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As recently as ten years ago, blogs didn’t exist. The
internet itself was still in it’s infant stages and was
populated mostly by academic research papers and shrines
to celebrities. The blogs that you hear about today in
every newspaper, television program, and magazine
article had yet to explode into internet and national
presence.
Today, blogs are ever-present. They are practically
influencing consumer trends, politics, journalism, and
even the larger national dialogue. At their most basic
level, blogs seem rather benign. Put simply, a blog is
nothing more than a website that publishes new material
at regular periodic intervals, often several times a
day. The reason this new publishing format has become so
powerful has little to do with the actual format at all.
The power of blogs is rooted in their ability to enable
billions of average people to publish content that is
instantly accessible around the world in a matter of
minutes. Old-style content publishers are having a
difficult time keeping up.
In America alone, around 60 million adults read blogs;
that’s about 40% of all internet users in the US. This
is a startling percentage made even more staggering when
one takes into consideration that a few years ago nobody
knew what a blog was. The popularity of blogs as a
viable form of communication and publishing is
exploding. In just a few years from now, 60 million
readers will seem like a slow day at the office for the
ever-changing blogosphere.
Blogging is being embraced by artists, politicians,
corporations and hobbyists as one of the fastest
and most effective forms of communication
available today. As eyes turn away from the television
screen, magazines and newspapers to the daily content
provided by bloggers, commercial opportunities follow.
Blogs by nature have specific subjects with specific
audiences. Advertisers have recognized this new and
exciting opportunity and are pouring mountains of cash
into blog advertising because it is highly targeted,
effective and entirely measurable.
The blogging revolution marks an exciting turning point
in the history of publishing, and the brief history of
the internet. For the first time in history it is not
only possible, but also cheap and simple to publish
content instantly in a matter than is accessible
anywhere on the planet. Many small blogs with hot topics
that began as the thoughts of one lone blogger have
taken of to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars
per year in advertising, merchandising and memberships!
Let’s consider a hypothetical blogging business. Take
for example Caroline, a newbie blogger who publishes a
blog about her favourite thing in the world, Apple
iPods. Every day on the blog after work, Caroline
publishes several posts containing content such as
reviews of the latest iPods, tips on how to get the most
out of iPods, tweaks on how to modify iPods, and reviews
of all the latest iPod accessories. Fellow iPod devotees
pour over Caroline’s blog regularly for the exciting new
information she provides.
Her blog receives, on average 15,000 visitors per day –
a modest amount of traffic given her chosen topic. Along
the side of Caroline’s blog, she has placed sponsored
advertisements where dealers of the iPod and iPod
accessories have agreed to pay her between $0.80 and
$1.00 (a normal rate for such an in-demand item) every
time a reader clicks on their advertisement. If only 150
people (only 1 percent of her daily traffic) click on
any advertisement in a day, Caroline has earned between
$120 and $150, just for writing about her favourite
topic.
If Caroline is able to maintain 150 clicks per day for
an entire month, she’ll earn $4,500 in one month, or
$54,000 per year. That’s a sizeable income! Now, if
Caroline is able to increase her traffic from 15,000 to
150,000 per day, while maintaining her 1 per cent
click-rate, she’ll bring in $1,500 per day, or just over
half a million dollars per year.
As you can probably see, blogging as a business is not a
radical idea. Any publication, whether it is print,
audio, video, or even skywriting can bring in money
if it brings an audience. This book will help
readers recognize and capitalize on the immense
opportunity that awaits any person with passion,
patience and a PC. What used to be the hobby of the
lonely
“talkative-geek-in-the-basement-behind-a-computer” is
now embraced by the internet and millions worldwide.
Blogging has finally overcome this stereotype and it has
in fact become a viable and accepted form of mass
publication. And due to it’s low cost of entry, the
simple blogging tools now available, and the mass reach
of the internet, anybody with a passion can build a
profitable business publishing blogs.
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