost.

Consider the topic, consider the style of content, consider the medium of content, is the third thing that I would encourage you to think about.

If you are purely producing text content, then you may run into less issues around having revealing your identity. But obviously if you are posting pictures, videos, and even audio, these are more personal mediums, so it may make more sense to connect your name to it. People are going to be wondering who you are if they are listening to your voice, if they are seeing your picture, if they are seeing a video. The medium of content may be a factor that you want to consider.

Another really important one to consider is your long term plans for the site. Try and picture a few years forward about what you want to achieve with your blog. I know when you are starting a blog, it can be difficult to do this. You don’t really know what’s going to happen with your blog, but if you have clear goals in mind about how you want your blog to be, that may have an impact upon whether you use your name.

Let me give you a few examples. For example, if you want your blog to be a multi author blog, like Digital Photography School, it may be advantageous not to make the blog fully about you. That doesn’t mean you have to hide your name, but like I did on Digital Photography School, I didn’t personally brand it. 

I’ve actually seen bloggers really find it difficult who started out with a very personal blog, a personally branded blog to transition into a multi author blog. We’ve actually had trouble with this on ProBlogger over the years. 

People come to ProBlogger wanting me, but I know that it’s a multi author blog where we have a range of authors who are right there yet some of our readers really struggle with the fact that I’m not the only one creating content there.

If you do want to have a multi author blog, you might want to consider from day one not promoting yourself as much as you might on a personally branded blog, and maybe even from day one including other people’s name on your blog as well in terms of the content that’s being created. 

Other long term plans, if you dream maybe one day of selling your blog, it might be more to your advantage not to have a personally branded blog. If I was going to sell my two blogs today, it would be much harder to sell ProBlogger because ProBlogger is Darren. A lot of people come looking for me, so someone buying ProBlogger is going to run in the challenge of what happens when Darren is not there anymore. 

Whereas Digital Photography School, I could sell that tomorrow. My readers won’t notice that I was gone from it. If you are thinking maybe one day you want your blog to be acquired, then you might just want to pull back a little on how personally branded it would be. 

Another long term factor you might want to consider is if you want to monetize your blog, what type of monetization methods do you see you might want to do?

I think some monetization methods lend themselves to anonymous blogging or having your name on your blog differently. For example, if you want to monetize putting banner ads using Google AdSense, you don’t really need to worry too much about your name on the blog because people are going to click those ads whether you’ve got your name on your blog or not, it has no impact whatsoever.

If you choose to make your monetization streams on your blog more about selling your services as a consultant, speaker, or coach, you are probably going to have more success if people knowing who they are going to hire if they know your name, if they’ve seen your face, if they’ve seen some examples of you speaking, if they feel that personal connection. 

If you chose to monetize your blog working as an influencer with brands, you may find it easier to make recommendations of products more authentically if people know who you are. I think it probably could be done anonymously as well, but I guess there’s more challenges there. Are your readers going to accept your recommendations as much if you are blogging anonymously as if they know who you are?

If you are going to sell an ebook or a course, you might find it easier if people know who you are. I hope you are seeing here that having an anonymous blog may present some challenges with monetization.

Having said that, again, I’m going to give you an example in just a moment now of a blogger who is anonymous, who got to full time level with her blog as well using some of the methods that I just talked about. There are examples of anonymous bloggers who still do well monetizing their blogs, but it depends a little on the income streams that you are wanting to build into your blog.

Two more things to factor into your decision about whether you want to be anonymous or not. Another question might be how comfortable are you with the limelight. I always chuckle when I hear myself introduced at a conference as Darren Rowse, the guy behind ProBlogger. Whilst that’s completely true and I’m very proud of ProBlogger, Digital Photography School is obviously doing better than ProBlogger, but I never get introduced as Darren Rowse, the guy behind Digital Photography School.

Sometimes it’s kind of mentioned as on the side, but I guess if you want to be known for something, it’s probably better to associate your name with it. But if you want to be anonymous, if you want to be out of the limelight, if you don’t really want to be associated with your blog. If you don’t really want to ever be listed in a List of Top Bloggers in your Niche or you don’t want to be invited to speak at a conference and that type of thing. If you’re more than happy to be in the background, then don’t associate your name with your blog as much. It’s pretty obvious, but I think it’s another factor that a lot of bloggers have a fear of being in the limelight. It might suit them to be a little more anonymous. 

Then there’s the last factor, and I guess this is the reason a lot of people do choose to stay anonymous, is issues of personal safety/security/privacy. These are big issues for many bloggers who do grapple with these particular issues. It’s probably the main reason that people choose to stay anonymous. 

A few examples, I know of one blogger who blogged anonymously for many years as she was a health practitioner and she blogged very honestly about her industry and she felt that revealing her name would potentially jeopardize her professional pursuits and she might get a lot of critique from her colleagues. 

Another blogger who worked as a Lawyer for many years in Family Court matters, and didn’t want people that she represented or prosecuted to be able to find her for good reason. It was a personal safety issue.

I know one blogger who feared being identified by an abusive ex partner online. Again, personal safety issues. Her blog was actually about how she left that relationship and had some recovery so she did want to talk about those issues, but she didn’t want to do it in a personal way for fear of being traced and tracked down by that ex partner. 

I know another blogger who chose to remain anonymous because she was blogging about an embarrassing health condition that she had and she obviously didn’t want her friends and family to know about that. 

I know another blogger who chose to blog anonymously because he felt that he could be more honest about his life and gave him more freedom in his writings.

There’s a whole heap of different reasons that you may choose to factor into that as well. They are all completely legitimate.

One last piece of advice before I share with you a couple of stories of bloggers who’ve blogged anonymously. You can always add your name later, but you can’t take it away from your blog. You could take it away from your blog, but it’s very hard to pull back your identity once it’s out there. Once it’s out there, someone is going to know about it. It’s going to be archived in the internet archive, or it might be mentioned on another blog or in social media and it’s very hard to pull back your identity from the internet but you can always add it later.

As I mentioned earlier, most of the anonymous bloggers that I can think of are today not anonymous because they’ve decided to take a step out of their anonymity. 

One good example of this, and this is the blogger that I’ve kind of been teasing you with is Cora Harrington from the Lingerie Addict. The Lingerie Addict, I’ll say upfront, is not a blog I read about every day and it’s maybe one you don’t want to open up at work, although it is very tastefully done, but it may not be appropriate for your workplace.

I first came across Cora back in 2010 when she wrote an article on ProBlogger about how to blog anonymously because she was blogging on her blog, The Lingerie Addict, back at that time as Treacle. Her name was Treacle. That was the alias she was using and she gave some great tips and I’ll link to the post that she wrote on ProBlogger because I think it’s really relevant. If you want to blog anonymously, you need to read this particular blog post. She gave some great tips on how to do it and she reminded us that no one is ever truly anonymous online and you really want to be careful if you are going to do it, and she just gives you some good advice on that.

But in 2012, Cora decided to reveal her identity and I’ll link to a post that she wrote on her blog where she revealed her identity as well. Short story of that post is that she used to be a crisis counsellor and when she started her blog about lingerie, she really didn’t want her colleagues or clients to know about that particular blog. Partly I guess, because about the topic and partly because she is working in a sensitive area. She also, I think reading between the lines, maybe had some reservations about family members knowing about that blog as well, partly I guess because of the topic.

But in time, as her blog became her full time income, and she actually got to a full time level before she revealed who she was so it’s possible and she was using from what I can see, advertising and probably some affiliate marketing on it so she was able to monetize using those methods. But she gradually, over time, became more confident and because she wasn’t working anymore as a crisis counselor, she didn’t have colleagues and her family, partner, and friends became more comfortable with the idea, she grew in her own confidence and decided to reveal her name.

I think it’s just a great case study and I encourage you to go and read that particular post that she wrote on how to be anonymous as a blogger, but also I tell that story because I think this is the story that I hear many times over for bloggers who start out one way and then transition to being more open with their identity.

Another quick example, it’s not quite on the same scale because she hasn’t got to a full time level yet is the story of Vanessa Rowse who many of you know and for many years, Vanessa who is my wife, my partner. We’ve been married now since 2002, so over 14 years now. I used to go to great lengths to disguise her name on my first blog even before she was blogging and she became affectionately known by many of ProBlogger readers as Mrs ProBlogger, and she was quite happy to be called Mrs ProBlogger as well because it allowed her to be anonymous.

The reason she wanted to stay anonymous was the kind of work she has done recently, I won’t go into great detail, but she didn’t want to be tracked down online even before she had a blog.

Then she did start a blog, it must be almost two and a half years ago now. Her blog is called Style and Shenanigans, I’ll link to it in the show notes as well. She started that blog without using her name or her photo which was a pretty big challenge for a style blogger who talked about the clothes she was wearing.

To not actually show her face, it kind of made things a little bit tricky but she blogged that way for several months before she decided that really she was confident enough now to reveal her name and her face. I remember the day she posted her first selfie on Instagram. It was the day which we can literally track back in her Google Analytics. It was the day things began to take off a little bit. 

I write about this in a blogpost on ProBlogger back in 2013, so it must be almost three years ago now that she started and this post called ‘How Posting a Humble Selfie Grew Traffic Shares and Comments on a New Blog’, and it’s really about how revealing who she was, revealing something of herself including her name, including her face. Her readers did really respond to that. 

It’s one option there if you want a little bit more engagement. If you want a little bit more connection with your readers, it might actually be a factor that you might want to consider as well. 

But I share this story partly to highlight how being personal can help, but also to show you that you can start out completely private and end up being more public in time. There’s no pressure to escalate that and to do it at any pace. You may choose never to reveal who you are, but you can always add more detail of who you are onto your blog, but you can’t take it away. 

I guess, I really want to put it out there. Do wrestle with some of the factors that I’ve gone through and hopefully somewhere in the midst of all of that, you’ll find something that you’re comfortable  with.

I guess that’s my final advice. Go with what you are comfortable with. No one else needs to prescribe the way that you blog. There are no rules around this. Just be comfortable, be safe, and look after yourself first and then in time you may actually find that your confidence grows. 

Do check out some of those further readings that I’ve got in today’s show notes. You can find them over at problogger.com/podcast/122. Particularly, I encourage you to check out that post that Cora, Treacle, wrote back in 2010. It’s a few years old, but I think most of it is really relevant for anyone even today considering anonymity in blogging. 

It’s something you want to consider the right way. There’s some good advice in that particular post. 

My name is Darren Rowse. I’m happy for you to know who I am and I really appreciate you listening today. I’ve appreciated over the last week or so checking out some of the reviews that have been left on iTunes. Some of you chose to reveal your identity in those reviews and I love that, but I also love the ones who used alias as well. If you have been enjoying the ProBlogger show over the last few weeks or months, I really would appreciate any review you could leave us on iTunes,or Stitcher, or any of the podcast listening channels that you use. Thanks so much for listening and I’ll chat with you in a couple of days time in Episode 123.

Before I go, I want to give a big shout out and say thank you to Craig Hewitt and the team at PodcastMotor who has been editing all of our podcasts for sometime now. PodcastMotor has a range of services for podcasters at all levels. They can help you to set up your podcast, but also offer a couple of excellent services to help you edit your shows and get them up with great show notes. Check them out at podcastmotor.com.