Who is a successful blogger?

The first aim of bloggers is to earn some money and get famous. Earning money and being famous are two different things - but when you pocket both, you become an icon. You become a successful blogger".

In this process, you not just only gain a huge fan following but also manage to attract several clients.

But is it all? Do these things make you a successful blogger?

I talked to some experts in the field and their opinions were as simple as it can be.

"No! Success is more than just grabbing money from your reader's pocket only because you're too good at that. Success is not about just taking but also giving."

Says Abhijit Trivedi, a successful entrepreneur from Lucknow. He adds,

"Pirates & thugs are both popular and high earners. But I don't think this can be the true measure of being successful on internet. Many bloggers do the same, copying and blogging about [the] stuffs they steal and gaining huge fan-base plus cash".

Well said, Abhijit. Many of us will disagree with the comparison, though. But you are correct on several points.

So, who is a successful blogger?

First, a successful blogger should be a giver.

Money isn't the only thing to give to the people. Code & knowledge are something even more precious. If the blogger is a developer/designer, he can contribute code and designs. But if he is not, he can always give away free stuff to his readers.

Giving aways is priceless and there is no doubt about that. Successful bloggers allow visitors to download e-books and other knowledge packs for free.

A successful blogger should be a philanthropist! That's true humanity thing."

When I asked to Satyam Rao, he tightened the definition of success in blogging. He added,

"Online stuffs do not make sense, if they are making real money! I am not saying that they should donate regularly, but even small donations like 1% of their earning, will be great. If they have wide readership, campaigns can be started to make some great charity values."

Bishal defines a successful blogger as One who could inspire, one who could help in one need and one who could lay an impact. Poetic words!

So add charity and inspiration into consideration and you will find one of the most successful bloggers on the internet.

I believe that bloggers like Syed Balkhi, Matt Mullenweg, Pete Cashmore, Michael Arrington and Brian Clark are pretty successful.

Started almost alone, they run their own companies - contribute code & content to the masses and earn enough to do regular charity works.

I know this list shouldn't contain just four or five names.

This list can be larger but these are the people who really inspire me. Every day I start writing, they are the reason I feel ... I have a long way to go.

Syed Balkhi

Syed Balkhi
Syed Balkhi

Syed Balkhi is the founder of gigantic List25.com, WPBeginner and more. Born in Karachi, Syed now lives in Florida, USA.

He started WPBeginner in 2009, which is now one of the world's most popular blogs about WordPress.

Later he started list25.com and within 3 months of launching, this site was getting 3 million pageviews a month.

Life wasn't that great when he started. 12 years old Syed moved to United States from Pakistan.

I found myself facing some of the biggest challenges of my life. I had to learn a new language while dealing with racial tensions from the 9/11 incident. It was hard for me to make friends when I didn’t know the language. I turned to the internet to find a hobby, and I found myself spending majority of my time playing online games.

He started buying and selling domains to earn extra money. Luck kicked and he has now emerged as a successful entrepreneur. In July 2014, when WPBeginner turned five -- he used his entrepreneurial skills to build two schools in Guatemala by collecting more than 50,000 US Dollars.

Matt Mullenweg

Matt
Matt Mullenweg

Matthew (or Matt) is the founder developer of WordPress and co-founder of Automattic Inc. WordPress is the world's largest blogging platform and hosts 43% of all websites on the internet.

WordPress has been an innovation since its foundation and emerged as an earning medium for many professionals. Automattic Inc. is the company responsible for core development of WordPress software & about a dozen other products.

Abhijit:

He is..., just like Tony Stark. Handsome, intelligent, rich and a philanthropist.

Satyam calls Matt, 'the godfather' of all professional bloggers.

Pete Cashmore

Pete Cashmore
Pete Cashmore

Pete Cashmore is the founder of Mashable, the leading source of news, information & resources for the Connected Generation. He started mashable.com in 2005 at the age of 19.

He had an intense curiosity on how Social Media affected society and this curiosity made a discovery to Mashable. As an entrepreneur, Pete has continued pushing Mashable to evolve from a tech blog to a global media company built around technology.

Michael Arrington

Michael Arrington
Michael Arrington

Mike Arrington is the founder of TechCrunch, a blog focused on technology and startups. He has been with TechCrunch since 2005. This college dropout entrepreneur has proved to be one of the most influential persons on the internet.

Brian Clark

image 4

Brian Clark is the founder of Copyblogger. Copyblogger is a blog focused on how to write better content. Copyblogger was launched by Brian in 2006 as one man blog. This is a different story how he turned this 1000 dollars' one-man venture into a multi-million dollars business. Copyblogger also powers StudioPress Genesis, a robust and clean framework focused on content & conversion.

... when I started Copyblogger in 2006, I started writing it almost like a book in that I would write posts or articles in series along a certain theme.

The Epilogue

My colleague Manoj raised a point at the end,

Why would someone go for money making if he was already earning enough? Or ...  selling content online is not suitable for their reputation.

There are still some bloggers who don't earn from their blogs because they just don't need to. But they contribute code, content and inspiration to the masses. Field Medalist Terence Tao ,who joined as a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) at an age of just 24, blogs at http://terrytao.wordpress.com. WordPress.com, huh? Definitely he doesn't care about making money, using SEO and increasing his readership.

He didn't even opt for a domain. This blog was started in 2006 to provide course notes to his students. Now it is not just limited to course notes but also has become a place where math lovers discuss. Prof. Tao also uses this blog to share updates about latest research papers. And would you believe it, he uploads research papers regularly, generally once a week.

No questions about his success as a blogger as he has contributed priceless content to the internet and attracted millions of readers.

This clearly means that some of the terms do not apply to all. What do you say?