Get Rich Blogging: Fact or Fiction?

This is a guest post by Jonas Adamson. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

It’s harder than ever to spend even a few minutes online these days without bumping into some get-rich-quick story or advertisement, whether it’s news about Ponzi schemes netting crooked financiers billions of dollars or annoying Google sidebar paid ads promising you that you’ll make $7,287,964/hour working from home, stuffing envelopes. The siren’s call of easy money is a tempting one, indeed, and it’s even trickling down to the world of blogging, with more and more stories appearing on mainstream news sites and portals about “professional” bloggers earning six figure salaries. Is this really the golden age of bloggers, with anyone with a blog virtually printing money with a few flicks of their fingers?

Anyone with a blog is likely already chuckling to themselves and shaking their heads no, and for good reason. While it is true that more and more businesses and corporations are creating positions related to blogging and managing larger social media efforts on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites, “blogger” still has a long way to go becoming an established profession (and miles further to go past that point to regularly command a salary that eclipses that of recent MBA graduates, attorneys, etc.). A handful of bloggers who make more than $100,000/year is undoubtedly impressive, but for each one there are thousands of top-notch bloggers who never make a single solitary penny for their efforts.

Like many issues that get twisted and mangled so that make “good” news, anyone looking to profit from blogging may encounter a much different situation when they start casting their blog posts out into the real world. Most uber-successful bloggers (viewing success strictly from a monetary perspective) that make the headlines are actually more marketer than blogger, with their blogging efforts tied directly to a product or service they sell. Interestingly enough, if you browse through assorted lists of the world’s best paid bloggers, the majority make their money by, you guessed it, selling ebooks, DVDs, and other products that teach other people how to make money online. Handsomely-paid bloggers who make their living from simply posting pithy, well-written posts about topics near and dear to their heart are a very, very, very rare breed.

With that depressing news out of the way (no, you won’t get rich blogging), there’s actually a happier silver lining lurking, which is that it’s much easier to make money from blogging today than it was in the past. While your blogging efforts may not ever pay for that Caribbean island you’ve had your eye on buying, there are definitely more and more ways for quality bloggers to profit from their skills. The days are gone when the only way to monetize your blog was by selling text links or slapping up some Google Adsense ads, as bloggers now have many more alternatives when it comes to profiting from their prose. With blogging increasingly being viewed as a legitimate business practice for marketing and advertising departments, there are also more and more part-time and freelance blogging jobs posted on job sites and freelance portals such as Elance. While it still may be very difficult to quit your day job to become a full-time blogger, it’s easier than ever to turn blogging into an enjoyable, profitable part-time job.

Jonas Adamson writes about a variety of affiliate marketing topics at AffiliateTips.com. Affiliatetips covers a wide range of topics and have recently also added a poker affiliate section to their site.