It’s easy enough to start a blog. Go to WordPress.com, create an account, pick a template and start typing.

But what if you want to blog for pay?

That’s not so easy.

Paid blogging work is out there, but you have to know where to look for it, or if you can’t find it, how to create your own opportunities.

A few weeks ago, I asked writers on Freelance Success, a subscribers-only newsletter and writer’s message board, about their paid blogging gigs. Two dozen have responded so far. From the looks of my very unscientific survey, the subjects they’re blogging about and the clients they’re blogging for are all over the map. Here’s a sampling of what writers are getting paid to blog about, and by whom:

• Health care topics for a Fortune 100 company
• Breaking business news for a major media company’s business news site
• Securities regulations for a regional financial association
• Electronic health records for a government agency
• Household topics for baby boomers for the website of a major TV network
• Restaurants and food for a travel website
• Pregnancy and parenting for a major online consumer information hub
• Menopause for the website of a major women’s magazine

Pretty diverse, eh?

How can you get a similar paid blogging job? It goes without saying – or maybe it doesn’t because I’m saying it – you’ve got to have some pretty decent blogging chops. If you don’t already, you can pick up some pointers from earlier posts I’ve written on how freelancers can get started blogging here, here and here.

Once you’re comfortable with the genre, here are some pointers on finding gigs, based on my own experience and information from writers with paying gigs:

1. Check the help wanted ads. The recession might not be over, but there’s freelance work to be had right now, including blogging assignments. Just last week, a friend here in Portland let me know about a six-month contract job blogging about NBA basketball for an award-winning national ad agency based in the city, no doubt somebody’s dream assignment. For help wanted ads, look on JournalismJobs, ProBlogger, Freelance Writing Jobs, Mediabistro and LinkedIn Jobs.

2. Pitch a blog to a publication you already write for. More publications, including consumer, business and trade magazines, are using blogs as a way to publish fresh content on their websites on a daily basis. If you’re already freelancing for a publication that’s just getting into it, suggest yourself as a good candidate for running or contributing to a blog. Or if the publications you’re writing for haven’t started a blog yet, pitch them on why a blog is a good idea and why you’re the right person for the job. If they’ve already got a blog, suggest starting another on a related subject, or opening it to multiple authors, including you.

3. Pitch a blog to a publication you’d like to work for. Use the same strategy to pitch creating a blog for a publication that you’ve been dying to work for. Who knows, maybe they’ve been thinking about adding a blog and could use your expertise to make it happen. Write the same type of letter of introduction you’d use to introduce yourself to an editor you want to freelance for, only instead of a story query, pitch a blog, including what it would cover, some sample post topics, and why you’re qualified to do the work.

4. Pitch a local business or organization. A couple writer acquaintances have used this technique with great success. Research businesses, nonprofits or other organizations in your area to find one, or some, that could benefit from a blog, then pitch them on why adding a blog to their website would be good for business. Not all enterprises are up to speed on the advantages of having a blog, so be prepared to make a case in language they understand, i.e., how it could affect their sales, marketing, customer service, reputation or all of the above.

6. Do great work and let paid blogging offers come to you. Sometimes you don’t have to go after the offers, they come to you. That’s what happened to me. An editor I’ve known for some time, and who reads this blog, approached me to write a few features for an online magazine she’d been hired to help launch. After the decision was made to add a group blog to the site, the editor asked me to be a contributor. For me it was a great fit. But just because you get an offer doesn’t mean you have to take it. For it to be worth your while, a paid blogging gig should have a topic, frequency and pay rate that makes sense for your freelance business.

6. Create a personal blog to showcase your blogging talents. If you’re going after paid blogging work, you have to have something to show people what you can do. This is why it pays to have your own blog, especially if you aren’t blogging for other clients, paid or otherwise. If you have a blog, you can point prospective customers to it as an example of your writing style, familiarity with content management systems, and grasp of social media to promote your work. Who knows, maybe an editor, publisher or company executive will happen upon your blog and decide you’re just the blogger they’ve been looking for.

If you’ve got a paid blogging gig, what is it, and how did you find it – or did it find you?