Julia Scott profits from being called a "babe."

Scott is known to thousands of readers as the Bargain Babe, dispensing money-saving tips on everything from tacos to taxes on her two-and-a-half-year-old personal-finance blog.

Scott, a former newspaper reporter, carved out a Web presence using her way with words and her knowledge of personal finance to stand out among the masses of bloggers focusing on pinching pennies.

“Who isn’t my competition,” she said. Offering a niche—saving on everyday items using coupons and other strategies—has led to about 50,000 unique visitors a month to her site, BargainBabe.com, with about 140,000 page views a month and about 10,000 people subscribing to her free email service.

Those numbers, according to a Web-marketing expert, are healthy. Riyaad Edoo, a project manager at the New York office of Blueliner Marketing Co., an Internet marketing agency and Web-development firm, said it's difficult to pinpoint how many Web hits are needed for a site to be successful. It depends upon the industry and the ability of the site to attract people. But “you want to be in the tens of thousands.”

To help attract visitors, some of her competitors are helping her. Every few weeks, Scott sends her best blog posts to a gaggle of bloggers. They link to her. She links to them. It’s part of 10 hours a week spent trying to enhance her site’s visibility, striving for more of those all-important page views. “Traffic is the basis for revenue and ego. It’s all about 'what are your numbers, let’s see who’s the biggest fish in the pond.'”

She believes her ethics influence her readership. She accepts no payment to write on any subjects. “If I write about a restaurant, retailer, website or product, it is because I believe there is a good deal to be had,” she said.

It was while working at the L.A. Daily News covering business that she started a blog for the paper about saving money. Even a 10-year print syndication offer wasn’t enough to keep her in the ink. “I didn’t want to be in print for 10 years,” she said. “I realized this has a lot of potential. Newspapers were failing, and I didn’t believe print was my future. I saw a brighter future for myself online.”

After spending roughly $2,000 to establish her site, the 33-year-old entrepreneur said she earned about half her newspaper salary the first year. The following year she tripled it, bringing in six figures. She expects slightly less this year, due to an outside blogging gig ending. Revenue comes from advertising, including sponsored posts that are labeled as such; as well as from writing for other websites, consulting, speaking engagements, and various projects. Two part-time contractors write a combined three to four blog posts a week out of about 20 to 25 weekly posts.

Scott, ever the savvy saver, has taken advantage of her own tips. When she got married in April and was looking for honeymoon locales, she followed one of her blog posts to score a bargain at a high-end resort in Vermont: “We got free massages with a hotel stay.”