Blogging is a great way to make money online. It’s a form of passive income, which means you can continue to make money even when you’re not working.
Depending on the amount of time and energy you are willing to invest into building your blog, there is a very real possibility that you can make a full-time income from it. The good news is that you don’t need any special skills or knowledge, and you certainly don’t need to be a professional writer (although that wouldn’t hurt).
To sweeten the deal even further, setting up and running a blog is extremely cheap. Over the course of a year, you will probably spend less than $100 on all of your expenses (hosting, domain name, themes, plugins, etc.).
However, as with any business venture, there are no guarantees. But if you are willing to put in the work, there is a good chance you will be successful. With this in mind, I have put together a simple step-by-step guide on how to start a blog and make money from it as a beginner.
Researching and Selecting Your Niche
As you know, the internet is an incredibly vast place. No matter what your interests, passions, or skills are, there is a good chance that you can find a community of like-minded people.
However, in order for your blog to be successful, you need to focus on a specific niche. Trying to be everything to everyone is a recipe for disaster.
If you are struggling with ideas, it’s best to start thinking about things that make you unique, or areas in which you have a lot of expertise. Here are some questions to get the wheels turning:
What are you passionate about? – If you don’t have a passion for your topic, it will be very difficult to stay motivated and write quality content on a regular basis.
What can you offer that is unique? – There are millions of blogs on the internet. What will make yours stand out?
What do I have “above average” knowledge in? – When starting a blog, you don’t need to be an expert on your topic. But it helps if you have a well-rounded understanding of the subject matter.
What problems can I help my readers solve? – People are always looking for information that will help them solve their problems. If you can provide this, they will be more likely to visit your blog on a regular basis.
What are your hobbies/interests? – It can be helpful to write about something you are already interested in. This will make the process of creating content much easier.
Once you have got a few ideas in mind, it’s time to validate them to make sure that it is going to be worth your effort to pursue them. Here are some things to consider:
EAT and YMYL
EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) and YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) are Google’s quality guidelines. They also determine whether or not you will be able to rank for certain keywords in Google’s search engine.
Due to these guidelines, if your blog is going to be dealing with any sort of sensitive topic (e.g. money, health, etc.), then you need to make sure that you have the necessary expertise to write about these topics in a way that is both authoritative and trustworthy.
To do this, you will need to have some sort of credential or certification in the field that you are writing about. For example, if you want to start a blog talking about medical conditions, you would need to have some sort of qualification or experience in the medical field.
Potential for Monetization
There are a number of ways you can monetize your blog, such as through advertising, affiliate marketing, or selling products and services. The important thing is to make sure that your niche has the potential to be monetized in one of these ways. Otherwise, you will find it very difficult to make a profit.
Ask yourself, are there products/services tied to your niche that you can promote? If so, you will be able to monetize your content.
Traffic Potential
You need to make sure that there is sufficient demand for the type of content you will be creating. If you go “too niche”, you run the risk of there not being enough people interested in what you have to say.
One way to assess traffic potential is to use a keyword research tool to estimate traffic numbers for individual search terms (i.e. keywords). This will give you an idea of how many people are searching for these terms every month.
Competition
There are some niches that are going to be too difficult to break into because the competition is so fierce. If you are starting a blog with the intention of making money, then you need to make sure that you choose a niche where there is room for you to grow.
For example, if you make a blog in the personal finance niche you are going to be competing with the likes of Smart Passive Income, NerdWallet, and even large media publications like Forbes and CNBC.
However, if you dial in your focus to one specific aspect of personal finance, such as “Travel Budgeting” or “Investing for Beginners”, you will have a much easier time getting your blog off the ground.
Domain Name and Hosting
Now that you have chosen your niche, it’s time to officially stake your claim on the internet by setting up a domain name and hosting account.
Your domain name is going to be your blog’s “address” (e.g. www.example.com). It’s important to choose a domain name that is short, easy to remember, and relevant to your niche.
Hosting is where your blog “lives” on the internet. It’s basically like renting a piece of digital real estate. Once you have your domain name, you need to find a hosting provider and set up an account.
There are a number of different hosting providers to choose from, such as Bluehost, SiteGround, Hostinger, and more. The important thing is to make sure that you choose a reputable hosting provider with good uptime (i.e. the amount of time your site is up and running) and customer support.
PRO TIP: Many hosting providers will give you a free domain name when you sign up for an annual hosting plan, so it’s worth checking to see if this is the case before you make your purchase.
Setting up the Back End (WordPress)
WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that will allow you to easily create, edit, and publish your blog posts. It is the most popular CMS in the world and powers millions of websites (used by over 43% of the web).
While there are other CMS options out there, I recommend that you use WordPress because it is relatively straightforward and there are a ton of resources available if you need help.
All you need to do is download the software, install it on your web server, and then set up a few basic settings. The easiest way to do this is by using a one-click installation process. This will allow you to install WordPress with just a few clicks of the mouse.
These days, most hosting providers offer a one-click installation process for WordPress. Just follow the instructions and it should only take a few minutes to have WordPress up and running.
For those less savvy, you may want to follow an installation guide here that will walk you through the process step-by-step. Once that is done, all you need to do is choose them, install your plug-ins, and away you go!
Get Familiar with SEO
Before you put the proverbial pen to paper, it’s important that you understand the basics of SEO (search engine optimization). This will ensure that your content is properly optimized for the search engines and that you have a good chance of ranking for your target keywords.
SEO is a vast and complex topic, but there are a few key things that you need to know in order to get started.
First, you need to understand how search engines work. Basically, search engines use algorithms to crawl the internet and index websites. When someone types in a query, the search engine will then rank the websites based on a number of factors.
In general, the most important thing that you need to focus on is creating highly relevant and valuable information for the reader that clearly addresses the original search query. At the end of the day, Google is trying to rank pages based on how well they will satisfy the user’s needs. Keep this in mind when writing your content.
Do Keyword Research
Keyword research will help you understand what people are actually searching for online and how difficult it will be to rank for those keywords. There are plenty of tools out there, such as Ahrefs and SEMrush, that can help you with this.
Basically, you start by thinking of wider search terms for your niche and then use the tools to find more specific (less competitive) keywords that you can target. Once you have a list of keywords, you can then start creating content around those topics.
PRO TIP: In general, you want to target long-tail keywords (i.e. 3 or 4+ word phrases) because they tend to be less competitive and easier to rank for.
Write Your First Blog Post
Finally, the time has come to write your first blog post!
The best way to approach this is to think of it as an opportunity to showcase your knowledge and expertise on a particular topic. Remember, the goal is to create something that will be valuable and useful for the reader.
Let’s say the first search query you want to target is “The Best Shampoo for Dogs.”
First, you need to decide how many words you are going to write. In general, I always advise that you look at what is ranking in the top 1-3 for this term and then add a little extra on top. if you want to outrank the top spots, you need usually to produce something bigger and better.
Competition is heavy for our dog shampoo article, so it looks like we will need at least 4k+ words to have a chance.
Next, you need to come up with an outline for your article. This doesn’t have to be anything fancy, but it should list out the main topics that you want to cover. Try to include other relevant keywords in the subheadings (using the H2, H3 tags) as this will help with SEO.
In general, you want to have no more than 500 words per heading (300 is around perfect).
Once you have your structure and you have done the research, it’s time to write. Here are some tips to bear in mind while you do this:
- Stay on point (try not to waffle)
- Be clear and concise
- Make it flow (don’t jump from one topic to another)
- Use active voice
- Include images
- Edit and proofread before publishing
Drawing Traffic to Your Blog
Now that you have written your first blog post, it’s time to get it in front of people. If you have done your job well, you should see some organic traffic coming in from the search engines, but this can take months (or even years) to happen.
In the meantime, there are a number of things that you can do to drive traffic to your blog in the short term. Here are some ideas:
- Share it on social media
- Submit it to relevant forums and discussion groups
- Submit it to social bookmarking sites
- Include a link to it in your email signature
- Reach out to relevant bloggers and influencers in your niche and let them know about your article
I would be remiss if I did not mention the importance of securing backlinks to your site. Backlinks are basically links from other websites back to yours and they are seen as a vote of confidence by Google. The more backlinks you have, the higher you will rank.
There are a number of ways to get backlinks, but the most effective (and safest) way is to simply create great content that other people want to link to. You can also guest post on other blogs in your niche and include a link back to your site in your author bio.
Another great way to get backlinks is to reach out to relevant businesses and ask if they would be interested in linking to your article on their website or blog. If you have something truly valuable to offer, they will usually be happy to do this.
Monetize Your Blog
Once you start getting a good amount of traffic to your blog, it’s time to start thinking about monetization. There are a number of different ways that you can do this, but the most common are:
Selling Advertising Space on Your Blog
Switching on ads is probably the fastest and easiest way to start monetizing your blog. You can do this through a number of different ad networks, the most popular being Google Adsense.
The upside of this method is that it is easy to set up and you don’t have to do any extra work once the ads are live. The downside is that you will only earn a small amount of money per click and it can also hamper the user experience.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is where you promote other people’s products and services on your blog and earn a commission whenever someone buys something. This is one of my preferred methods as it can generate a lot of revenue without impacting the user experience too much.
The key to success with affiliate marketing is to find products that are relevant to your niche and that you would actually recommend to your readers. If you are just promoting products for the sake of it, you will quickly lose the trust of your audience.
Selling Products or Courses
If you have your own products or courses, then selling these through your blog is a great way to monetize it. You can either sell physical products, digital products, or even services.
The downside of this method is that it requires a lot more work than simply running ads or affiliate marketing. You will need to create and market your products, which can be time-consuming.
The upside, however, is that you get to keep all of the profits and you have complete control over the pricing.
Consulting or Coaching
If you are an expert in your field, you could offer consulting or coaching services through your blog. This is a great way to monetize if you are already getting a lot of traffic and you have the time to commit to it.
To make this a possibility, you need to work hard at establishing yourself as a thought leader in your industry. This means creating high-quality content that will position you as an expert in your field.
It can also be helpful to guest post on other blogs and collaborate with other experts in your field.
Bonus Section: 5 Top Tips to Help You Make More Money Blogging
Before I leave you to it, I wanted to share 5 top tips that will help you make more money from your blog:
1. Create Evergreen Content
If you want your blog to generate an income long-term, then you need to create evergreen content. This is content that will be relevant and useful for years to come. This could be in-depth guides, tutorials, or even listicles.
2. Find Ways to Stand Out
There are millions of blogs out there, so it can be hard to make yours stand out from the crowd. One way to do this is by creating truly exceptional content that will wow your readers. Another way is to find a niche that not many people are writing about and focus on that.
3. Work on Securing Backlinks
In order for your blog to rank highly in search engines, you need to work on securing backlinks from high-quality websites. This can definitely be a challenge for some people, but more often than not it is what separates successful blogs from the rest.
4. Build an Email List
An email list is a group of people who have signed up to receive your emails. This is a valuable asset as it allows you to directly market your latest content and products to a captive audience. You can start building an email list by offering a freebie in exchange for people’s email addresses.
5. Collaborate With Other Bloggers
One of the best ways to grow your blog and make more money is to collaborate with other bloggers. This could be in the form of guest posting, joint webinars, or even just cross-promotion. By teaming up with other bloggers, you can reach a whole new audience and take your blog to the next level.
Final Word
I hope this article has given you some ideas on how to make money as a blogger. Remember, there is no right or wrong way to do this. It all depends on your goals, your niche, and your audience.
The best advice I could give is to follow your passion. Blogging presents an excellent opportunity for you to earn an income doing something that you love, which is something very hard to come by. This will also help you when you start losing motivation, as you will be reminded of why you started blogging in the first place.
Most of all, remember to enjoy the journey and have fun. Good luck!
