Professional Blogging For Dummies®

Chapter 1. Examining Blogging at the Professional Level

In This Chapter

• Understanding what professional bloggers do

• Knowing the advantages of blogging

• Deciding whether a blog is right for you

• Connecting your blog with business

• Coming up with your professional blogging objectives

• Outlining your strategy

When you do something professionally, it generally means getting paid, and professional blogging is no different. Whether you want to earn your living with your blog or simply enough to pay for the family vacation or a college education, you want to know how to make money with your professional blog. This book explains the different ways to monetize your blog so you can pick the ones that work best for you.

However, to be a successful professional blogger, you need to think about more than just the sources of revenue — advertising, paid posts, affiliate commissions, and so on. You need to think about your professional, business objectives and then develop a plan to meet them. That's the big difference between a personal or hobby blog and a professional blog.

Personal bloggers have stories and experiences they want to share and may fall into making a little money along the way, but it doesn't start out that way. Professional bloggers have a business objective for their blog, and they develop a plan to achieve it.

Can you be successful with a blog without a clear plan? Sure, but it isn't probable. For instance, TechCrunch is a blog that began by reviewing new Internet products and companies and ...