Making a living as a blogger is a dream that many people share. If you are like most people, the thought of being able to work from home, set your own hours and write about a topic that inspires you is incredibly appealing. Unfortunately, most people who start blogging for profit never reach their goals. There are two main reasons for this.

First, many people overestimate how quickly their traffic will grow. When they don’t see immediate results they get frustrated and give up. Second, many bloggers fail because they didn’t start with a plan. Just like any other business, blogging needs to be approached with a solid plan for how you expect to reach your goals. Otherwise it is easy to get sidetracked before you start to turn a profit.

The key to blogging success is growing a large readership. Unless you have substantial traffic, you won’t be able to demand high enough advertising dollars to earn a living. Unfortunately, getting traffic isn’t as easy as it used to be. Today, having a successful blog involves far more than writing excellent, engaging content. You also have to find innovative ways to market your blog and grow your readership.

If you make the mistake of focusing only on your writing and neglect marketing, you won’t see the results you want. Even the best writing is worthless if no one ever reads it. Instead, you have to take a two-pronged approach. Along with writing excellent content and providing regular updates, you also have to invest a significant amount of time in marketing.

Regular updates are important. However, don’t feel like you need to update your blog every day. Instead, try updating it several times a week. Make each post the absolute best that it can be. Then, spend the rest of your time focusing on marketing.

There are quite a few effective marketing techniques that you can employ. One of the most popular is writing a guest post for another blog. Look for high-traffic blogs in your market. Contact the blog owner and ask them if you could do a guest post in exchange for a link back to your blog. As long as you provide high quality content, many blog owners will be happy to accept your post. After all, it is essentially free content for their blog.

Guest blogging benefits you in two ways. First, it allows you to reach out to the other blog’s audience. If you content is engaging enough, hopefully they will click through to read more on your blog. Additionally, it also provides a link back to your site, which helps boost your standing in the search engines.

If you are stuck for ideas on how to proceed, take a look at some of the most successful blogs in your industry. Try to determine what they are doing that is different than what you are doing in terms of marketing. Once you have an understanding of what you want to achieve, sit down and write out a plan for how to get there. Determine how many days a week you plan to post and how much time you want to commit to marketing.

Taking the time to market your blog can mean the different between success and failure. If you develop a plan and stick with it for the long haul, you can successfully make a living with your blog.