Profitable Blogging 101

Profitable blogging is both easier and harder than you think. It’s harder because of the way blogs have changed. It’s easier because…the ways blogs have changed.

Confused? Don’t be. Just keep on reading and I’ll tell you about profitable blogging, and how you can make money.

Profit 101

First, let’s define “profitable”, because there are two major ways to view profit.

The way most people think is that a site is profitable if it makes more income per year than is spent on hosting, domain registration, advertising, etc. It’s the old income versus outgo — you want more coming in than going out.

Profit can also be thought of in a different way, though. For example, if you build a site and have very targeted traffic, that site might be worth something to someone else, who wants your kind of traffic. So in that sense, if you sold your blog for good money, that would also be profitable.

But for the purpose of this post, profit means earning more money per month than you spend.

Making Money Blogging

You might be excited to learn that you can make lots and lots of money with blogs. Making money blogging is work, though — even if it is a fun kind. There’s more to it than making a post or three and waiting for the money to roll in.

Most people, sad to say, give up before getting to the profit point. While I have had many blogs be profitable their first month out, I’ve also had some blogs that took a few months to get going. (Yes, I have more than one or two blogs, and I’ll tell you why later.)

I’m here to tell you that making money blogging is do-able for the average person. But to have a profitable blog, you need to do some research ahead of time. I know, it’s really, really tempting to plunge right in. And if you want to get your feet wet, point your browser to wordpress.com or blogger and get a free blog.

Then when you’re ready to make money blogging, come on back here.