Do you ever wonder how to start a blog? that can generate up to 4000$ to 20000$ per month.
Yes, it is possible to generate a passive income stream through blogging, regardless of your niche.
However, it takes time to generate revenue from your blog. Be patient and consistent with your writing; eventually, you will see the fruits of your labor pay off!
This is a complete, comprehensive beginner’s guide in which you will learn how to start a blog and grow it to earn $4,000 or more per month. This guide covers everything from choosing a niche and registering a domain name to creating content, promoting your blog, and earning money.
This guide consists of three main sections :
Note: skip to any section part with a simple click.
1.BUILD
In this building section, we will build a blog from complete scratch. This section contains the following steps:
- Choosing a niche
- Choosing a blogging platform
- Choose a domain and hosting
- Setting up a blog on WordPress
- Select a theme and design your blog
- Do keyword research for your niche
- Start writing your first blog post
- Optimize your blog by doing SEO
2. GROW
In this section, we will learn the techniques used by industry specialists to grow a blog. This section includes:
- How much post gets how many views and revenue
- How to build authority by building backlinks to your blog.
- How to use Pinterest to get traffic to your blog.
- How to use guest posting to get traffic to your blog
- How to build a blog that gets backlinks
- what are case studies and why are they essential for your blog
3. EARN
In this section, we will explore the ways to monetize your blog. These steps include
- Different types of monetization
- Potential of every type of monetization
- where and how to put ads
What is blogging
Blogging is a means of sharing your thoughts or feelings on any topic with the online world. You can write about things that interest you, things that you are good at or know and love. You can also share your experiences, knowledge, and skills.
Blogs are a powerful tool for any individual or company, regardless of whether you’re in business or looking to start one. Blogging is the easiest and most cost-effective way to communicate with your customers, connect with influencers, and share your expert knowledge with the world. Let’s build your blog
Why should you start a blog anyway?
Think about what is your why about starting a blog. Do you want to showcase your work? Or do you want to build a community on the topic you love?
A blog can help you in many ways from building an online presence or even promoting a brand.
Build
1.1 Choose a Niche/Topic for your blog
Before starting your blogging journey, you need to choose a niche/topic. This is the most important part of building a blog your niche should be specific.
Why it is so important to choose a specific niche?
Most money-making niches out there have a significant number of articles, so why would somebody read your articles. it is only possible to rank for a competitive money-making niche if you are specific about any topic.
Imagine yourself trying to make a hole through a wall with a hammer. Using the hammer every time on a different spot will take years to make the hole, but by using the same spot every time. You see the wall is cracking and after some more effort, you will be able to make the hole.
The same applies to choosing a specific niche/topic and writing at least 30 articles on the same topic then moving toward similar topics. (Remember I said a similar topic)
Being specific is success initially
So fire up your browser and do a bit of research about the niche you wanna build a blog on.
Some top money-making niches in 2022 are:
- Digital marketing
- Blogging and making money online
- Health and fitness
- Personal finance
- Recipe and food
- Personal development and self-care
1.2 Choosing a blogging platform
At this step, we will explore all the currently available blogging platforms and decide which is the most suitable content management system(CMS) for your blog.
When choosing a blog management system for your blog you need to keep these things in your mind:
Easy to use – The installation of the CMS should be beginners friendly and technical expertise should not be necessary to get started.
SEO Integration – SEO is the basic key factor of a website that gets any blog successful, so the website created in a CMS should be SEO optimized and should offer best SEO practices to its users.
Customization – CMS should allow every type of customization to its users so they can create whatever they desire to build.
Community – There should be a huge community for help with tutorials, knowledge development, and troubleshooting.
Addons – CMS should have a huge library of templates, themes, plugins, and tools to help you create your dream blog.
I recommend building your blog using the self-hosted WordPress blog because It is the most popular CMS on the market, powering 65.2% of websites whose CMS we know. That translates to 42.4% of all websites – nearly half of the internet. Building a blog with WordPress is beginners friendly and has a vast library of free and paid tools.
We wil be building a blog with a custom domain and web hosting with this you will be in total control of your blog and its content. It will cost you a few dollars per month.
1.3 Choose a domain and hosting
To build a blog with WordPress you need hosting and domain. Hosting provider companies usually offer free domains for the first year and a few dollar renewal fees per year.
Domain name
Now it’s time for using identity in the online world. This is how people will remember you but don’t overthink this too much whatever name you choose, you have to build a reputation, Brands get to build over time.
The best way to choose a name is to think of your niche as a primary word, brainstorm some ideas, and start combining words and phrases until something stands out to you.
Note: Don’t buy a domain from anywhere else it comes free with the hosting and is easy to set up.
Here’s what you should keep in mind when choosing a blog name:
- It should be short and catchy, and easy to pronounce and type.
- You can also combine your first and last names such as jamessmith.com or tidlee.com
- Avoid complicated and commonly misspelled words
- Avoid using numbers, hyphens, and homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently)
And then check on any domain-providing website for the availability of your domain. The usual way is to buy a domain with a “.com” extension.
Different domain extensions are used for different purposes for Example:
- .COM (commercial)
- .ORG (organization)
- .NET (network)
- .EDU (education)
- .GOV (government)
- .MIL (military)
WEB HOSTING
Web hosting is the place where all your content lives. It is also a crucial step because choosing a bad hosting provider sucks, believe me, choose it wisely. The performance (speed) and functionality of your website mainly depend on your hosting provider. The host makes sure that your blog is available 24/7 to potential readers.
After choosing a domain name its time to choose a hosting provider for your blog
If you are a complete beginner I recommend you use Hosting web hosting services
Here is why you should choose this company over others
- Easy to use: Hostinger has a great graphic beginner’s friendly interface all the options in the interface are self-explanatory
- Security: Hostinger offers a free SSL certificate that protects your visitor data, and your website and is SEO friendly.
- Support: Hostinger customer services are the best they are available 24/7 to help you with any possible issue.
- Renewal: Hostinger renewal services are 3x cheaper than most of the hosting providers.
Head over to Hostinger and navigate to web hosting then from the drop-down choose any plan.
I recommend going for the “Premium Share Package.”
Remember you can always upgrade later if you need to.
Next, you’ll finish setting up your account.
After the payment is processed you will be redirected to the Hostinger’s hPanel.
Now select “Myself” when the setup wizard asks you who you’re making the website for.
On the next step select “A blog”.
After that, you” ll choose what you experience as a website developer. If this is your first website, you should pick “Creating my first website”
Next, Hostinger will ask you which platform you want to choose for your site. Select the “WordPress” option.
If you don’t have a WordPress account, Hostinger will show you a field to set an email and password on the same page.
Once you have created your WordPress account.
Now you can choose a blogging theme for your blog or you can start from stretch but I recommend choosing a template and then customizing it on the go, At the start, it does not matter so much, Content on your blog does.
Once you have made a decision, you will be able to claim your free domain now just type the name you have chosen previously.
Now after the Hostinger startup wizard is finished, you’ll be presented with a screen where you can connect your domain, view your site or open your WordPress dashboard or the Hostinger control panel
Click “Manage WordPress” and that’ll take you to hPanel.
Scroll down until you see a version of WordPress currently installed.
You can always reset your WordPress if you ever encounter any issue by simply clicking install.
1.4 Setting up a blog on WordPress
Themes in the basic foundation on which sites are built and all the themes come with different options there are thousands of themes to get trapped in but always remember to start simple than on the go and add more and more features to your Blog.
Now let’s select and customize your theme a bit to get you started
First, you have to log in to your WordPress admin panel. You can access this by going to
[yourdomain].com/wp-admin.
Enter the user credential that you have entered in the WordPress account set up in Hostinger hPanel.
At first look, the WordPress dashboard may look a little daunting but you’ll master it with a little practice.
1.5 Select a theme and design your blog
Installing a new WordPress theme is simple and easy
Just look on the left side of the dashboard click the appearance tab in the drop-down choose themes that will open the theme manager.
Now search for the desired theme and click on install.
The look and feel of your website depend on your theme but don’t let that trap you in designing a million dollar website in your first start.
Here is a quick guide for choosing a theme in the WordPress directory
- Read the description – Most themes come with a short description of features and functionality. Reading it can help you determine if the theme matches your needs.
- Preview the theme – Preview the theme (demo) to get an idea of the overall look, layout, and how customizable it is.
- Check the ratings – Star ratings will be visible in the preview and under theme details to give you a clear idea of how good the theme is.
I recommend using Blockcy or Neve as a theme both are powerful, high-speed, and SEO optimized.
But if you don’t like searching through thousands of themes you can start with preinstall themes that are Twenty Twenty or Twenty Twelve.
After installing the theme you are pretty much ready to start customizing your blog.
Theme customization
WordPress dashboard is where you will manage your blog. There are many customizations you can do but we will stick with the essentials.
WordPress offers a huge library of free and paid plugins that can be added to add extra features such as forms, polls, and eCommerce functionality.
The first step is to navigate to appearance<themes and click the “customize” button on the activated theme.
It will open a new window where you will see many customization options these may vary, depending on your theme.
Site identity
Scroll until you find site identity in the menu. In the site identity section, you can customize your site name, tagline, and logo.
Add Pages
WordPress is divided into two main sections posts and pages.
Posts are the content you publish on your blog. Pages are where you can display content, forms, and info some of the most common pages of the website includes
- Homepage
- About us
- Contact
You can add as many as pages you want and edit it any number of times. After you create a page, you can add it to your site’s navigation menu so your visitors can find it.
From the WordPress dashboard click on pages and from the drop-down click on add new, Then in the new window enter the name of the page and click on publish. Your page is live now, add all the pages you need on your blog.
Menu(Navigation)
Now it’s time to create a menu. Go to appearance<menus to create a menu, then in the first column click on create a new menu
Once you have added the name of the menu to the menu structure column then select the menu display location after click on create new menu.
then select the menu from the top drop-down menu, and you will be able to add pages or categories. the menu after selecting and arranging the menu scroll down
You can also customize the look and feel of the menu in the theme customization section.
installing plugins
Once you have customized your blog it is time to add some necessary plugins, from the menu click plugins then add new.
I recommend installing the following plugins:
- MonsterInsights – Google Analytics plugin for WordPress, to monitor and analyze your website traffic.
- Yoast SEO – A comprehensive SEO plugin for your blog, to optimize your content for search engines.
- WP Super Cache – Helps with the load time of your WordPress blog and delivers content to your readers faster.
- Akismet – Protects your comments and contact form from spam and prevents your site from publishing malicious content.
- Contact Form 7 – A contact form with flexible email options. It supports CAPTCHA and Akismet spam filtering.
- Elemento builder – A visual web editor with no coding experience needed.
1.6 Do keyword research for your niche
Now your blog is online and running is time to do some keyword research about your niche.
what is keyword research
keyword research is the process to discover words and phrases that people are searching for in the search engine.
why keyword research is important
keyword research is important because it helps you get ranked for low competitive keywords and build domain authority so you can rank for high competitive keywords.
how to do keyword research
For example, I have a niche in “blogging”
open your Google browser and search about your niche, Google will suggest you the most searched queries.
and scroll to the bottom of the page. you’ll find a list of 8 keywords that are commonly searched by your target audience from there start creating a topic list.
after that go to exploding topic.com and search your niche it will show you all the terms that are surging in popularity, and continue expanding your keyword list.
when you have a cool-looking list of keywords it’s time to check whether they are worth writing for. we will use keyword research tools to check keyword monthly search volume and keyword difficulty
Remember higher the search volume and lower the keyword difficulty is a win-win.
Best keyword research tools:
- SEMush
- AnswerThePublic
- Ubersuggest
- Ahrefs
- Google Keyword Planner
- Long Tail Pro
I recommend using Ahref and google keyword planner simultaneously to cross-check the stats
1.7 Start writing your first blog post
After keyword research, you have a list of articles you wanna write about
in the WordPress dashboard head over to post<add a post, in the editor add your post title and start writing your blog post
Tips to write a perfect blog post are
- Eye-catching title with a numeric value (google loves numeric)
- Hook statement (what will you get in this article)
- End with conclusion
1.8 Optimizing your blog post for search engines
Search engine optimization allows search engines such as Google and Bing to rank your content out of millions of articles out there
According to studies, 53 percent of all traffic to a website comes from an organic search that’s why every website should be SEO optimized.
Seo checklist
- on-page SEO
- Images SEO
- Keyword optimization
- Seo meta tags
While writing a blog post keep in mind all the factors displayed on the right side menu by your SEO plugin
GROW
2.1 How much post gets how many views and revenue
According to a study by income school following are the statistics to keep in mind
- 50 Posts ≈ 150 Pageviews ≈ $0 – $5
- 100 post ≈ 5k –10k Pageviews ≈ $110 – $220
- 150 post ≈ 40k – 60k Pageviews ≈ $1,800 – $2,200
- 200 post ≈ 100k – 120k Pageviews ≈ $4,000 – $6,000
Study by income school, it shows that your blog post takes about 7-8 months to rank in a search engine properly but more blog posts mean more blog readers
You should be posting two or more blog posts per week to become a successful blogger in 6 months
Don’t expect any income until you have published 50 fully optimized blog posts
How to build authority by building backlinks to your blog.
Building backlinks for your blog is the most valuable part of driving organic traffic to your blog and business. Google ranks content based on how many authentic backlinks a website has that’s why it is the most famous search engine because it focuses more on the quality of the content over quantity.
The higher the number of backlinks the higher the website authority.
There are many ways recommended by the bloggers to build backlinks but from all of them, the most effective way is to publish case studies and cool-looking graphics. Sites use your research and graphic on their sites with a link to your website
The second most useful way is to use guest blogging platforms to write content related to your niche and provide a link to your website for more in-depth research this is the most used way of creating links to your website but remember Google knows the worth of every link pointing towards a site, spamming website link in comments or buying backlinks is considered as spam by Google thus results in blacklisting a website
The third way is to use social media special Pinterest
Pinterest is an image-based search engine it helps people to find information about any topic in images.
Pinterest is considered a goldmine for driving traffic to your website, with proper image SEO on Pinterest your image can rank in google search results(images section) and Pinterest has more than 433 million monthly active users so imagine its potential for your blog.
EARN
By now you have discovered how to create a blog, how to create a blog post, and how to do SEO for your blog. now its time to learn how to monetize your blog
So what is monetization?
Monetization is the process of converting your blog readers into your potential customers.
But you should keep in mind blogging is not just about making money. It is about creating useful content and creating blog posts that will attract readers to come back. Your blog should cover all the points which your opponents lack.
When starting a blog think about adding content that will generate future income and as we discussed in the build (niche selecting section) specific content is more effective for generating money.
Different types of monetization
Display Advertising on Blog (Banner Ads)
Displaying ads on your blog is one of the most common ways to make money from your blog but it is not the most profitable way to make money. You should display ads only on a specific section of your blog that should not irritate the reader because you have to build a relationship with your reader remember loyal readers become loyal customers.
Bloggers usually start monetizing their blogs with ads because it allows low-traffic blogs to earn a few dollars that motivate them to do more and discover new ways to monetize their blog
A free plugin you can use to optimize ad placement is ad insert. It allows you to compare your ads which perform better and even allows how and where to display ads on your blog.
The beauty of displaying ads on your website is that you don’t need to manage any products or inventory.
Ads generate revenue in both ways only by displaying or if the reader decides to click on it or buy anything you get a bonus.
The best website to get Ads for your blog are :
- Ezoice (recommended)
- Adsense
- PropellerAds.
- Adversal.
- Amazon Native Shopping Ads
2. Affiliate Marketing blog
Affiliate marketing is one of the most profitable ways to make money from blogging and if you compare it with every other way available above 70 percent of the revenue of a website is generated through affiliate marketing and approximately 15 percent of all digital media revenue comes from affiliate marketing
With affiliate marketing, you promote brands and products and get a commission on every sale.
Here’s a visual of how affiliate marketing works
Image
Things needed for affiliate marketing
- A niche
- An affiliate account
- An audience to promote the product
Most famous affiliate networks
- Amazon affiliate (can be Managed with AAWP WordPress plugin)
- ShareASale
- eBay partner network
- Clickbank affiliate
3. Sell Ebooks to Your Audience
Selling an ebook is also a very popular way to monetize your blog it is perfect for an expert in any niche because it is easy to create and you own all of its revenue, unlike other ways.
Ebooks are usually priced according to the audience and ebook selling is a good way to test the interest of your blog readers.
Where to sell your ebooks :
After selling your ebook to your blog readers you can also list your ebook on different ebook platforms for selling
- PublishDrive is an ebook distribution platform. You can’t sell your ebooks through PublishDrive directly, but you can use it to distribute them to thousands.
- Amazon As the biggest online retailer in the world, the e-commerce giant dominates the eBook market and is responsible for a whopping 68% share of all ebook sales.
- Apple Books is another essential platform to sell your ebooks on, especially if you’re hoping to tap into the mobile market. The Apple Book Store is the go-to source for reading inspiration for iPhone and other Apple device users.
4.Create and Sell Online Courses
Creating an online course is another way to monetize your blog sometime people can’t stick to reading long blogs and ebooks. they refer to courses seeking some kinda extra tips and tricks for the value of their money.
You don’t need to be an extremely expert in the niche to create an online course all you need to teach a course is to know more about the people you are teaching.
You can add your course to your blog or upload it on any course platform the get the maximum reach from that platform and your blog readers
Some course platforms are :
- Udemy
- Coursera
- Udacity
- Skillshare
- Domestica
4. Start a Coaching/Consulting Business
Coaching or consulting is a monetization strategy that most blog owners who have found success in selling ebooks and teaching online courses turn to when they want to create an additional revenue stream.
In coaching, you teach people skills that you have learned to become successful people in your niche so they also can become successful.
Offer a Paid Membership Plan
The paid membership plan is extremely popular in blogging big tech company uses this model for their business
You can also create a paid membership plan on your blog if your readers love your content they will buy the membership
Membership usually includes
- Newsletters
- Events
- Community etc
Generate Revenue with Sponsored Posts/Reviews
Generating revenue through sponsored posts and reviews is also a good way to monetize your blog
In this way, brands and blogs pay you to write a review about their product or service that can be beneficial for their business this is usually offered to blogs with big audiences to reach out to more and more people. This approach is known as influencer marketing.
image:
When featuring a product on your blog make sure to give your honest feedback about it because it’s not worth losing the trust of your readers for a few bucks.
Sell Physical Products to Your Audience
Another way to monetize your blog is to sell products directly to your audience. Anything related to your niche you sell to your audience many people start a blog just to create an e-commerce site and some e-commerce stores use blogs to drive traffic to their eCommerce stores
Sell Digital Products to Your Audience
If you are in a niche where you can digital items such as sound effects, project files, temples, etc.
Selling digital products to your audience can be a profitable source of your blog earnings if it is used the right way.
Conclusion :
Congratulations you have completed the full guide to starting a blog to grow and make money from your blog. Bookmark this blog to referee it as you progress in your journey to success.Tell us what was your favorite section in this blog post
