If you’re want to start blogging but you’re not sure what to blog about, consider charting a journey towards a goal. It could be any type of goal, for example, financial (make $XXX dollars by 2010), health (lose 20 pounds in 6 months) or creative (get article published in Inc. magazine).

One excellent example of such a type of blog is the personal finance blog or pfblog where the author chronicles his journey towards achieving $1 million dollars in net worth. The blog is very popular and has over 35,000 readers subscribing to its feed. It has also been mentioned a few times in the popular media (i.e. magazines, newspapers).

The blog is monetized by Google AdSense, affiliate products and also text link advertising. But if you’re starting out, don’t worry about monetizing it at first. Concentrate on the main message you’re trying to convey and focus on building readership.

Why does the PFblog work?

1. There is a progress update in the header of the blog. This keeps readers interested. They will come back again and again to check on the progress. This means repeat traffic which is a good thing.

2. The is a clear background statement (the “About” page) where the aim of the author is clearly stated.

3. Related posts are listed (he uses “Best of PFBlog”) where new readers can catch up to the current progress.

4. Simple layout and uniform color scheme.

What I don’t like about it is that it is a bit crowded with too many things on the page and a LOT of advertising. There are two blocks of Google AdSense ads right below the header. You can see how he is aiming to get at the $1 million net worth.

If you want to take this idea and run with it, brainstorm about some unique goal that you think will attract readers. The more outrageous the goal, the better. I’ve heard of one guy who wanted to visit 1000 bars in one year. For example, your goal could be to meet Paris Hilton in person and have dinner with her. You can chronicle how you would go about achieving that goal. Think people will want to read about it? You bet!

You can get more ideas by asking people what they want to achieve in life.

Technorati Tags: PFBlog, what to blog about, starting a blog, chart your journey

Popularity: 17% [?]

One thing you have to do to succeed as a blogger is to build up your readership. If you have a base of returning visitors who come to your site often, then you’ll be able to sustain a community and those readers will tell their friends about your blog as well.

Let’s take a look at some popular blogs and how many readers they have. We can find out (not in absolutes but the ball park figure) by looking at the FeedBurner stats that many bloggers post on their sites.

For example, if you think that ProBlogger has a lot of readers (over 25,000 according to FeedBurner), then you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Consider, BoingBoing which has had over 2 million unique visitors so far this month according to their published stats.

TechCrunch has at least 432,000 RSS subscribers.

Nice, huh?

How many readers do you think a blog about recipes can have? Have you ever visited Simply Recipes?

The site is all about different type of recipes. How does 235,000 readers sound? Check it out…

I wonder if those counters can exceed 1,000,000. If you’ve seen one, please let me know.

Here are a few more popular blogs…

ValleyWag’s sitemeter reports over 32,000 daily visitors.

Want to learn some interesting facts everyday? 157,000 people do.

Find an idea that catches on and you will build a blog following.

Technorati Tags: blog readers, popular blogs, blog subscriber counts

Popularity: 12% [?]

As a blogger who is going to stand out among the rest in your market, you’ve got to differentiate. Try to brand yourself (especially if your exit strategy is to get acquired by a larger blog network or company). Forget about using free accounts like Blogger or Wordpress.com. Spend the few bucks per month and get your site hosted on a shared server. Register a unique domain name and make it something that’s easy to remember so that people can come back to your site by just typing in your URL.

I think that the whole blogging and affiliate marketing industry is maturing and you’ll see many bloggers fail and give up. The days of getting easy traffic through Technorati tags, blog and ping, etc. are over. You have to be more creative and use every single tool in your arsenal in order to win in this game. SugarRae has a good post on the evolution of affiliate marketing which you should read. Even though it’s not focusing on bloggers, everything can be applied just the same.

Technorati Tags: blog branding

Popularity: 12% [?]

Can bloggers really make money? I tried to search for a list of the highest paid bloggers. Anyone know of one?

Here are some names that come to mind:

1. Darren Rowse. Problogger and Digital Photography School blog.

2. Steve Pavlina. Read the interview here. Reportedly makes $40,000 per month. His blog gets 175,000 page views daily. Something to strive for, eh?

3. Yaro Starak. $6,549.52 in March 2007.

4. Amit Agarwal from Digital Inspiration. One of rare ones still using a Blogger hosted blog.

More to be added to this list soon…

Technorati Tags: top paid bloggers, bloggers who make a lot of money, highest earning bloggers

Popularity: 39% [?]

Sometimes when I look for things to blog about, I like to put a link to the site I found here so that I won’t forget about it and go back later to read it in detail. I like to surf and blog at the same time and I’m too lazy to write down long URLs. Here are a few links and resources about making money with blogging:

Steve Pavlina has a very long post about how to make money with your blog. It should be required reading for anyone who wants to start a blog and make money doing it.

Darren’s Problogger should also be required reading.

By far the most difficult thing to decide for those just starting out is what to blog about. You want to choose something that you have interest and at least some knowledge in. If you’re an expert already, then you’ll have lots to blog about. If it’s something you don’t know much about but have a thirst for learning everything you possibly can know about the subject, then that’s another good candidate. Choose wisely and you will have a blog that will last the test of time.

Popularity: 11% [?]