Regular readers will know that I have a dislike and distrust of list posts. My inner cynic tells me that list posts with titles like 101 influential female bloggers are at best search engine bait and at worst sycophantic traffic begging with the writers linking to other blogs purely because they want a more powerful reciprocal link.
Unfortunately, the sycophantic aspect of most list posts, especially those that choose to list bloggers based on criteria such as influence, renders them useless and ultimately shallow unless the reader simply wants a list of high traffic blogs.
This lack of lists of reliable quality and authority is a problem. A problem that I faced earlier today.
I’m in the process of redesigning a blog for a friend and reasonably well established female blogger. She has a loyal but modest following and has, up until now, chosen to blog only as a hobby and has, therefore, not monetized her blog. The redesign will give her a platform with which to turn that hobby into a full time career.
As part of my research I decided to take a look at the blogs of some successful and influential female bloggers. Unfortunately, though perhaps unsurprisingly, my search brought up the same old lists, over and over again, with the same old blogs.
Whilst I was looking for new and innovative female bloggers what I found, thanks to the way Google often unfairly rewards list posts that have received reciprocal links, was the old guard.
Which leaves me looking for an answer to my original question and you, particularly if you are a female blogger, with an opportunity to push your blog into the limelight.
What do you think? Who are the most influential female bloggers?
I’m going to do my best to search through my links for some interesting female bloggers for you, but the truth is that since I follow mostly design blogs there aren’t many that I know of. In an industry where women hold only 16% of professional positions, we are scarce in the first place and rarely given to bragging in a room crowded with mostly male voices.
http://www.zeldman.com/2007/04/19/women-in-web-design
http://www.kottke.org/07/02/gender-diversity-at-web-conferences
http://www.designobserver.com/archives/entry.html?id=20303
We are trying.
One of my favorite blogs by far though, is by a brilliant and inspiring woman.
http://www.swiss-miss.com
Influential is one of those words like “cool”, how do you define it and how do you measure it?
In the niche we blog in there are many women’s blogs that are well read, mostly based on their success outside of blogging and using the blog as a marketing tool.
We made a deliberate choice not to monetise our blog through traditional means such as standard banner or widget advertising services because we could not marry our integrity to endorsing a product we may not personally use.
Most of the “influential” female bloggers of my country (Singapore) are in the limelight because of their beauty. Two are in the limelight even more because one is sueing the other for defamation! Most influential bloggers of my country are male. And it’s because they offer good useful content and advise that people can really use. And usually they are more straight-in-your face.
For me, I don’t really care who’s influential or not…once I find a good useful blog, I rarely let it go! I make sure I visit at least weekly.
I follow a blog by a former co-worker of mine who writes about Online Communities. It’s gained a pretty good following in a short time.
http://blog.angelaconnor.com/
I am certainly a female blogger and would like to be influential beyond my immediate circle. I’m in the process of building my list, so I have more traffic to show for my mission-driven efforts. Our goal is to support people in their local communities who want to “go green.” We do this by providing information, a social network, and (coming this year) a supported, fun program to help people set and reach their greening goals. My vision is to have a national (international?!) hub with links to local sites that highlight eco-friendly businesses and organizations in their communities. Check us out at http://www.goforchange.com and tell us what you think. While you are there, sign up for our RSS and our mailing list. Thanks!!
I definitely think fashion blogs, mainly run by women at the moment is sky rocketing. Many of the female bloggers I follow have landed magazine interviews such as Nylon (Rumi, http://www.fashiontoast.com), received the opportunity to be a model for clothing stores like American Apparel (Karla, karlascloset.blogspot.com), and most recently a fashion blogger was scouted by a modeling agency in New York and just walked the runway for New York Fashion Week (Laurel, itslasfactory.blogspot.com).
The best part about it I think is, they all start just like everyone else when it comes to blogging. They just post what they like to post and soon enough through time, it catches on and they’re getting offers from big advertising companies and tons of followers who are dying to be in their same position.
A few other of my faves:
http://www.greenyourdecor.com Jennae Petersen on greening interior design
http://urbanpalimpsest.blogspot.com/ Elizabeth Evits Dickinson on design
http://athirdmind.com/ Michelle Price on social networking
I definitely think fashion blogs, mainly run by women at the moment is sky rocketing. Many of the female bloggers I follow have landed magazine interviews such as Nylon (Rumi, http://www.fashiontoast.com), received the opportunity to be a model for clothing stores like American Apparel (Karla, karlascloset.blogspot.com), and most recently a fashion blogger was scouted by a modeling agency in New York and just walked the runway for New York Fashion Week (Laurel, itslasfactory.blogspot.com).
The best part about it I think is, they all start just like everyone else when it comes to blogging. They just post what they like to post and soon enough through time, it catches on and they’re getting offers from big advertising companies and tons of followers who are dying to be in their same position.