Recently I was discussing with a couple of my colleagues whether putting ads on a blog can actually make you any money.  While they haven’t had much luck with it themselves, I make $100 every three or four months with my blogs.  It’s not much, but figure I would be blogging with or without it, so why not leave the ads in place and get a little extra cash for my trouble?

So the answer is, yes, a blog can make you some money — but most likely it’s only going to be pin money at first.  Growing a blog that makes a ton of money in ad revenue takes a lot of time, dedication, and patience.

Probably the best way to make money via your blog is to choose a niche topic that will get you a lot of traffic.  You’ll get more traffic the closer you are to the top of the list, so choosing a niche that doesn’t already have a lot of blogs or websites out there is the best idea — at least from a business standpoint.  Also, you’ll want to choose a topic that has a lot of people searching on it.

In other words, lots of searches plus not a lot of information available means the most traffic for you.

You also might need to think about web hosting, as some free blog platforms — such as WordPress — may restrict your ability to put ads on the site unless you have your own domain.  You don’t need anything fancy — a basic shared hosting plan ought to do it.

In short, blogging is a lot of work, and ad revenue won’t be much to speak of at first.  I think it’s important to note that unless you have a really strong business idea, you are most likely better off simply blogging for yourself, and viewing the ad revenue you get as a bonus.

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