Mining is one of the great gathering professions to be able to make WoW gold with.You can get a sense of the market by checking in the Auction House. There you can check to see what other miners have put up for sale. Once you know what is for sale pay attention to how long it has been up for sale, and pay particular attention to what is selling fast. I'll explain why. If a fel iron is selling at a much faster rate than an adamite ore, then it has greater demand. Even though it will be about five gold less a stack, the fact that you can sell it faster means a faster means of making gold.

Do not discount a lesser ore, it may actually be in greater demand than a higher grade. Would you rather let an adamite ore sit for a few days before you get paid or sell some lesser ore at 5 times the rate and build your wealth? I call it the fast food versus the fancy restaurant method. Who sells food faster? Who profits more at the end of the month? The fast food joint does!  With a couple of producing professions you may be on your way to riches and wealth. In my opinion, skinning and mining are the two best professions early on to make gold faster. Herbalism is a close third. Though at times competitive, mining is still one of the best professions early on and sometimes it can be easier than you think. Competitiveness comes from the amount of people are in your server and what percentage of the characters are miners; this is usually determined by the economy and the supply/demand ratio of the server.