What Kind of Blog are You Building?

I think a lot of people miss this when they first start in the blogging world. There are a few different kinds of blogs, and blog software can do quite a few things.

Today I thought I’d  cover some of the different things you can do with a blog, and who you can turn to for the best help in each area.

Each of these ways to use a blog is a viable internet marketing strategy, the key is to decide what you are trying to do and what you want to accomplish with your blog so you can move in the right direction and take the right actions. What you need to do with one type of blog you will NOT do with another type of blog. So being clear in what you want is key in the beginning ~ and even later on if you are not getting the results you hoped for you may need to reassess your intentions for your blog.

Professional Blogger

This is the kind of blog that is the “holy grail” in the blogging community. The Enrepreneur’s Journey, ProBlogger, CopyBlogger type of blogs.  These are high traffic blogs and are a long term business model.To be successful in this type of blogging you will create ONE “flagship” blog. It will be your one and only focus for blogging.

These blogs are generally synonomous with their writers and will make you “famous” online.  These types of blog depend on the character of the writer coming through. The only thing that makes your professional blog any different than the next guys is YOU, and that has to come through. Although the blogs I mentioned here are all Internet Marketing related, you can build a professional blog in any niche or market.  Whether it’s teaching people how to cook a great meal, sew a doll or how to save money in a difficult economy.  Whatever you enjoy ~ and have found a market for ~ you can do a professional blog on.

If you are working on this type of blog and are struggling your best bet is Yaro Starak. He runs a blogging program called Blog Mastermind. It is a monthly membership program and it’s not cheap, but if you are serious about being a pro bloggingYarowill show you the way. Blog Mastermind was created for the very beginner as well as bloggers who have been around for a while. It is definitely THE way to go if you are looking to become a professional blogger.

Niche Blogger

A niche blogger is quite a bit different than a professional blogger, and in fact,  within this area there are a couple different types of blogs. No matter what type of niche blog you decide to do, understand you will be doing a BUNCH of these blogs. The money from niche blogs does not come from creating one blog, but in creating an empire of these blogs. It is very doable and I will show you some resources that will help you get it done.

Long Term Niche Blogs

Long term niche blogs are blogs created to provide continuing content over a long period of time, it can be done upfront and scheduled so you are not updating all of your blogs forever, but the point is ongoing content. These blogs are about 1 specific topic and all things related to that topic. These blogs are generally chosen based on keywords or a specific product or market, and then all the material contained in them pertains to that niche.

These blogs can also be on any given topic or area of interest.  My Easy Chicken Recipes blog is an example of the long term niche blog concept. It is a blog all about easy chicken recipes. It provides new recipes twice a week, and helps busy people find quick and easy recipes to get dinner on the table.

These can be fun because they are long term and very “bloggy” blogs, but they also allow you to change the topic you are working on. This is great for people who tend to get bored, or have trouble staying focused on one project or topic.

If you are interested in creating long term niche blogs you absolute best bet is The Niche Blogger.  I have followed the Niche blogger for the last few months and have set up a number of blogs following her method.  It is also a monthly membership site, it is very affordably priced, and you can also join at a lifetime level and pay a single payment.

This is also geared toward beginners as well as  those who have been blogging a while. If you are a very very beginner, I highly recommend Amy’s course. She is excellent at working with new bloggers and walks you through each and every step in an easy to learn manner.  If you’ve been blogging for a while and think you know it all you will be surprised as well, in fact, I have learned a bunch of new things each month of my membership.

Small Niche Sites

These are the other type of niche blogs, and these can be pretty easy to get up and maintain. These are small sites, usually only 5 or 10 posts. They are generally based around a very specific keyword or product. They feature information about that keyword or product and are generally in place to get you to complete a specific action, whether it’s clicking an adsense ad or an affiliate link.

Again you will need to make many of these sites, based on a variety of different products/keywords to find success with this model.

These are much quicker to put up than a long term niche blog. They can both be very successful models, it really depends on what you like better, and what you feel comfortable with. These are the types of sites called for at the end of One Week Marketing as the final stage of an active campaign.

If these are the type of sites you would like to be doing I recommend WordPress Goldmine. This book will take you through all the steps and guide you to build profitable quality small niche sites.  Some people may not consider this a “blog”, because they are not generally updated once you have completed them, but they are done on wordpress platform, so I have included them here.

Social Blogger

This is a very different type of blog online. This is pretty much your “home” online. Where you can talk about all that you do whether it’s family, business, travel and life in general. This is a place you send people to from your social networking communities to get to know you better. This is not necessarily a money making blog, but a connection blog.  From these connections you can create new clients, partners etc and make money from the connections you create.

This blog is really an extension of who YOU are, and will help people get to know, like and trust you which is a MUST in the social networking model. There are no rules for this type of blog, and I imagine you could do this successfully on a free blog platform as well as on a self hosted blog. Just remember if you are going to have any type of monetization on the site do NOT use wordpress.com ~ go with blogger.com if you are going to use a free platform.

All in all I always think hosting your own blog is always in your best interest, even if it’s for this type of a blog, but if you can’t swing it at this time remember you can fairly easily move your blog content to a hosted site when you chose to do that in the future.

E-Commerce Blogger

This is a very specific type of blog, but it is also similar to a long term niche blog. This is a blog to give a company or an e-commerce site a way to interact and get to know their customers and let their customers get to know them.

This type blog is great for creating more search traffic, and giving your business a persona and personality people can connect with. You will find people are more and more turning to people they know for recommendations online.

If you are using social networking sites to drive traffic you can use this type of blog to send them to instead of going directly to a e-commerce site. Let them get to know you a little better, and then gently lead them into the sale.

If you are trying to do this method I would recommend the niche blogger as well. The techniques Amy teaches will cover this type of blog quite well, and her easy to follow and understand teaching style will probably work quite well with e-commerce site owners who may not understand how a blog is going to work. Instead of using affiliate programs to monetize you can use your own products from your own store.

I think those are the top 4 types of blogs people generally create to make money online. If you think of one I haven’t mentioned please leave a note it the comments section.

I can tell you from personal experience that once you get clear on the TYPE of blog you are trying to create you will be able to create a much clearer strategy to get you where you are trying to go. Knowing what you are trying to accomplish will help you take the appropriate steps in the right direction, save money, save time and accomplish your goal.