Make money blogging about things you love

Just a thought on this "make money from blogging" phenomenon: I think a lot of people have the whole thing inverted. They read about how some bloggers are pulling in big bucks writing - somewhat ironically - about how to make money from blogging! They then emulate them. So there are a squillion sites out there with much the same information. They are all spruiking ebooks and courses and work at home business opportunities.

Sure, a lot of people are still doing pretty well out of this. But I suspect most of them make little or no money and then give up sooner or later. The reason for this is that they are not writing about what they have a genuine interest in.

We all need money and it can be a strong motivating factor. Hell, it motivates us to get up every morning to go to work, and stay there until knock-off time! But unless the art of making money itself is a real passion and you are forever learning new techniques, then you'll eventually run out of motivation to write about it. I mean, you can't just keep writing exactly the same stuff over and over. You'll go completely batty.

So the key is to find something you really love doing. Then you'll keep learning new and fascinating things about it which you can share with your readers. You'll build up mountains of content on this particular subject. The search engines will reward you with more and more targeted traffic. You can monetize that with Adsense or affiliate programs, and that's where you'll get an income.

So it's vital to pursue your real interests first and not worry about the money. That's easier said than done. Money is such a big part of all our lives that sometimes it's hard to find things that aren't influenced by the need for it either directly or indirectly! But they are there, of course. And it's those that you should blog about.

It's a real paradox. But I think it's true that the best way to make money from a blog is to start out with no intention to do so. Or put another way: follow your heart and the money will come. (And even if it doesn't, so what? You had a good time on the journey.)