Some long term bloggers may eventually ask "can I make money doing this?" while others are dreaming of money while they write their first post.

Here's a few tips on building a money making blog.

The original bloggers didn't expect to make any money from sharing their thoughts and ideas but many did, beyond their wildest dreams. Many became celebrities and the job offers poured in for top journalist positions, even book deals. Now though, a good percentage of the new blogs that are started in their thousands are born with the idea of it becoming a money making blog.

We are told by many of the experts that to build a money making blog today requires finding a niche with little competition so that you can quickly establish yourself as the authority within that niche and pull all the traffic. Sounds easy until you consider there are several blogs created every second of the day. Hundreds of blogs a minute created on every subject under the sun and beyond. Try finding your niche in that lot! Personally I like to create my blogs on something that as yet is unheard of apart from a few in the know. That way I can establish myself as the authority 6 months before Joe Public here's about it and tries to grab the traffic.

If you are going to try and break into an already busy niche I would suggest that just as important as the competition is your passion and knowledge on the subject. Quality has a habit of rising to the top and speaking from experience, I find my best performing blogs that are in congested niches are the ones that invoke my passion and that I have a good understanding about the subject. This becomes even more important as search engines such as Google are learning to recognize quality rather than relying on keyword analysis. Things like commenting and other web 2.0 activities such as bookmarking are all seen as votes for your blog and people interact only when they find a blog of quality.

Having said that, you would of course be mad not to at least check out your competition before devoting time and effort into starting a money making blog within a particular niche, just don't get too hung up on it that's all. It is unlikely you will ever make money on the scale of an authority blog like say an Engadget but its quite reasonable for a blog to expect $10+ a day for every 1000 visitors. More if you can tie into an affiliate program within your niche.

Perhaps not the get rich quick scheme you were looking for but at least a money making blog is viable and not just a pipe dream and of course, running several at once is easily done once you have them set up and running. $10 a day is $3650 a year so it soon adds up when you have several blogs on the go at once and there is always the possibility that one will take off and start pulling the amount of traffic that allows you the chance to sell a few advertising slots.