Have you heard of the thousands of bloggers out there earning over $1,000 per day? The online wealth flame is most certainly still alive, and with blogs set to transform the journalism and publishing industry, there's big money to be made with a well designed, highly targeted blog. No matter what subject you write about, there are thousands of people out there who are interested in your opinion, and are dying to hear what you've got to say.

So don't waste time with failed money making schemes. Focus on what's proven to bring in cash: blogging. With a simple Wordpress blog, you can establish your own online presence and create a scalable online income. While there are hundreds of ways to make money with a Wordpress blog, these four are our favorites:

#1: Use Google Adsense to generate blogging income

Advertising is the oldest and most stable form of online income, with hundreds of thousands of bloggers turning to Google's Adsense program to generate revenue from their blogs. Thanks to an extremely user-friendly interface, even an absolute beginner blogger can see results from their Adsense ad blocks, provided they've got a large enough audience to go with them. Focus on establishing readers and subscribers, then incorporate advertisements into your blog for maximum clicks and interest. Revenue might start out small, but with a large enough audience it will quickly snowball into something bigger.

#2: Sell your services using your blog

Are you a graphic designer or web developer? If you're a popular blogger, you've got an instant audience to advertise your services to. Even a simple Wordpress blog is enough to advertise your business on, and with a dedicated and targeted audience, you could see passive subcribers turn into active, paying customers. This strategy works best when your blog is focused on the industry you operate in. While any advertising is worth it, you'll get best results from advertising design services on your design blog, coding on your programming blog, and so on.

#3: Use affiliate programs to generate income

Affiliate programs are effectively online commission sales jobs. When a reader clicks through to an affiliate ad, they're taken to an online store, where you receive a portion of every sale made. This is a great way to monetize a blog that's product based, rather than industry based. Focus on driving leads to products that they're interested in, and use your blog to promote products that you know will sell.

#4: Add sponsored blog posts for extra income

If you've got a wide audience, companies would love to have you personally advertise their products. Banner advertisements can only do so much, and in an interconnected world it's best to have influential people do your selling. One way of generating blogging income is to use sponsored posts, which are essentially a sales pitch wrapped up in a blog post. Sometimes, companies will approach you with an idea for a sponsored post. On other occasions, you can custom design one yourself using affiliate links and a product you know your audience will love.

Don’t get me wrong, doing all of the above is not going to make you $1000 a day within weeks or months. Blogging is hard work and takes a lot of commitment and persistence. But you do have to start somewhere.