You find them everywhere on the Internet and in real life. A person may be a blogger but you will suddenly find/him or her also doing YouTube videos or podcasts as well. Next thing you notice is that they are a keynote speaker at a conference you happen upon. Bottom line is they are expert at visibility and at self-promotion. They are not afraid to push the envelope in any direction nor are they afraid to spend a few dollars to make something happen. How to start a blog and make money? Their stories start to become bigger than life. You notice them and want to be in their circles.
They do the hard research to find profitable niches to explore. They figure out how to do SEO analysis, keyword and keyword phrase research and they do this before they start their site or their new niche. Did I mention they usually are building multiple niches - not just focused on one? It is their research that drives the niche they select. They do not like most of us, think "this is what I want to do or talk about - I wonder what keywords will help people find me?" They do it the other way around. They look for a dozen or so niche opportunities, they do the SEO and Keyword research - and they know exactly what to do when they are doing this - and they select their next niche based on a number of factors such as:
Who is the competition in this niche?
How well do they advertise?
Can I replace them at the top of search Engines like Google with some work?
Can I create good content in this niche and is it something that is trending well with people today?
Are their good keyword opportunities for it? Etc.
Once they have found a niche to pursue - or should I say their next niche to pursue, their roll out formula for it is tried and true. They know what to do every step of the way and they roll a lot of infrastructure they have already built previously for other niches into it such as their existing e-mail lists, their e-mail and auto-responder systems, their YouTube and Podcast channels, etc. They have built a lot out there already that they can leverage and pull into the new venture - and this brings in cross selling opportunities for them.
So the bottom line at becoming really successful at earning revenue by Blogging, start with your first one and get it built along with all your support systems that automate things for you. Be consistent and work hard at it - and it takes time! When you get it humming along smoothly? Don't think you are done. In fact, you are just starting and it is time to take it up a notch! Stretch yourself always and then, sooner than you think, you will be asked to be a keynote at conferences, you will gain recognition in many places and you will be making incomes way beyond what you started out thinking you could. Believe, do the hard work, stretch, and you will get there.