Professional Bloggers & Blog Firms

Blogging seems to be so mind-boggling hot right now that it was really only a matter of time before more firms began offering consulting and even blog-writing services. A ton of publicity and press in mainstream business publications has attracted both large corporations and small businesses alike – even those that may be quite conservative and slow to jump on the latest fad seem to be quite interested.

Jeremy Wright is in the process of starting a blog consulting firm that he decided to form in response to overwhelmingly postive response to an eBay auction he ran offering his services writing 5-10 blogs per week for 3 months. The winner bidder agreed to pay $3,350 for this service.

Let’s do the math here… 5-10 blogs per week = 30 blogs per month (avg). 30 blogs per month multiplied by 3 months is 90 total blogs. $3,350 divided by 90 blogs is $37.22 per blog entry. That’s some pretty nice coin!

Obviously there is much more than just quantity of content and the frequency thereof. More importantly is the quality of that content, and Jeremy’s experience as a blogger and general IT and internet savvy and knowledge make his offering much more valuable than that of a newbie blogger.

Apparently he got much more than one profitable client though from this auction, he received some free PR from major media, including CBS MarketWatch and The Washington Post. Big time. Jeremy mentioned in one of his blogs (surprise) that the auction resulted in a number of leads and additional prospective clients.

The auction page (link will likely die in a few days) –
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=193&item=5142129647&rd=

For my own two cents, I recently had a website maintenance client of mine inquire about blogs. As a marketer and one who makes their living promoting websites, I like blogs b/c their volumes of search engine friendly and keyword-loaded content is great for improving rankings and generating traffic. This client, however, was even more so interested in the communication aspects – as blogs provide a means of commenting on recent occurances without having to obsess over proofreading, editing and such. They allow a company or expert to provide opinions and analysis in a casual voice. Users seem to like this as well, as with our culture being so saturated with marketing “fluff” and sales pitches that no one believes, its nice to hear some straightforward info every now and again.

Blogging has now arrived as an industry. Good luck Jeremy!