I have been asked many times about whether or not it is possible to make money by writing in a blog.  The short answer to whether it is possible is yes.  The more complicated answer is that almost nobody makes money with blogs, and if they do it isn’t much.

The basic idea behind making money with a blog is the following:

  1. Write something.
  2. Put an ad on your blog.
  3. Profit.

It wasn’t supposed to be complicated, but I can make it that way:

  1. Write something that is worth reading.
  2. Find somebody willing to put an ad on it.
  3. Wait for somebody to read it.
  4. Profit.

Ok, that’s a little more complicated, but still not realistic.  Let me be honest:

  1. Write something that is worth reading.
  2. Hardly anybody is going to read what you write.
  3. Write some more, and keep writing regularly, and maybe people will start to read something.
  4. Still, hardly anybody is going to read most of what you write.
  5. Something you write gets a few readers through a Google or Yahoo search.
  6. You place an ad that is most likely Adsense, or another pay-per-click type.
  7. A reader clicking on an ad gets you at most a few dollars.

Now, the truth about your competitors:

  1. Many more people are good at making money off the internet than you.
  2. Good articles make money, but you probably won’t get any of it.
  3. Somebody smart notices that you wrote a good article or blog post.
  4. Your post gets copied, probably many times.
  5. The copies will be higher in the search results than your original.
  6. Readers will click on the ads on somebody else’s page.
  7. They cash the check before you even notice there is a problem.

That’s just how it works.  Unless you are a reporter for CNN or something, don’t expect to make any money.  You could always join the dark side and just copy some articles yourself too, but don’t expect that to work either.  Stay tuned for a few good reasons why.