Further Your Career From Blogging

I would like to take the time to explain to people the nature of blogging and how it can make you money and further your career if done properly. Some people feel they can cash in directly from a blog and I will only tell you this, blogging can make you money short term and long term. You can use Text Link Ads, Google Adsense, direct sponsors, and maybe you can fill a few ads using BlogAds. As an independent blogger you can cash in on some of these things and make a little money, there is no doubt. I remember the day when I started making over $400 per month with Adsense I was so happy I thought I was a millionaire. I partied and probably drank a brew in celebration. But $400 per month is not something you can live off of. It doesn’t even cover all the hard work you put in all month. But it was a milestone.

But I would like to provide an example of how blogs can do more for you than a few hundred dollars in your pocket at the end of the month. Blogging is a way to sell yourself to your readers as a viable source of information. When you can get thousands of readers to your blog each day to read your material you then can begin to offer more than just your blog. There are speaking engagements you can provide. You can begin scheduling conventions and speaking to small groups of people who will be excited to listen to what you have to say. Tom Remington, co-owner of Skinny Moose Media and prominent blogger for the Black Bear Blog traveled to Idaho last Spring to attend an elk breeders meeting and do a little speaking. Tom had been following some of the political events happening in Idaho and topics surrounding elk breeders in the state. A lot of it stemmed from the shooting of Rex Rammell’s elk.

The point I am trying to make is that blogging is a long term investment and should be used more as a tool than a place to come and post each day to cash in. It takes a little bit of intellect, a lot of hard work, and you need to be able to say something that others really want (or need) to hear.

A prime example of what I am talking about is a man named Lance Dutson. Some may know who I am talking about but Lance is the author of the blog Maine Web Report. He covers a lot of politics, but has proven to be an authority when it comes to digging up the truth behind organizations and slime-ball politicians. Lance started out with his blog just because of his interest in the subject. He became a self proclaimed reporter. I know there are a lot of aspiring writers and reporters and blogging provides you the opportunity to work for yourself, do the reporting you think is worthwhile, and target your own audience.

So where is Lance today? Lance, a member of the national Media Bloggers Association, was in the first group of bloggers to attend the “Scooter” Libby trial. You can see an interview with Lance here about covering the trial.

What else? He is now working for the Susan Collins campaign for re-election as U.S. Senator. You can learn more about Lance by going to his blog and reading his bio page. This is also another reason to really sit down and work hard on a page about who you are. A lot of people who come to a blog to read the material want to know a little bit about the author. Like reading a book, or a magazine article, sometimes it is really nice to learn more about who the author is. If you expect people to come back and read your material as a newsworthy source, having a well written page about who you are and what you have done is a good idea. It is worth every couple months to go in and edit that page with new and updated information.

I had the pleasure of chatting with Lance a bit and he agrees on how blogs can bring you some cash at the end of the month, but the blog is used more as a tool to obtain long term goals. Lance says:

Yeah no question. I think I make about 60$ a month from ads on my site. But in the long haul, it’s been a good career thing definitely.

Lance goes on to explain more about the nature of blogging…

I think one thing that is often overlooked in this type of discussion is how beneficial the practice of writing a blog regularly is to honing your arguments and presentation skills. It’s a lot easier to be kind of intellectually lazy when you don’t have thousands of people picking your statements apart, and I’ve found that it’s easier now for me to be confident about the things I say to clients or potential clients because I’ve become used to the scrutiny that comes from blogging.

And also, though it’s true that any schlub can start a blog and start blathering on about some specialized topic, the fact is that most don’t, and the boost to credibility from a well-established blog is much greater than I think most people understand. I think it’s similar to the book thing- I can sit down and crank out some 125 page book about anything, say blogging for example. I can go to Lulu and self-publish it, then list it on amazon, all for free. Then, all of a sudden, instead of being some guy talking about blogging, I’m “Lance Dutson, author of ‘Blogging to Win!’”, with a ton more credibility. I think blogging is becoming similar to that, maybe not quite as potent.

I think Lance is right on the money. And I also agree that most people don’t understand the boost in one’s credibility from writing a well established blog. The blog can reach a lot of people and influence so many people. Personally I have seen this happen to many bloggers who were once aspiring journalists and now an authority in their topic. As more and more people figure this out the more popular blogs become. And when people say they can make money blogging most think of it as only monetizing their blog, getting high on the search engine results, and cashing in each month. Though monetizing your blog is a very important marketing technique you can’t forget what you are selling. You can market fecal matter all you want but at the end of the day it all comes back to what the product is, and that product is you.