Delete please

First I want to complement you on realizing that blogging is NOT a path to instant riches and that blogs are simply a collection of posts.

Blogs are a way to generate traffic. That's pretty much it. You can make money from a blog by either using that traffic to promote one of your own products or by having ads on the blog that you earn a small commission from. That's pretty much it.

There are lots of people out there who are thinking their blog is a key to riches, but the reality is that a blog monetized by ads is going to earn $5 - $25 per 1,000 visitors and it is tough to make any real money from through ads. It is easier to make money from a blog where you have your own set of products, but the blog is just one avenue of traffic for those products.

Hope this helps.

I would recommend you spend your time looking at many ways to produce traffic to your site, not just blogging. Blogging is time intensive.

Indy? I'm originally from Terre Haute. (But nobody's perfect...)

How much traffic are you getting at the moment? Traffic is really the key. If you've got a good following, then you have a million ways to monetise things. Are you focusing on developing this following?

Affiliate programs are a great way to monetise things, but it also depends on the niche you're in.

One thing you might also want to consider is having your blog as part of your overall site. So use your site to provide some content and the blog as a way to interact with your visitors.

Hope that helps,
Sean

One of my blogs makes money from traffic that visits and reads my content then buys my products and services. So its all about driving traffic to my offers. My other blog makes money strictly from advertising. It's all about driving traffic to content, and those readers will want more resources and click on ads. Either way - it ain't easy! And either way -- you have to drive lots of traffic to start seeing decent results.

You really just have to love what you're writing about if you ask me. Because it does take a while to build your foundation, pagerank, backlinks, traffic, optimized posts, etc.

Great idea netkid. If you have a product or Network Marketing business, an opt in box offering a free report or something will help you build a nice email list. Then put your autoresponder to work on the new leads and hopefully you can make some sales or recruit some new people into your business.

Blogging is more about building network rather than selling something. Shoemoney.com prob was one good example of how he does it to build networks. Good network always means better chance to make money since then you will have friends to help or outsourcing your works (or introduce you to other internet marketers, etc.)

I think now is the era of Twitter (microblogging) but you can still link your blog to Twitter by using Twitter Tools by Alex King.

I see blogging as a way to demonstrate your expertise. when i got started like 3-4 years ago, I thought it might generate some money. However, I found that it was difficult to sell advertising yoruself, and google adsense, while it is a nice check each month, is not nearly as much as the effort I put into the blog. In addition, affiliate programs, kind of work at times. I generate a bit of income through say amazon and clickbank...but once again it aint' that much in the grand schem eof things...definitely not worth the time...

However, I found that when I offered my own products, I began to make a bit more money. And becuase I have a decent blog in my niche, folks have heard about me and are interested in purchasing...

I see blogging as a way to demonstrate your knoweldge. there are other ways...probably better ways. I used to blog every day, but have backed off big time. I needed to spend less time giving away the farm and more time trying to see how to monitize the blog....

I used to have many mini-websites but am now finding that I can connect easily with customers I want to do business with through blogging

Blogging creates a relationship that email marketing used to do - but now its much more multi-dimensional - with WordPress, Twitter, Youtube and Facebook.

PLUS you get more quality visitors and traffic to wet people's appetities to what you blog and if they want more JUICY stuff thenn start selling to them!

Sohail