Melbourne paper, The Age (Sydney Morning Herald had it too) features an article today titled Why bloggers blog which takes a walk through the blogosphere (with a distinct Aussie flavor) talking to bloggers about their motivation for blogging. It features some of my favorite bloggers including Claire Robertson from LoobyLu, Trevor Cook from Corporate Engagement and Manolo the Shoeblogger. It also has a quote or two from yours truly.
If you’re here after seeing the article – welcome. If this is your first time here let me give you a quick tour of my online home here at ProBlogger.net. Grab a coffee and click the ‘more’ link below.
Firstly, ProBlogger.net is a blog that is devoted to helping bloggers improve their blogging and explore ways to earn an income at the same time by writing about topics that they love – here’s a couple of links to give you a little information about me and about this blog.
If you’re new to blogging you might find this ‘what is a blog?‘ article and my recent series on Blogging for Beginners helpful.
If you’re interested in blogging for money here’s one on how bloggers are making money from blogging. If you’d like to take a course in blogging for money I’ve developed one with a collegue at Six Figure Blogging.
If you like what you read here you can follow my future entries (I write several times per day most days) in two ways – firstly I send a free email newsletter every week which you can subscribe to and secondly if you read RSS feeds you can subscribe to mine here.
The article also mentions a network of blogs that I co-own. It’s called b5media.com and has over 125 blogs currently on a wide range of topics (you can see them listed in the side bar of the b5 blog).
Thanks for stopping by – I hope you enjoy your stay at ProBlogger and b5media.
What’s that now, three stories this year?
Blogging certainly does have a fascination for the press :)
yeah – i was updating my press page this morning and was wondering about it. I think I must be on a list somewhere at the Age and SMH for ‘ring this guy for a comment when writing about blogging’. :-)
Yeah saw this on the SMH site this morning. I’m curious – how much traffic does an article like this drive to your site?
its difficult to track it jof as I suspect most people type in the URL as a result of seeing the article. There has been a handful of hits from the Age and SMH websites but not much. Traffic is up a little for the day but nothing really that noticeable and it’s mainly coming from one of the other blogs that was mentioned in the article who linked to me.
I don’t find that the main benefits of newspaper articles are traffic – the main benefit is general awareness and the occassional consulting/speaking gig.
My Tokyo travel site has 2 links from the Australian website at the end of long articles on Tokyo, but bring in very little traffic. Anyway, probably good for PR, which we should be getting ready for soon.
Congrats on the mention and being the “face” of Australian blogging.
Maybe the fascination springs from the general assumption that many bloggers are full-timers and do not have to work like other people do. But I’m sure those who are making serious money work just as hard if not harder than most highly paid corporate execs.
HI!
I read the article online about bloggin and came to your site. I am a bit cynical actually! I know nothing of blogging, but it seems to me a cheap and manipulative way to make money. Is it just a sophisticated tool to hide advertising and marketing?
I am sorry if this sounds cynical but I cant see that bloggin is helping make the world a beter place- at least not as it is portrayed on this site. What’s with all the celeb links?
at a quick glance I counted around 30 links on this problogger site offering how to make money or advertise. There is no law against that, but is this whole blogging thing a cover for making money?
there, my first blog response ever- maybe my last too! (not sure if bloggin has censorship or not!)
Missy
Hi Missy Taylor,
thanks for stopping by.
Let me tackle your questions one at a time:
Is it just a sophisticated tool to hide advertising and marketing?
I guess like any medium it can be used that way. The same thing could be leveled at shoddy newspapers, magazines or other types of websites. Some blogs do, without a doubt, get used in manipulative ways without any ethics but most of us declare our interests.
I am sorry if this sounds cynical but I cant see that bloggin is helping make the world a beter place- at least not as it is portrayed on this site. What’s with all the celeb links?
The celebrity links in my sidebar are links to other blogs that are a part of the network of blogs that I belong to. Blogs come in all shapes and sizes and talk about virtually every aspect of life. For some people celebrity and entertainment news is important to them – as a result there are blogs on that. There are also links in the sidebar to blogs on topics like being a mother, living with diabetes, autism or cancer as well as blogs on hobbies like scrap booking and quilting. I wouldn’t aruge that every blog will suit every person or that each one is ‘life giving’ for each reader but I think most people would find some blogs that fit with their own views and that are helpful.
at a quick glance I counted around 30 links on this problogger site offering how to make money or advertise. There is no law against that, but is this whole blogging thing a cover for making money?
This is a blog on the topic of making money from blogs – as a result I have a lot of content on that topic. Some bloggers choose to make money from their blogs while others do not. This site was set up as a resource for those wanting to do that. I should say that it’s also read by a lot of bloggers who just want to improve their non money making blogs as I cover a lot of stuff that is not specifically on money making.
I don’t think it’s a ‘cover’ for making money. Most bloggers who do make money from blogs are fairly transparent about it and declare their interests.
there, my first blog response ever- maybe my last too! (not sure if bloggin has censorship or not!)
I don’t censor comments that are genuine and relevant to the topic at hand like yours. I like this type of interaction and I think you’ll find most bloggers are willing to be questioned and interacte with.
I do have a ‘moderation’ for some comments to help me fight ‘comment spam’ (where people use comments to promote their own dodgy sites). That’s why your comment took a little while to appear.
Blogging for me is about conversations around a huge variety of different topics. As I say – ProBlogger is a blog on making money from blogs so it might not be the best one out there for you to make a sweeping judgement about blogging on. What I’d suggest you do is head to google and do a search for ‘a topic that interests you blog’ and see what it turns up for you. There are millions out there of all shapes, sizes, qualities, topics etc.
Wow- a real live blogger!
Thanks, for the speedy reply, Darren.
I am happy to see your site is not a fully automated thing spitting out computer generated responses. I accept your point on the making money from blogs stuff- your site is abot making oney from blogging, and therefore that does not mean that all blogging is an attempt to make money. Fair enough.
However, do you think google is aiming to take over the world? It seems every site you go to these days has google ad links. Good on them for building a mega corperation, I guess. But is it ethical? I mean accepting money from an organisation that allows the communist CHinese government to censor web searches, promotes the pornography industry, gambling, and all sorts of other seedy stuff on the net?
anyway, just a thought.
thanks again for replying to me,
Missy Taylor
Missy Taylor,
no problem on the response. Sometimes I’m quicker than others depending upon what else is going on.
Do I think that Google is trying to take over the world? hmmm – well I’m no mind reader but I’m not quite sure that they goals are that lofty. To be honest my opinion of Google is one where I love a lot of what they do in terms of the technologies that they produce and a lot of their ethos (for example I like the way they treat their staff, I like some of the community projects that they do) – having said this I’m always a little suspicious of big corporations and worry that they (and smaller ones) will abuse powers that they have.
I guess it’s the same with any company though – they can do good or evil – it’s just that Google does so on a pretty massive scale.
I don’t envy their task of managing it all on some levels, the responsibilities must be massive.
The best thing about blogging is that it gives a person the opportunity to express his/er ideas about the subject he/she knows. This is a great motivator for any blogger. You get to write on the subject you like and earn money through that writing. I mean this is really great that can happen to any person.
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blogs enable end user to own a website that ready for posting articles, basically you dont have to hire somebody to write an app for you. save money