Are you interested in blogging? Have you heard the stories about people making loads of cash on their blogs and even quitting their regular jobs in order to blog? While it is true that blogging can be lucrative as well as fun (you should be having at least some fun while writing about what interests you), it is also another form of work and needs to be taken seriously.

Many folks start out blogging once or twice a week, throw a bunch of Google AdSense ads up on their site, and then just expect the money to start rolling in. The truth is much different, as they soon find out. Successful blogging takes time and patience and even a little luck. Before you even start your first post, here are four things you need to know about blogging:

1. Blogging is a part-time to a full-time job.

You will never succeed in blogging unless you treat it as at least a part-time job. This means that, in any given week, you must devote a good 20 hours to your blog site. Believe it or not, when you discover all the tasks that blogging requires of you, even 20 hours will not be enough! You should write a post once a day, ideally, or at least every 2 days. You need to write back-up content for your blog pages that readers will gravitate towards. At the very least, five good anchor articles are recommended- and these articles should not be disguised sales pages! Then there is the weekly newsletter; as your blog gains a following, people will be subscribing to your site. It is a good idea to e-mail them a weekly synopsis of your posts or perhaps a completely new and unrelated article. Finally, as if all that were not enough, you will be spending some time doing web site backup, content editing, and research for future posts and articles.

2. Blogging is a business.

Blogging is a business, and like any business, it needs to be for-profit. While it is understandable that businesses often have start-up costs, eventually those costs need to be outweighed by profits. Keeping this in mind, your blog needs to focus on a topic that interests people and will generate traffic to your site. This way, your ads will be clicked on and purchased from. It is also imperative that, whatever topic you choose for your blog, you are perceived as an expert in that field. Keep in mind that you don't necessarily have to be an expert- only that you are perceived as one. Why? Well, would you go to a butcher to have your tooth filling replaced? No, you wouldn't. Likewise, people are not going to visit your blog if they feel that you are not an expert in the subject matter about which you are writing. So, choose a hot topic for your blog and make sure that it is a topic you'll be able to research or at least form a credible opinion on. Of course, it helps immensely if you are also interested in your blog's subject matter.

3. Blogging must be advertised.

Remember how I stated that you need to spend at least 20 hours a week on your blogging? I didn't include the time you will also be spending advertising your blog. Submission of blog-related articles to article directory sites, posting of press releases and classified ads, searching out other like-minded blog sites and making comments- all this is required for effective advertising of your blog. Some people go one step further and advertise via Google AdWords and the like. After all, there is no point in having a business if your potential customers are not aware of it.

4. Blogging must be worthwhile to the reader.

No one wants to read about how your cat spit up two hairballs today. Or about how smart your baby is. People gravitate towards blogs for one of several reasons: the blog provides valuable information, it teaches, or it entertains. So, a blog about stock options will be visited. Even a blog about the juicy gossip on a movie star will be visited. But your blog about your family get-together over Thanksgiving will not be visited.

So, in conclusion, do you think you have what it takes to run a blog? It isn't the easiest thing in the world, and it will cut into your social life for sure. However, the deep personal satisfaction of having your own web site can't be beat. And the money that results from people visiting your site- well, that doesn't hurt either.