A frequently asked question these days – is how did I come to create IncomeDiary.com? With this post I hope to answer that question, let you in on some of my secrets and also hopefully inspire you.

Before creating IncomeDiary.com, I had two major websites – the young entrepreneurs website: RetireAt21.com and the Web Design Blog: WebDesignDev.com.

Both sites earned me good money, but nothing impressive. My ambition was to have a website that could earn me at least a 6 Figure income.

With my other sites I had become very knowledgeable about blogging, about content generation and about getting heaps of quality traffic to my websites. I was also increasingly being asked by visitors to my websites about how to build a website like WebDesignDev.com. or RetireAt21.com

Looking back now at an amazing last 7 months or so I am in particular struck by something that I read in a survey about entrepreneurs recently:

Entrepreneurship is about solving the problems of society, not starting a business for one’s own sake

Now it would be a bit over the top to suggest that I started IncomeDiary.com to solve the problems of society – but it would be true to say that I started it because I wanted to solve a ‘problem’ – the problem of being constantly asked questions about how to create a blog or how to make money online?

It was out of solving this ‘problem’ that IncomeDiary.com was born – the original idea being to share my experiences with blogging and making money online while at the same time inspiring others with features about other bloggers who had done amazing things online.

It has actually been quite therapeutic writing up this post. It really is amazing what can be achieved in a few short months when you put your mind to it. If there is one lesson in particular I would like to share it is:

That in order to RECEIVE, you must first GIVE

So many bloggers get excited about setting up a blog, but cannot for whatever reason get over that hurdle that exists when you first start out – of writing content, researching posts, building relationships etc (The GIVING bit) with very little in the way of income coming back in return.

So often I visit a Blog and see that in the first month of operation there are plenty of posts but come the second or third month the posts have become less frequent.

I wish I could say Blogging is an easy way to make money – but I can’t. I can however say it is an excellent way to make money and frankly it does eventually become quite easy, but not until you have first gave of yourself and created something of value that other people will follow.

I started out small, and I even remember getting excited when I started to make $10 a day with Google Adsense a few years ago – fortunately these days the numbers are quite a bit higher and I am even starting to experience some $1000 Days of earnings.

I hope you enjoy My Story and I hope it Inspires you.

To all our Successes

Michael

The Story behind the Creation of IncomeDiary

Back in March of 2009 I had decided I wanted to create an eCourse of some type, perhaps teaching people how to create their own site just like Retireat21. Every day I would have several people emailing me, asking “How do I create a blog” and I would simply reply sending them a link to my create a blog page on Retireat21 but I knew I could be doing something much better.

Later in the month I attended Yanik Silvers Underground Online Seminar and Ryan Allis was speaking on stage about iContact.com when he brought up a screen shot of his website that featured an opt-in for a 7 Day free eCourse on email marketing. People often ask me where I get my ideas – I always say ideas are all around us, if we open ourselves up to the possibility. When I was sitting in Yanik Silver’s Underground Seminar I was looking for ideas – Fortunately for me Ryan Allis was sharing his experience and insight and that was I suppose the initial germ of an idea for what has become my biggest money earner to date.

From that single idea I went on to create my own 7 day free eCourse to making money blogging and have an opt-in box open up on IncomeDiary.com like iContact did.

Alex, David, Michael, Marshall and Albert at Underground 5!

Later that day I was sitting with David Leggett, Marshall Haas and Alex Maroko in the lobby of the seminar hotel. David and I were helping some people set up their own blogs, getting hosting, buying themes etc. Each of these people bought their hosting, themes etc via my affiliate links, earning me something like $200. It is strange looking back – but I just knew I was on to something if I could create a System (an eCourse) that would teach other would be bloggers how to blog.

I was pumped about my ideas (I even had trouble sleeping that night with excitement) and frankly for the first time ever on a trip to the USA excited about getting back home to England and putting my ideas into practice.

On the final day before we departed for the airport we had quite a bit of time to spare as the flight was not until late evening, so I was hanging around in the hotel Lobby catching up on some emails when Alex Jeffreys came up to me asking me when I was heading for the airport – it turns out we have the same flight so Alex sits down beside me and we chat.

Alex and I talked each other’s blogs and sharing ideas, eventually heading over the Hotel Starbucks to grab a coffee. I may be young but one thing I have worked out is that SUCCESS comes to those who actively seek it, those who actively FOCUS on it. Alex Jeffreys is that kind of guy and so am I and while in Starbucks we met another success seeker – James Schramko. Alex, James and I all sat down together with our Laptops, started to brainstorm, share ideas etc and began to experience now what I refer to as “The Starbucks Effect”.

I had told Alex and James that I had done over 100 interviews with top internet entrepreneurs and I had around 100,000 visitors coming to Retireat21.com website every single month. They seemed impressed that I could drive a lot of traffic but when I saw that they were getting a fraction of the traffic I had but earning a good deal more than me, I was intrigued and just a little miffed as well.

It is not often that you get the chance to sit down with Internet Marketers of the quality of James and Alex so for the next few hours I made it my mission to find out what Alex and James knew that I didn’t. This is what I discovered:

The No Leakage Rule

It seemed a bit of a risk when James told me to try promoting only affiliate products and not sell advertising spaces as I knew I had $2000 coming in every month without any issue. He told me that if the only place they could go is through an affiliate link or leave my website, I was more likely to make money. He also told me that if 10 of my advertisers are promoting affiliate links themselves then it must be working for them. Basically the no leakage rule means, don’t have advertisers, don’t link to other websites in your sidebar, basically making sure the only way they can leave your site is via an affiliate link or closing the browser.

Offer Your Visitors Audio Interviews / Podcasts

I told my new mentors that all my interviews were done over email. i.e. I emailed the interviewee and they emailed their answer back.

Alex did not like that, and to quote him he said: “Audio interviews are where it’s at”. Looking back, of course he was right, indeed I had quite a few people not do an interview because I did not offer an audio option.

To do the interviews, they suggested I use Skype and record the phone call with Pamela, which both work perfectly for the job. As well as that, to display the audio on my blog I use Podcasting Plugin and I also get my audios transcribed by CastingWords so that people can read it if they can’t listen to audio. This also gives me a huge advantage in the search engines because I have thousands of keyword rich words.

It seems a simple decision now but looking back it was actually a huge decision – I decided rather that change the exiting RetireAt21.com site it would be easier to start with a completely new domain.

I had previously bought the domain IncomeDiary.com of Tom Sinfield for $100 and had not used it and felt it would work perfectly for this project. I also thought it would be wise that I build IncomeDiary in a way that anyone else could, so I could write an eBook and show them step by step how they can follow in my footsteps to make money online blogging.

Building IncomeDiary.com – The Early Days

After deciding I would use the IncomeDiary.com domain I quickly found a premium Wordpress theme from Woothemes called BusyBee, I installed my blog and uploaded the theme. After asking David Leggett for his suggestions, I decided to hire him at a VERY expensive rate (although later proved to be well worth it) and we began customizing the blog theme. These changes included:

• RSS feed including an Aweber Opt-in box so when I update my blog, readers would be emailed instantly alerting them that there is something new to read. I decided to go ahead and use a paid service because that would give me full control over my emails, unlike free alternatives such as Feedburner.
• Activated Threaded Comments which comes with every Woothemes, which basically lets you reply to each comment, you can enable this option  in discussion settings in your Wordpress control panel. We then went ahead and made any comments I made green so they stand out.
• Social bookmarking links at the top of every post. Yes they look really cool but as far as I can see they don’t make any in pact in the traffic we receive, so for all of those who keep asking me to release them as a download, don’t bother
• Created a custom page for the optin page for our eCourse, now I know a lot of people would put there optin all over there website to make sure they got as many people opting in as possible, although I have been tempted, I decided having a dedicated page because I wanted people to value what they were signing up to and know what was involved. We also used Aweber for the email optin on this page, if you need more information on email marketing, check out this post.
• Blogging Resources page was not necessarily built to make money but to give a better idea to my readers that the things I recommend are clearly the best products with the lowest prices. Having said that, thousands of people use the page monthly to find resources for their blogs.
• Finally, we did a whole bunch of graphics to make the site visually impacting.

As well as customizations, we don’t even use a handful of plugins so I do worry when I see people creating posts called “30 Wordpress Plugins every bloggers need” – I’m proof you don’t need them. So often I get asked, “Michael, what Wordpress plugins do you use”? Here they are:

• Podcasting Plugin which allows me to add a player to blog posts so people can play our audio interviews.
• WP-ContactForm which is basically a contact form, really simply plugin that works perfectly. For anyone who has tried to create a contact form on a normal website, you will realize just how hard it can be.
• Comment Notifier which is basically an RSS feed for comments, alerting people who subscribe when there are new comments.
• All in One SEO Pack which basically makes optimizing your blog for search engines really easy.

What Products Should I promote?

Now that I had put together the bulk of the site, I still had to decide on content and monetization. I knew from discussing with James and Alex that I wanted to promote affiliate products only but which ones to promote? For the blogging resources page it didn’t matter, I could include anything I wanted in the comparison charts as it simply is a comparison between what you get and at what price. But for my eCourse and in other places throughout the blog, it was a bit more difficult.

Recommending the right products is very important as it can really affect your earnings, it has to be a great product, great customer service and offer a good affiliate deal, and luckily it just seemed the best services offer the best affiliate sales, perhaps because they can convert more people so can pay out more. I bought all my domains through GoDaddy, so I knew I could promote them, whenever creating blogs for clients and friends, I would use HostGator so I knew I could put my name behind them and I was personally using a theme from Woothemes so of course I can recommend them. This is what I believe to be crucial to my monetization success, you can’t promote something you don’t believe in and haven’t tested, period!

More Business Changing Moments

Early on one of my first interviewees (and most popular) at IncomeDiary was the King of Continuity – Mr Ryan Lee. Ryan is another generous mentor of mine and he took a big interest in what I was doing. Not only that he invited me to his Continuity Summit event in Connecticut last May.

So here I am again in America – this time at Ryan Lee’s event along with Alex Maroko again. I showed off my sites to a lot of people there and even had one die hard fan come to the event just to see me. I had quite an amusing experience when I was talking to Mike Hill – one of the speakers and a hugely successful Internet Marketer. Mike and I are talking when an IncomeDiary Fan comes up, interrupts us (politely) and asked if he could get a picture with me to show his son and asks Mike to take the photo (Really Mike, I know you are a bigger STAR than me — but this was one of those moments when I realized I must be doing something right – when someone asks to be photographed with you.

Mind you, the coolest moment was when Ryan was giving a shout out to a few people at the beginning of the event and he mentioned Mark Victor Hansen who was sitting to my right then Mark Joyner who was sitting to my left and then me – although of course I know I’m nowhere near their level at present, to be recognized along with those big names we sooooooo cool.

Ryan Lee and Myself at Continuity Summit

While Ryan’s event I also realized I should be doing a few things better such as a having a custom homepage to drive people to the places on the site that I wanted them to go. (I call that a conversion secret) I also need a proper thank you page on the site, for people who sign up for the eCourse. So often people set up the OPT-IN for their newsletter etc – but forget to create a custom page (thank you page) for their news letter sign-ups to go to after they opt-in.

This past September I took on my first full-time member of staff here at IncomeDiary.com. This is already providing nice dividends – for a start I am working slightly harder. (Hard to believe — but true) because when you are paying someone to work full time you want to make sure you’re around to make sure they got work to do.

I now am more motivated then ever. We decided that we needed to make the website “bullet proof” which is a new rule of mine which basically means every single aspect of your website is perfect/bullet proof. We fixed every error we could find and improved anything that was necessary which helped increased conversions quite a lot.

Where am I now With IncomeDiary?

It’s crazy to think I have done all this in 7 months and to know that I messed around for years before with things I was told that “work” when they clearly didn’t. What I have achieved:

• I now earn more than most people do in a day (sometimes a week) before I even wake up, from a passive income on IncomeDiary alone.
• My site gets an average of over Twitter Tweets 100 times every day, in fact last month we got 800 tweets in a single day!
• 5000 People Have Taken My FREE eCourse to making money online blogging and not yet had anyone say a bad word about it.
• Broke into the top 20,000 websites according to Alexa which was a big target of mine. Although Alexa isn’t always that accurate, I had set it as a goal.
• I employed my first person full time, he had worked with me on WebDesignDev for a few months and I realized I needed to up my game and the risk seemed a no brainer.

The Future of IncomeDiary

Every time I get interviewed I get asked this, where do you see your future, where will your blog be in 5 years, etc.. To be honest, I don’t know, I just hope to keep moving forward, make a small difference and have fun of course. We have quite a lot of quite big updates planned for IncomeDiary but like everything, things get in the way and everything seems to take longer than expected.

Why Do I Think I Have Been So Successful?

I started this blog at the time 100’s of other make money online blogs started, they had all the same goal, and be the next John Chow. Most of them went on to earning no more than $200 and either being sold on Sitepoint or just going offline. I came to the niche with a different angle, which was to present my content in a way no other blog did.

It was really simple, I was to interview all the big internet entrepreneurs and ask them to give the advice, that way my visitors got the best advice and not just another blog post about how you can make $10 a day with Google Adsense.

The second aspect of my content was to inspire, I created top lists that would impress every reader but also give the impression they could do it themselves if they wanted to (which I believe they could).

The other reasons these two content methods work so well for me is that I’m dyslexic (my spelling and grammar is terrible) and it doesn’t matter how hard I try, I am always slipping up which is pointed out by quite a lot of my readers. So I wanted to share knowledge but keep the writing side of it down to a minimum. I sometimes think that if my school teachers knew I now write for a living they would tell you it was a lie, impossible! I really was that bad, I remember reading to my mum when I was like 12 and she would fall asleep, I was just that slow and boring, and when I do finally come to the end of a page, I would have to read it again because I completely forgot what it was about.

The key elements to my success would have to be:

Providing Value, Being Inspired, Hard Work (at times) and Consistency!

To Your Blogging Success,

Michael Dunlop

PS. Really guys, if I can achieve this in 7 months, you guys can definitely do the same, if not better!

It is around 3 years since I first started blogging and if you have been following My Story you will know I have come along way.

But what is most amazing to me is just how far some of my featured Top Bloggers of 2009 have come. It almost feels crazy to think that many of these bloggers started their blogs at home, in a spare room or bedroom, just like most of us and yet today they are ‘famous‘ all over the world for their blogging.

I have said it many times on this site and in my Blogging eCourse – the OPPORTUNITIES in blogging are almost endless and today’s post of the fifty most influential bloggers of 2009 proves it.

Before you check out the list completely I would like to just draw attention to 3 individuals in particular who have been a huge inspiration to me. (Actually very hard to pick out three – because as soon as I did it – I could think of three more who equally could appear here)

The first is our No 1 Blogger (Video Blogger) – Gary Vaynerchuk. I was fortunate last September to visit with Gary in his offices in New York and do this interview. I don’t think I really need to explain why Gary is No 1. You would have to be living under a rock in the last 12 months to not know who Gary is.

Gary comes out with the most profound statements – he states the TRUTH in a unique and inspiring way and the quote below by Gary acts as a very good reminder to all of us.

”People are always talking about what you’re doing now… To me, it’s not what you’re doing now, it’s about where you’re going.”

The second individual I would like to give a special mention to is Timothy Sykes. I have also met with Timothy in New York (a different trip) and his insights and business wisdom has been a huge help to me personally. Timothy has also done an interview for me and you can find it in this Earning Big Money With Blogging post.

And finally there is my good friend James Schramko. James is such an amazing guy and a very generous teacher who has been a huge influence on what I have done with IncomeDiary.com. You can see my interview with James at this post: Work At Home Dad – Dominates Affiliate Marketing

Please Note

There is no scientific way to choose those who are on the list, these are purely the people who I know have impacted the way I and my friends do blogging. If you feel that we have missed anyone out, please leave a comment below.

I hope you are inspired you to follow in the footsteps of these most influential bloggers of 2009 – I know I am

I look forward to your comments below and it would also be great to hear who has inspired you the most to build a better blog!

To Our Success

Michael

#1 Gary Vaynerchuk
	Why Gary Made The List Gary has shown the blogging world that anyone can be successful at blogging as long as they are passionate about what they are talking about. Gary is one of the world’s best video bloggers and has set a high standard for everyone else who wants to make it in video blogging. He has just released his first book “Crush It” where he shares how to cash in on your passion which no doubt will inspire thousands of new starts ups around the world. Websites http://garyvaynerchuk.com http://tv.winelibrary.com
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#2 Collis Ta’eed
	Why Collis Made The List In 3 years has gone from living in his wife’s parent’s garage to running one of the largest and most successful blog networks. Thousands of blogs have started with the aim to have a fraction of the success Collis has had in the blogging world. Collis’s network boasts over 430,000 twitter and RSS readers earning his company several million dollars a year! Websites http://envato.com http://thenetsetter.com/blog/
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#3 Darren Rowse
	Why Darren Made The List Darren in the past year has gone from strength to strength, now with 3 super successful blogs and 100,000’s of RSS readers, he really does know what he is doing. Darren has monetized his Problogger website in two new ways this year, by adding a paid forum and an eBook which has influenced a lot of other bloggers to follow suit. Websites http://www.problogger.net http://digital-photography-school.com http://www.twitip.com
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#4 Timothy Sykes
	Why Timothy Made The List Timothy is doing things the way they should be, you don’t have to just monetize your website with banner adverts, and you want to diversify your income so it comes in multiple streams. Timothy has earned over $150,000 in one month from his blog and makes it look so easy, check out one of his monthly blogging reports to see how he does it! Websites http://timothysykes.com
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#5 Tim Ferris
	Why Tim Made The List Tim is a angel investor and blogger. He was nominated as one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Business People of 2007, and is the author of The 4-Hour workweek which has been written and sold in 35 different languages. The book hit #1 in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and was also a BusinessWeek bestseller. Websites http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/ http://www.timferriss.com
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#6 Pete Cashmore
	Why Pete Made The List Pete deserves to be on our list because he started the most popular social networking blog online to date, Mashable. Mashable has then acquired many authors to write daily content on the social side of the internet, including news, reviews and new web startups. Pete is an inspiration to everyone in the blogosphere. Websites http://mashable.com
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#7 Michael Arrington
	Why Michael Made The List He is a corporate attorney who left law to become a Web entrepreneur. When he took a year off, and returned to the work world, he started blogging as a way to understand the new Web start-ups that had arisen in his absence. TechCrunch took off, and he soon found himself an accidental power broker. Another success story for those who blog about their passion and the money and success follow. Websites http://www.techcrunch.com
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#8 Vitaly Friedman
	Why Vitaly Made The List Vitaly made our list because he started up one of the most popular design blogs on the internet that teaches thousands of people daily principles of design. Smashing Magazine is known in every corner of the internet. The content served up on this blog daily is amazing. Designers can head over to Smashing Magazine and expect to find something new, original and juicy each and every day. Websites http://www.alvit.de/blog/ http://www.smashingmagazine.com
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#9 Brian Clark
	Why Brian Made The List Brian Clark most well known for CopyBlogger and Thesis Theme is one of my favorite bloggers because he keeps everything clean and hasn’t sold his soul to get to where he has today. His theme has been a huge hit among bloggers making it easy for those who want to customize their blog to do so. Can’t wait to see what 2010 brings… Websites http://www.copyblogger.com
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#10 Alborz Fallah
	Why Alborz Made The List Alborz made our top 50 list because he is the creator / founder of Australia’s fastest growing automotive editorial site, caradvice.com.au. Their posts, reviews, news and photos they put up on the site makes it stand out from the competition. Alborz is a big influence to many car lovers. Websites http://www.caradvice.com.au http://www.alborzfallah.com
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#11 Lisa Stone
	Why Lisa Made The List Lisa made our list for her compassion and work she has done on her web statup, blogher. Lisa co-founded blogher.com (the woman’s blog network). Blogher reaches more than 15 million woman each month, via the website and conferences. Keep up the great work Lisa! Websites http://www.blogher.com
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#12 Yaro Starak
	Why Yaro Made The List Yaro known in my circle of friends as the nice guy in blogging who lets his products and blogging speak for themselves. I have interviewed him twice and both times the wealth of information he has shared for FREE has been astonishing. For those who are new or advanced with blogging, check out his course’s as he has something for everyone. Websites http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com http://www.blogmastermind.com Become A Blogger
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#13 Adii Rockstar
	Why Adii Made The List Adii Rockstar is a remarkable man, which is why he has scored so high up in our list. Adii renamed himself just for marketing purposes, that’s how passionate he is. He owns one of the biggest theme websites, WooThemes, and blogs on his personal blog Adii.co.za. He has recently started video-blogging, which has been a huge success. Adii’s posts are very genuine, plus he started one of the biggest blog theme websites, that’s why he is a big influence in the blogging world. Websites http://www.adii.co.za http://www.woothemes.com http://radiiate.com
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#14 Arianna Huffington
	Why Arianna Made The List Arianna made it to our list because she is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the famous Huffington Post. The Huffington post is an online styled newspaper / blog that writes about politics, business and entertainment. Arianna’s website is read by hundreds of thousands of people. Websites http://www.huffingtonpost.com
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#15 Matthew Mullenweg
	Why Matthew Made The List Without Matthew half of the people on this list wouldn’t be doing what they are today. Matt is the founder of the world’s best and most well known blogging software, WordPress. The reason he is on the list is because without all the new features Matt and his company release each month, we wouldn’t be having the results we are having today. Websites http://ma.tt http://wordpress.com http://automattic.com http://wordpress.org
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#16 James Schramko
	Why James Made The List Another person I met at the Underground in 2009, James has really set a new standard for affiliate blogging. If you took James’s site and put it along side some of the top blogs in our list and looked at the traffic, James would only have a small fraction of their traffic but would most likely be earning more! Check out James’s website and learn how to create a affiliate funnel to bring in a lot more money from your blog! Websites http://www.internetmarketingspeed.com/about/ http://www.jamesschramko.com
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#17 Pawan Agrawal
	Why Pawan Made The List Pawan first came to my notice back in 2007 when he launched MaxBlogPress Stripe Ad which is a stripe advert along the top of a blog which can still be seen on some of the blogs that made this list. Since then he has released multiple new products including Wordpress Wizard, an eBook teaching you how to create a successful blog and also a Wordpress plugin convert text into affiliates links. Websites http://www.maxblogpress.com
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#18 Brian Gardner
	Why Brian Made The List Brian made our list because he has come so far in so little time. Around 2 years ago he had never owned a domain name or touched a piece of WordPress code. Today, he has a nice blog, and offers services alongside his blogging which include WordPress theme design, Website Strategy and Internet Marketing. Websites http://www.briangardner.com
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#19 Gina Trapani
	Why Gina Made The List Gina is a Technophile, writer, and coder. She has her own podcast named TWIg, blogs on smarterware.org and also blogs about tech, is a programmer and also is a book author of “Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better”. She is also a Sun certified Java programmer who builds Firefox extensions and web applications. Websites http://www.ginatrapani.org http://smarterware.org
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#20 Jeremy Schoemaker
	Why Jeremy Made The List Jeremy made our list because of the content he publishes on Shoemoney.com Shoemoney teaches people how to make money online, something Jeremy is very good at, and passionate about. He is a very clever man, and his website gets thousands of daily readers. Jeremy is a big player in the blogosphere, and there is much to learn from himself and his website. Websites http://www.shoemoney.com
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#21 Chris Brogan
	Why Chris Made The List Chris teaches entrepreneurs and bloggers how to use social media to build their business and brand. Chris can be seen speaking at some of the biggest events around the world and tweeting tips to his 100,000 twitter following. Websites http://www.chrisbrogan.com
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#22 John Chow
	Why John Made The List John Chow, also known as the dot com mongol blogs about his life, and the miscellaneous ramblings of the dot com lifestyle. John influences many people, and teaches them how to make money online. All of Johns posts are original, fresh and interesting, not just your standard stuff. That’s why he shines over many competitors in the blogosphere. I have read Johns blog since a very early age when I was in school, back when he had just over 1,000 RSS Readers. Since then his blog has grown dramatically along with the internet. Keep up the good work John! Websites http://www.johnchow.com
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#23 David Risley
	Why David Made The List David launched two blogging products this year, 3 day money and blog masters club which were both a big hit in the blogging world. David is most well known for being a 6 figure blogger in the tech industry but has recently been looked at as more of a guru to the bloggers. Look out in the coming months for the relaunch of his blogging membership website. Websites http://www.davidrisley.com
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#24 Andy Beard
	Why Andy Made The List I always have know about Andy but never spent much time reading his content but earlier in the year I contacted him for a review and the wealth of knowledge he sent back in an email was just remarkable, a guy every blogger should be speaking with! Websites http://andybeard.eu
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#25 Mario Lavandeira
	Why Mario Made The List Mario made our top 50 list because he is the founder of perezhilton.com, one of the biggest celebrity blogs. The notorious gossip columnist brands himself as queen of all media. The website has thousands of daily readers, and attracts alot of attention. Mario inspires many with his daily articles about news, celeb and gossip. Websites http://perezhilton.com
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#26 Steve Pavlina
	Why Steve Made The List Steve writes a blog about personal development for smart people. Although his site has a plain design, its booming with traffic, so it just goes to show content is king. Steve has his own podcast and also speaks at many events. His blog attracts more than 2 millions readers every month! His book “Personal Development for Smart People” was published back in 2008, and since then been translated in to several languages. Websites http://www.stevepavlina.com
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#27 Heather B. Armstrong
	Why Heather Made The List Heather, the founder of dooce.com made our list because of her compassion as a blogger and writer. Her website makes enough money to support her family, and enabled her husband to quit his day job. Heather has wrote books which include “It Sucked and Then I Cried” and “Things I Lenard About My Dad In Therapy”. Websites http://dooce.com
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#28 Jake and Amir
	Why Jake and Amir Made The List When I think of funny videos, I think of college humor. Jake and Amir created this awesome website that attracts tens of thousands of daily readers. They have inspired thousands with their network of funny humorous videos, awesome images and funny ramblings. Websites http://www.collegehumor.com http://www.jakeandamir.com
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#29 Al Carlton
	Why Al Made The List I first met Al by accident in 2006 on Digital Point forums and somehow I got him on MSN, after a random chat I realized he was one of top earning bloggers I knew but had one of the best business models. Simply blog about what you love and the money followed, TOP bloke, making blogging a more fun place. Websites http://www.coolest-gadgets.com http://selfmademinds.com
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#30 Robb Sutton
	Why Robb Made The List Anyone who can get given over $100,000 worth of products to review for their blog in under 18 months is someone to be watching. I have been really impressed with what Robb has done in such a short time from his first blog, anyone who wants to make money reviewing products should check out his eBook. Websites http://robbsutton.com Ramped Reviews eBook
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#31 Nick La
	Why Nick Made The List Nick made the list because he has influenced so many individuals including myself from a very young age. I remember reading his first blog ndesign-studio when I was in school. Nicks artwork, blog posts and overall designs influenced so many people and his site grew very fast. He then went on to launch bestwebgallery, webdesignerwall and recently icondock. Nick is a true inspiration to the art & design side of blogging. Websites http://www.ndesign-studio.com http://www.webdesignerwall.com http://bestwebgallery.com http://icondock.com
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#32 Daniel Scocco
	Why Daniel Made The List Daniel made this list for a couple reasons, he has a small popular blog network know as “Daily” which he earns a full time living from but the really great thing about his blogs is his following, so many people have 10,000s of subscribers but they don’t seem to take action, care what you write about or share their point of view. This is not the case with Daniel’s blog, he has a strong community built around him that everyone should aspire to have. Websites http://www.dailyblogtips.com
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#33 Ewdison Then
	Why Ewdison Made The List Ewdison contacted me earlier in the year when he saw me publish a post of the top earning bloggers, he mentioned he saw me it on Twitter and that he was earning over $60,000 a month from his tech blog. Ewdison has a great network of blogs where he uses several monetization techniques to make sure he doesn’t keep all his eggs in one basket. Websites http://www.ewdisonthen.com http://www.slashgear.com
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#34 Hongkiat Lim
	Why Hongkiat Made The List Hongkiat Lim blogs on his very well known site hongkiat.com. He teaches people daily how to design, by providing tutorials, inspirational showcases and huge sets of resources for bloggers and designers. Hongkiat is a true inspiration to now only bloggers, but web designers. Websites http://www.hongkiat.com
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#35 Alvin Phang
	Why Alvin Made The List Alvin is most well known for being the author of his eBook “Atomic Blogging” which teaches new bloggers how to make money from a blog. Alvin has made over $300,000 from blogging in the last 3 years and when asked if he would take twice that to work a 9 – 5 job again, would he take it? Phang replies, “Of course not, I will never do it, even if I am broke because I treasure and love the freedom of being my own boss”. Websites http://www.alvinphang.com http://www.gathersuccess.com Atomic Blogging
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#36 Fabio Sasso
	Why Fabio Made The List Fabio started one of the most inspirational design blogs ever made, called Abduzeedo. There are some outstanding design showcases posted on there every month. His blog is all over search engine results, and he teaches thousands of people Photoshop every day. An inspirational person for sure, and that’s why he deserves to be on our Inspirational bloggers 2009 list. Websites http://fabiosasso.com http://abduzeedo.com
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#37 Leo Babauta
	Why Leo Made The List Leo runs one of the top blogs in the world with over 140,000 subscribers he sure knows what people want out of a blog, CONTENT! Recently Leo has released a new blog teaching people how to write great content for there blog and how to create better blog posts. Leo proves to us all that you don’t need no $5000 design job, just a really clean, simple theme will do the job if your writing is up to scratch! Websites http://zenhabits.net
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#38 Walter Apai
	Why Walter Made The List Walter made our list for sure with his website WebDesignerDepot. WDD has a large twitter base of over 60,000 people. Walter writes daily articles for WebDesignerDepot, including inspirational showcases and galleries, tutorials, tips and tricks, and ramblings. Walter has inspired many with his extremely creative, original and colorful website. Websites http://www.webdesignerdepot.com
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#39 Ted Murphy
	Why Ted Made The List Ted Matters because he has created two great companies to help bloggers monetize their websites, them being IZEA and PayPerPost. IZEA represents over 250,000 bloggers and 25,000 advertisers worldwide. Put simply, they help advertisers identify people who will promote their products and services on their blog. Websites http://www.ted.me
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#40 David Leggett
	Why David Made The List I first met David back in March after convincing him to come to Yanik Silver’s underground event. We both sat down in the lobby with other attendees giving out blogging advise and setting up there blogs. When I returned home to England he took my idea for IncomeDiary and brought it to a whole new level. Leggett adds the wow factor to every site he gets his hands on, if you ever get the chance to work with him, take it! Websites http://www.theleggett.com http://www.tutorial9.net http://www.uxbooth.com
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#41 Skellie
	Why Skellie Made The List We think Skellie deserves to be on the list, because she manages all of the Tuts+ network which is owned by Envato. That Tuts+ network consists of many different tutorial blog sites including the famous PSDTuts that started it all out, NetTuts, AETuts and so many more. Its the biggest tutorial networks on the internet today and every day teaches thousands of people about design and programming. Websites http://www.skelliewag.org http://tutsplus.com
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#42 Rosalind Gardner
	Why Rosalind Made The List Rosalind made our list because she is a truly inspirational person. When she first started blogging, she received a first check for $10.99, and by the end of the year was turning over $5,000 a month. Rosalind blogs about affiliate marketing, blogging, content development, traffic generation, business strategy and many more topics. Websites http://www.netprofitstoday.com
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#43 Michael Martine
	Why Michael Made The List Michael has been exploring the web and making websites since 1997. He created his first blog in the year 2000, and since then has come a long way. Michael runs remarkablogger.com where he blogs about marketing, and also coaches individuals and large groups about blogging. Websites http://remarkablogger.com
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#44 Rob Benwell
	Why Rob Made The List I first met Rob back in 2006 when he spoke at Yanik Silver’s underground seminar and he shared a wealth of information about blogging, some stuff people haven’t even heard of yet! When it comes to blogging, this guy knows his stuff! 3 years old and he has made over a million dollars from blogging and from selling his best selling eBook on blogging! Websites http://bloggingtothebank.com/bttb/
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#45 Lorelle VanFossen
	Why Lorelle Made The List Lorelle is most well known for helping people learn more about blogging and Wordpress. On her personal blog which is surprisingly still hosted on the Wordpress.com domain she gives out tips, advice and techniques for blogging and using Wordpress. Websites http://lorelle.wordpress.com
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#46 Chris Garrett
	Why Chris Made The List Chris co-authored the ProBlogger book with Darren Rowse which shares secrets for blogging your way to a Six-Figure Income. As well as his the book and his personal blog, Chris writes for some of the biggest blogs on the internet including Blog Herald, FreelanceSwitch and CopyBlogger. Websites http://www.chrisg.com
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#47 Carl Ocab
	Why Carl Made The List I first found out about Carl when he was 13 years old and he had launched his first main blog about making money online. Carl has made this list because he has set a standard for ALL young bloggers who want to make money blogging. He has inspired and shown that anyone young can get online blogging and make it big. Although Carl hasn’t blogged much this year, he released a premium blog theme which has been really popular among some of the top bloggers. Websites http://www.carlocab.com http://www.ultimatebloggingtheme.com
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#48 Joost de Valk
	Why Joost Made The List Joost is well known for his search engine marketing and speed to user experience, the things a lot of people forget, yet are really important. On his personal blog and at live events,  he shares tips and tricks for Wordpress users to get more out of there blogs. Websites http://yoast.com
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#49 Jack Humphrey
	Why Jack Made The List Jack runs the Friday traffic report, which is a blog on blog marketing tips. Jack talks about blog promotion, social marketing, interviews people, link building tips and many more. He also has his own radio show. Jack has influenced many bloggers, and has a huge reader audience. Websites http://www.fridaytrafficreport.com
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#50 Lisa Irby
	Why Lisa Made The List LIsa Irby deserves to be on our list, because she created the website 2createawebsite.com where all beginners can go to find out how to create a blog from start to finish. The brainstorming process, design process and finishing result all included. Lisa has influenced many new people into creating their own blog using her forever growing guide. Also included in her free online guide are video tutorials, free blog creation software / builders and many more tips and tricks. Websites http://www.2createawebsite.com

To Our Success,

Michael Dunlop

PS. To have your chance of being on this list next year, check out my FREE eCourse to making money blogging by clicking here!

PPS. Who has made the biggest impact in the way you do blogging?