For those of you that don’t know, I have worked hard for the past two years to develop blogging as a profitable second income for my family. So far, it has definitely been profitable, but I haven’t exactly been raking in the dough with it. I make no money off of this blog, primarily because it is in its early stages of a blog, and I won’t try to monetize it until I have gained your trust as a reader. I want you to know that I am in this to help people find meaningful and purposeful work, rather than make five cents on a click-through.

However, I have been making a decent, little side income by authoring the personal finance blog, Money Crashers I have been writing Money Crashers for about 2 years now, and I really believe that this year is the year that it takes off in terms of traffic and monetization. I have big plans for the site which include doing weekly or bi-weekly podcasts, launch a social bookmarking promotion campaign, among other things. My goal for this year is to triple the money that I make from Money Crashers by this fall. I think that I can do it, I just need to stay diligent with my posts, create content that brings value to the readers, and continue to promote the site that drives new traffic to it.

Are you a skeptic about making money as a blogger? I was there two years ago. I thought to myself, there are millions upon millions of blogs out there now. Only the ones who started five years ago are going to make any real income. That’s completely now true. There is one formula to turning professional blogging into a great side business or even a full-time business. Create valuable content in a niche that you are passionate about. If you write valuable content about something that you love such as a hobby, the blogging logistics and marketing part will come as you do more research. Create content that is entertaining, informing, and teaches something to someone. If you do that, you’ll be successful as a blogger.

Here is a couple of great resources to help you become a professional blogger:

• Pro Blogger
• Blogging Pro
• Blog Herald