Begger or A List Celebrity - What Type of Blogger are You?

When we start blogging, we feel like a beggar. We have to work really hard for the smallest amount of traffic and 10cents from Google adsense. But, what keeps us going is the knowledge some bloggers have risen through the ranks from being another anonymous blogger to raking in $1000s a week. These are the evolotionary stages of being a blogger. Maybe you see yourself amongst these different stages

1. What is a blog?

Did anybody read the manual “how to blog” before starting? I doubt it - I didn’t. Most bloggers stumble into blogging without really planning it. In the process we go through alternating periods of excitement and frustration as we learn through our own mistakes.

2. I’m going to do this properly Now.

We leave our free .blogspot domain and finally get a proper domain name, with reliable hosting. We even starting reading other blogs which offer blogging tips. We realise that blogging isn’t as easy as we first imagined, but some bloggers have really made it work for them.

3. Adsense Enthusiasm Stage.

Religiously checking our statistics, we find we have just earnt our first dollar in a day. ! Suddenly our mind jumps into calculation mode. If we can earn 1 dollar from 1 adsense block. If we triple the advertising we can triple our earnings. Then if we increase the number of pages and the number of blogs… well in 6 months we’ll be earning 4 figures a day! In the enthusiasm for adsense dollars, our blog is given 3 really large adsense blocks. To us, these adsense blocks look beautiful because they are going to enable us to retire in 2 years time. The fact this may put off readers conveniently escapes our attention.

4. Blogs spring up like Mushrooms only to fade away.

In our new found enthusiasm, we also start off blogs on every topic we have the slightest interest in. We spend time setting them up, only to realise we do not have time to maintain them properly. Slowly our blogs fall by the wayside, to join the millions of other blogs sharing the same fate.

4. Adsense Reality

What happened? I tripled the amount of adsense ads and now my earnings are going down. Despair sets in - I’m never going to make a living online: 10 hours a day for 50 cents per day. That makes a pretty bad hourly rate, I’d earn more picking sugar cane in Cuba. This stage can often be the end for some bloggers. However, others may be able to get past this stage by being patient and / or the fact they enjoy their blog anyway. A good blogger will learn from his over-enthusiasm; he cuts back on his advertising and concentrates on  developing his blog in a sensible / long term fashion.

5. Do anything for that big link.

Our new strategy is to gain readers through commenting on other blogs. We also aspire for that elusive link from an A list blogger, or getting on the front page of Digg. This stage often ends in disappointment; our submissions fly of the new section of digg, before we can even say “digg is so unfair and unjust.” We write to A list bloggers and are bemused as to why they don’t share our enthusiasm for our best article: “top 10 ways to get links” (hint: other people have probably written on this topic already)

6. The Digg Rush.

Our Blog suddenly appeares on the front page of Digg. Our previous criticisms of Digg melt away, as we go into blogging ecstasy; checking our stats every 5 minutes we realise 50,000 are coming to our blog! 50,000 people - wow! that’s alot of people. This only whets our appetite for getting onto Digg more regularly. We now enter a phase of writing “linkbait”

7. Where have the diggers gone?

A week later, our traffic is back to normal, the diggers have left, leaving behind only a trail of sarcastic comments. Furthermore, our linkbaiting is not working as we hoped. Maybe digg is not so important, the blogger goes back to concentrating on his regular readership.

8. The Real Breakthrough.

Concentrating on writing compelling content, we also start to build meaningful relationships with other bloggers in our niche. By linking and commenting on their blogs, we start to get some recipricol traffic and links. This generates a regular readership and feeling of community behind the blog. Blogging is now starting to be satisfying, we even start earning more than a dollar a day.

9. A new Blog.

Now we know what we are doing, we are often inspired to start a new blog. But this time, we know how to launch a blog and create a buzz right from the beginning. Using our knowledge and expertise we create a professional looking site and attract interest by standing out from the crowd.

10. The A List.

Our blog has now attracted so many readers, we no longer need to promote the blog. The blog promotes itself. Links which were once like golddust, appear without making any effort or asking for them. We come to be known as an expert in our field. We start to get link requests from other bloggers - asking them to look at their best articles like: “top 10 ways to get links” You fail to understand their enthusiasm for another article on this subject.

Now, you’ve got a huge RSS readership, you can do what you like. You can even annoy Google, and not suffer. You can put as much advertising on your site as you like - people still come. You can write a very short post and attract over 100 comments from your readers, The blog almost writes itself.. Your blogging creates offline opportunities, speaking at conferences, launching your own book.

Blog Paradise? well not quite. Firstly there is always the attraction of getting more readers, more links and earn more money. The more we have, often the more we want. We don’t have to promote our blog, but our email box soon fills up with with request, comments and even jealous criticism.

Such is the evolution of a blogger. On the blogosphere the evolution of our blog can be quick or slow. Some bloggers struggle to take their blog to the next level. But, if we look at the top bloggers they all share certain characteristics which enable them to be survival of the fittest