In the Blogosphere, Content is King

Most people believe that running a blog is difficult work. In fact, quite the opposite is true. The phlethora of free blogging software and services out there is incredible - most will have you set up and running in less than an hour.

Because of the ease of blogging, you will also find a lot of blogs come and go. You'll come across hundreds of them with outdated information, or worse, you'll subscribe to some of them only never to hear another peep out of the author.

There are also those people who think that they will become millionaires and buy big house and fancy cars with all the income from their blog.

Well, I'm not saying that you can't do that. There are certainly blogs out there that rake in some handsome Google Adsense dollars, and there are people that exist that buy a big house and a fancy car with all the income from their blog.

Can YOU do it too?

Yes, absolutely you can. At least, a hundred dollars a day is a reasonable, and attainable goal. Obviously, the more time and effort that you put into your goal, the more rewards you shall reap. So you can even do this in your spare time, if you are unwilling to drop your day job in order to jump into the blogosphere.

Yes, absolutely. At the very least, a high five-figure annual income is certainly an attainable goal for an individual working full-time from home. I’m making a healthy income from StevePavlina.com, and the site is only 19 months old… barely a toddler. If you have a day job, it will take longer to generate a livable income, but it can still be done part-time if you’re willing to devote a lot of your spare time to it. I’ve always done it full-time.

There are only two things you must remember.

#1: Content is King

The wonderful thing about blogging is that you can write about anything that you want. If you have that special Shih-tzu and you adore him to pieces, you can write a blog about him and every wonderful thing he does. (No, I am not making fun of Shih-tzu owners - I absolutely love them!)

The question is, SHOULD you?

Aside from a personal blog - and I define a personal blog as any blog that your goal is NOT to make ANY money - then no, you should not.

The first rule in professional blogging is that you need to make content that people will want to read. You don't even have to be an expert in what you are trying to write. As long as you have an internet connection, and you can type, then you can make a blog about pretty much any topic.

The MOST important question you can ask yourself, even before you sign up for a blog account or invest in a domain name, "Is this content worth reading by a million people?" So while your pooch maybe valuable content to everyone in your extended family, no one else might even care about him.

Does this mean that you should write all of your articles with no personal flair at all? If your goal is to make money from your blog, then no, you should not. YOUR blog is what defines YOU, so of course you should be personal. (A word of wisdom here: there is something called TMI, or Too Much Information. I'm not talking about TMI. There is a point where your personal flair becomes TMI and you should avoid that at all costs.)

People will visit your site for what YOU have to say, so YOU should say it!

#2: Longevity is the Queen

If I've learned anything about the internet, it is that sites come and go faster than a teenager's whims. The second biggest culprit to blogging failure, after poor content, is that you won't stick around.

If you've succeeded with point #1, then people WILL bookmark you. I return to articles that I find interesting all the time, and I continue to use resources, blogs included, over and over. If I'm like most people, then I'm more than willing to give your blog a chance.

If you build quality, then I will come.

But do you know what happens? I find this super awesome alpha-wolf squadron blog and all of a sudden, I realize that it's never being updated. Some Joe or Jane spent the time to make it really good, I mean, I am there after all, and then just abandoned it.

This happens a lot. Don't turn into one of those bloggers! If you have your heart set on making money from your blog, then make the commitment to keep it up to date.

Here is a nifty little trick that I use when starting a blog of my own. Offline, I create massive amounts of articles, so when the blogging bug has hit me, I have my heart pumping out the words to match. Then, I take the point that the blog has begun, to 3 months prior and to 3 months in the future, and I set the task of adding all those blog posts.

You may think that is overkill, and maybe you won't take my advice. But when someone lands on your site, they want to be assured that your site will still be there tomorrow. So even if you haven't gotten a bunch of hits on your SiteMeter, you still have an archive of useful information to offer, and you can have peace of mind that if you have to go to the doctors tomorrow, your blog will still have content to publish.

(To answer your question, I sometimes "move around" future posts. So I have a bunch of articles that I've already written that aren't connected by a specific time reference, and they are queued up in case I, say, get ill. If I then get an inspiration to write another article, I can "bump" that week's article to a later date.)

Maureen runs http://www.5starblog.com Join her mailing list to receive a copy of the FREE eCourse "How to Make $100 a Day in 60 Days" at http://www.5stardreams.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1