So you've decided to start a blog, you're doing it as a source of revenue so your first job is to pick a topic. Most people focus immediately on the profitability of the topic - how much do people pay for keywords in AdWords, how much are affiliate programs in that area paying out and so on? I want to discuss how your passion for the topic affects your ability to make money.
The Profitability / Passion Relationship
My advice is this - pick a topic you are most passionate about. Do a little research to see how profitable it is, and perhaps tweak it slightly or extend it a little but make your passion about the topic your number 1 consideration and the profitability factor just a secondary factor.
Now let me explain my reasons for this advice. Quite simply, for a blog to make money it has to be popular and it has to get traffic. You can only do this with lots of work and with outstanding content. This is by no means an easy task. You really have to work at it and very often it can take a few months before you see any signs of success.
Many bloggers pick a topic with high paying keywords and affiliate programs but this is a mistake because it takes time to really get a blog off the ground and they find their enthusiasm quickly waning before they ever see a slice of that profit potential. Blogging involves lots of writing and you're going to have to be able to write by the bucketload on your chosen topic. If you run out of ideas after a few posts you'll be in trouble!
Now looking again at the monetization issue, there are certainly no shortage of ways to make money from a blog but I find they fall into two groups. The first are the easy 'on-page' methods - these include many of the simple contextual ad systems such as AdSense. These will perform better in high-paying niches but they will still not make anywhere near the money of the second group of strategies.
Systems such as AdSense pay you just a few cents per click. To really make money you want to sell products and if you own your own products you gets 100% of the profit. Build in membership sites and other sources of recurring revenue and you have a veritable goldmine on your hands. The trouble is, to effectively develop and sell these kinds of products you need expertise and passion in your niche and you'll struggle with this if your niche has been chosen purely on profitability.
On the other hand if you're blogging about rose gardening and you connect with other enthusiastic rose gardeners you'll find it so easy and natural to work up to creating your own products and you'll develop such a genuine relationship with your readers that your products will virtually sell themselves. Everything will just flow much more smoothly.
To conclude the article, even when you are trying to build a profitable blog, you are only ever as strong as the weakest link and if your weak area is your lack of interest in the topic then you will severely restrict how much money you can make no matter how profitable the niche looks.
The Profitability / Passion Relationship
My advice is this - pick a topic you are most passionate about. Do a little research to see how profitable it is, and perhaps tweak it slightly or extend it a little but make your passion about the topic your number 1 consideration and the profitability factor just a secondary factor.
Now let me explain my reasons for this advice. Quite simply, for a blog to make money it has to be popular and it has to get traffic. You can only do this with lots of work and with outstanding content. This is by no means an easy task. You really have to work at it and very often it can take a few months before you see any signs of success.
Many bloggers pick a topic with high paying keywords and affiliate programs but this is a mistake because it takes time to really get a blog off the ground and they find their enthusiasm quickly waning before they ever see a slice of that profit potential. Blogging involves lots of writing and you're going to have to be able to write by the bucketload on your chosen topic. If you run out of ideas after a few posts you'll be in trouble!
Now looking again at the monetization issue, there are certainly no shortage of ways to make money from a blog but I find they fall into two groups. The first are the easy 'on-page' methods - these include many of the simple contextual ad systems such as AdSense. These will perform better in high-paying niches but they will still not make anywhere near the money of the second group of strategies.
Systems such as AdSense pay you just a few cents per click. To really make money you want to sell products and if you own your own products you gets 100% of the profit. Build in membership sites and other sources of recurring revenue and you have a veritable goldmine on your hands. The trouble is, to effectively develop and sell these kinds of products you need expertise and passion in your niche and you'll struggle with this if your niche has been chosen purely on profitability.
On the other hand if you're blogging about rose gardening and you connect with other enthusiastic rose gardeners you'll find it so easy and natural to work up to creating your own products and you'll develop such a genuine relationship with your readers that your products will virtually sell themselves. Everything will just flow much more smoothly.
To conclude the article, even when you are trying to build a profitable blog, you are only ever as strong as the weakest link and if your weak area is your lack of interest in the topic then you will severely restrict how much money you can make no matter how profitable the niche looks.
About the Author:
Caroline Middlebrook has been blogging about Internet marketing since August 2007 and her popular blog generates a 4-figure income every month. She teaches you how blogs make money and offers downloads of her free ebooks, guides & courses on her blog.
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