Many of us dream about becoming a problogger. You know… those guys and gals that work only 1 hour per day, and make over six figures? You don’t have to keep dreaming because anyone can become a professional blogger. You do however have to build up the foundation before you can enjoy the riches that bloggers such as John Chow and Darren Rowse enjoy.

While writing excellent articles will get more eyes on your work, you’ll never reach that elusive professional status unless you have some credibility. Here are a few tests that I have to help me quickly assess the credibility of blogger.

They have their own blog
When you sign-up to a free blogging service like blogspot, you do not have your own blog. You are simply a cog in a much bigger blog. Blogging software such as WordPress is free, and web hosting solution can be purchased for as little as $5. A blogger that sets up a full fledged personal blog is more serious about blogging than someone that spent 35 seconds registering an account on blogspot.

They blog with their real full name
Bloggers that use their real names show that they have nothing to hide. The internet provides a lot of anonymity, but they choose to showcase who they are. Would you rely on financial advice from someone named LotzOfBling? Medical advice from CurezAll or Dr. Mary-Ann Louise?

They have a picture of themself
A picture says a thousand words. Any blogger that has an “About” page that shows pictures of themselves not only personalizes their blog, but it immediately brings a sense of human-ness to the blog I am reading.

They write for me, and not for $
We’ve all seen blogs that are written for revenue. They all have one thing in common, and its that they all probably make next to nothing because nobody sticks around to read the blogs as the content is not written for human consumption. Keyword over-saturation, sentences that don’t make sense, and a general lack of passion in their blog posts because they are writing a topic they don’t fully understand.

Sponsored Posts / Content Posts Ratio
I’ve been to blogs where only a single post on the front page was an actual blog post. The rest were sponsored posts that had nothing to do with the topic of the blog. Of course, when I get to these blogs I usually never visit again. The credibility factor of a blogger who has nothing but sponsored posts on their front page shows the true reason they are blogging. When they do write a normal post, I question the information presented in the post and ultimately, the blogger themselves.

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