In 2009, the job market has resulted in a ton of layoffs for journalists, many print newspapers and magazines went out of business.

Writers who worked for these media didn’t just sit there and wait, they take their skills to the Internet and start to blog. It was a big booming in the year 2010.

Just like reality TV has now become a career pursuit for some young adults, blogging is being viewed as a potential income source for those who don’t want to take the regular route to financial success.

However, as far as I see those new bloggers, most of them are scared of entering into certain market because they think there is nothing left to be written.

If you are a new blogger who is reading this article, keep reading.

If you are thinking the market is saturated already, it is too difficult to get your feet into the competitive blogging world, don’t give up. Do your homework and look at it from another perspective; twist it somehow.

Look into the dimension of your blog’s design, figure out what you want to write about, and which niche you want to be in first.

After that, do a search on the net and find out all the blogs in the same industry, put their information into an excel sheet, and add all the important dimensions you can think of, and then start to test them from the perspective of be a reader.

During your evaluating process, ask yourself this question,

“What readers actually want if they come to your blog?”

Put down the values from 1 to 10 in all the dimensions, such as the quality of its content, the layout, blog design.

You also need to look into whether it is search engine friendly or not, the quality of the products they offer etc for all the blogs (that you put in your excel sheet). You can use 10 as high level, 1 as low-level.

Do some research; think about about how and what your blog will bring value to your readers, reconsider the important points in the low-level dimensions group.

After you get this work done, you can start the blog and fill the gap.

In regarding to which niche to get into, the best suggestion I can give to you is to go into the niche you are PASSIONATE about, which means you want to enter to a niche where you truly have a PASSION for it.

You can start a blog about Doritoes potato chips if you passionate about it, and once it get rolling with traffic, wait and see how much others will pay you to own it.

Do the things that you passionate about is important, because it can into frequent blog posts to help you build a loyal and enthusiastic like-minded core audience, which will grow like a wildfire.

When that traffic hits a certain numbers, competitors will come knocking at your door and hoping to make an acquisition, funnel that traffic to their own interests.

About other bloggers, you really don’t need to worry about, because many of them you’ll be competing with won’t have the marketing savvy and insight to monetize their blogs as yours, so initially they may not see the same financial success.

However, don’t count them out either, especially if they’re fierce about feeding the Googlebots with constant content, and they’re not hyping up their reviews in a way that violates current FTC Rules.

Even now is September, it is still the time to start your blog. Take a look of past and ahead, the past has lessons teach you, and the future is waiting for you – it is wide open with possibilities, opportunities, challenges and successes.

Beside that, your goal for the rest of the year as a blogger should be to continue leaving breadcrumbs on a daily basis for search engine spiders as well.

However, I don’t know all of them so if you see my categories are not quite right, do forgive me. The subject in this list is quite diversify, it cover a range of topics including blogging, marketing, creative thinking, copy writing, social media marketing, and other business topics as well as a few blog specific books.

Blogging

• ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income
• Create Your Own Blog: 6 Easy Projects to Start Blogging Like a Pro
• 31 Days to Build a Better Blog – you can read more about this ebook here
• Blog Marketing
• Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business (New Rules Social Media Series)
• Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read (2nd Edition)
• Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers
• The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right
• Blogwild!: A Guide for Small Business Blogging
• Blogging for Business: Everything You Need to Know and Why You Should Care
• Buzz Marketing with Blogs For Dummies
• Money For Content and Your Clicks For Free: Turning Web Sites, Blogs, and Podcasts Into Cash

Marketing

• Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs (New Rules Social Media Series)
• Facebook: The Missing Manual
• Secrets of Social Media Marketing: How to Use Online Conversations and Customer Communities to Turbo-Charge Your Business!
• The Zen of Social Media Marketing: An Easier Way to Build Credibility, Generate Buzz, and Increase Revenue
• Success Secrets of Social Media Marketing Superstars
• Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business (New Rules Social Media Series)
• The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition
• All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World
• Marketing Green Building Services: Strategies for Success
• Marketing for Smart People
• The Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness
• Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands
• Marketing 3.0: From Products to Customers to the Human Spirit
• Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
• Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices
• World Wide Web Marketing: Integrating the Web into Your Marketing Strategy
• Life After the 30-Second Spot: Energize Your Brand With a Bold Mix of Alternatives to Traditional Advertising
• Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media
• Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition
• Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers
• Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing
• Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich: Create Winning Ads, Web Pages, Sales Letters and More
• Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day
• Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day
• Marketing 2.0: Bridging the Gap between Seller and Buyer through Social Media Marketing
• UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging
• The Social Media Management Handbook: Everything You Need To Know To Get Social Media Working In Your Business
• The Step by Step Guide to Facebook for Business

Copy Writing

• Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You
• Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within
• Write It Right: The Ground Rules for Self-Editing Like the Pros
• 1100 Words You Need to Know
• 1000 Most Important Words
• Line by Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing
• On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction (On Writing Well)
• Rules for Writers with 2009 MLA and 2010 APA Updates
• Creativity Rules: A Writer’s Workbook
• Choose the Right Word: Second Edition
• The Adweek Copywriting Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful Advertising and Marketing Copy from One of America’s Top Copywriters
• Advertising Secrets of the Written Word: The Ultimate Resource on How to Write Powerful Advertising Copy from One of America’s Top Copywriters and Mail Order Entrepreneurs
• Breakthrough Advertising: How to Write Ads That Shatter Traditions and Sales Records
• The Copywriter’s Handbook, Third Edition: A Step-By-Step Guide To Writing Copy That Sells
• Persuasive Online Copywriting: How to Take Your Words to the Bank
• Advertising Secrets of the Written Word
• Hot Text: Web Writing that Works
• The Story Factor
• Tested Advertising Methods

Creative Thinking

• Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition)
• Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas
• Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step (Perennial Library)
• Growing Great Ideas: Unleashing Creativity at Work
• Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
• A Technique for Producing Ideas (Advertising Age Classics Library)
• Six Thinking Hats
• How to Have a Beautiful Mind
• De Bono’s Supermind Pack : Expand Your Thinking Powers With Strategic Games & Mental Exercises

That’s where you come in. You can draw millions of readers, because what you have to say is important. You can accumulate advertisers, because they will pay to reach your readers. In short, you can build your own blog empire, and it’s easier than you think.

A Blog Empire, like any other business, is made up of three major components: a supplier, buyers, and the products for sale. But a blog in many cases differs from the average business because you are bringing together two sets of customers and delivering two sets of products. And you’re not even selling the main item you produce.

The first component is a supplier. That’s you. It is your words, your opinion, your research, and your art which can bring thousands or even millions of readers to your blog. You will be the attraction, the broker, and the Emperor of your Blog Empire. If it weren’t for you, the blog wouldn’t exist. Because of who you are, what you know, and what you do, it can thrive.

The second component is a buyer, a customer. While the vast majority of your customers will be your readers, other customers will include companies that pay you to feature their links and advertisements on your blog.

The final component is a product. Like all businesses, yours can’t exist without a product to sell. Continuing read in this week’s MBA Digest

Those interesting stats are courtesy of 2009 State of the Blogosphere by Technorati. Do take some time to read and absorb the stats and draw whatever conclusions you will have.

* More than 133,000,000 blogs have been indexed by Technorati since 2002
* 77% of Internet users read blogs according to Universal McCann
* Two-thirds of Bloggers are male (ladies, where are you? Time to start Blogging!)
* More than half are married and more than half are parents
* 60% are 18-44
* 75% have college degrees and 40% have graduate degrees
* One in four has an annual household income of $100K+
* Around half of Bloggers are working on at least their second blog
* 68% have been blogging for two years or more
* 86% have been blogging for at least a year
* 70% of all respondents say that personal satisfaction is a way they measure the success of their blog
* 72% say they blog in order to share their expertise.
* 61% say they blog in order to supplement their income.
* 53% of professional Bloggers are interested in attracting new clients from blogging.
* 72% of those who are self-employed and blogging are interested in attracting new clients.
* 57% say that their future plans include blogging even more (including 74% of 18-24 year olds).
* Part-Timers, Pros, and Self-Employed Bloggers are blogging as much as or more than ever (73%, 76% and 80%, respectively), while Hobbyists are blogging somewhat less.
* 15% of Bloggers spend 10 or more hours each week blogging.
* One in five Bloggers report updating on a daily basis.
* The most common rate of updating is 2-3 times per week.
* The majority of blogs use tags (85%).
* 82% of respondents say that they post photos to their blog, making images the most popular form of multimedia.
* Bloggers participate in an average of 5 activities to drive traffic to their blogs.
* 72% of respondents are classified as Hobbyists, meaning that they report no income related to blogging
* 54% are Part-Timers
* 32% are Self-Employed Bloggers
* 14% are Corporate Bloggers
* 51% of Corporate Bloggers – 58 respondents – report receiving a salary for blogging.
* 56% say that their blog has helped their company establish a positioning as a thought leader within the industry.
* 58% say that they are better-known in their industry because of their blog

If you haven’t read one of my previous posts on Stop Waste Time and Start to Your Blog, please check it out.

No matter what you interest are, whether you interested in religion, law, history, philosophy – all kinds of things. You know by blogging, you can get to reflect on issues that interest you and thereby clarify your own thoughts, with the bonus that thoughtful people might interact with you.

Unfortunately, many people out there are tend to think – who has time for this blogging work? Well, a dedicated 30 minutes out of your day to post on your blog, get it indexed by afternoon (Google tends to index blogs very fast) with a great keyword phrase ranking can bring you customers by evening.

If you are new to all those blogging things, please read this Previous Blogging Post.

For many of you, you know you should blog, you know blogging is good for market your business, and in fact, to start blogging is not difficult at all, it is really that simple.

The only thing you need to is that before you start your blog, the very step is to ask yourself: Why are you Blogging and what do you hope to accomplish? Do you want:

* To build brand awareness
* To improve customer relations
* To get new clients/make sales
* To boost search engine rankings
* To show knowledge & earn credibility

Or for any other reasons …

Once you get your question answered, then start to How to Crate a Blog that Wows and Inspires.

If in case you haven’t heard of it, I wanted to make sure you knew about it, find out more information in this post.

FTC is the Federal Trade Commission and regulate how we do business.

* “What parts of your business do these FTC rules effect?
* “If you live outside of the USA, you may be thinking you don’t have to follow their rules …

But all these questions are answered in Jim Edward’s Interview with the FTC Official. I’m in the middle of listening to it right now and it’s great. It’s free and is answering a lot of my questions.

This special interview webinar with Mr. Rich Cleland, Assistant Deputy at The Federal Trade Commission is about the changes /additions to FTC advertising guidelines as they apply to Bloggers, Affiliates, Online Advertisers and Internet Merchants.

When the new ruling first came out, there was talk about an $11,000 fine for those caught out of compliance. But that information was detracted, and now there is no mention of a fine. However, since it is the FTC making the new guidelines, affiliate marketers should take notice.

The FTC has now published their final guidelines, for the changes that affect Testimonial Advertisements, Bloggers, and Celebrity Endorsements. Here is an excerpt from their site:

The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers.

The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.

Likewise, if a company refers in an advertisement to the findings of a research organization that conducted research sponsored by the company, the advertisement must disclose the connection between the advertiser and the research organization. And a paid endorsement – like any other advertisement – is deceptive if it makes false or misleading claims.

The revised Guides also make it clear that celebrities have a duty to disclose their relationships with advertisers when making endorsements outside the context of traditional ads, such as on talk shows or in social media.

Here is the main thrust of 81-page document, Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, you may want to read it.

The new rule will start to effective on 1st Dec 2009. So keep your eyes open while reading blogs to see what others are doing, and see what might work best on your blog.