Blogging is serious business – and there is no questioning the fact that you could make big money blogging. There are many of those stars who were not born big but they only became big by blogging. And when they blogged, they knew what it took to become stars and worked on the idea to get there. So, the logic goes: “if someone can do it, why not me?”

That’s a very rational argument. Blogs are out there for the taking and people can make a handsome living out of just blogging from home. But there is one mistake that many people do in their venture into professional blogging. The mistake is to focus on the “making money” part of the equation and taking their eyes off “blogging”, which is their venture’s very raison d’être.

The logic behind Advertising: If you have plans of starting your own blog or if you think you have it in you to make a lot of money blogging, you are in the right place. But the problem with your approach could well be advertising, as is the case with many bloggers. It is common knowledge that when there is traffic in a place, there would be advertisements. If you find a crowded mall, a packed motorway, a busy footpath, you can always expect advertisements to be there. The logic is simple – you have people rushing to a place, so make the most of the opportunity by displaying Ads in bold and in all colours to get their attention. And the more number of people who are interested in the advertisements, the better it is for you in your venture.

This real world example has a lesson or two about placing Ads on blogs and making money out of it. If you consider your favourite football or cricket match, you could find lots of advertisements on display and you would find a lot many people watching those advertisements. The organisers of the match make their money by displaying the advertisements. But then, consider the case where the organisers decide to focus on making money and leave the task of giving people entertainment in the back burner. The result would be straight forward – there would not be many visitors in the first place for the advertisers to make the most of the crowd.

Blogging is very similar to the real world example. To illustrate, here are a few points that you need to have in your mind as you get into your blogging venture, trying to make money online.

1. Making money blogging takes time: You can not expect to start your blog yesterday and make money today. As in the case of the match, people come to blogs in search of value – and they need to be convinced that the value that they look for is available in your blog. It’s only on providing evidence through performance that you get visitors on a regular basis. So, be patient to make money.

2. Take time to build your brand: Even if you are just an individual and do not plan to start an organisation, you can still build a brand around your blog. The idea is to stay focussed on your chosen niche and keep contributing with the user in mind. If you can do that consistently, you have built your brand – and brands are much easier to sell than any other commodity that is undifferentiated from the rest of the competition.

3. Use Advertisements wisely: Advertisements are money. It is always advisable to have as much control over your advertisements as possible. Of course, in the initial phases, as you approach Google or Yahoo to place ads for you, you can not possibly have control over which ads are getting placed on your site. You can, however, be sure that Google would place the advertisements that match your contents. But as you grow, as you become a popular blogger and as people keep coming back to your blog for resources, you can choose which advertisements to place in your blog – and that would help you in your brand building efforts, apart from getting you revenue.

4. Do not be Intrusive: No matter what you do, do not intrude into user experience. You can not possibly turn the user off with unnecessary pop-ups or ads that block user content. You, not your advertiser, is responsible for your consumers’ user experience. Be sensible in the way you place your ads and respect users for what they seek in your blog.

5. Do not seem desperate: Do not pack your blog with advertisements on all sides, no matter how much value you manage to deliver to your readers. When you do that, your users may very well get distracted from what you offer, may consider your blog frivolous and first time visitors may not find much reason as to why they need to stick with your blog. Further, your brand would get diluted as you would only sound too desperate to milk every bit of your visitor.

Focus on your contents, take your time, build your brand and gift your users with a rewarding experience – you would be rewarded in the long run.