Making Money Online - Are You Selling Out?

Here's the moral dilemma I’ve had since I started blogging and reading about blogging: Is writing a blog/hub on how to make money online ethical? (Yes, I realize just the nature of this article moves the needle on the moral compass).

I bring this up because, like many of you, I've searched for "how to make money online" or something similar. Many of the sites that show up at the top of the list are nothing more than an empty shell with keyword filler information.

In fact, the main intent is to entice you to the webpage by popping up at the top of searches. The idea is that once you've landed on the enticing site, you'll click on a Google AdSense ad and generate money for the site.

This starts a vicious cycle - one Google AdSense site on how to make money online leading to another and another and another, etc. This cycle is endless and is perpetuated by the promise of showing you how to make loads of money online. The irony is that you are actually making these sites the money online by clicking on their links.

I've often heard successful writers mention to "write about what people are interested in". This seems in direct conflict to "write about what you're passionate about". For instance, if I were to follow the philosophy of writing about what people are interested in, I would use Google Zeitgeist:

Google Zeitgeist provides much information on what people are interested in, the hot trends, etc., based on search metrics.

If everyone wrote on what was popular though, original content would almost cease to exist. This is why writing about your passions is important. Otherwise, you're simply contributing to the downward spiral of society. Perhaps this is why lame books, such as The Da Vinci Code (really a Scooby Doo mystery!), have become mainstream, and, in some cases, even passed off as “classics.”