Examples of Successful Blogs

There are countless examples of people who started out writing a simple blog and were able to turn that into an exciting career or success story.
Among the most obvious examples would be Ree Drummond, a housewife from Oklahoma who began writing her blog, The Pioneer Woman, in 2006. In it, she documents her life as a wife and mother living on the plains, as well as including homemaking tips and recipes. It quickly gained in popularity and by 2010 Drummond was listed as one of Forbes magazine Top 25 Web Celebrities. Shortly afterward, she was given her own weekly television program on the Food Network and has written several successful cookbooks, one of which became a New York Times #1 Bestseller.

Another blogging success story is Jenny Lawson. This Texas-born blogger is the author of The Bloggess, in which she uses her quick wit and irreverent writing style to discuss her life and daily adventures. Some of her

blogs were collected into a book, “Let’s Pretend This Never Happened,” which also was a #1 New York Times Bestseller. Lawson currently is an in-demand guest on talk shows and has received numerous prestigious awards, including being recognized by Nielsen Ratings as one of the Top 50 Most Powerful Mom Bloggers.

You may have never heard of Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr., but you probably have heard of his blog, PerezHilton.com. He began his blog about celebrities and gossip in 2004 and within six months it was one of the most read blogs in Internet history. Hilton soon became a celebrity in his own right, appearing on countless television programs and even serving as a celebrity judge for the Miss USA pageant in 2009, in an episode of “The Sopranos”, and as the star of his own reality TV series.

And then there’s Arianna Huffington. This Greek-American ex-wife of US Rep. Michael Huffington (R-Mich.) had already a successful career as a political candidate, television personality and writer when she launched her blog, HuffingtonPost.com, in 2005. In it, she wrote opinion pieces, shared articles and featured a stable of regular columnists writing mostly on politics and business. In 2011, Huffington sold her blog to AOL for $315 million, making her one of the most financially successful bloggers in history.

Benefits of Blogging

The blogging community, sometimes referred to as the blogosphere, promotes the open and free interchange of thoughts and ideas. There are no editors or censorship. You are free to discuss any subject you like and offer even the most radical opinion without fear of being quashed or silenced. There also is no set schedule, so you can write as often or as infrequently as you choose. Some people like to write every day or even post multiple blog postings throughout the day, while other bloggers post only once a week, once or month or even less. It’s entirely up to you.

When you produce a blog on a subject that interests you, it is easy to quickly establish yourself as an expert in your field. As your readership grows, people will begin to respect your opinions and perhaps even invite you to write a “guest blog” on their own blog. Many bloggers are now regularly used as panelists at conferences, interviewed on television news programs and even viewed as celebrities themselves.

The blogging community is also a great place to learn new facts, encounter cutting-edge ideas and technologies, exchange gossip or rumor, and participate in a rewarding online social community where you can

make new friends with people all over the globe, interact directly with experts, and make exciting new discoveries about topics that interest you. For some people, blogging also provides a revenue stream. There are plenty of ways to make money through blogging and we will be discussing many of them in detail later in this guide.

many people like this benefits of blogging

What Is Blogging?

The word “blog” is an abbreviation of the term “weblog”. Back in the early 1990s, when the internet as we know it today was still in its infancy, weblogs were a form of online diary keeping. The earliest bloggers would share details of their everyday lives on first-generation blog sites such as Open Pages and Open Diary.

 By the end of that decade, blog technology improved to the point where readers could leave comments on other people’s blogs, and even include links to other web pages. Very quickly, improvement in search engine technology made it simple for anybody to find blogs written about whatever specific topics were of interest to them.

 By the mid-2000s, open source blog hosting sites such as Blogger, Tumblr, and WordPress began to offer free software that any user could use to create and publish professional-looking blogs quickly and easily.

These sites, which remain popular today, also hosted and distributed the blogs for free so that bloggers could write as many blogs as they wanted and there was sure to be a steady supply of regular, loyal readers.

 Today, there are literally millions of blogs being written every day and on every subject imaginable. Whether you are interested in anthropology, cooking, sewing, movies, sex or sports, with just the click of a few buttons you can be connected with thousands of freshly-written blogs on the topics you like best. Plus, you can interact with the writers, meet other people who

share your interest, and engage in a lively interchange with an entire community devoted to whatever subject you are into.