Reality Check for Bloggers

I was looking at the Pro Blogger site the other day. It's one of these "blogging guru" sites where a guy named Darren Rowse, who has been blogging for quite a while and earns a nice living from it, shares his wisdom and gives advice about making money with blogs. He wrote an article that all bloggers with a thought of getting rich with a blog should read. It's called A Reality Check about Blogging for Money.

As for me, I started my blog as a lark and stumbled on a ton of “make money blogging” sites. Most of them are the same recycled junk that puts unrealistic expectations into the heads of blogging newbies. I wanted to make some extra money though, so I persevered.

The best bit of advice (spouted by numerous “pro bloggers”) was “create good content.” It’s the old “if you build it they will come” theory. Steve Pavlina wrote a great article on How to Build a High Traffic Website (or Blog) that I constantly refer to for "inspiration."

Another thing I learned along the way is just “building it” isn’t enough. You need eyeballs-lots of them- and you need to convert the eyeballs to regular readers. I did all the SEO stuff I could figure out and I’ve managed to make anywhere from $750-$1000 per month for the past 6 months or so.

I am not getting rich, but I paid for my kid’s braces, some daycare expenses, a bunch of domain names, an attorney’s bill, some Christmas presents and a new memory card for my computer. And I still have money rolling in every month. This site is paying for a trip to Las Vegas in April!

It sure beats having a part time job and it’s a lot of fun.

Would I like to make $250,000 a year blogging? HELL YES, sign me up. Maybe someday I will. In the meantime, I’ll continue having some fun and having a chunk of extra cash around every month. If you want to make money blogging, remember one thing: it IS WORK-nothing comes easy, but it can be done!