Webmaster World is probably one of the best places that I can suggest you head over to if you’re interested in developing a profitable blog. It is on my regular rounds of surfing for ideas and discussion about how to get the best out of your website. Of particular interest to me, as a Google Adsense user, is their forum dedicated to the Adsense program. Whilst the discussion rarely mentions blogs and at times can be a little criptic – I’d say I’ve learnt more about how to get the most out of the program through digging through the hundreds (if not thousdands) of threads there. Often users of the forum are pretty secretive about the sites they are talking about and don’t give everything away (and I don’t blame them – tell everyone your secrets and you’ll end up with hundreds of new competitors) but if you’re willing to dig around and read between the lines you can learn a lot.
I remember one afternoon learning one small thing on those forums that doubled my earnings with a simple change to my approach. So it is well worth visiting and participating in the discussions there.
Also in their Marketing section of forums is one dedicated to Search Engine Promotion and another looking at Advertising Sales and Affiliate Programs – both of which are full of useful information.
Add to that the rest of their forums and you’ve got hours, if not days, of rich learning about running a successful website (and most of it is easily transferrable to blogs) – and its all free.