Definition of a Pro Blogger

This article is not designed to tell you how to make money online but what elements ‘define’ the pro blogger and to outline the basic steps to help people start their own professional blogging business.

I had a writer ask today what the difference between a freelance writer and a pro blogger was. There are many ways to make money as a blogger, and even earn a few hundred dollars a month as a blogger. This doesn’t make you a pro blogger.

The Blogs

The blog topics of a pro blogger are vital. Not all topics will earn money. News, technology, health, parenting, pets, and other ‘hot topics’ need to be researched well. The write must be able to write good content, on an ongoing basis.

To do this, pro bloggers must belong to the right newsletters, associations, and forum groups. This helps them gain cutting edge information that their readers need. They also need to learn the difference between a blog and a splog. Spam blogs, splogs, are artificially created weblogs which promote affiliated websites or increase the PageRank or backlink portfolio of affiliate websites, or artificially inflate paid ad impressions from visitors, and/or a link outlet to get new sites indexed.

Spam blogs content is often either inauthentic text or merely stolen from other websites. These blogs contain a high number of links to sites associated with the splog creator.

A blog owner can link to their other blogs, but they usually change the links, keep the numbers down, and include elements that make the blog ‘legit.’

• A legit blog has no more than 30% paid blog posts.
• Any duplicate or free content articles start with about 100% original content.
• The blog has feed and RSS tools for subscribers.
• The blog discusses a topic – does not promote a product, affiliate, or service.
• They have their own domain
  

Many people post an RSS feed in a blogger blog, and call it their own blog. They then post ads around it, and use it to promote their own products.

The Promotion

The pro blogger will invest money and time into promoting their blogs. They will work to get their Page Rank up including:

• Buying targeted traffic
• Building RSS and Feeds
• Submit to Search Engines
• Comment on PR6 and above blogs
• They ping to all the search engines by posting daily
• They social networks
• Work at Digg, Tehcnorati, blogcatalogue
• And promote the blog – not a third party product
• May ‘not’ buy directory links as this will lower their Google Page Rank
  

Most legit blogs have a Page Rank higher than PR3 or PR4. They need Pr4 minimum to make money. They will use promotion tools to get PR5 or higher. No blogger with less than PR5 can hope to earn a good income.

Generating Revenue

There are three ways to generate income: Paid Posts, Pay Per Click Ads, Affiliate campaigns. Successful income generation in all three of these depends on PageRank5 or higher and high traffic numbers.

The average PPC payment for a blog with a Page Rank of PR3 is 2%, while the PPC payment for a PR6 is 10 – 30%. This is quite a difference.

The average Paid Per Post earning for a PR3 blog is $5 a post. The average PPP earning for a PR6 blog is $45.

This is why bloggers work hard to get PR5 and higher on their blogs. It is a full time job. They work a minimum of 40 hours a week at their job. There is nothing ‘part time’ or ‘passive income’ in this business.

Importance of Blogs

Many people might think someone who manages 30 – 50 blogs is clogging the Internet. This is not true. I have dozens of subscribers to my RSS feeds and subscriptions who comment regularly on my blogs. I design my pro blogs as news feeds, or as free online courses. This gives my readers more information.

I also include a full disclosure that tells people that I do earn money through the blog. This disclosure statement is at the bottom of each page ( check out http://www.healthafter40.blogspot.com ) I also do not try to ‘hide’ my paid posts. I also sign with advertising agencies that let me pick and choose the ads I want to post on my blogs.

I never try to hide the fact that a paid post is sponsored. I make sure the title ‘alerts’ my readers that the following post is sponsored. They can then choose to read it or not. My subscribers respect this, and most of them do not object to the fact that I am paid for giving them free content.

Definition of a Pro Blogger

This tutorial is based on the efforts and practices of the pro bloggers at http://www.divanetworking.blogspot.com who support each other and work as pro bloggers. It is designed to help amateur bloggers see what they are doing wrong, and how they can improve their income generations, Page Rank, and find friends and allies among other pro bloggers.