How and when can you say that a person is a successful blogger?

There are many ways to define what makes a successful blogger, and in turn a successful blog. It could be the amount of traffic to your blog; the amount of back-links to your blog; your standing on Google; or how many subscribers you have. In truth, it's a little bit of all of these.

Blogging has come a long way since the "loner in the bedroom" that many people still associate blogging with. From the early days of just jotting down some personal thoughts to share with whoever might happen upon them, blogging is now big business in more ways than one. Companies can use business blogs to help promote their services in new and innovative ways. This is due to the simplicity factor of a blog - where it might take a day to update or change a company website, it only takes a few minutes to upload a new blog. So you can see why the format is such a useful business tool - customers can be kept up-to-date with the latest news with minimal disruption.

Blogging is also a great way to keep family and friends in the loop with what's going on with your life. People no longer live in their hometowns - they move to different cities and indeed, at times, different countries (I moved from the UK to Canada). While it's not always easy to call someone, it's easy enough to post a blog on your day or week and your friends and loved ones can see what you're up to.

There's also paid blogging now - advertisers will pay writers to blog about their products and services, and this can lead to a profitable side gig. As long as the blogger remains ethical and doesn't write false information about the product or service in question, then this shouldn't be too much of an issue. So as you can see, there are many facets to the blogging world nowadays. But do all these factors make you a successful blogger if you fit into one of these descriptions?

It's all relevant - if you feel that a successful blogger is the one with the higher Google rank, you might be surprised to find that this could be a relatively poor blogger that is simply good at SEO (search engine optimization) tactics. The blog in question might only have 6-7 readers, but because the author knows how to work the search engines, it looks more popular.

To me, a successful blogger is the one who has a loyal subscription base (whether via email or an RSS reader). If you can write something that has people signing up to your blog to make sure they don't miss a thing, THAT's successful blogging. When people leave you comments on your blog saying how much they enjoyed your post and that you made valid points, THAT's successful blogging. Even if it's just one person who leaves you a comment, THAT's successful blogging - you've touched someone and that's all that matters.

You might never get a recommendation for an award at the Blogger's Choice Awards, but who cares? As long as you have people reading you and enjoying what you have to say, you'll be more successful than any award winner.

Happy blogging!