Blogging To Make Money vs Blogging to Entertain

Making money from blogging is a fun way to spend a lot of time....let me rephrase that, Trying to make money from blogging is a fun way to spend a lot of time. Blogging is a lot like movie stardom, or making it big writing best selling novels. Many try, few succeed, I mean really succeed.

Blogging is somewhat cutting edge, that is, it's a relatively new media, and it is a form of media. In some circles, bloggers are seeking entrance to newsworthy events and information based on the premise that they are members of the journalism trade, which of course they are, albeit a new form of journalism.

What is we do as bloggers is not much different than those who write books, or news reports for newspapers, television or radio. In fact many bloggers are penning the equilvalent of a daily newspaper column. Unfortunately it takes time to be appropriately reimbursed for your blog column and how you make money is a little different than a print columnist.

On the other hand, and as I said before, blogging is cutting edge. It's doors are open to everyone, regardless of age, race, education or money. It is a forum to express your opinions to a potentially much wider audience than you would otherwise have without being syndicated by one of the big newspaper article distribution companies. You also don't have the constraints of an editor or organization that may limit what you can say in your blog. I would argue that potentially a blogger has the ability to reach out to more readers than the most famous of all columnists.

However, all that takes time and talent, and like any artistic pursuit, patience and a certain amount of luck. But, if you have the talent, you persevere and you are patient, you have as good a chance at success as anyone else in the blogging field.

As I have said before and will say again, successful blogging, and in particular successful money making through blogging is a product of traffic. You need a good quality, consistent product that will bring you the types and numbers of traffic, or visitors, necessary to make a decent bit of money.

I wish I could tell you the magic number of visitors a day that you need to make money. I don't know it. I know it is substantial. I also know it has to be the right kind of traffic. I started blogging with a blog that actually became somewhat small scale popular, bringing in consistently about 500-600 visitors a day. Not huge but any means but fairly substantial and fairly consistent. However, I struggled to make 10 cents a day from that blog. The visitors were coming, they were staying to read my stuff, but they weren't very good at looking at my advertisements, or following up and purchasing something from my affiliate sales company. Instead, I had a loyal readership who enjoyed my work. In that situation, I might be better off to try and sell that blog as a regular newspaper column instead of trying to make money from the ads.

In another blog, I don't receive near the traffic of the first one, but my visitors do tend to click on the links and ads, and even buy the odd thing through my affilate store. In fact, it is much more lucrative than the other blog which received many more visitors per day.

It all comes down to the purpose of the blog. After a few years of experience, I have concluded that in order to make money, blogs have to be written with that in mind. I don't believe that in all cases, huge traffic means huge monetary returns. Therefore, the blogger has a delicate job. On the one hand, you need to be writing what you enjoy writing and what your readers will enjoy reading. But on the other hand, you have to be aware of what it is that people want and are looking for, which will lead to ad revenues and affilate sales.

I don't believe that everyone will make money blogging. Nor do I think that everyone wants to make money blogging. For a lot of folks, myself included, on some of my blogs, I am as happy to receive a few good comments and know that I am being read all over the world, as opposed to worrying about making a few bucks. On the other hand, if I can make enough money to make this worthwhile, I can do both, blog for money and blog for readers.

What do you think? Can you make money blogging while still remaining true to your original vision for your blog, or does making money from blogging require an entirely different type of endeavor?

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