The Most Successful Blogs?

Aside from blogs by experts or celebrities, have you noticed that the most successful blogs are the ones focusing on how to create successful blogs? And so many of them all say the same things, too. It seems there is a huge network of blogs that are popular because they tell people how to be popular. But those blogs themselves didn’t get popular with “normal” content.

Kind of like how the only people making money from “business opportunities” are the ones selling them, not the ones buying them. The most successful bloggers are the ones telling others how to be successful blogging. And most of the time, their readers don’t reap the same rewards.

If you remove the experts, celebrities, bloggers on established websites (cnn.com for example), and the “how to blog” blogs out of the mix, it becomes clear that blogging as a means of income is rather limited.

I know you’d rather read something else… that making a fortune by blogging is easy. That if you sign up for some free e-book, I’ll tell you these industry secrets of how to retire next year simply by blogging. I could certainly lie to you, but wouldn’t you rather read the truth?

I used to say that the only guaranteed way to make money in the stock market is to become a stock broker. Of course now that field is practically extinct. Now it seems to be that the only way to actually make money as a blogger is to tell people how to make money blogging. Is there something wrong with this picture?

Sure you can go out there and plagarize 10 articles, put up a mini-site, slap AdSense on the side and move on to repeat the process over and over. At some point you might actually make a few bucks, but it’s not worth the effort.

If you are one of the very few people who has a blog that actually makes money – and it’s not a “blog about how to blog” – then you are a rare exception.

Don’t create a blog with ideas of money pouring in from the wisdom you impart to the world. Create one because you have something to say. Maybe you know a lot about a subject. Maybe you’re a jack of all trades and can write about anything. Maybe there is a cause you want to champion. Do it for those reasons. Or do it as part of a larger website. Creating a blog for the right reasons, and adding content of some value is the way to create a successful blog.

If you create a blog with the sole intention of making a lot of money, you will fail. Your blog will quickly become outdated and fall off of the edge of the cyberworld.

Most “how to successfully blog” sites won’t say this, because their own success relies on your inability to do the near-impossible: make money blogging.