This current blogging "explosion" bothers me for different reasons, but all of these neophytes running around, dispensing trendy advice, is probably the main one.
You are not going to make money blogging if you don't know how to blog.
Read that again and pay close, close attention to it.
"Blogging" was originally called "online journaling." As more and more people began keeping online journals, many of them were specific to a website or its development, and the entire genre, if you will, became known as "web logs." Eventually, this got shortened to 'blog.
I don't care how l33t your WP theme is, I don't care how many social networking sites you learn to "game," I don't care how many SEO tricks you have in your arsenal; if you do not know how to journal, you are not going to make money blogging.
Let me tell you what you will do:
You will start a handful of "niche" blogs, including the requisite "how-to blog" blog all new bloggers seem to have these days; you will join a thousand social networking sites; you will become involved in pointless Web-dramas with personalities savvier Netizens have manufactured...
Several hundred of these social networks will collapse and the rest will slowly merge until there are only three or four - Yahoo! will buy one and Google will buy all the rest.
The manufactured personalities will have their 15 minutes and disappear, to be casually mentioned for another five minutes on others' blogs as cautionary tales, then die forever; one will get a late-night, cable talk show; the other will commit suicide, launch his own print magazine dedicated to Cyberculture, and/or take his "niche" marketing skills and go into porn.
Your handful of blogs will quickly dwindle into one and when you meet That Special Someone, get A Real Job, or whatever, the time between posts will continue to grow until all of the entries on the homepage are the basic, "Sorry I've been away" bits separated by weeks, then months. Finally, you'll rally all your time and resources and have a "really productive" month before you write the "We've had some good times, but I have decided to stop updating this blog" post and focus all your energy on making assistant manager.
So if the first thing that comes to mind when someone says "blog" is "SEO," "monetization," "make money," "niche marketing," or anything else along those lines, you've already got one foot in the grave. Save everyone the time and energy and just quit now.
Who knows? With my strategy, you might one day make General Manager!
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
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