The Media Business of ProBlogger (Darren Rowse)

Darren Rowse or more popularly known as ProBlogger is as you might have guessed it, a blogger. But he’s no ordinary blogger, he’s famous online and his blogging business is usually used as an example by those who are involved in the blogging business.

He has a Wikipedia (Darren Rowse) page in case you are interested, but it’s not really that exhaustive and is an easy read. But for those who just want the basics of who Darren Rowse is in relation to making money online, here are the basics:

Darren is an Australian and lives in Melbourne, Australia. He is married and has three children. In an online world dominated by American bloggers, he is proof that you could become internationally successful even if you’re not an American.

Why do I highlight this fact? Because Darren has largely targeted the international market. While there are digital content creators who largely target the local market, his digital content has international appeal.

Why do I say this? I have been watching many YouTube videos for example and I noticed that when an American for example is making digital content, there would be times when they would refer to things that are unique only to America.

This has the effect of isolating their non-American audiences. But it’s not only Americans, many other YouTubers from other countries do the same thing. While this is helpful if you’re only targeting your local country, this is not helpful if you want to have a global reach.

This is a strategy that many professional bloggers advise that other professional bloggers use. The reason is obvious. It is a good marketing strategy to spread your digital content product to as many sites as possible for maximum eyeballs.

Besides maximizing the eyeballs to your blog posts (digital content product), they also help display your wide range in blogging different topics. This would be a good addition to your resume if you ever become a freelance blogger.

We’ll talk more about his two personal blog sites or websites later. But for now it is sufficient that you know that these are the Digital Photography School and ProBlogger. As the name suggests, one is about photography and the other is about blogging.

This is fairly normal to professional bloggers. As compared to hobbyist bloggers, professional bloggers usually operate more than one blog. This is because there is a limit to how much you can blog.

Depending on your blogging topic, there would come a time when you would have exhausted almost everything that is needed to be blogged about your topic. The obvious solution is to blog about more than one topic.

He and his partners who are also professional bloggers have owned and sold their blog network called b5media. This blogging network is a collection of blogs that number into the hundreds.

Digital content products are like investments, you don’t know if they would become expensive in the future. But what is clear is that a digital content is a product and therefore has value. The more digital content products you own, the more is the possibility for you to earn even more money.

Just like many bloggers who began their digital content business by blogging. Darren Rowse has become a full-fledged media content business. He has an online presence as well as physical presence among his customers/followers.

As has been previously discussed, he owns two websites. They are Digital Photography School and ProBlogger. In these websites, he not only blogs but also markets his many media content products.

But let us forget first about all his sources of media income. Let’s talk about his ad revenues first. According to a Wall Street Journal 2008 article, these two blog sites of his has about 85,000 to 100,000 pageviews a day.

His monthly total ad revenue from these two blog sites alone is over $20,000 a month. As you can see, his ad revenues alone are sufficient to give him a very comfortable life. That is why it is important for bloggers who want to make blogging their full-time income know about his business.

If you tried to search for Darren Rowse’s YouTube presence by using the search keyword “ProBlogger,” you would instead be taken to the “Darren Rowse” channel and his videos. Apparently, Darren Rowse wants his personal brand to be more well known than his products.

This strategy by Darren Rowse has to do with him trying to make his persona a brand in itself. This strategy is nothing new for anyone who’s involved in the media content business. With a personal brand, you can market any product and not just digital content.

For example, if Darren Rowse wanted to make inspirational videos or merchandise, he can market them under his own name. He can for example market his Australian travel book as: “Darren Rowse: Australian Vacation.”

But let’s get back to his YouTube channel. If you checked the view count of his videos, you can immediately see that he does not have a big YouTube following. This is just one proof that success in one digital content medium does not mean success in other digital content mediums as well.

So, if you are thinking about going into the digital content business, think first where your digital content is well suited for. Is it well suited for YouTube where the watchers are generally positive? Or is it more suited in a website where you can give extra options to readers?

One thing I haven’t seen Darren Rowse do is to put clips of his video courses on YouTube. This would not only make him have more videos available in YouTube, but these videos could also serve as advertising for his video courses.

It is undeniable. When everyone before was predicting the end of blogs and websites because of the fast increasing presence of video sites like YouTube and mobile apps, no one saw the quiet rise of podcasts.

Apparently there is such a thing as viewer fatigue and app fatigue. This means that there is an increasing number of people who are tired of watching videos and clicking on their mobile phones to use apps.

Many just want a way to tune out while still being in the loop. Enter podcasts. They are just the right digital content products for busy people, especially those viewing something else and doing something else with their hands.

I myself am into audiobooks and podcasts. I listen to them as I write or take a quick nap where I close my eyes but is still awake. Darren Rowse was right to branch out into podcasting. The beauty of his plan is that he can just use his written blogs as podcasts if he wants to.

And you should do this too if you are a blogger branching out into podcasting or into audiobooks. That is the beauty of digital content, you can resell them as many times as you want and repackage them so many times.

One of the growth industries in terms of digital content has been digital courses. The beauty of making a digital course right now is that more and more people are upskilling and reskilling themselves.

Many people have realized that due to the increasing competition for jobs and customers, they need to be not only highly skilled, but also multiskilled. A blogger for example needs a lot of skills to be successful.

Bloggers are not only supposed to be good at writing and be fast typists, but they also need to know about marketing and advertising themselves. Being in the blogging business means that you are well versed in the different technologies related to creating online content.

And Darren Rowse knows this. Through his experience as a real life blogger, he is able to sell his knowledge through his experiences. So, nothing is wasted in Darren’s job experience. I can already see this happening in other jobs as well and not only in blogging.

I for example is constantly bombarded by YouTube Ads about courses. There are courses for music, entrepreneurship, investing, marketing, higher education and so on. It seems that everything today can be made into a course.


So if you have some knowledge in anything, turn it into a digital content like an online course. Don’t worry if you deem yourself as not an expert in the subject. You can just package your course as “Beginner’s Course.” That’s right, every level of knowledge has a certain monetary value.

This is Darren’s foray into physical media content which may be hard for you to implement if you are introverted or lack speaking skills. There are just customers who are not satisfied with blogs, videos and online courses.

Darren and many other professional media content professionals have realized this fact. And because it requires more effort from them, they charge higher monetary rates accordingly. There are motivational speakers who have become millionaires from hosting events/seminars.

One of the most famous and probably richest motivational speakers is Tony Robbins. He has a net worth of about $500 million according to a Forbes February 2021 report. As you can see, if you are not an introvert and loves speaking to people, this might be a lucrative job for you.

In the olden days, motivational speakers, business coaches and their types have published books to make themselves well known. These days, anyone can begin their speaking career by starting out with a blog or a vlog.

If you go to the ProBlogger website, one of the things you would notice there is that there is a job board. It is primarily intended for jobs in writing. As you can see, this is another good source of revenue for Darren.

You can post a job which would be available for 15 days for $75. I frequently search for writing jobs and one that I always check out is ProBlogger. The thing that I have noticed is that there is always a batch of jobs posted.

I constantly see around five new jobs posted everyday. This means that ProBlogger earns about $325 a day for this business alone. This is a nice income for one person. And this is just the beginning.

What if Darren Rowse branches out to other forms of job boards related to writing? For example, what if jobs such as writer/illustrator comes up? Imagine how much income would be added to their business.

Many online experts in blogging like to advise that bloggers should turn their blogs into books. And this has been done by Darren also. He has turned some of his blogs into books by stitching them together.

As I have said before, the beauty of digital content is that you could repackage them from one form to another. You can add or lessen your digital content when you repackage it, you can even update it.

Didn’t the buyers of Darren’s book notice the similarity of the content of his books to some of his blogs? I don’t know the answer to this. But one thing is evident, according to Pat Flynn a famous podcaster and successful author himself, Darren made a lot of money from his books.

So, it’s pretty obvious that you can do the same thing too. You can create a blog and later turn them into video or book content or just about any other media content. Just make sure you develop a personal brand in the process.

Darren Rowse or ProBlogger is a successful blogger who have turned his passion into a successful business. Just like most businessmen, he struggled at first trying to support himself while blogging. He is a real success story.

The beauty of a digital content is that you can sell it as much as you want and repackage it many times as well. As Darren has shown us, he has not only mastered this strategy but have gotten rich off it as well.

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