Fake stories are gaining popularity because a nice chunk of bloggers tend to skip the tiny details and believe everything they read. Throw social networks like Digg into the mix, and you have trouble on the horizon. I am not one of those people, and I do scrutinize (maybe even too much) nearly every story I read on a daily basis. This is why I am asking that the blogging community take a step back and realize that this is only the beginning of a big problem. People are going to try to hurt the image of the blogosphere.

I, unfortunately, have lost some faith in the blogosphere over the past few months with regards to credibility. Bloggers are beginning to prove why journalists still have jobs. Scammers are beginning to realize that the blogosphere is the perfect opportunity to run their fake stories and lies to gain popularity and fame. It is likely that the same people that have provided us the need for spam inboxes will now give us the need for more scrutiny within the blogosphere.

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My name is Jaro and this is my first article here at Performancing. I've been following this great community since its early days but only now I'm getting actively involved. Better later than never, right?

First a few words about myself. I've been in the blogging circles for about 3 years but only started to monetize my blog last year. Today I'm earning a part time income from blogging (mid 4 figures per month) and I'm constantly expanding my portfolio of blogs and websites. It's been quite a ride during the past few months and I learned. I'd like to share my experience with others here at Performancing and today I'm going to talk about how I earned credibility on one of my blogs.

How I earned my credibility

Every successful blogger will tell you that credibility is the key if you want to keep readers on your blog. Readers must trust you in order to believe and follow what you are saying. I've been recently quite successfull in this field and here are the top factores that worked for me:

1. Publish your RSS subscribers count - if you've got at least a couple of hundreds subscribers go ahead and show it off on your blog. High Feedburner count adds credibility to your blog right away.

2. Publish your earnings - the ball started to roll right after I published my monthly income. If you talk about making money on the internet you must show your readers that you make money yourself. I've been a bit hesitant to reveal how much I make but it looks like it was a good move.

3. Get featured in a local magazine - after I published my monthly income I was contacted by 2 local magazines and they wanted to do an article about me. When the magazine was published a friend of mine took photos of the article and sent them to me. I published these photos on my blog. Another plus points for me. The lecture I learned here was that even offline promotion can affect your online activities.

4. Radio is not dead - I got in touch with a guy from the national radio station. The first interview we did sounded quite bad from my side. I had no experience with audio interviews what so ever. However, the guy (who is now my friend) didn't think it was that bad. We recorded a second interview then third and soon I became his interview buddy. Today, every time a new interesting blogging service is launched we get together and record a short audio clip. I always try to mention the name of my blog so the listeners can find me. Every time I'm featured on the radio I let me readers know either in advance or point them to the radio archives to listen to the show.

This is what worked for me. I'd love to hear your stories about how you earned your credibility. Was it a difficult and long process? Are you still struggling to earn trust of your readers?