In this 3-part mini series, let me give you a short but useful introduction to the three main blogging models: authority blogging, niche blogging, and autopilot blogging. Of course our discussions will completely ignore the other blogging model: blogging for fun :) .

If you buy any blogging ebook, software or attend a blogging seminar, everything you’ll learn will fall into these three categories.



Authority-blogging model is perhaps the most common.

90% of all blogging tips out there teach you how to become an "authority blogger": someone who commands respect, is recognized as an expert, and frequently writes great content for his blog.

Almost every blog we frequently visit are run by authority bloggers. They know the "inside scoop", they have the best answers and they are a sea of information on whatever topic they blog about.

An "authority" blogger in almost all cases can only be perceived as an authority in one, at most two, unrelated markets. The scope is limiting, but besides just money this path promises you fame, recognition and also die-hard fans.

Here’s how this blogging model breaks down:

    * Visibility Level: High
    * Effort Level: Medium
    * Time to Profit: High
    * Technicality: Medium
    * Risk Level: High
    * Potential Rewards: High

Visibility level is high, because if you want to be recognized as an expert you need to put up pictures of yourself, reveal your FaceBook or Twitter profile, and even do some videos or podcasts.

People need to see your face. They need to know you so they can trust you and ultimately, do business with you.

Effort level is also high, since you need to constantly put up relevant blog posts daily (or every few days). Besides just writing new blog posts, you need to go the extra mile if you want to be recognized as a true authority. Talk about podcasts, interviews, and videos.

Time to profit is high because you need to blog for a long time before anyone would recognize you and want to put ads on your site.

However, this is only true for the advertising monetization model. You can make money much faster if:

    * You already have a solid product or service, and you’re just building your brand
    * You have an ebook, software or other information product to sell
    * You are the author of a book, or currently writing one

Technicality required is medium – just an ordinary WordPress blog will do. The key here is content, not the gadgets. However, you still need to have great technical skills or knowledge in the filed that you want to dominate, and this is not that easy!

An authority blogger also doesn’t need to spend as much time figuring out keyword research, PageRank or SEO tactics. All he or she needs to do is write to communicate, and focus on long-tail keywords, referral traffic and residual traffic from social bookmarking.

Risk level is high, in my opinion, because if you follow this strategy you need to put all your eggs in one basket. What if your blog doesn’t quite catch on? What if after months of blogging, you find it difficult (if not impossible) to monetize your blog?

If however, you succeed, then the rewards you get will be the best. You can make money not only from advertising, but by selling even more information products from your blog, speaking engagements, physical books, and perhaps even product commercials. I’m not kidding: a lot of hot female bloggers achieve some sort of semi-celebrity status, and are sought after even by large multi-national companies.

If you want to be an authority blogger, then the most important question to ask is "Can I be an authority figure in this market?"

If the answer is "No", then no matter how hard you try your blog will not be one of the best. There will always be other experts who know more than you do, have better connections, have access to insider information, and so on.

Anyways, even an authority blogger can only be an authority in one or two markets. Trying to build an authority blog in more than 2 markets is too time-consuming. Because you are the authority and have a certain style of writing, you cannot outsource your content or marketing as much as you could with niche blogging or autopilot blogging.

Becoming an authority blogger is a full-time affair. Sometimes it can feel like you’re stuck to it, but if you really love your topic, work seems like fun. I think that’s the key to becoming an authority blogger: love what you do.

So, is authority blogging your cup of tea? Or do you just want to make more money online an don’t care about the recognitions or fame?



Niche blogging is very different. When people say “niche blogging” they usually mean creating blogs in other niches besides the one they are already blogging on as an authority blogger.

Niche blogging is simple using WordPress as a CMS, adding a pre-defined number of content (say 50 articles), and tying it all up with a static front page.

    * Visibility Level: Low
    * Effort Level: High
    * Time to Profit: Low
    * Technicality: Medium
    * Risk Level: Medium
    * Potential Rewards: Medium / High

Visibility level is low, and you mainly depend on search engine traffic to make money. No one needs to know who you are. However, sometimes niche bloggers may publish some sort of contact information, payment links etc that makes them “involved” in their market.

Effort level is just as high as authority blogging, although the type of work is different. Niche bloggers create new blogs all the time instead of focusing on one blog.

Time to profit is shorter, as typically if you can set-up a good niche blog and signup for 3-Way Links or 1-Way Links, you can basically let your blog traffic grow organically and watch AdSense income trickle in within the first week.

Technicality level is not much different from authority blogging. Same skills, just applied differently.

Risk level is lower, since you’re spreading it over many blogs in many niche markets. If one blog fails to get traffic it does not effect you as much, as long as there are other blogs that succeed. However the danger is when you lose focus, and instead spend too much time doing everything else than creating new blogs.

Reward level is perhaps not as high as authority blogging, but still very good. Since you are dependent on search engine traffic and advertising / affiliate products, you need to build more sites if you want to increase your income. I know a lot of people who not only survive, but make a six-figure income building niche blogs. Some blogs they keep, others they sell for a profit.

Is this the type of blogging you want to do? I think the key characteristics of someone who can succeed with this type of blogging are:

   1. The ability to set goals and deadlines, and stick to them
   2. The skills to build sites quickly, while making it look decent enough
   3. Not too fussy about the aesthetics of their blogs – they just want the traffic
   4. The ability to take a "formula" and apply it daily till it’s perfected
   5. Interested in exploring new niche markets instead of just sticking to what you know
   6. Ability to organize a small group of people and coordinate their work
   7. Ability to teach and pass on technical knowledge / instructions easily

I think point number 6-7 are the most important. If you’re creating niche blogs every day, they you most definitely have to outsource many aspects of site building, design, content writing and SEO. You need to be able to communicate and teach people what you know and how you prefer to do things.



Let's talk about auto-pilot blogging. Some people call it "spam blogging", but I don’t. I think autopilot blogging is just as viable a model to make money with internet as the other two. It’s just how you do it that makes the difference.

Over a year ago, people used RSS to blog, WP-O-Matic and other similar services to "scrape" content from RSS feeds of other blogs and post it to their own as content. Most people only used a summary of the post, which can still be tolerated.

I mean, isn’t that the same thing Technorati, PlugIM and thousands of other syndication services do?

But then came a different breed of people, who copied your entire blog post including images. That really pissed people off. Unfortunately, if you’re an authority blogger there will always be someone stealing your content. Or is this good?

Here’s how this model breaks down:

    * Visibility Level: Low
    * Effort Level: Low
    * Time to Profit: Medium
    * Technical Level: High
    * Expected Rewards: Medium

Visibility level is low because you never (ever) put your name or contact details on autopilot blogs. In fact most autopilot blogs have nothing more than scraped content and ads.

Effort level is low too, as the automation software basically does everything else once you set it up. Technical level is high, as you need to learn how to use a couple of software first before you can do this. Plus, you’ll also need to understand C-class IPs, web hosting and so much more.

Expected rewards is low, but the trick here is that while one blog may only make a few dollars a month for you, a hundred blog can surely give you the income you want. Then again, it takes a certain amount of technical expertise to manage a few hundred blogs, doesn’t it?

Auto-pilot blogging sounds appealing, but from my research it takes a certain type of individual to really make money from autopilot blogging. I am NOT that type of person.

Basically, if you accept and love the challenge of "mass production", learning technical software and systems, and can command an army, then auto-pilot blogging is for you. Plus, you must be able to switch on "creative thinking" only as long as you need to find a formula that works. When you’ve found it, you need to switch off creativity and focus solely on duplication.

Again, I simply cannot do that. Repetitive tasks are just not for me. I question everything and always think "How can I change that?!".

Make no mistake: although everyone can learn a thing or two about planning and automation from this type of blogging model, you’ll only be making spare change with just a handful of blogs. What does it take to make a LOT of money?

Well a friend of mine used to have more than 1,000,000 BlogSpot blogs – or so he says. Yes, let me say that again: 1,000,000 blogs! The number itself is mind-boggling, but considering he was using in-house software that costs thousands to develop and had a team of worker bees building 100 blogs a day, it’s not entirely impossible.

However, according to him it’s all about "fire fighting", or solving problems. That’s because while you’re making thousands of blogs other people are trying to shut you down, stop you from manipulating their system and so on.

Considering he was making five figures a month from Google AdSense alone, I assume it was still worth the try. However, eventually it gets tiring. In the case of my friends he has slowly moved away from the autopilot blogging model into other areas of Internet marketing.

Although hardcore autopilot money-making is not everyone’s cup of tea, it does result in the creation of a lot of interesting software we can all use. For example, all these software is the result for the need to automate and mass-generate:

    * Auto Social Poster - WordPress plugin that enables you to automatically submit your blog’s latest entry to many social bookmarking sites
    * WordPress Cloner – Clone your WP themes, plugins and setting to hundreds of other blogs
    * Ninja Affiliate for WordPress – Ok this wasn’t strictly developed for auto-pilot blogging, but it fits in very nicely.
    * 1 Way Links Network – Automate link building, get one-way links to your blog
    * And much more..

Auto-pilot blogging isn’t really that difficult to figure out – there’s a certain process in almost all successful cases:

    * Find a way to make money using blogs and content already available online – it could be from other blogs, Yahoo Answers, or any other easily copied source
    * Study the process and identify all the key components, simplify as much as possible
    * Find the tools to make automation possible, preferably develop that software in-house
    * Using your automation software and your process, mass generate your results to a point where you make a lot of money
    * But there is also another way, that is my personal case: you discard the entire AdSense thing (see my opinion about Google's Ad system using the search tab in this blog...) and use autopilot to drive traffic to other original content.



Mixed mode will be always my favourite style of doing things.

Let's say: you are starting up with your own thing, you have no backlinks (that is the only thing that really matters: internet is made of links!) and have little experience in how bad is the world (choose the right cms, build your theme, then spam, defacing, dataloss, repetitive tasks such as backups, infinite css tweaks, cms updates).
How can you make awareness around your big idea, your opinion, your coding / graphics skills, your business and so on? My answer is:

    * Write great content (content is king!) and put it in an usable interface: no flashing Ads, no AdSense, no widgets, clear links, installing only useful plugins
    * Once your website is tested and tuned, create an autopilot section, relevant to your content: select as many (good?) rss feeds you can, and poll only one of them everyday
    * Filter the information to fit your ideas, and edit the articles deeplinking to your ideas: it is important to give your touch on the scraped content also. Autolinkers (like: autolink the name of a category, or autolink a tag) don't work. You have to read, understand and correlate. This helps you in driving huge traffic, having fresh content and making people read what you want.