Successful Blogging: 14 Effective Example – Part 1

Running a successful blog is not that easy. It’s not enough to just fill a few posts with content and hope that by magic enough people will be found in the vastness of the internet to read the content. It takes a good strategy, a lot of staying power and also a little bit of talent. But the best thing about it is: The start of blogging costs next to nothing. Wordpress-CMS, nice templates, pictures and visibility on Google are free. Only the hosting costs as much per month as a latte macchiato in Friedrichshain. So that this Latte Macchiato is also well invested, we dedicate this article to blogging in detail: What blogging is, how blogging has developed and changed over the years, which niches are worthwhile and last but not least, who became a multimillionaire with blogging and why. So it is worthwhile to stay tuned now. Here comes the first part!

In 1994, when the first blogs appeared, a blog was more of a personal diary that people shared online. In this online diary the authors more or less reported about their daily life. At that time, people saw it as a new and fascinating way to communicate with others in a more or less creative way. So it was no wonder that the first blogs were lifestyle blogs.

What Is a Blog?

Technically, a blog is an online publication that displays information in reverse chronological order, with the latest posts appearing first, i.e. at the top.

What Is a Blog Post?

A blog post is content that is published on a blog on the blog roll. Because the content management system automatically places the most recent post at the top of the article list and gives it a publication date, blog posts always convey a certain sense of timeliness. 

What Distinguishes Blog Posts From Pillar Pages?

Because blog posts promise up-to-dateness due to the way they work (chronological sorting and publication date), they are less suitable for evergreen content. This is better served on well-structured Pillar Pages, which discuss a topic comprehensively. 

What is The Purpose of a Business Blog?

There are many reasons to start a blog for personal use. However, there are only a few tangible reasons for online marketing via business blogging. These are:

• Blogging can make money directly, e.g. by monetizing your own traffic with the sale of advertising space via guest posts, display ads or native advertising.
• Blogging can indirectly earn money by using the content to explain your company or products in such a way that the reader and potential customers build up more trust in your company and buy your products faster - keyword inbound marketing.
• Blogging can save costs, if one places oneself with search machine optimized content free in the Top position of the Google search machine result pages. Thus you save ad costs - keyword search machine optimization (SEO).
• As an entrepreneur you depend on consumers buying your products and services repeatedly. In a blog you communicate always extra reasons why this is a good idea - keyword sales communication.
• Without blogging, your website would hardly be visible in search engines in the long run, because Google believes that you have nothing new to tell new users. However, this is an important element for Google's offer - keyword content marketing.

So the primary purpose of a blog is to connect you with the relevant audience, increase traffic and generate high quality leads for your sales.

The more frequent and better your blog posts are, the higher are the chances that your target audience will discover and visit your website.

By adding a Call-to-Action (CTA) to your content, you turn the visitor and reader into a high-quality lead. This means that a blog is an effective tool for generating leads.

Strategically, blogging is one of the most important marketing strategies and tactics in content marketing.

So What Made a Good Blog in 2014 When We Originally Created This Post?

We started writing this article six years ago, in the fall of 2014. TikTok and Instagram were out of the question, Google rarely released algorithm updates, and companies were just discovering corporate blogging for themselves.

Back then, there were countless blogs on every topic, no matter how special. While many of them remained unread by the masses and were run more as a hobby of the operators, other blogs had long since made the breakthrough and were not inferior to the websites of the big publishers in terms of traffic and advertising revenue. Even if the niche and the target group was still so small, the blog could become a great success with the help of the right content strategy and the appropriate promotion strategy. The following blogs were already groundbreaking in 2014.

Five Blogs That Know How to Set the Wheel Spinning:

PerezHilton

Mario Lavandeira started in 2004 with his blog www.perezhilton.com and hit a nerve. While many blogs served primarily as a kind of diary, he used the platform to report on the latest gossip from the world of celebrities. Perez Hilton had about 14,500,000 unique visitors per month and its founder, who has long since stopped writing for the site alone, made about $200,000 to $400,000 per month, according to www.therichest.com. With over one million likes and almost six million followers on Twitter, Perez Hilton was also very successful in social networks. We will meet him again later.

Mashable

Pete Cashmore started the social media and technology blog Mashable in 2005 at the age of just 19. By 2014, the project had grown into a media company and CEO Pete Cashmore had become one of the most influential bloggers in the world. Mashable had around 24,000,000 unique monthly visitors and made nearly $16,000 a day in advertising revenue.

Der Postillon

The satire blog went online in October 2008 and was initially only a side project of the editor-in-chief Stefan Sichermann. In 2014, Der Postillon was Germany's most successful blog according to the German blog charts. The articles were mainly shared via the social networks - in terms of social media response; the Postillon had long outstripped serious news portals such as Die Welt or Frankfurter Allgemeine.

HubSpot Blog

One of the best corporate blogs came (and still comes, as we can expect) from the software company HubSpot. The blog helped the company to increase its visibility through interesting content. By 2014, the company already had over 100,000 RSS subscribers.

Malerdeck Blog

That one does not necessarily have to be a media professional to run a successful blog was proven by the Karlsruhe painter Werner Deck. On his blog, he only published content from his daily working life and thus had an enormous advantage over many of his professional colleagues who only work offline. About 140,000 users read the Maler-Blog every month, and Deck also had over 18,000 followers on Twitter. In 2015, Werner Deck handed over the company to his successor, and in 2017 the company ceased operations, including his blog. 

The Interim Conclusion

To stand out from the multitude of competitors on the World Wide Web, it was important even then to concentrate on a niche and to know its users. The right strategy including proper social media marketing and seeding and innovative content in the appropriate formats were the key to making a blog successful.

But as already mentioned at the beginning, many things have changed in the last few years, e.g. user behavior, tools, data, attribution channels, monetization possibilities, social networks and much more. Therefore, it is worth looking at the most impressive and successful blog 2020 and learning from them.

The Most Interesting Blogs 2022

Frugal Chic Life

Frugality, thriftiness, minimalism - this is the big trend of the last years.

Frugal Chic Life is one of the most popular frugal blogs in the United States. It addresses young mothers with its tips and articles. And rightly so! The market is huge and unmanageable - founder Nicole meets the need for pre-filtering and structuring with her blog Frugal Chic Life. The topic is worthwhile financially for the readers: Young mothers are not exactly swimming in money because parental leave reduces family income. So they have to live more economically in everyday life, Nicole helps them to do so.

The glorious thing about this blog is the relaxed approach and the actual person behind the brand. Frugal Chic Life inspires her audience to follow her lead, because her tips are 100% actionable.

SolopreneurHour.com

SolopreneurHour.com is a very well designed and sophisticated blog that aims to help its readers achieve professional and financial independence.

It is a blog with a very active podcast feed. His podcasts are quite popular on iTunes and no doubt SolopreneurHour.com makes a lot of money by selling advertising space on these podcasts. Podcasts are something you should think about when creating your blog as they can be a great monetization tool.

SideHustleNation.com

SideHustleNation.com is a further representative from the category of independence and entrepreneurship. Side Hustle means, freely translated, starting your own business besides your primary job. The blog's name says it all: there is a gigantic collection of blog entries dealing with business models, niches, marketing and sales - all with a focus on minimal time and financial investment.

SideHustleNation.com also uses podcasts excessively as a tool for marketing their content. They invite experts to the podcasts each time, who maximize the podcasts's value and provide additional traffic from their own network.

Erickimphotography.com

erickimphotography.com is something different - a photo blog: The tone of voice in this blog is extraordinary. If only everything was written like this. It is friendly, clear, easy to read and inspiring. We like the way Erick covers the simple things in photography with posts like "Shoot Different" and "Why your smart phone is the best camera". It is fun to read the site.

iamafoodblog.com

Food is another trend topic of the last years. iamafoodblog.com focuses on real quality content, which therefore can be monetized excellently. Stephanie Le's food blog is simple in design and content. What she posts is 100% realizable, yet she publishes the food photographs in a top quality way (which could convey the opposite).

Stephanie Le has developed a clever monetization method with her page "What's in My Kitchen?" Here she recommends quality products from partners in the Amazon affiliate program.

The key to her success:

• Mouth-watering photos,
• clean theme layout,
• well formatted and styled recipe notes,
• excellent writing style and tone of voice and
• additional background stories to each article.

Second Part: Success Factors, Blog Millionaires and Next Steps

We have reached the end of the first part. It is already clear that although blogging has changed and professionalized over the last six years; it has never lost its fascination: Because blogging can create an empire of millions practically from nothing. You do not believe it? Then wait for the second part of this article, because here we will show you the three success factors that have turned bloggers into multimillionaires.