Who would you call a professional blogger ?
A. Someone who blogs in his free time and yet manages to generate some decent income from the blog.
B: An independent full-time blogger who has no day job.
C. Someone who blogs only ‘professional’ stuff and nothing personal / private.
D. A freelancer who writes for another blog network.
I could be wrong here but my assumption was that a professional blogger is a person who has no regular 9-5 job and makes a living from the blog. What’s your opinion?
Anyway, the reason for asking this question is a Seagate contest that begins today. As per rules, only journalists and “professional bloggers” can participate in the contest. Now how would they define one?
Update: The PR team of Seagate has clarified this now - “A professional blogger would be someone who writes blogs on a regular basis.” So I guess most bloggers can enter the contest.
Related: The Life of a Professional Blogger
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/internet/blogging/define-professional-blogger-full-time-blogging/3792/
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org


Reader Comments
Hi Amit,
I think that the professional blogger is one who has no day job and is dependent on blogging for living.
-Heeren Pandya
Written by Heeren Pandya on 07.03.08
IMHO, B and D would both qualify for “professional blogger”
A would be a “lucky blogger”
C would be called a “blogger about professional stuff”
:-)
Written by Gautam on 07.03.08
First of all define the term “Blogger”.. When someone says i am a Blogger, what does it mean ? Do we need to revisit the defition established by Jorn Barger? profession is another thing whether its your full time profession or part time..
Written by Kevin on 07.03.08
A,B,C,D the only few lucky ones….
Written by Ganesh Shenoy on 07.03.08
My vote:
80% to B
20% to C
Written by Software Testing on 07.03.08
I feel that we should have a broader definition . A professional blogger is one who takes blogging as a profession be it part-time or full-time.
Written by Harish B on 07.03.08
‘A’ is not a professional Blogger for sure. He is a hobby blogger. But a pretty good one.
It is the way you define professional. If you define professional as your profession then ‘B’ is the professional blogger.
If profession is defined as the style you write with then ‘C’ is the professioanl blogger. If ‘A’ Writes in professional style he is included too
‘D’ is more like a content writer. I think what segate need is this catogry. Thats whay Jounalist do too.. So for segate ‘D’ is the professioanl blogger.
Amit.. You should have included a poll for this question. Then you would have got tons of replies faster
Written by Arun Basil Lal on 07.03.08
Amit, If feel [B] a person who is an independent blogger or who has taken blogging as profession and I feel you will be a perfect example
Written by Kishore on 07.03.08
A professional blogger is one who writes quality content.Quality means “QUALITY”.
Written by Chris on 07.03.08
You’re right, it’s a rather vague definition. I’d like to say that anyone who makes any kind of income from his/her blog is a prof. blogger but what about someone who’s blogged consistently over a long time and has a big readership but hasn’t bothered monetizing the blog?
Written by Nosh on 07.03.08
A professional Blogger is like ‘me’ who opts full time blogging when world do not cares and we are jobless, we make quality fresh content online and can generate few global readers too who love to read our writing and come again to our blogs! Also a professional blogger may or may not earn online money, it depends on his / her choice,
So he who dreams the Blog is a Professional Blogger!
cheers : )
Written by Piyush K on 07.03.08
I don’t think you can exclude people with a day job, being a professional blogger would simply entail earning a substantial proportion of one’s income from blogging.
Written by David Bradley on 07.03.08
Pretty much all of the above, with the caveat that the blogger must blog daily for an extended period of time.
I’d say there should be no question about you being a professional blogger.
Written by Thunder Pig on 07.03.08
I guess all of the above.
Anyone who is serious about blogging and has been blogging regularly during near past would qualify I guess.
Written by Shrinidhi Hande on 07.03.08
I’ll go with B. yes thats the most appropriate option for the word Professional Blogger..
Written by Bob Matharoo on 07.03.08
Well, Professional blogger is who takes the blog professionally and pay attention to it like any other trade. We know Blog (web log) is a serious business of our times and it could be used to make money or can be used as a media!
Written by Shradha Agarwal on 07.03.08
A Blog holds a sentimental and a pious value for me, it is not only my profession but it is a thing that gives me the pleasure and I try to give the same to my readers, I can enjoy creative juice of mind here and feel that whole of the world is with me, that’s why I am professionally inclined to blogging, full time.
Written by Kartik Kumar on 07.03.08
Only B.
Written by TOMHTML on 07.03.08
hmm…I do publish 3- 5 articles every day..So I consider myself professional blogger..no matter how many hours I work….
Written by Udhi on 07.03.08
From what i understand, a professional blogger is one that earns money from it (irrespective of the amount). Anyway, that’s not the point.
Amit, it seems the competition is only open for a few countries? I cant see a country-specific link for US/UK? Or does that not matter?
Written by Mayuresh Kadu on 07.03.08
A professional blogger is one who posts regularly and takes blogging seriously. He needn’t be dependent on blog alone for his earning.
But he should be damn serious about his blog, even if he writes personal stuff.
What do you think about update? Should an ideal professional blogger write at least one post a week or twice or write daily!
Written by Indscribe on 07.03.08
“A human being by birth,when he/she is able to generate some bucks from adsense thru blogging calls himself/herself a professional blogger..”
how about this definition??
Written by ripe on 07.03.08
i agree with you i think a person who does no job instead of blogging upto 10-12 hrs a day can make millions of money
Written by Arpit Jain on 07.03.08
Someone who know… how to survive in blogging after 2 years in web 3.0… with lots of core computer science engineering (technical) concepts for semantic web implementation…
Because, web 3.0 is an era for researchers & engineers, not non-technical bloggers…
Written by Chaman on 07.03.08
A “professional blogger” is someone like Amit Agarwal who has an army of loyal sunscribers/readers (like me) because he writes about very useful stuff, takes blogging very seriously, and earns tons of revenues from his blogging to be able to afford buying a brand-new CRV.
Written by cesar magnaye on 07.03.08
Professional Blogger simply denotes the professional attitude towards the ‘blogging biz’, yeah today web log is a serious biz which gives ease of life, money, pleasure and power like electronic media…
Written by Kartik Kumar on 07.03.08
Imo, it is B.
Written by Falkor on 07.03.08
A Professional blogger is a blogger who blog in a professional way.
Manisha
Written by Manisha on 07.03.08
Well I think a professional blogger is someone who is able to monetise his blog.
Blogger who is just blogging as a hobby can’t be considered as a professional blogger.
Thus in my opinion A is real professional blogger.
Written by Varun Sharma on 07.03.08
I am still newbie and hope to be problogger soon :-)
Written by Tinh on 07.04.08
Professional means skillful & competent, it also means habitually engaged in an activity. A person who is engaged in an occupation rather than as an amateur is also a professional.
Now for a blogger his profession is blogging so if he falls in any of the above mentioned definitions of “professional” he is a professional blogger.
I think a pro-blogger is someone who knows how to write and is a good regular author, now whether he has a day job and yet finds time to blog and generates income also is a pro-blogger.
A professional blogger as clarified by Seagate is someone who blogs regularly, whether he blogs about personal life or tech stuff or something related to his field of expertise is ir-relevant. What matters is that he blogs regularly, he knows what is blogging all about, he is aware of his readers and knows what to post.
Now whether that person is:
1. A freelancer who writes for another blog network.
2. Someone who blogs only ‘professional’ stuff and nothing personal / private.
3. An independent full-time blogger who has no day job.
OR
4. Someone who blogs in his free time and yet manages to generate some decent income from the blog.
The point is that he blogs regularly, reads blogs or articles, knows what to blog, knows how to write an article on a blog. That is what makes him a professional.
Written by Manan on 07.04.08
I would say a person who has vast knowledge about technology and related things and who is ready to share such things with people without expecting anything in return!!
Written by Renjith on 07.04.08
Gautam Ghosh had it right, first. And Seagate’s marketing really needs to get with the times.
Written by Jacob from JobMob on 07.04.08
C. Someone who blogs only ‘professional’ stuff and nothing personal / private.
I think a profession blogger creates expert and quality content for the community. It doesn’t matter that how much time one spend on his blog.
Written by Anjul on 07.04.08
my vote
70% B
30% A
Written by Saroj on 07.04.08
Real Bloger is like me who can create 500 Blogs
Written by TECH GURU on 07.04.08
I will go for option A.But to be more clear ,person who writes good stuff on a regular basis bound to have some following.When people really start noticing him and look forward for his inputs,he can be called a professional.
Written by Gaurav Garg on 07.04.08
My answer would certainly be “B” !!.
Infact,a Problogger is one who attracts readers with his writing and makes good amount of money so as to replace his day-job!!.
Darren Rowse,John Chow,ShoeMoney and Amit are some of the fitting examples for this !!.
Written by Rohit on 07.04.08
I will have to go with ‘B’ . But money may not always be a reason to be called Professional. There could be people with no day job and blogging full time but not for living… housewifes !!
Written by Prashant on 07.04.08
I would select options B, C and D for definition of ‘Pro Blogger’ though these are part of definition…there is more for this term.
Written by Vardaan on 07.04.08
Define a Professional Blogger is quite difficult. Even the clarification regarding the same by seagate also not clear because regular means what?
If I started blogging now and update my blog once in a month, then can I be professional blogger?
Written by Ravi on 07.05.08
In my opinion, a problogger is someone who earns enough money with his blog, and wouldn´t need to have a job, even if he has a job.
Written by Michelle on 07.05.08
I am a professional blogger who do not match any of A to D. I am blogging (in Japanese) for my employer with their company name and paid all of my salary by doing that. Still freehand to write anything I am interested in.
I think Robert Scoble was a professional blogger when he was hired by Microsoft.
Written by Akky AKIMOTO on 07.06.08
I have no 9-5 job and i m blogging for living so i m also a professional blogger.
Defn:A professional blogger is a one who earn his living by writing a blog no matter who he work for or writes for.
Written by Subodh kumar on 07.11.08
A professional blogger is a person who writes his blog professionaly.He is not see just money but he has been the mission of spreading and sharing the knowledge and education
There is no problem of time. But he writes any content after thinking 100 time about its reality and anlyse whole content before publishing
Written by vinod on 10.24.08