In this guide, we will show you how to start a blog and make money $ 4,000 per month. Blogging is an excellent way to make money online and create some passive income, that you can count on for years to come.
Most people start blogging just for the sake of earning money through blogging.
I suggest you keep money the second priority in your blogging career. First, you’ll have to find out, What Is your interest in blogging? Do you feel happy writing for others?
If you don’t then please don’t start blogging because no one can succeed in any field which doesn’t make them happy.
But if you’re interested in how to start your blog, I appreciate your decision. Follow the steps in this guide.
This will not just help you start a blog today, it will motivate you to realize how easy it is to earn money online and make your career in the digital world.
So, If you’re serious about it, you will have to invest some money because we’ll be purchasing a domain and hosting to launch our blog.
NOTE: Please stay away from cheap hosting and domain they’re not worth it. If you launch your blog on the worst and cheapest hosting your blog won’t load properly which is a really important factor.
I recommend you to go with good hosting providers like Bluehost which is officially recommended & supported by WordPress or some other hosting providers like Site-ground, Name Cheap, etc… Don’t worry we’ll talk about it later in detail.
Overview:
I’ll walk you through every step practically. How you can find a perfect Niche for you. How you can pick a domain name according to Your Niche. Which hosting you should buy?
How to launch your blog + Writing your first post.
How you can pick a good and light theme for your blog and so much more… So, this will be the complete step-by-step guide on how to start a blog.
Okay, now you know what we are gonna cover in this guide. Let’s dive into it. And start with our first step. But let me tell you some of the benefits, and why you should start a blog.
- You can get a massive fan following through your blog.
- If you’re skilled then you can share your knowledge with others.
- You can earn money by blogging. Yes, You can monetize your blog by Running Ads or With Affiliate Marketing
- once you develop an email list you can start creating passive income through your blog posts. Then you should get an email autoresponder, I highly recommend GetResponse.
- See our Getresponse Review Here
We’ll discuss all these. Okay, Let’s start with the first step.
Niche Research:
Finding a good Niche is a crucial part of starting a blog because if you don’t work on a good Niche you can’t reach your audience.
You will end up wasting your time by writing in a niche that’s not wanted or searched.
First ask your mind, which topic you’re interested in after finding some keywords like Sports, Traveling, Technology, News, etc… After finding a perfect and interesting keyword according to your interests, you can use Google Trends to explore that keyword further.
Google Trends will help you to browse a specific keyword to know how many people are searching for this keyword. So, you can get the idea.
I’ll recommend you choose a Niche or topic which is interesting and Trendy. I mean to pick that topic which is popular and most people are searching on that topic. You have to figure out which topic you can write for your audience.
These things you should consider in your Niche Research:
- Make sure your Niche has a good search volume
- It should have sub-categories inside your Niche.
- If there are good Affiliate Programs in that Niche, It’ll be good for you
- Can you write content on that Niche?
- Is there good enough information on that Niche on the internet
Like if you can write on Technology, Traveling, Learning, etc… Many successful blogs are working on these kinds of Niche.
Ex: TechRadar.com is a significant Blog based on Technology. There is SmartBlogger.com this is an amazing example of a Learning Niche. SmartBlogger writes on Blogging, SEO, and other learning topics. You can explore others to find a perfect and reliable Niche for your new Blog.
Picking a Relevant Domain Name:
Picking a good and reliable domain name is very important in SEO factors. If your domain is not referring to your Niche then it will be difficult for you to rank your website in google search results.
So, it will be very good if your niche keyword exists in your domain name.
For Example: If your blog is Sports-related and your domain name is *www.sportshub.com* then Google will easily find the niche of your blog and rank on Sports related keywords which will be beneficial for you and your blog.
Your domain name should be easy to read and remember, and short, then the people will recognize your domain and find your blog easily.
A domain name is a really important decision for you while creating your blog.
I recommend you use a .com extension for your blog. If your target audience exists internationally then your domain name should have a .com extension. But if you are targeting your country you can use .us .in. .pk etc…
Your domain name should be unique and smart. Don’t copy others. Like some of people just change the order of other brands. Please don’t do this. Try to find a unique and short name for your blog.
Getting Web Hosting:
Which Hosting you should buy?
Web hosting is a very crucial part of creating a blog this is where all our blog data will be stored.
First, let’s explore the basic concepts of web hosting. If you buy hosting from any hosting provider you buy some space to store your files. This is a simple concept of hosting and the domain is a simple name of your blog. That’s all you need to launch your blog.
Now, let’s understand why quality hosting is necessary. Suppose a user comes to a specific page of your blog. That page exists in your all blog files.
So, as soon as your user submits the query in their browser, Browser will contact your hosting providers to provide that particular page. If your hosting is cheap and crappy it will take too much time to find the page and send it to the user’s browser which gives the worst user experience and you can lose 60% of your audience.
So, please choose good, Fast, and reliable hosting. I use and recommend Bluehost and It’s also officially recommended hosting by WordPress. You can Install WordPress with one click in Bluehost.
There are many hosting providers out there in the market like SiteGround, NameCheap, etc… No doubt they are really big brands in the web hosting world. Bluehost offers impressive deals and provides amazing quality hosting at a reliable price. BlueHost also provides a Free Domain name for the first 1 year. That’s why Millions of people use BlueHost and recommend it.
Click Here To Sign Up With My Special Pricing Of BlueHost
BlueHost Pricing:
Bluehost provides 3 packages Basic, Plus, and Choice Plus Plans. Select your package here. If you’re a beginner go with the basic package. You’ll get $3.95 per month. So, click on the *Select* button below the Basic Plan and you’ll see the next page for picking a domain name for free.
BlueHost Domain:
One of the most important steps is choosing your domain name for your blog. BlueHost offers a free domain for the first year. If you want a free domain you can enter it in the first box of *Create a new domain*
Create your Account:
Here you’ll have to enter your details for your Bluehost account. So, enter it and scroll down and you will see the box below for the payment details.
Optional Extra Packages:
So, here you can add extra packages you can uncheck them if you want or you can keep them checked. Below you are seeing payment information you can use your credit card to pay and click the *Submit* button below. After this, BlueHost will send you a confirmation email.
Check your email to verify your account. So, make sure you enter a valid email. Click on *Verify your email* As soon as you click this button your account will be verified. So, you can go back to the main page and refresh that page.
Click on this *Create your password* button and it will ask you to set your password.
Create your Password:
Enter the password which you wanna set for your Bluehost account and click *Next* and everything will be done! just Login and you will be on the main dashboard of Bluehost.
Launching a Blog on WordPress:
When you complete your purchase on BlueHost, it will automatically install WordPress and launches your blog. You now have an active hosting and domain with the BlueHost dashboard.
Just go to the “My Sites” tab and it will show all your sites there. It will show your site which you just launched. So, click on “Log in to WordPress” and it will launch a WordPress dashboard.
On the “My Sites” panel just click on the “Create Site” button. It will automatically detect your hosting plan and ask you to choose a domain name that you want to use on your Blog.
So, here it will show all the credentials just click the button below “Login to WordPress” and it will launch the WordPress dashboard which is the backend of your blog.
Here we are in the WordPress dashboard of our blog means now our blog is live now and anyone can visit it. So, this is where we design our blog and manage all the things here.
Why Choose WordPress?
It is easy to learn. You can update your content with amazing controls.
Install new themes / Layouts quickly for your blog 1000s of plugins are available which can help you add more functionality to your website or blog.
There are many platforms that you can build a website with. But, they don’t provide more flexibility like WordPress. Let’s see some of the reasons why you should go with WordPress.
- Easy to Learn & Use.
- WordPress is Free! CMS.
- There are many themes available in WordPress that you can use to make the layout of your blog more beautiful.
- You can add any functionality to your Blog with amazing WordPress Plugins.
- Everything is completely customizable.
And many of the popular blogs are powered by WordPress. Ex: SmartBlogger, TechRadar, ShoutMeLoud, etc… I think these are enough reasons why you should choose WordPress. Now let’s move on to the next step
Installing a New Theme:
Which theme you should choose?
When you launch a blog, it comes with a default WordPress theme. So, you can change to any theme you want. Let’s discuss which kind of themes you should use and how you can install a new theme.
There are many factors that we consider choosing a good theme for our blog. The theme should be lightweight to load properly and fast. It should be simple and user-friendly. You have to make sure is it compatible with page builders. And it also should be SEO Friendly.
WordPress offers many Free and Paid themes you can use. Of course, when you pay for a theme you get some extra functionalities. But there are many free amazing themes out there.
How to Install a Theme?
There are many Best Free Themes that I will recommend to you like GeneratePress, Astra, etc… OR you can decide on any theme later. To install a new theme, we’ll go to the WordPress Themes section.
In the WordPress dashboard click on “Appearance” and “Themes” and click on “Add New it will take you to the Themes section of WordPress where you can choose free Themes.
So, here you’ll see many free Themes that you can use. Just click on the Install button below them which you like and then click the “Activate” button at the same place. Your new theme will be installed.
Now, you will have to customize a theme according to your content. To customize your theme just go to “Appearance > Themes> Customize” This is where you can customize your theme and add your content. There are 1000s of themes and anyone has their own choice.
You should have some knowledge of WordPress if you wanna update and customize your WordPress Blog. But, Don’t worry. There are many Tutorials on YouTube Just search “WordPress Tutorials” and you’ll find a lot of videos on WordPress.
Best Free Themes:
Now, Let’s explore some of the Best Free Themes that you can use on your Blog:
- Schema Lite: As I told you before the Schema theme has both versions Free and Paid. If you wanna use schema for free. You can go with its free version “Schema Lite”. You get almost the same theme as a Premium. Only some advanced and extra features are missing which are not necessary.
- GeneratePress: Same goes for this theme you can install it and use it from WordPress Repository for free. But, If you want you can upgrade it to GP Premium. It is also a great Free theme.
- Astra: Astra provides also a free version. It has many impressive features, Pre-Designed Templates, Page Builder Support, Fully customizable design and so much more. I’ve personally used this theme and it gives supremely amazing results.
- Newsgem: This is a pretty good magazine theme. You get a premium layout in it. So, If you’re looking for free themes then this can also be a good option for you. It provides advanced custom fields, Custom Menus, Ads optimization, and more…
Writing Your First Blog Post:
Here we have a truly important section of the article which is, How to Write your first Blog Post. This means an article. We have launched our blog to write good content on it. So, In WordPress, we call it a Post. WordPress provides us with an Editor where we can manage our Posts, Add Images, Design our post’s layout, and more…
In the WordPress dashboard, just hover over “Posts” and click on “Add New” So it will open a fresh WordPress Editor where you can write. This is a simple method of writing a post in WordPress.
Now there are many things to learn before posting on your blog. We optimize our posts according to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) so we can Rank in Google to get audience engagement. We’ll talk about SEO in the next section of this article.
While writing a Post we target some keywords in our article to rank on those keywords. So make sure you must target keywords because if you don’t have a goal you won’t succeed.
Let’s dive into a very interesting and most important section of this article.:
Search Engine Optimization SEO:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is supremely Important and the backbone of your writing. In SEO we optimize our content On & Off-Page according to search engines like Google. We tell the search engine that these are the focus keywords that we want to rank on. We optimize images, text, and everything which is in our posts.
In your Blogging journey, you should be an expert in SEO because with SEO you rank your content in search results to get more traffic to your website, and of course when you grab traffic then you earn money from your Blog.
Here we’ll cover some Basics of SEO, which will help you to set your goals of learning Search Engine optimization. So, let’s get started.
Basics of SEO:
- Crawl accessibility so engines can read your website
- Compelling content that answers the searcher’s query
- Keyword optimized to attract searchers & engines
- Great user experience including a fast load speed and compelling UX
- Share-worthy content that earns links, citations, and amplification
- Title, URL, & description to draw high CTR in the rankings
- Snippet/schema markup to stand out in SERPs
Technical SEO:
This is a simple and easy-to-implement form of SEO. There are many things that we can consider in Technical SEO. When you create a Blog, Google doesn’t know your Blog. You have to ask google if it should crawl and index your Blog in its data.
- Google provides us with a free tool called Google Search Console. Here we can manage some data. We submit our Blog as XML Sitemap in Search Console which makes it easy for Google to index our Blog and crawl our content.
- We should have a robot.txt file on our Blog. This file is really important and helpful for Google. It tells Google which pages and Content google should crawl and which not. So, this is a simple concept of a robot.txt.
- There is HTTPS. It means “Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure” You install a certificate on your Blog to make your Blog’s URL HTTP to HTTPS which is a secure protocol. If you do that, Google considers your website as a secure platform.
- Ensure that your Blog/Website is Mobile-Friendly. It is a very important factor in SEO. It means that your Blog should look perfect on any device like PC, Laptop, Tablet, and Mobile.
You can simply go to “Settings” > Permalinks and then click this option which is “Post Name”. Done! Now when you’ll write any post it will set the post name after the URL of your site which is good in SEO and helpful for google to find a topic of your site.
Monetizing a Blog to Earn Money:
This is the much-awaiting section of every newbie. How can we earn money? This is an exciting part of this article where we’ll learn How can you Monetize your Blog to make money.
There are many ways to monetize your blog. Like you earn money from sponsorships when you get popular. You can make money by promoting other brands and many more. But 2 ways are getting most popular these days:
- Google Adsense Monetization
- Affiliate Marketing
Google Adsense Monetization:
Adsense is the most popular platform to monetize a website or Blog. Millions of big websites are using Adsense to generate revenue like TechRadar. Advertising company pays Google Adsense to Place their Ads on our Blogs. If any Blogger wants to Place Ads on his Blog, He’ll have to Sign Up on Google Adsense.
When we apply for Adsense, Google reviews our Blog manually and gives us Approval. After approval then we can place Adsense Ads on our Blog and earn money from Adsense.
So, You’ll have to Get Adsense Approval to earn money. Don’t worry. Most people think that getting Adsense Approval is difficult. But it is not right. There are a few basic steps if you follow them you can easily get Adsense Approval.
- Make a good-looking Blog.
- Create 2 – 3 Pages.
- Post at least 10 – 15 Posts
- Your Blog age should be 1 month at least.
That’s all you need to get Adsense Approval. Follow these steps. I ensure you’ll get Adsense Approval on your first try.
Affiliate Marketing:
Affiliate Marketing is a very decent Program for Monetizing a Blog. You can earn almost Double Adsense. The Simple concept of Affiliate Marketing is we promote other’s products and get a commission. Now! here a question pops up, Whom product will we promote?
Many platforms offer an Affiliate Program. Ex: Amazon, eBay, ClickBank, Walmart, Bluehost, etc…
But nowadays Amazon is Supremely Popular in Affiliate Marketing. And millions of people are making millions of dollars by promoting Amazon Products on their Blogs.
If you start Affiliate Marketing, You’ll be promoting Amazon Products on your Blog. Basically To Start you have to Sign up for the Amazon Associate Program. After registering you will be able to get an Affiliate Link to Any Amazon Product. You review any amazon product on your Blog and give an Affiliate Link of the Amazon Product to your Audience and if the user purchases from your affiliate link you’ll get a commission.
SEO is a must to be able to earn money from Blogs. Ex: If your Affiliate Review is not ranking in search engines, the Product will not be sold and you won’t get a commission. So, you’ll have to rank your blog to earn money online.
Start slowly, write posts, then as you learn you go back and revisit those older posts and keep updating them for Readability and Search Engine Optimization.
To Your Success
Juan Villar
Disclaimer: My posts may contain affiliate links! Moreover, if you buy something through one of my links, you won’t pay a penny more, but I will get a small commission, which helps keep the lights on, thanks