In the blogging world, there are different kinds of blogs and bloggers who blog to reach specific goals. If you decided to become a blogger, but you’re not sure what your blog is going to tackle, then identifying the type of blogger you want to become can help. In this post, we’re going to look at types of blogs and bloggers that exist and how each strives to become successful in the blogging world.
1. Personal Blogs
personal
When blogging began in the late 90’s, the first type of blogger appeared was the online diary bloggers. These were people who wanted to take their daily journal online to share their experiences, feelings, and innermost thoughts with an audience. For the personal blogger, there were no rules to follow or themes to adhere. Their blogs were the open pages of their diaries, entered through a word processor and published on simple HTML pages.
Personal bloggers today tend to follow the same trajectory, although they no longer have to fight the barrier to entry of setting up a website. They can use Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr, and similar networks to start a blog in less than fifteen minutes and start sharing their brilliance with the world.
So what does a personal blogger write about? Everything. Some will focus on a particular interest, such as a hobby. Some will focus on something they are passionate about, like politics. Some will focus on a cause, like their struggle with cancer. Some will focus on whatever is on their mind at the time they start a new blog post.
Successful personal blog
The success for a personal blogger is finding others to share their writing. The best way to build a community for a personal blog is to find other personal bloggers who share the same interest. One you have found them, start commenting on their blogs and connecting with them on social media. As you grow your interactions with other personal bloggers, they will begin to engage with your blog posts.
Examples of good personal blogs:
Gregory Ciotti writes about clear communication, collaboration, and creative work.
Phil Galfond a pro poker who shares his experience through articles and videos.
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2. Business Blogs
bussines
Business bloggers are those who blog for their business. That could be a business they own or company they work for. The business blogger’s goal is to gain more exposure, traffic, and ultimately customers for their business. Unlike the personal blogger, their writing is less focused on themselves and more focused on their business and their industry.
A business blogger will write about the topics that will attract their ideal customers. For example, employees of a printing company will write blog content that is aimed towards other business owners who are in the market for business cards, flyers, brochures, and other printing services. The blog posts will cover topics like “How to Design a Great Business Card,” ‘Typography 101,” and “Creating a Brochure That Boosts Your Business.”
Successful business blog
The success for a business blogger is to attract readers that will ultimately subscribe to their email list, submit a lead form, or make a purchase. The best way to build a community for a business blog is to identify people who are most likely to become customers of your business and create content that they would find interesting. Then make sure each piece of content leads these people to want to learn more about your products and services.
Examples of good business blogs:
HelpScout blog with everything you need to know about customer loyalty.
HubSpot blog provides information about inbound marketing and sales.
3. Professional Blogs
professional
Professional bloggers are those who blog to make money online. In other words, their career goal is to earn a salary through their blogging efforts. Professional bloggers tend to use a variety of monetization strategies to achieve this goal, including selling display ads, creating information and digital products, promoting other people’s products for a commission, and similar.
Professional bloggers tend to either focus on one blog or many niche blogs to generate revenue. Each blog would need to have the potential for attracting a large audience, producing lots of traffic, and being a good fit for advertisers and product sales.
Successful professional blog
The success for a professional blogger depends on their monetization goals. Those who wish to make money through advertising will need a lot of traffic from an audience interested in a particular topic. For example, a popular personal finance blog would likely attract an audience that advertisers from retirement savings companies, banks, and similar businesses would want to get in front. In addition to advertising, the personal finance blogger could also monetize by creating their course on personal finance or become an affiliate for others who have courses on personal finance.
Examples of good pro blogs:
4-Hour Workweek and Lifestyle Design Blog from Tim Ferriss.
I Will Teach You to be Rich blog from Ramit Sethi.
4. Niche blogs
niche
Instead of merely focusing on broad topics, niche blogs are very specific! Some of the niche blog ideas might be food blogging, training programs with your own weight, poems writing, as well as French bulldog lovers. Yes, it can be that specific!
With niche blog, you can focus more on a particular topic thus making research rather easy. It’s easier to identify strengths and weaknesses of that niche and write about things you know the best. You can also use that blog and change your passion into a small personal business.
Successful niche blog
It’s important to pick the topic that appeals to you and the one you are passionate about. Aspire for success, happiness, security, and recognition. By choosing your niche of interest and having your point of view you’ll be able to position and differentiate your blog from the competition. On the other hand, it’s also important to identify the size of the niche. Even if you believe you have a brilliant blog idea, it would be challenging to succeed unless your niche market attracts enough people. You don’t want your niche to be too small or too big.
Examples of good niche blogs:
Freshome blog with the latest news on design and architecture.
Jamie Oliver’s blog with interesting food recipes and cooking ideas.
5. Reverse blogs
reverse
Reverse or guest host blogs are a unique but modern type of blog. Instead of the owner creating content, the content is supplied by the public. A reverse blog has a team who moderate posts, prevent unpleasant interactions and promote slow topics for greater interactivity. Despite the fact that the guest host blog mostly contains content from guest writers, the owner should also write posts of his or her own. Keep in mind that different types of bloggers share different ideas when it comes to blogging.
In fact, any blogger should look for blogs in their field where he or she can become a guest blogger. It would help you attracts visitors to your blog, and some online readers of the host blog can become your followers.
Successful reverse blog
The trick here would be how do you attract different writers who already have a reputation online and in most cases, they would help you promote your blog by sharing pieces of content that they’ve posted with their audiences, usually on social media. From your end, you will have to have a good moderation plan in place so that you can display content from the guests daily.
Example of a good reverse blog:
Medium is a quirky reverse blog with a growing following.
6. Affiliate Blogs
Affiliate
Affiliate bloggers are those that blog to generate affiliate marketing commissions. Instead of creating their own products, they write blog posts that review products by others. The goal is to encourage visitors to purchase those products using the blogger’s affiliate link, allowing the blogger to earn a commission as specified by the product creator.
An affiliate blogger typically writes review posts on affiliate products. Some will write many reviews on one website, while others will create websites dedicated to promoting one particular affiliate product. SEO is an important part of the process, as an affiliate blogger needs their reviews to rank first in search results.
Successful affiliate blog
Success for an affiliate blogger is ensuring that their affiliate product reviews read by those who are likely to purchase those products. They also work towards building an extensive mailing list to promote affiliate product launches with dedicated subscribers. Some affiliate marketers will tell you that their email list is the primary source of their revenue.
Examples of successful affiliate blogs:
Shoemoney blog by Jeremy Shoemaker.
JohnChow blog by John Chow.
7. Media blogs
media
Media blogs are defined by the content they produce. If you enjoy video blogging, then you’re a vlogger. If you curate content from other websites, you have a linklog. If you post photos or art sketches on your blog, you’re hosting a photoblog or art blog.
This type of blog is popular among people of different fields. The younger crowd is recording their video gameplay and sharing it with people interested in that game. Photographers can share tons of pictures they took on the last trip. People that running podcast can post audio files of the last episode recorded.
Successful media blog
One of the important factors here would be choosing the blogging platform that would suit your needs. And maybe finding the web hosting provider that would allow you to store bigger size files without charging you a fortune.
Examples of successful media blogs:
PostSecret blog where people mail in their secrets anonymously on a postcard.
Pointless blog is a fun example of vlog that run on Youtube.
Photoblog is a platform where you could create a free photography blog.
8. Freelance bloggers
freelance
Freelance bloggers are those who are paid for providing services, for example writing content for other businesses. If you are looking for a way to get paid for writing as a service and have experience in blogging, freelance blogging is the way to go.
Freelance bloggers cover topics provided by their clients. Some market themselves as experts in a particular industry or niche, while others market themselves as general writers who can cover anything with a bit of research. Experts within a particular industry or niche tend to be able to charge more than general writers.
Successful freelance blogger
Success for a freelance blogger is to build a portfolio that makes them attractive to entrepreneurs and businesses who need quality content written for their company blog. With exception to ghostwriters, freelance bloggers can use their work for other clients as a springboard to gain new customers. As they become more in demand, freelance bloggers can get bigger contracts and earn a living as a freelancer.
Examples of successful freelance bloggers:
Jean runs Catswhocode blog and offers web development services.
Pam Neely runs her blog and offers content writing services.
Conclusion
Now that you know what types of blogs there are in the blogging world, which type do you want to become? How do you plan to monetize your blogging type? Please share in the comments!
