If you’re like most people who have tried blogging for money, you may be stuck at something of a dead end. You’ve read and researched so much, that you could talk until you’re blue in the face about general strategy, but when it comes to making money, you’ve got nothing to show for your time.

This is more common than you think. Most people are so worried about getting things “just right,” that they are afraid to do anything at all. It is as if they are afraid to invest any effort unless they know they will see results immediately.

One thing that is important to understand is that you will probably not make money from your first few websites. Assuming you have some experience, however, it is still not unusual to not be making any money from your sites.

But before you start scratching your head, answer these questions:

• Have you written articles about your topic and submitted them to article directories?
• Have you created peripheral sites (Squidoo, Hubpages, Blogger etc…) and linked to your site?
• Have you socially bookmarked your sites?
• Have you blogged about your sites?
• Have you commented on other blogs?
• Have you tweeted about your new posts?

If the answer is not “YES” to all of these questions, then you have some work to do. While you may feel like you have been working this whole time, unfortunately all we have to work with is measurable results. In this case, articles you’ve written or other media you’ve created.

Most of the time, this can be changed to fit various channels. With some creative editing, you can take those 5 articles and post them on ezines, your website, peripheral sites, turn them into forum posts/comments (link!), tweets, etc. There are so many ways to spin your content.

While I personally recommend creating only unique content, if you have a post you’re especially proud of, don’t be afraid to plaster that sucker all over the schoolyard!

Once you have a significant amount of material, let it trickle out slowly. Don’t be a maniac and post it all at once. Aside from the obvious benefit that Google tries to reward natural linking above all else, trickling out your information day by day will naturally saturate the Internet over a longer period of time.

How much time have you really put into blogging? originally appeared on VIP Internet Marketing on January 8, 2010.