Found this great post from Yehuda (a blog about board gaming) via Hugh McLeod this morning.  It’s a fantastic post that you really should read if you do any blogging at all and are thinking of making that big leap to full time “professional” blogging…

9. I maintained focus on my readers. I don’t write for transient hits from Google or Digg. Not that I reject them, but I don’t make that my focus. If my post isn’t good enough for the regular readers, it’s not good enough. On the other hand, my regular readers do get a wide range of topics covered…I try not to annoy my readers with ads. I played around with ads and rejected most of them because they would annoy me if I went to read the site. I use only a small ad on the top. I use affiliate links to sites where I would also buy products, and which don’t pop-up or interfere with the flow of text. I began writing reviews only of sites that I thought contained at least something that I would be interested in, anyway (and rejected many others).

That’s good stuff. Blogging experts like Jim Kukral would probably agree with most of this as well.  It’s not about squeezing the blood out of your turnip blog in order to make a few extra bucks every month. You’re building a brand, whether it be personal or business in nature.

In my opinion, blogging is a terrific platform and can become a source of full time income, but that’s very very hard to do without alienating your readers or your own soul.  Blogs like TechCrunch are full time jobs that require more work than most of us are willing to put into a blog.  As Loren Feldman points out, the A-List exists because those gals and guys work their asses off to get there.

A-List work ethic aside, you can make a blog a jumping off point for your career.  In the Yehuda post above, the blogger says he made a few dollars a month and was happy with the results. Then, he went in to a company for an engineer gig and instead suggested he become the company blogger. And he got it, and now he’s living in dream land.

That’s it.  That’s what blogging can do for your career.  Same thing with myself… this blog and my personal blog.  I’ve landed a number of opportunities in the last year because I can point people to my work and show how I can create a fairly tangible brand (like CostPerNews) by blogging.

What amazes me is that marketers, affiliate marketers in particular, don’t get blogging.  A few do, of course.  Shawn Collins, Fraser Edwards, Shoemoney,  Vinny Lingham, Adam Viener… those guys get it.  They’re not covering their blogs with intellitext ads or 125×125’s that blanket the site to the point of nausea.  They put out content that is compelling and interesting and has a point of view.  None of them are making a mint on their blogs, but their blogs are all backing up their other endeavors and creating the cult of brand around them.

The blog itself is not the end goal.  If you’re blogging to make TechCrunch type numbers, it’s not going to happen.  A blog is a vehicle.

That’s what frustrates me personally about the John Chow types who gain mass followers under the assumption that anyone can go out, register a domain in their name, fire up Wordpress and make 11k a month by following his tips. Whether they are sketchy, black hat or whatever… it’s just not feasible for most people.  I’m sure John is a fantastic person and I’ve got no problem with John monetizing his blog the way he does, but when others try to emulate him and dilute their own brand and future earning potential (especially affiliate marketers), it frustrates me.

So, blog and blog well… just don’t try to squeeze your blog or your users dry… especially if you’re a marketer blogging to other marketers.  Why? Because marketers don’t click on ads, we don’t follow stupid flash banners and we know the difference between AdSense and content, no matter how high you put the ad box.  In the end, you’re just insulting your readers.

Anyway, great post by Yehuda.  Go read it and reflect on how you’re blogging.