If my last post, Setting up Wordpress to Start Making Money interested you - then you might find it useful to set yourself some goals so that you can earn money from blogging.

If you plan to earn enought money from blogging to support your lifestyle, then it pays to have a plan in place to achieve this goal. Many people (ahem.. myself included) have made the mistake of hearing that there is a fortune to be made from blogging and then gone and created a whole heap of blogs that start off great, but then fizzle out as time constraints and a general loss of direction takes hold.

Like I said, making money on the internet is really easy. However, making a living from the internet is a bit more tricky.

To start setting your goals to earn money blogging, then there are 3 basic things that you should take a look at:

  1. Where are you now?
  2. Where do you want to be?
  3. How can you get there?

Let’s take a look at them in a bit more detail. (Tip: It’s a good idea to write these down. So get a pencil and paper or fire up your favourite text editor or task manager :) )

1: Where are you now?
Well this is pretty easy. Maybe you have just started to find out about blogging and how it makes certain people a fortune or at least a modest income. Or, perhaps you have a number of blogs on the go but have lost enthusiasm due to lack of traffic and low income. Maybe you already make money from the internet, but wish to expand into blogging as another income stream.

So, where are you know??? Write it down!

2: Where do you want to be?
Finding out what financial gain you want to get from blogging is paramount to what you need to do to achieve this goal. Do you just want a part time side-job that will pay your web hosting bills and maybe the odd pizza? Are you looking for a way to escape the 9 to 5 grind and start working from home on your own terms? How about becoming an internet mogul and living the life of riley on a white sandy beach with Miss/Mr Venezuala while a team of hard working individuals take care of your blogs?

Finding out where you want to be determines what you need to do to get there. Write it down!

3: How can you get there?
This part is a little more tricky and depends upon where you are and where you want to be. What you need to do here is make a list of the action steps that are required to get you from one to the other - and make sure you follow them through.

If you are a blogging newbie, then you will need to decide what you are going to blog about then set up a blog and then start blogging.

If you have a number of flailing blogs, then it may be time to take stock of you inventory and resources and start concentrating on get one or two of those blogs going really well before working on the others.

If paying your webhosting bill is all that you want to achieve, then you could probably stick some adsense on your blog and work on getting more traffic. If you want to earn enough blogging money to give up your job then you will probably benefit from getting one blog working and creating another.

I wish I could tell you how to become an internet mogul, but sorry, I don’t have the experience. The best thing to do here is find out what other really successful bloggers are doing and set some really audacious goals to follow through. You can bet they didn’t get there by just blogging about how they haven’t had time to blog recently because they’ve just been too busy and un-motivated!

Of course, you need to find ways of monetizing your blog. For this you could take a look at programs like AdSense and Text Link Ads for advertising revenue.

Also, take a look at moving into affiliate marketing by promoting the products on offer at Amazon.com and Commission Junction. However, this is material for another article, so come back soon to check it out.

Happy Blog Goal Setting :)