Writing for Blogs
Just a few years ago, only a handful of forward-thinking people had blogs. Today everyone and their mother is a blogger. As a freelance writer, finding blogging jobs or starting your own blog is definitely an option. It’s tough to make money though. Just because you start a blog that documents your day-to-day life doesn’t mean that someone is going to pay you to read it.
Blogs originally started as nothing more than online journals. Sites like Xanga and LiveJournal get users free access to blogging platforms, making it easy for aspiring journalists to update their friend regarding what their cat ate that day or who they had a crush on. These blogs still exist, but they also spawned a new type of blog – the professional blog.
Professional blogs are kind of like online columns. Each blog has a specific topic and readers are updated on news, opinions, etc. relating to that topic. The two main blogging platforms, which are free and can be used with a free site or your own URL, are WordPress and Blogger (run by Google), although there are others you can explore as well. Most blogging networks use WordPress.
A blogging network is a company that runs multiple blogs. If you want to be paid to blog, this is the best way to start. A blogging network will hire you and pay you in one of three ways:
- A flat fee (per blog post or per month)
- A fee for every 1,000 visitors who come to your site (this is called CPM)
- A percentage of the ad revenue made with your site.
Most new blog networks pay based on ad revenue, and if that is the case, you can’t expect to make much money. You can get a fair wage for your work, though, if the network chooses to pay a flat fee or a CPM fee – or a combination of both. Some of the biggest blog networks, which are usually hiring, are:
You can find tons more listed at Blog Network Watch, and ProBlogger keeps an up-to-date list of all of the blogging jobs available at any given time, through networks and individuals. If you’re going to explore blogging opportunities, whether it is alone or through a company, keep in mind that it takes time to build up an audience and make more. This definitely isn’t a get-rich-quick deal.