117 Best Personal Blogs to Read for Inspiration

If you plan to start a personal blog but don’t know how to go about it, you’re going to love this post.

I personally researched 117 best personal blogs to read so you can get some inspiration for your own blog.

I’ve also categorized them so you can easily find those that interest you.

Let’s get started.

Disclosures:
1. The blog traffic and monetization methods discussed below were obtained based on the limited information on the internet and are for reference only.
2. This list is sorted in alphabetical order. Every blog on this list is equally good.

Business / Entrepreneurship

After spending years learning about digital marketing himself and working as an affiliate manager at BigCommerce, Adam realized working for someone else wasn’t for him.

So in early 2019, he officially launched his personal blog and grew it while working full-time.

Instead of taking the typical blogging route, he decided to grow it strategically like a business.

Adam has several blog posts about the strategies and processes he took to grow his blog; feel free to check them out.

But essentially, what he did was focus on boosting his Domain Rating or Domain Authority, which would help his articles rank in Google.

And when the time came, he started monetizing it.

About 17 months later, Adam started making over $80,000 a month with his blog. And he was able to quit his job and started traveling.

Today, Adam’s blog averages hundreds of thousands of visitors every single month. And he monetizes the blog through affiliate marketing and advertising.

Also, he launched his blogging course a while back and now has sales of online courses as one of his sources of income.

Adam’s blogging and entrepreneurial story are really inspiring that I recommend checking it out for yourself.

Allocate a good 30-40 minutes for it, though. It’s going to be an in-depth read, and you will need some time for introspection.

Amy started her blog after 16 years of experimenting with different things and lots of trial and error.

She talks a lot on her blog about how she runs a minimalist online business and makes money through affiliate marketing.

I love the minimalistic look of Amy’s blog. It’s clean and without all the unnecessary crap on the sidebar.

In fact, when I was reading her posts to gather information for this post, I couldn’t help binge-reading her posts after posts.

As of writing, Amy’s blog income consists of affiliate marketing, advertising, and sales of digital products.

EDIT: In November 2020, Amy went through a career change and closed down her blog. She moved her best content to a new domain — Website How To. You can read more here.

Writing this makes me flashback to 2017 when I first discovered Charles Ngo.

After losing my income source in February 2017 (more detail here) and feeling lost for a couple of months, I stumbled upon Charles’ blog in July.

That’s when I realized the money I made in 2016 was out of pure luck. I didn’t really know anything about marketing and business.

So I spent the next few weeks devouring post after post on his blog, trying to learn the proper way to do affiliate marketing.

I remember reading The Rise of Ngo — where he talked about how he had a day job and worked his ass off to succeed in affiliate marketing.

It’s very inspiring, so much so that it opened my eyes as to what’s possible if we’re willing to put in the work.

Though I didn’t eventually succeed with the affiliate marketing strategies that he taught, I did learn a ton from him…

… and slowly but surely, I figured out what I really want to achieve in this vast internet marketing space.

As far as I know, Charles doesn’t monetize his blog. However, he does implicitly mention Lead Gen Engine on his blog — the only online course that he’s a part of over his entire affiliate marketing journey.

Alex Nerney and Lauren McManus are the co-founders of Create and Go.

They first started their blogging journey as a couple after having success with their first blog — Avocadu.

Although they have now grown apart, they remain as business partners to manage the business together.

I’ve gotten so much inspiration from their Create and Go blog because, like them, I decided to start this blog without a stable source of income.

They have a YouTube video about How to Overcome Fear of Starting a Blog or Business that really helped kickstart my journey and get things going.

Even now, I still go back and watch that video whenever I feel overwhelmed by fear of judgment. Watch it here:

As of writing this, Alex and Lauren’s blog income consists of affiliate marketing, advertising, online course sales, and physical products (Avocadu).

Let me be upfront:

Gary’s blog may not be a personal blog given how busy he is and how diversified his businesses are.

He’ll need to be superhuman to write all his blog posts apart from all his other social media content.

Maybe he is, though.

Nonetheless, over the years, Gary has become one of the largest influencers in the entrepreneurship space.

That makes his site a great place to learn about business, entrepreneurship, or even personal branding.

And I think his website is really well-built and -structured from which you could get so much inspiration.

He even has a search engine built right onto his website that you can use to search anything about him:

Needless to say, Gary doesn’t have to make money from his blog. But he does use it to showcase his books, businesses, and services he involves in.

James Altucher is an entrepreneur, an angel investor, and the author of the Wall Street Journal best-selling book — Choose Yourself!.

I’ve never read the book, but I find his writing humorous and authentic upon reading a couple of his blog posts.

And those are great personal touches that are worth incorporating on a personal blog.

It seems that James does monetize his blog via advertising and promoting his books. He also uses the blog to drive traffic to his other businesses.

Sean started this blog in 2009, after several years of working as a financial analyst.

It was called Location 180 back then.

But his entrepreneurial journey truly started after he decided to quit his job, sold his car, and moved to Thailand to have the adventure he dreamed about.

He spent the next few years growing the blog and stumbled upon a 3-step process for building a lifestyle business.

This then led him to start Location Rebel Academy and teach thousands of students to achieve similar results.

Sean’s blog income consists of affiliate marketing, online course sales, and advertising.

Unlike other blogs on this list, Mike’s blog is a little different.

He is a serial entrepreneur and has launched and sold 3 multi-million dollar businesses before his 35th birthday.

He is also the author of 6 books — Fix This Next, Clockwork, Profit First, The Pumpkin Plan, Surge, and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur.

I haven’t read any of his books, but upon checking on Amazon, most of his books have pretty great ratings.

Especially Profit First, which currently has over 2,700 overwhelmingly positive ratings.

Mike makes money from his blog through affiliate marketing and sponsorships.

He also uses it to promote his books and showcase all the businesses and services he involves in.

If you have your own products that you want to sell on your blog, this is a good way to go about it.

After a year of launching an online store and making $100,000 in profit with her wife, Jennifer, Steve started his blog in 2008 to proclaim that he was able to let her wife quit her job.

I’m just kidding; he actually started this blog to document their experiences of starting their online store.

While their online store was making a decent amount of money in the first year, his blog barely got noticed.

After two years of blogging to a small audience, Steve’s blog started to gain traction.

In the next two years, he broke six figures for the first time. And by 2017, Steve was making $1.4 million with his blog.

Incredible.

Steve’s inspiring story fully illustrates that blogging is the long game and that it’s vital to persevere no matter what.

And like other mega-successful bloggers, Steve’s blog income primarily comes from affiliate marketing, online course sales, advertising, and podcast sponsorships.

Let’s be clear:

Nathan might not be your go-to guy for blogging advice.

But I’m sure we can learn a lot from him about business, content creation, and entrepreneurship.

Nathan started his blog in 2011 to write about software design and development. And in just over a year, he was able to make a living from it.

He is the author behind multiple ebooks and the founder of ConvertKit, an email service provider for creators.

Nathan also writes a ton of great articles on his blog to share his business experience and insights. I highly recommend you check them out.

Nathan doesn’t make money directly from his blog, but he does promote his software product — ConvertKit and his books.

After spending a few years learning about SEO and building affiliate websites, Spencer started this blog to talk about various business ideas that he was trying out.

Since then, he has been involved in several businesses, including Long Tail Pro (sold in 2016), Amazon FBA (sold in 2018), Table Labs, Link Whisper, Motion Invest, etc.

Today, Spencer’s blog has grown tremendously to have hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors.

He has also written many case studies about the businesses and niche projects in which he had been involved over the years.

As of writing, Spencer seems to make money from his blog via affiliate marketing and advertising.

He also uses it to promote all the software products he has founded or is a part of.

OkDork is a marketing & business blog founded by an online serial entrepreneur — Noah Kagan.

He was a former employee of Intel, Facebook (#30), and Mint (#4).

Today, Noah is the founder of Sumo Group, which owns companies like AppSumo, Sumo, etc.

While Noah doesn’t talk about blogging on his blog, he shares a lot about his business experience and some next-level entrepreneurship stuff.

And I think that’s something worth learning even if you have no plan of starting a huge company.

Apparently, Noah doesn’t have to monetize his blog. The content he’s been putting out is itself great marketing for his businesses.

We can’t talk about Pat without talking about his popular blog, Smart Passive Income (SPI).

Pat started SPI during his time as an architect to house his study notes for a prestigious industry exam.

When the economy collapsed in 2008, the architecture industry was hit hard, and Pat was laid off.

Serendipitously, he realized there were thousands of visitors on his blog every day and soon grew the blog into one of the most well-known blogs in the internet marketing space.

Today, SPI is no longer a personal blog and has evolved into an academy for marketers and entrepreneurs.

Pat started this personal blog to document his journey, talk about his personal interests, and promote his products and services.

Darren Rowse started ProBlogger in 2004 to share blogging tips after blogging for two years as a hobby.

Over the last decade and a half, the blog has grown significantly. And today, it’s also become one of the most popular sites for writing jobs and learning about blogging.

Darren is an author, a speaker, and the instructor behind a library of online courses.

He is also the owner of the well-known photography blog — Digital Photography School.

ProBlogger’s business income consists of affiliate marketing, sales of books, sales of online courses, job advertisements, and events.

Ryan started his blog in 2014 and has since grown it to become a 6-figure yearly income source.

Over the years, Ryan’s blog has gained hundreds of thousands of readers and subscribers, brokered 5-figure retainer deals.

He has also landed consulting gigs with Fortune 500 companies like LinkedIn, Google, Adobe, Intuit, Zendesk, and others.

Ryan is the instructor behind his blogging course — Built to Blog. And I’m a happy student of his. 🙂

Ryan’s blog income consists of affiliate marketing, sales of his online course, freelance gigs, and sponsorships.

Cooking / Food

Brown Eyed Baker is founded by Michelle, who grew up in a family where food was the center of life.

With enthusiasm and desire to cook for the family, Michelle did everything she could to learn how to cook.

Today, Michelle runs a wildly successful cooking blog that has over a million monthly visitors.

Brown Eyed Baker’s blog income mainly comes from affiliate marketing and advertising.

Beth started Budget Bytes in 2009 after she had recently graduated from college, with a strangling student loan debt to go with it.

Having a degree in Nutritional Science, Beth was unwilling to eat ramen noodles every day.

So she set out to figure out how to satisfy both her stomach and her wallet.

She started experimenting with different recipes and tracking her food costs. Most importantly, she documented everything on her blog.

Since then, her blog has been growing massively for over a decade now.

Today, Beth has published a cookbook, developed a mobile app for her blog, and attracted millions of visitors to her blog every month.

Budget Bytes’ blog income has consisted of affiliate marketing, advertising, sales of her cookbook, and sales of meal plans.

When I first saw Kate’s blog, I thought it’s all about baking cookies. Turns out, Cookie is the name of her canine sidekick.

Kate is obsessed with food and passionate about food photography — to the extent that she became a self-taught photographer and cook.

In 2010, she started this blog to share all the recipes she has tested out and all the food she has photographed with millions of her readers.

Kate has also written a cookbook called Love Real Food.

One thing worth mentioning is that Kate believes in eating whole foods and doesn’t cook meat, so all the recipes on her blog are vegetarian.

Kate’s blog income consists of affiliate marketing, advertising, and sales of her cookbook.

Jaclyn is a self-taught cook, baker, writer, editor, and photographer. She has an obsession with food, good food specifically.

Being inspired by other food bloggers, Jaclyn started Cooking Classy in 2011 to share the recipes she’s tried and the food she loves.

Today, Jaclyn’s blog has a staggering number of monthly visitors — it’s approaching 10 million at the time of writing.

And it seems that she only monetizes her blog via affiliate marketing and advertising.

In 1983, David was hired at Chez Panisse and worked there for 13 years before moving to Paris in 2004.

Having been a professional cook and baker his entire life, David launched his blog in 1999 to share recipes and stories.

David’s written nine books, several of which are best-selling cookbooks.

David’s blog income consists of affiliate marketing and sales of his books.

After losing 20 lbs through exercise and clean eating, Brittany developed a passion for healthy living.

Soon after that, she started Eating Bird Food to share her newfound passion and inspire people to live healthier and happier lives.

Today, Brittany’s blog averages about a million visitors every month.

And her blog income mostly derives from affiliate marketing, advertising, and sales of meal plans.

Ali started this blog in 2009 when she was a full-time musician by day and a home cook by night.

After a decade of blogging, she has also become a photographer and writer.

And as the blog grew, she was able to quit her job and work on it full time, sharing the secret recipes with millions of her readers.

From my observation, Ali’s blog income mostly comes from affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, advertising, freelance writing, brand collaboration, food photography, and events and retreats.

Brandon started Kitchen Konfidence in 2010 to share his two passions with his readers — cooking and photography.

As someone from an Italian-Eastern European family, Brandon’s specialty dishes are pizza, pasta, and pierogies.

But he enjoys tackling new ingredients and experimenting with different recipes from time to time.

Through sharing recipes on his blog, he’s been able to help others become confident in the kitchen.

Kitchen Konfidence’s income primarily derives from affiliate marketing and advertising.

Jeanine started Love and Lemons to inspire people to cook with seasonal fruits and vegetables in creative ways.

Today, the blog has millions of monthly visitors, and Jeanine creates and photographs her vegetarian recipes together with her husband, Jack.

Jeanine is also the author of two best-selling cookbooks — The Love & Lemons Cookbook and Love & Lemons Every Day.

Love and Lemons’ blog income mainly derives from affiliate marketing, advertising, and sales of cookbooks.

Dana and John started Minimalist Baker in 2012 to share simple recipes with their readers that require ten ingredients or less, one bowl, or 30 minutes or less to prepare.

Instead of monetization, they focused on building an audience in the beginning.

As a result, they were able to attract hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors just over a year later.

Today, their blog averages millions of readers every month. And Dana is the author of her cookbook — Minimalist Baker’s Everyday Cooking.

Minimalist Baker’s business income has consisted of affiliate marketing, advertising, and sales of cookbooks.

Molly likes to cook, write, play music, and take photos.

After graduating from The Juilliard School, she fell in love with food and started experimenting with different recipes.

So in 2009, she started her blog to share her favorite recipes and exciting life stories with her readers.

Molly is also the author of two cookbooks — Molly on the Range and Short Stack Yogurt.

Besides promoting her own cookbooks, I don’t think she monetizes her blog in any other way.

Lindsey started her blogging journey in 2010 as a casual hobby while she was working as a teacher.

Alongside her husband, Bjork, she was able to grow the blog into a source of income.

And in 2013, they built a Food Blogger Pro community to teach people how to start and grow a food blog.

Today, not only do they have millions of readers on their blog each month, but they also have recurring income from Food Blogger Pro and software products that they created.

Lindsey and Bjork’s business income comprises affiliate marketing, advertising, sales of online courses, sales of ebooks, sales of software products.

Sally started her blog in 2011 as a personal blog and a place to share her baking recipes with friends and family.

After she decided to quit her job and work on the blog full-time, she grew it to become a career.

Since then, she’s written and published three cookbooks — Sally’s Baking Addiction, Sally’s Candy Addiction, and Sally’s Cookie Addiction.

It’s mind-boggling to see that Sally’s blog now averages tens of millions of visitors every month. She has come so far with her food blog.

As of writing this, Sally’s blog income is derived from affiliate marketing, advertising, sales of cookbooks, recipe development, food photography, food video services, and brand ambassador programs.

Skinnytaste started as an idea of Gina in 2008 to slim down some of her favorite recipes and become one of the most popular blogs in the industry.

Gina believes that her creations must be skinny and tasty, hence the name: Skinnytaste.

The recipes she features on the blog are delicious, healthy, and made with real food.

Today, Gina has published four best-selling cookbooks with millions of copies sold and one in the making. And her blog has millions of visitors every month.

Gina’s blog income is derived from affiliate marketing, advertising, and sales of cookbooks.

Deb started blogging in 2003 to write about her bad dates.

After meeting the man who would become her husband, she pivoted to writing about cooking and eating.

And that’s how Smitten Kitchen was born.

Over the last decade and a half or so, the blog has grown tremendously to have more than a million monthly visitors.

And Deb has published two cookbooks — The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook and Smitten Kitchen Every Day.

Both of which have been featured in major media publications.

It surprises me to see Deb doesn’t monetize her blog via affiliate marketing.

She does, however, make money from advertising and sales of her cookbooks.

Fashion / Beauty

Ruth started this blog in 2010 after ten years of being an international fashion model.

While she mainly writes about beauty and fashion tips and product reviews on her blog, she also writes about her family life from time to time.

She is also the co-founder of COLAB Dry Shampoo alongside a group of other beauty industry experts.

From my observation, Ruth’s blog income primarily comes from affiliate marketing.

But I’m sure her YouTube channel also generates a fair amount of ad revenue for her.

Jane is a beauty writer and has been in the beauty industry for over 15 years.

Over the years, she’s also written four beauty books.

She started British Beauty Blogger to talk about products that she thinks are great and share experiences in a way that wasn’t possible elsewhere.

Jane’s blog income primarily comes from affiliate marketing, consultancy services, and partnerships with beauty brands.

Kathleen started her blog in 2010 and named it after the protagonist of Sex and the City…

… after she realized life after college wasn’t as fabulous as Carrie Bradshaw led her to believe.

She regularly shares attainable luxury and her discoveries with her readers on various topics, such as fashion, home, travel, food, life, etc.

Kathleen seems to only make money from her blog via affiliate marketing by sharing outfit ideas on her posts and linking to those products.

Jean initially started Extra Petite to share her journey of building out her wardrobe for her petite body.

As time went on, the blog has evolved into a purpose of hers to empower women using style and fashion.

Apart from fashion, she also writes about lifestyle tips, travel, and life happenings.

Extra Petite’s business income derives from affiliate marketing and advertising.

Tanesha started Girl with Curves in 2011 as a creative outlet outside her career at the time and a personal style blog to share her outfits online.

Though struggling with self-esteem her entire adolescence, through working on her blog, she learned to accept the things about herself that she once considered flaws.

Today, Tanesha’s blog has inspired women of all ages and has been featured in major fashion publications.

It seems like Girl with Curves’ blog income only comes from affiliate marketing.

Jen started her blog in 2009 to share the best cruelty-free beauty products with her readers…

… along with other topics such as beauty salons, travel destinations, and healthy foods and supplements.

Over the past decade, My Beauty Bunny has become popular with people who love animals and wish to purchase from brands that don’t test on animals.

Jen makes money from her blog via affiliate marketing, advertising, and sponsorships.

Catherine started her blog in 2011 as a one-year project to document her style in the run-up to her 40th birthday.

A year later, she didn’t end the project and has since grown the blog to become her full-time career and one of the leading blogs in the UK.

Today, the blog has won many awards, and Catherine continues writing to encourage women to ditch the notion of “age-appropriate” dressing and be fabulous at any age.

Catherine makes money from her blog via affiliate marketing, brand collaborations, sponsorships, advertising, and writing services.

Kimberly founded Penny Pincher Fashion in 2011 with the belief that everyone should have access to great style, regardless of their budget.

Kimberly loves creating classic and sophisticated looks on a budget, so most of the items featured on her blog are under $100.

Penny Pincher Fashion’s business income is mostly derived from affiliate marketing and brand collaboration.

Ree started her blog, Really Ree, in 2010, out of her obsession with beauty.

With the passion for discovering new products and sharing her findings, Ree has grown her blog to become one of the largest beauty blogs in the UK with hundreds of thousands of monthly readers.

Ree’s blog income mostly comes from affiliate marketing and advertising.

Sea of Shoes is a style blog created by Jane back in 2007 as a photo diary of her styles based on her love for vintage clothes and extreme shoes.

Over the past decade, Jane has partnered with dozens of major fashion publications and brands, making the blog a well-known brand in the industry.

From what I’ve seen, Jane makes money from her blog through affiliate marketing, sponsorships, and brand collaboration.

Andy started her blog 14 years ago to share her styling and DIY tips and teach her readers how to make and customize their clothing.

The blog quickly became one of the leading fashion blogs globally, and Andy has made a name for herself as an entrepreneur, creative director, and the first blogger to deliver a TED talk.

I believe Andy only makes money off her blog via affiliate marketing.

However, she also operates a fashion eCommerce store named AIT and a fashion app called Should I Wear It.

As a freelance journalist, former magazine fashion editor, and author, Alyson started her blog back in 2008 to celebrate midlife and beyond.

Over a decade later, the blog has become a movement empowering women and calling out ageism and sexism.

Alyson primarily makes money off her blog via affiliate marketing, but she’s also open to sponsorships and brand collaboration.

Anna, an award-winning content creator, started her blog and YouTube channel in 2010 to talk about beauty, lifestyle, and travel.

Since then, her blog has grown tremendously and has been featured in major fashion publications.

As of writing, she’s got about 500,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel.

The Anna Edit’s primary business income comes from affiliate marketing, advertising, and sponsorships.

The Beauty Look Book is a lifestyle blog created by Sabrina in 2009 as a creative outlet to share her passion for beauty, fashion, and photography.

Today, Sabrina has attracted hundreds of thousands of people to read her blog every single month, and she has over 100,000 combined followers on social media.

Sabrina’s blog income is mainly derived from affiliate marketing, sponsorships, advertising, and brand partnerships.

With almost a decade of retail, apparel, and styling experience, Alison has taught herself much about fashion, budgets, and personal styles.

So in 2005, she started Wardrobe Oxygen to provide real-life style advice for women of all ages and sizes.

Alison makes money off her blog via affiliate marketing, advertising, sponsorships, brand collaboration, and coffee money (Buy Me a Coffee).

Fitness

Though growing up in an athletic family, Krista had never had the athlete gene.

It wasn’t until she was in college when her brother challenged her to do a push-up that she realized she had the potential to become an athletic person.

After years of trying all kinds of fitness programs as a certified personal trainer, Krista discovered high-intensity interval training (HIIT).

She developed a system of workouts that worked for her and her clients.

So in 2013, she launched 12 Minute Athlete to help people find success in their fitness journey.

Since then, she has helped tens of thousands of people unlock their athletic potential.

She is also the author behind the book — The 12 Minute Athlete.

Krista’s blog income mostly comes from affiliate marketing, sales of digital products, and sales of her book.

Teri started her first personal blog in 2004 to keep her friends and family updated with her life.

As she writes more about food and workouts and learns more about health and wellness, she realized she could help others achieve similar results.

That’s how A Foodie Stays Fit was born.

Though Teri is one of the blogosphere pioneers, she didn’t just quit her job and pursue her passion.

She worked in corporate America for 13 years and officially quit the job in April 2019 to work on her blog full time.

Teri’s blog income has consisted of affiliate marketing, advertising, sales of online courses and ebooks, sales from BeautyCounter, and sponsorships.

PS: I highly suggest you read Teri’s inspiring story about how she worked her butt off to get to where she is today.

Ali developed a passion for running after her first few runs.

After leaving her teenage dream job, she pursued a freelance writing and editing career.

That’s why her writing is so good and fun to read, I suppose.

In 2010, Ali started this blog to document her daily runs and eventual training for her first marathon and make friends with like-minded people in town.

Since then, the blog has evolved to cover different topics, including pregnancy and her personal life.

Ali monetizes her blog via affiliate marketing, advertising, and sponsorships.

She also attends live events and is a race announcer, not sure if she ever gets paid for that, though.

One thing I love about Ali’s blog is that it’s well-designed and -structured.

As mentioned, Ali’s writing is fun to read, and just by reading her About page, I feel like I’ve listened to her talking about her life story.

Blogilates is the blog version of Cassey’s namesake YouTube channel that she started in 2009 to host her workout videos for her students.

Today, both the blog and the YouTube channel have become one of the most influential online channels in the fitness industry.

POP Pilates® has helped Cassey attract hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors to her blog while having over 5 million subscribers on her YouTube channel.

I’m surprised to see Cassey doesn’t monetize her blog with affiliate marketing.

However, she has many other income sources, such as advertising, sponsorships, sales of various digital products, and revenue from her other businesses.

Though this could be a food blog, I decided to consider it as a fitness blog instead.

Kevin talks explicitly about getting fit in the kitchen, after all.

After struggling with overweight for years, Kevin started getting into cooking and experimenting with different recipes to make healthy foods taste great.

Turns out, it worked.

He figured out a diet approach that led to a significant transformation in his physique.

So in 2012, Kevin started Fit Men Cook to share his meals online to build a community around healthy food ideas.

Today, he has hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors on his blog and a similar amount of subscribers on his namesake YouTube channel.

I love watching Kevin’s cooking videos. He is so energetic and fun to watch.

Even through the screen, I can feel his passion for what he does.

He has also published a namesake cookbook into which he has put a ton of effort.

Kevin monetizes his blog through sales of his cookbook, revenue from his subscription app (MealPrepPro), and advertising (YouTube).

Gina started blogging back in 2008 when she was working as a personal trainer.

Her clients would ask her for eating advice, so she started her blog to share ideas with them.

According to one of Gina’s interviews, she once hit a million monthly page views with her blog in 2011.

Gina’s blog income consists of affiliate marketing, advertising, sales of digital products (ebooks & online courses), sales of her books, revenue from BeautyCounter, and sponsorships.

Let me be upfront:

Over the years, Nerd Fitness has grown to be a massive online community. So, it may no longer be a personal blog.

However, Steve Kamb, the founder of the blog, still writes most of the blog posts.

So let’s assume it still is a personal blog, shall we?

As the blog name suggests, Steve started the blog in 2009 to provide a fun place for nerds to learn about fitness.

I think much of the growth of the blog can be attributed to Steve’s authenticity.

He started the blog because he had grown sick of the shitty marketers and companies selling useless fitness products primarily to make money instead of helping people.

He wanted every single piece of information on his blog to be unsullied and proven to work. And that’s how the Nerd Fitness movement and community was formed.

Steve clearly states that there are no ads or sponsorships on the blog.

So as I’ve observed, Steve makes money from his blog via their online coaching program, sales of his books, online community memberships, and online courses.

Nicole started Pumps & Iron back in 2012 as a fitness blog.

Over the years, it has grown to become a robust online resource covering topics like workouts, recipes, and health tips.

She is a certified personal trainer and has been teaching group fitness since 2014.

She also posts a free workout on her blog and her YouTube channel every week.

Nicole’s blog income mostly derives from affiliate marketing, advertising, sales of digital products, and her Patreon membership.

Mike initially started blogging on Blogspot (now Blogger.com) about fitness in 2006.

But I think it was in 2008 when he moved away from Blogspot to his current blog that he got serious about blogging.

Mike has been in the fitness industry for 20 years now. Over the years, he has helped many of his clients achieve their physique and sports performance goals.

Mike’s blog income consists of affiliate marketing, online coaching program, and sales of digital products (training programs & courses).

Rosstraining.com is founded by Ross Enamait, a boxing coach and an expert in high-performance conditioning, strength, and athletic development.

He’s been in business for over 15 years and has helped many athletes succeed.

He believes what works for someone may be completely different from what works for another. So with his blog, he strives to help his readers find their way.

Ross doesn’t seem to monetize his blog through affiliate marketing, but he does make money via sales of digital products (ebooks & video programs), and sales of apparels.

Monica grew up as a chubby kid and had struggled with weight her entire adolescence.

So after high school, she started to lose weight by walking and eventually running. A few miles a day.

She started Run Eat Repeat to document her training for her first full marathon.

Over the last decade, the blog has grown remarkably and has gotten her many followers on social media.

The crazy part?

She’s run over 60 half marathons and over 30 full marathons.

(Pardon me, I hated running… so that sounds crazy to me.)

Anyway, Monica’s blog income mostly comes from affiliate marketing, advertising, sales of digital products (training plans), and sponsorships.

Scooby’s fitness story is insane — he’s been lifting weights (since 1984) for 36 years now. An hour a day, 5 to 6 days a week.

As the fitness industry getting more and more money-oriented, Scooby grew sick of it.

In 2004, he started his blog to help those without much money to build healthy and awesome physiques.

Upon checking his blog posts, I think he’s walked the talk.

Not only that but he’s also published tons of informative videos on his YouTube channel.

With the number of his subscribers (about 600,000), I’d venture to guess that people really enjoy his content.

Scooby makes money off his blog via affiliate marketing, advertising (YouTube), training programs, online forum subscription, and YouTube membership.

Jordan started his blog in 2011 to provide his readers with clear-cut, no-bullshit, and accurate fitness information.

His fitness advice is a little unconventional compared to what you can find out there or is most talked about, but I think he’s probably one of the most genuine coaches in the fitness industry.

(Jordan used to coach Gary Vaynerchuk for 3 years.)

He specifically talks about how he goes above and beyond to support and motivate his clients instead of just giving them the workout plan and letting them figure it out themselves.

And that’s rare, regardless of the niche.

Jordan’s monetization strategy is simple. He uses his blog to promote his brand and his services, such as 1-on-1 coaching and inner circle, where his subscribers can access his VIP content.

No affiliate marketing, advertising, or sponsorships. Nada.

Tony had his first article published on T-Nation in 2006, and shortly after, he got an opportunity to write for a fitness blog.

That’s when, I believe, he developed a passion for writing and started his blog in 2007.

Tony loves coaching people and enjoys helping his clients get stronger and live a better life. And he’s been doing it for over a decade now.

I like how Tony incorporated humor in his writing, especially on his About page.

It’s interesting to read. Feel free to get some inspiration from it.

Tony’s blog income comes from affiliate marketing, sales of digital products (training programs & seminars), and his coaching program.

Marketing

Oooh, my absolute favorite blog on the list!

Backlinko is the #1 go-to blog when it comes to learning SEO, period. Brian provides tons of value through his blog content for free.

After failing with a few online businesses, Brian found success with a personal finance website in 2012.

Shortly after, he started Backlinko to share the lessons he had learned along the way.

And with a million monthly visitors on his blog, he definitely knows what he’s doing.

Brian used to make money with affiliate marketing on his other old blogs, but not Backlinko.

Now he only sells online courses once a year or two. His blog is solely designed to provide value to his readers.

I really love how Brian goes out of his way to keep making his blog better and better with massive value and beautiful design…

… even if he doesn’t directly make money off it.

Bill is a content marketing and SEO expert. He enjoys making great content that ranks in Google search engine.

He started this blog in 2016 as an online portfolio to showcase his work so people can learn more about him and work with him.

Over the years, Bill has written over 1,000 articles for over 50 publications, including some major brands.

Bill makes money from his blog via affiliate marketing and content marketing services.

After being a professional DJ for a while, Tim quickly realized that it wasn’t for him.

So, serendipitously, he got into the marketing space and grew interested in SEO.

He figured the best way to learn SEO was to get his hands dirty on it, so he started his first blog about DJ music.

That blog didn’t take him anywhere, but it laid the foundation for his journey ahead.

Tim later got into social media marketing and wrote a guest post for Moz, which then put him on the map.

In 2011, he started BloggerJet to share everything that worked and didn’t work for him when it comes to internet marketing.

Today, Tim is the head of marketing at Ahrefs, and he doesn’t seem to monetize his blog.

I believe he merely uses it to build a personal brand and grow his email list. Either way, I’m sure you can find massive value in his posts.

Detailed.com is the successor of ViperChill, an internet marketing blog that Glen started back when he was 16 years old.

He became obsessed with SEO after ranking his DJ website for several profitable search terms.

Since then, he has created and co-founded several businesses and sold them for good profits.

Today, apart from Detailed.com, Glen runs a 7-figure digital marketing agency.

He also has an email list with over 50,000 subscribers where he shares cutting-edge SEO tips to subscribers from companies like Amazon, IBM & Cisco.

Upon checking, I don’t think Glen makes money from his blog through affiliate marketing or advertising.

However, he uses it to promote his products and services, including his SEO course and SEO extension.

Pete launched Do You Even Blog in 2014 in the quest of doing more creative work and making a full-time income from it when he was still working as an accountant.

But I believe it’s in 2017 that Pete really took this blog seriously and went all-in to teach people how to start a blog.

And since then, a lot has happened.

Today, Pete hosts a private Facebook group about blogging, a YouTube channel, a podcast, a swag store, a paid online community, and many online courses.

Pete has a diversified business income, including affiliate marketing, partnerships, sales from swag store, paid online community, and sales from online courses.

Jeff started his blog in 2009 to talk about the power of social, content, and digital technologies after he noticed the rise of social networks a year before.

Since then, he’s been recognized as a digital marketing expert and featured on major publications like Forbes, Inc, New York Times, and Entrepreneur.

Jeff makes money from his blog via affiliate marketing, advertising, sponsorships, speaking gigs, and marketing services.

Fabrizio started his first blog, Magnet4Marketing, in 2010 as an info and resource hub for bloggers and marketers.

A few years later, the blog got rebranded to Magnet4Blogging to focus more on blogging and digital marketing-related topics.

I like Fabrizio’s blog design; it looks great, clean, and is easy to read. I’d highly suggest implementing a similar blog design for higher readability.

Fabrizio’s blog income consists of affiliate marketing, advertising, sales of printables.

First off, I wouldn’t consider Mari a blogger. She’s one of the pioneers who got started in Facebook marketing back in the day.

And today, she’s been recognized as an internationally renowned Facebook marketing expert, particularly for SMBs and brands.

Mari’s blog is also one of the oldest on the internet that was started in 2007.

Upon checking her earliest articles, I noticed that she wrote many articles about Facebook back in 2007.

Heck, I didn’t even know Facebook exists at the time.

The interesting part is that she had even got hired by Facebook to tour around the US to teach business owners how to grow their businesses on Facebook.

Mari has too many accolades and recognitions that I wouldn’t be able to list them all out here. Feel free to check out her About page if you want.

Mari’s blog income mostly derives from affiliate marketing, sales of marketing services, sales of her books, speaking gigs, and sales of online courses.

Matthew launched his blog in 2012 to share his SEO expertise and digital marketing experience with the world.

That said, he’s one of the OGs when it comes to digital marketing. He started building websites before Google and YouTube even existed.

From making money with affiliate sites to helping thousands of people build a successful online business, Matthew has been in the game for 20 years.

Today, he continues to help people learn SEO and digital marketing while attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors to his blog every month.

Matthew’s business income comes from affiliate marketing, advertising, marketing consulting services, and sales of online courses.

Sam Oh, the mind behind Money Journal, started the blog in 2009 to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses with internet marketing tactics.

Over the past decade, he has created and sold different businesses.

Today, he holds the position of Director of Product Education at Ahrefs and has helped grow Ahrefs’ YouTube channel from 12,000 subscribers to 200,000 subscribers.

Though Sam monetizes his blog through affiliate marketing, he doesn’t have much going on other than the great content he occasionally puts out.

I guess this blog is just a side hustle of his apart from his full-time job at Ahrefs.

After being inspired by some guys living an amazing lifestyle off of the internet…

… Navid decided to start a blog and a podcast and started interviewing some of the most successful people in the internet marketing world.

As he doubled down on his personal branding, he started to gain traction on his business and launched his first virtual summit with a $20,000 profit.

Since then, he has been recognized as the world’s leading virtual summit expert.

Navid’s blog income consists of affiliate marketing, advertising, sales of online courses, and virtual summits.

Neil, the legend of marketing, started his blog in 2000.

He set out to learn marketing when he was 16. As time went on, he got good at it and eventually started running a very successful digital marketing agency.

He is also the co-founder of Crazy Egg and the owner of Ubersuggest — a free keyword tool hosted on his personal website.

Today, his website averages millions of monthly visitors, which is insane.

Of course, this is not a typical blog. So Neil doesn’t make money via his blog like other bloggers.

I believe most of his business income comes from Ubersuggest and his digital marketing agency.

Seth Godin, one of the biggest names in the marketing industry, started writing on his blog in 2002 to inspire and teach people how to level up in life.

Having spent most of his professional life as a writer, he has published 19 bestselling books to this day.

I’ve only read three of them, all of which are succinct and thought-provoking. And I did enjoy reading them.

Seth’s business income has consisted of book sales, online workshops, online courses, and speaking gigs.

I watched the recording of Seth’s talk at ConvertKit Craft & Commerce 2017 the other day. I think it’s a really great talk that I need to share with you:

As someone with a background in IT, digital marketing, and web development, Simo’s been programming actively since 1997.

He founded this blog in 2013 to talk about web analytics, SEO, web development, and digital marketing.

In 2014, he became a Google Developer Expert for Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager.

If you’ve tried to learn those topics, chances are you’ve seen Simo’s name somewhere.

Though it’s not hard to understand Simo’s writing, that analytics stuff still sounds pretty complicated to me.

Simo doesn’t directly make money from his blog because that’s not why he started the blog.

However, he does implicitly mention 8-bit-sheep, a marketing consulting agency that he’s a part of.

Money / Finance

After working at a 9-5 job and realizing that’s not what she wanted, Paula decided that she needed to escape.

She saved money like crazy and went on a two-year backpacking journey across Asia and Australia. Since then, she has never looked back.

When she returned to the US in 2010, she became a freelance writer. And I believe that’s when she started her blog to talk about personal finance.

Today, Paula has accumulated tens of thousands of monthly website visitors and email subscribers through her interesting journeys and amazing writings.

She has also been featured in countless major publications.

Paula’s blog income has consisted of affiliate marketing, advertising, coaching, sales of online courses, and consulting.

The author behind this blog decided to stay anonymous, so we’ll call her Purple since her blog is pretty much entirely in purple.

Purple decided in 2015 that she didn’t like the traditional 9-5 life, so she created a plan to achieve FIRE (Financial Independent, Retiring Early) in 2025.

Concurrently, she started her blog to document her journey to financial independence.

And for the first three years and a half, she wrote the blog privately because she didn’t feel comfortable doing otherwise.

In 2018, she finally took the plunge to make her blog public because she wanted to share her FIRE journey to inspire others.

To her surprise, she had gained 10,000 page views and 1,800 readers in that single month. Since then, her blog has been growing steadily.

One thing worth mentioning is that Purple was able to hit her FIRE number and retire last year, which is five years earlier than planned.

Amazing.

Purple’s blog income mostly derives from affiliate marketing and advertising.

This blog was started by J. Money in 2008 to document his journey of hitting $1 million in net worth.

The blog then took off and started making money. He then went on to build, sell, and manage a bunch of other finance blogs.

In 2019, J. Money reached his $1 million goal and moved on to other projects.

I believe it’s in last year that he handed this blog over to his good friend, Joel.

Budgets Are Sexy’s blog income mainly comes from affiliate marketing and advertising.

PS: Budgets Are Sexy was acquired by Soapbox Financial Network (owned by The Motley Fool). But I can see Joel is still the one who manages the blog, so technically, it’s still a personal blog.

Sam started Financial Samurai in 2009 to help himself and others make sense of the chaos and ease the pain after the financial crisis a year prior.

The blog took off pretty quickly, and just three years after he started the blog, he was able to quit his corporate America job of 13 years.

With over 20 years of experience in the financial industry, Sam has been able to provide massive value to his readers through his interesting and informative content.

Today, the blog has earned hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors and tens of thousands of email subscribers.

A quick Google search and you will see that Financial Samurai has become one of the most popular blogs in the personal finance space.

Sam’s blog income primarily consists of affiliate marketing, advertising, and sales of ebooks.

Todd founded Invested Wallet in 2018 to help others learn about finances after years of struggling with personal finance himself.

Since 2014, he’s been able to educate himself about finance, save and invest six figures, and even pay off all his debt.

Today, Todd writes for over 30,000 monthly readers and has been featured in several major publications.

Todd’s blog income consists of affiliate marketing, advertising, sponsorships, and sales of digital marketing services.

I finished reading this blog’s namesake book a while ago, and I have to say:

I should’ve read it years ago.

Ramit started the blog back in 2005 when he was studying technology and psychology at Stanford.

To afford college, he applied for about 60 scholarships and won about $200,000.

When he got his first check, he invested it in the stock market and lost half of it. From then on, he decided to learn about money.

And that’s how the blog was born, with the aim of covering the basics of saving, banking, budgeting, and investing.

Today, IWT is one of, if not the best and most sought-after blogs in the personal finance space, averaging hundreds of thousands of readers every single month.

Honestly, I didn’t read many of Ramit’s blog posts on IWT, but I’ve read the book and hand-copied several of his sales letters, and I’d say Ramit’s writing skills are pretty compelling.

With his ability to incorporate humor into his writing and entertainingly tell stories, I find his book so much fun to read.

Though Ramit doesn’t directly monetize his blog, he uses it to promote his books and online courses.

Jim started his blog back in 2011 to talk about life and money.

He started out writing for his daughter about what had worked for him and what hadn’t.

Since then, the blog has grown to become a popular personal finance blog.

Today, the blog is most known for the “Stock Series,” where he teaches people how to achieve financial independence with stock investing, based on his 45 years of investing experience.

Jim is the author of the popular personal finance book — The Simple Path to Wealth: Your Road Map to Financial Independence and a Rich, Free Life.

Jim’s blog income consists of affiliate marketing, advertising, and sales of his books.

Michelle Schroeder-Gardner started her blog in August of 2011 as a hobby to track her personal finance progress and a creative outlet for her stressful job as a financial analyst.

After six months of blogging, Michelle made $100 from an advertisement deal. From then on, she started to take her blog more seriously.

Fast forward to today, Michelle’s blog has grown to become one of the most popular personal finance blogs, making her over a million dollars a year.

Which is insane.

Michelle’s business income primarily consists of affiliate marketing, sales of online courses, sponsorships, and advertising.

After recklessly paying off $40,000 of student loan debt, Bobby got obsessed with personal finance.

As a high school band director, he started teaching his students personal finance lessons and realized that they were interested in learning more.

So in 2015, he decided to start Millennial Money Man to teach his students more about money.

The interesting part about Bobby’s journey is that he quit his teaching job and worked on his blog full-time after only making $3 from display ads.

A fairly bold move right there.

Anyway, over the years, Bobby has been doing well financially with his blog and side hustles.

His blog averages hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors, and he has generated 6-figures from his online courses.

He even has a private Facebook group with over 13,000 active members.

Bobby’s blog income mostly derives from affiliate marketing, advertising, and sales of online courses.

David started the blog in 2012 to build a community for individual investors to exchange ideas with one another.

Before starting the blog, David was Chief Investment Strategist and Chief Portfolio Strategist at a $70 billion investment advisory firm, where he co-headed a 21-person research group.

With 17 years of experience in the financial industry, he has produced and hosted an investing podcast and reached over 50K listeners per episode.

David also has a premier investment membership where he provides his subscribers a monthly investment strategy and helps them make better investing decisions.

His blog’s namesake book is the #1 bestseller in investment portfolio management.

David’s blog income mostly comes from affiliate marketing, advertising, sales of his book, and his subscription-based membership.

After working full-time for a few years, Pete was able to retire from his day job in 2005 by significantly cutting down on living expenses and investing in index funds and rental properties.

Seeing plenty of friends complaining about their middle-class life, Pete decided to start this blog to share some of the secrets he has discovered over the years.

Today, the blog has grown to become a “cult,” averaging over a million readers every single month.

Pete also has a forum with tens of thousands of Mustachians and millions of posts on it and a mobile app for the blog.

It’s amazing how much potential a blog can have if we consistently put in the work and let the compound effect do the rest.

From my observation, the majority of Pete’s blog income comes from affiliate marketing and advertising.

Side Hustle Nation is a blog started by Nick Loper to talk about side hustle ideas, passive income, personal finance, and entrepreneurship.

Nick used to work full-time for a giant corporation, but he managed to build his business on nights and weekends.

He is the author of Treadmill Desk Revolution — a book that teaches you how to burn calories on the job, alongside a bunch of other books.

Nick’s blog has hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors, and he has a private Facebook group for his readers to connect.

Nick also hosts a business podcast called The Side Hustle Show featuring the ideas, actions, and results you need to start and grow a successful business.

Side Hustle Nation’s business income has consisted of affiliate marketing, advertising, sponsorships, and sales of his books.

As the name suggests, The College Investor is a blog to help millennials escape student loan debt and learn how to start investing.

Robert developed a passion for investing and personal finance at a very young age.

Throughout his teens, he spent most of his time experimenting with different ways to make money.

When he got to graduate school, he’s already figured out his own ways of investing and managing finances.

He even started helping his peers with that.

In 2009, Robert started the blog to share his common-sense student loan and investing strategies with millennials.

Over the last decade, the blog has grown to become one of the most sought-after resources for personal finance, reaching millions of readers every month.

The College Investor’s business income derives from affiliate marketing, advertising, and sponsorships.

Mike started blogging in 2006, but it wasn’t until 2010 that he purchased The Dividend Guy Blog from the previous owner.

From then on, he has switched his investment philosophy toward dividend investing.

At the age of 35, he reached financial independence and retired from the corporate world.

Since then, Mike has been consistently pumping out quality content on his blog to educate people about dividend investing.

Mike monetizes his blog via affiliate marketing, advertising, and his subscription-based membership.

Jim started Wallet Hacks in 2015 to talk about how to get ahead financially in life.

With over ten years of experience writing about personal finance, Jim has grown the blog to have hundreds of thousands of visitors every month.

In just a few short years.

Today, Jim has a team of editors and writers helping him manage the blog, but he still writes frequently.

That’s why this blog is on this list.

As of writing, it seems that Jim only makes money from the blog via affiliate marketing and advertising.

Self-Help

Eric started the blog back in 2009 to share the academic research and answers he found online about how to be awesome in life.

Over the last decade, the blog has grown significantly and today has over 300,000 monthly readers and email subscribers.

Eric is also the author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller — Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong.

Eric doesn’t seem to be making money from his blog. He does promote his book on it, though.

Joshua started Becoming Minimalist in 2001 to talk about minimalism.

After a serendipitous conversation with his neighbor, he realized many of his belongings weren’t adding value to his life.

And so he and his family embarked on an intentional journey to own less stuff.

The blog then soon became a place for Joshua to encourage others to embrace minimalism.

Today, the blog has hundreds of thousands of monthly readers. And Joshua is the author of several bestselling books.

The way Joshua monetizes through his blog is different than others on this list.

His blog income mostly comes from sales of his books, speaking gigs, sales of online courses, and his subscription-based mobile app.

Penelope started her blog back in 2001 to talk about career, life, and different other topics.

She decided to become a full-time writer after finding herself a block away from the World Trade Center when it fell during the 9/11 event.

Since then, she started writing career advice for new generations of workers and published a bestselling career advice book.

Penelope advocates not to blog for money, so from what I’ve seen, she only promotes her coaching service and online courses on her blog.

Maria founded Brain Pickings in 2006 to write about what she reads and has learned about living a rewarding life.

What started as a weekly email to seven friends has today become a popular blog, gathering millions of monthly readers in one place.

Maria is also the author of Figuring and has been featured in major publications like The New York Times, Wired, and others.

Maria appears to only monetize her blog through affiliate marketing and donation.

Chris started the blog in 2007 to chronicle his journey of visiting every country in the world between 2002 and 2013.

After he wrote several bestselling books, the blog has grown into a hub for original thinking.

Today, he writes about personal development and life planning, entrepreneurship, and travel.

Chris monetizes his blog via sales of his books, speaking gigs, and live events.

Steve started Develop Good Habits (DGH) back in 2013 as a case study to show his readers how to build a long-term asset from scratch.

As the blog grew, he decided to work on it full-time and turn it into a legit business.

Suffice to say, the blog is a huge success today in the self-help space, averaging over a million monthly visitors.

Steve’s blog income consists of affiliate marketing, advertising, and sales of ebooks.

James started blogging in 2012 about habits, productivity, and mindset.

He considers it his job to find the best ideas from different fields and explain them in an actionable and easy-to-understand way.

He is the author of the New York Times and International bestseller — Atomic Habits, which has sold over 1 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 40+ languages.

His blog is one of the most popular blogs in the self-help space, averaging over a million visitors every month.

James’ business income consists of sales of his books, speaking gigs, and sales of online courses.

Jessi started her blog in 2013 to help people break free from body image issues and love themselves.

From someone who hates her body to someone who’s learned to love and accept herself, she realized her purpose is to help other women do the same.

Jessi mainly monetizes her blog through sales of online courses and private coaching.

Marie started her blog back in 2008 to talk about business, goals, mindset, etc.

She has mentored young entrepreneurs at Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship in South Africa and has been featured on Oprah’s TV show — Super Soul Sunday.

She’s also the author of the #1 NYT bestseller — Everything Is Figureoutable.

Marie’s business income primarily consists of sales of her books and sales of online courses.

Mark first started blogging with his internet business that sells dating advice online.

Few years down the road, he had slowly built a modest readership on the blog.

But eventually, he got sick of the niche.

He was repeating himself over and over with typical dating advice that was nothing different from other blogs out there.

Before quitting and closing down the business, he decided to try one thing:

To tell the truth and call out all the BS advice that every other blog was preaching.

In less than a year, the blog’s traffic had increased by 500%.

So he doubled down on it and realized his readers most resonate with deeper topics like self-esteem, beliefs, identity, etc., that no one else was talking about.

In 2013, he officially rebranded the blog to a personal blog, and that’s how MarkManson.net was born.

Today, the blog has grown to become one of, if not the most popular self-help blogs.

I’m a big fan of Mark in both his articles and books.

He is also the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fcked and Everything is Fcked: A Book About Hope.

Mark monetizes his blog through content subscription and sales of his books.

Henrik launched The Positivity Blog when he started immersing himself in personal development back in 2006.

Since then, he’s been a full-time blogger, sharing everything he has discovered and learned to build a better life.

Today, Henrik’s blog is pushing a million monthly visitors and has gotten him over 80,000 subscribers.

Most of Henrik’s blog income derives from affiliate marketing, advertising, and his online courses.

Vanessa started the blog in 2010 to talk about people skills, interpersonal communication, and leadership.

She’s developed a science-based framework that can be applied in day-to-day life to help people communicate better.

She is the bestselling author of Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People, a book translated into 15 different languages.

Today, Vanessa’s blog is pushing a million monthly visitors. She’s been featured in many major publications such as CNN, BBC, CBS, Inc., and many more.

Vanessa’s business income consists of sales of her books, speaking gigs, and sales of online courses.

Tim started his blog back in 2001, but I believe it’s in 2007 that he really started publishing blog posts consistently.

Honestly, I don’t know what niche Tim’s blog is in. He covers pretty much every topic available.

But let’s assume it’s in the self-help category since that’s one of his most discussed topics on the blog.

Tim has been listed as one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Business People” and one of Fortune’s “40 Under 40.”

He is the author of several bestselling books. I’m sure you’ve read or at least heard about the most popular one — The 4-Hour Workweek.

Tim clearly states that his blog is not primarily financially driven. His main goal is to build a community and learn from smart readers.

He does promote his books on the blog, though.

Leo started Zen Habits in 2007 to talk about personal development and help people find simplicity and mindfulness in their daily lives.

Over the years, he has achieved and failed a lot. And this blog is where he shares what he’s learned from those experiences…

… alongside other topics such as how to achieving goals, how to save money, how to find happiness, etc.

Leo is also the author of many great personal development books.

His blog income mostly comes from sales of books, Patreon memberships, and sales of online programs and courses.

Travel

Started as a solo traveler, Anna has been exploring the world for over a decade.

Touring over 80 countries and seven continents, Anna has since studied at six universities in different countries.

She also speaks seven languages.

In 2014, Anna started her travel blog to document her travel experiences and inspire others to live an adventurous lifestyle.

(Especially those from non-English speaking countries.)

I like how she says that one doesn’t need to be from the US, Canada, or the UK to be a successful blogger.

As someone from Asia, it really resonates with me.

Anna’s blog income consists of affiliate marketing, advertising, brand partnerships, sponsorships, and speaking gigs.

In 2010, Kate quit her marketing job to travel for six months. At the same time, she started her blog to teach women how to travel solo.

Years later, she successfully turned it into a successful full-time business.

Throughout the last decade, Kate has traveled across 83 countries and seven continents.

As we all know, the travel industry got hit the hardest last year due to COVID. And Kate’s blog income dropped by 90% out of the blue.

Luckily, over the years, she has built a raving community with people who love her content.

And so she started a Patreon membership for her readers to support her work.

Today, Kate’s blog income is derived from affiliate marketing, advertising, sponsorships, brand collaboration, speaking gigs, Patreon membership, and sales of online courses.

PS: Kate has diversified sources of income on her blog. I guess her background in the marketing space really gave her a competitive advantage.

After three years of working in the financial industry and feeling miserable inside, Kristin knew that wasn’t the life she wanted.

There had to be something else.

A few months later, she quit her job and started her solo travel journey.

She started her blog in 2012 to write about her journey, and more so, to make a living.

It’s been a helluva ride over the last eight years of Kristin’s travel adventures. I recommend reading it for anyone wanting to become a travel blogger.

Thankfully, things have been going well for Kristin in recent years.

She has published a few books, her blog and Instagram have been growing rapidly (so does her income), her YouTube channel is growing steadily, etc.

She has even launched her online courses to teach others to be travel bloggers.

Today, her blog has attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors every single month.

And she’s making money from her blog through affiliate marketing, advertising, sponsorships, brand partnerships, her books, merchandise, and online courses.

After saving enough money in 2007, Becki took her first independent trip to Vietnam.

And after that, she had developed a passion for adventure travel.

When she left home for an 18-month solo female travel in 2012, she started Borders of Adventure to document her travel insights.

Today, the blog has grown to become a go-to source for solo adventure travel and has been featured in countless media outlets.

Becki’s blog income is derived from affiliate marketing, advertising, brand partnerships, freelance writing gigs, and consulting services.

Having been a traveler since a young age, Brendan started his blog in 2010 to keep his family updated with his whereabouts.

Over the past decade living as his nomadic life, Brendan has visited over 100 countries.

He is also a travel photographer, and over the years, countless major publications have featured his work.

Brendan’s blog income mainly comes from magazine/newspaper work, stock photography, client work, affiliate marketing, advertising, freelance writing, sales of prints, and photography workshops and tours.

Annette founded Bucket List Journey back in 2011 to give the world the tools and inspiration to live their bucket list.

Interestingly, Annette has “Bucket List Ideas” as one of the main categories in her life, where she shares all kinds of bucket lists that one can do before one dies.

Today, Annette has grown the blog to have hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors and generate a 6-figure yearly income for her.

And she has written a book called Bucket List Adventures: 10 Incredible Journeys to Experience to inspire people to write a bucket list and cross things off it.

Annette’s blog income mainly comes from affiliate marketing, sponsorships, sales of physical products, advertising, and sales of books.

After deciding that a 9-5 lifestyle wasn’t something he wanted, David started his blog in 2007 and started traveling a year later.

Unlike other travel blogs out there, he aims to supply plenty of travel inspiration and advice to the world with his blog.

Today, David has visited 78 countries and almost 1,200 cities.

He has also hosted over 2,000 travel episodes to provide travel tips on the places he’s been.

His blog income consists of affiliate marketing, sponsorships, speaking engagements, social media services, and his bread and butter — video production.

After about a year of following his husband, Rand, first on a business trip, then around the globe…

… Geraldine started her blog in 2009 to chronicle her journeys and experiences.

Years and hundreds of posts later, the blog has been featured in major presses and received many accolades from major publications.

From my observation, Geraldine doesn’t seem to monetize her blog other than promoting her book — All Over the Place: Adventures in Travel, True Love, and Petty Theft.

PS: Geraldine declared earlier last year that she wasn’t in love with blogging anymore. So she doesn’t blog as often today as she used to. That said, I’m sure you can find so much inspiration from her awesome blog.

In 2010, Matt quit his job and sold most of his stuff to embark on a 12-month travel journey.

And about a year after that, he started Expert Vagabond to share his travel stories and tips with the world.

What started as a one-year travel plan had turned into a ten-year one.

Today, Matt’s blog has attracted hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors and makes him six figures of yearly income.

His blog income primarily consists of affiliate marketing, freelance travel photography, sponsorships, brand partnerships, advertising, and speaking gigs.

PS: Matt is the husband of Anna. They often travel together, but they write their own travel blogs, so I think they both fit into the personal blogger category.

Katie started La Jolla Mom, I believe, in 2009 to write about lifestyle and motherhood.

But it soon grew to become a travel blog as she traveled to different countries and started writing about it.

Today, La Jolla Mom has evolved into a top San Diego travel blog and has hundreds of thousands of visitors every month.

Katie’s blog income is derived from affiliate marketing, advertising, sponsorships, phone consultation, and brand partnerships.

After being inspired by five backpackers in Thailand, Matt quit his job in 2006 to embark on an adventure around the world.

Since then, he has visited over 100 countries, made lifelong friends, and made it a mission to help others realize their travel dreams.

Today, Matt’s blog averages hundreds of thousands of visitors every month and is pushing the million soon.

And due to the blog’s popularity and his bestselling books, he has been featured on major media sites repeatedly.

Matt’s blog income mostly derives from affiliate marketing, advertising, live events, sales of online courses, sales of books and guidebooks, and Patreon membership.

Ben started his blog back in 2008 after his trip reports were well-received on FlyerTalk and gained a reputation.

When he started college shortly after that, he collected frequent flyer points and traveled in first-class over and over, for free.

Nowadays, he flies an average of 400,000 miles a year.

Being able to include his first-class travel experiences in his articles makes his blog stand out differently.

Today, the blog has grown to be a massive website with over a whopping 4 million monthly visits, making it a go-to source for travel tips and tricks.

Suffice to say, a massive website like that requires a team to put things together.

But from what I’ve seen, Ben does still write many, if not most, of the blog posts. So I’m just going to consider him as a personal blogger.

One Mile at a Time’s business income mostly comes from affiliate marketing, advertising, award booking service (PointsPros), speaking gigs, and sponsorships.

After working for years in the financial industry and realizing that she wouldn’t find happiness in a cubicle, Kiki turned to The World (aka traveling) to do some soul searching.

During her trip to Bolivia for volunteer work in 2012, she started her blog to share her passion for travel and empower other women to follow their dreams.

Today, Kiki has traveled to over 70 countries and has written over 1,500 articles on the blog.

And The Blonde Abroad now averages hundreds of thousands of visitors every single month.

Kiki’s blog income consists of affiliate marketing, advertising, sponsorships, consulting, digital marketing services, custom branding, and web design.

In 2006, Nora sold everything she owned to embark on a long-term travel journey. Since then, she has been traveling full-time for over 12 years.

A year later, she started her blog to chronicle her journeys and share with the world how she’s able to travel full-time in a financially sustainable way.

Fast forward to today, Nora has published two books and has been featured on dozens of media outlets.

Nora’s blog income primarily comes from affiliate marketing, advertising, speaking gigs, freelance writing, and sales of her books.

Prior to traveling full-time in 2016, Nate worked as a trial lawyer.

Though he kinda enjoyed the work, he felt swamped by the tremendous workload.

So he utilized the gap periods between cases for short travels to different places and fell in love with it.

Next up… you guessed it — he quit his job and travel full-time!

After being encouraged to start a travel blog and resisting it for a while, he finally took the plunge in 2017.

With Travel Lemming, Nate aims to talk about emerging and off-track travel destinations that not many do.

I believe Nate’s blog income mostly comes from affiliate marketing and advertising since he doesn’t mention other ways to work with him.

So There You Have It

It took me a while to compile this list of personal blogs, I hope you enjoyed it.

If you get just a tiny bit of inspiration from this post to create and grow your blog, I’m happy.

Now, I want to hear from you. Which one(s) of the list is/are your favorite?

Let me know in the comment below.