Turning a popular blog into cash..

Hi guys.

I used to have a blog a couple of years ago, which fell to the wayside a bit. I did offer interesting, insightful content though, and it pulled in a few hits now and then.

Just for fun, I looked at it tonight, and was surprised to see that it still generates a couple of hundred hits a month, even though it hasn't been updated in about 2 years.

I'm new to this IM stuff, so please forgive my greenhorn questions, but I would be very grateful if anyone could give me some basic tips on what approaches one could take to turn a blog into cash.


Do people here ususlly use blogs to promote their own products?
Or to promote affiliate products? (if so, do you focus on one, or many products)

Anyway, it got me thinking, while I will probably spend the next couple of months/years learning about all of this IM/business/advertising/promotion stuff, I could actually begin a campaign today, simply by creating a blog in my chosen niche, and basically build it up over time, until I learn more about how best to exploit it.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.