This is a step-by-step guide on how to start, launch, grow and monetize your blog today. This guide is made to help people who want to become bloggers start their blog today. Before we dive into the steps of starting a blog, let’s look at what a blog is and why you need to start one today.
What is a Blog?
A blog is an informational website where an individual or a group of people share ideas, thoughts or knowledge about a subject matter. Most bloggers also write about their personal life which allows them to easily connect with their readers.
Blog content which is also known as Blog Post is presented in reverse chronological order meaning newer content appears first. Also, a typical blog post has a comment section where users can respond and share their views and thoughts on a blog post.
Why do you need to start a Blog?
Let’s dive into some of the reasons why you need you to need to start a blog today.
- To share your thoughts ideas and stories: Having a blog allows you to create a community where your knowledge or experience about something you are passionate about can be shared.
- Also having a successful blog can help you gain a lot of recognition and opportunities in your respective field.
- Being able to grow a blog can be very lucrative. It is a great way of generating passive income as you will only have to create the content once and you’ll continue to profit from it in the long term. Also, blogging allows you to work and make money from home or anywhere in the world.
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How to Start a Blog Today in 9 Steps.
Below are the nine main steps to starting a Blog:
- Choose a niche to blog to about
- Choose a brand name for the blog
- Choose the right blogging platform
- Buy a Domain and a Web Hosting
- Setting up and customizing your WordPress site
- Write compelling content your readers will love
- Optimizing your site and blog posts for SEO
- Promote your blog
- Making Money from your Blog
Choose a Niche to Blog About
Before starting a blog you need to pick a blogging niche or a specific subject area your blog will be about. To pick a profitable niche, must consider the passion, skills and experience you have and the monetization options for the blog. Also, when choosing a niche, you must consider your target audience for the blog. For instance, creating a blog to help stay-at-home moms make money online can be your target audience.
Note: Writing about what you are passionate about does not necessarily mean it is going to be profitable. That’s why if your blogging goal is to make money then it is important that you figure out who your readers are going to be, their interests as well as monetization options before starting the blog.
Some examples of profitable blog niches to consider are:
• Health and Fitness
• Beauty
• Business
• Personal Finance
• Fashion
• Personal Development
Choose a brand name for the blog
Once you have settled on your niche for the blog, the next is to get a name you your blog. The name you choose will represent your brand and give your readers an idea of what the blog is about. That’s why you must choose a name that will you and your brand very well.
Below are some tips on what to consider when choosing a blog name:
- The blog name should be easy to pronounce, spell and remember.
- Keep the name short. It is best you aim for 12 characters or less, this makes it easy to remember.
- Avoid the use of punctuation and numbers.
- The name must represent the brand you are creating and also make you stand out from your competitors.
If you are still struggling to come up with a name for the blog, you can check out some name generators like Domain Wheel, Wordoid, Name Station and Lean Domain Search to help come up with a unique name for your blog.
Choose the Right Blogging Platform
The next stage is looking into the right blogging platform to run your blog on. There are a lot of blogging platforms and sites on the market to choose from. Choosing a blogging platform heavily depends on the type of blog you want to create and your long-term goals for the blog. It is important that you select the right blogging platform as it will influence the growth and success of your blog in the long run.
Some of the popular Blogging Platforms on the market are WordPress.org, WordPress.com, Blogger, Tumbler, Squarespace, Wix and Medium. I recommend you build your website with WordPress.org because it is one of the most popular website platforms that is used by 43% of the website on the internet. That’s because WordPress.org is an open-source platform which means it is 100% free to use. However, you will need to get web hosting and a domain name before you can use it.
There are two forms of WordPress, which are WordPress.org and WordPress.com. The difference between these two platforms is, WordPress.com is an already hosted platform that comes with many limitations. This may not be a good option for you if you are serious about growing a successful blog. WordPress.org on the other hand is a self-hosted platform that allows you to be in total control of your blog and its content. This includes your monetization options and customizing your blog.
Read 9 Best Blogging Platforms and Sites for more insights on the types of blogging platforms and their pros and cons.
Buy a domain Name and a Web Hosting
After choosing a brand name and the blogging platform for the blog, the next thing is to get a Domain name and Web hosting to host the blog online.
Getting a Domain Name
A domain is a unique online address that is used to access a website. At this point, you should already have a name picked for your blog as that is what you will register as your blog’s domain name.
Every domain also comes with extensions like .com, .org, .info, .io, .net etc. You are free to use any of the extensions provided it is available. However, it is mostly recommended you choose .com as your extension because it is universally recognizable. Also, Google loves domains with .com extensions and tends to rank them more in search results.
To buy a domain, you can check out domain registrars like Namecheap, Godaddy and Domian.com, which typically goes for $14.99 per year. However, hosting services like Bluehost and Siteground will give you a free domain when you purchase their hosting service.
Getting a Web Hosting
Web Hosting is an online service that hosts a website online and makes it possible for people to access it on the internet. Web hosting also safely stores the site’s files and data on a server. In a nutshell, without web hosting your blog won’t be available online for people to visit it.
Having a good and reliable hosting service is what every new blogger must look out for when choosing a hosting service to run your blog on. Some of these are; Bluehost, Siteground, Dreamhost, Cloudways and Hostinger. Some of the advantages of having a good web hosting include Fast loading times, great site performance, high uptime, enhanced security, regular site backups and effective data management.
Bluehost is number one on our list because it is officially recommended by WordPress and is one of the most reliable web hosting providers, hosting millions of websites. Bluehost offers 70% off on your first hosting plan which comes with great features like a free domain, free SSL, CDN and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Getting Started with Bluehost for $2.7 per month
To get started with Bluehost, go to bluehost.com and click Get Started Now.
- Select your desired Plan. I recommend you go with the Choice Plus because it comes with Domain Privacy . The Domain Privacy and Protection feature protects your personal information like name, email address, home address and phone number online.
- The next step is to type in your unique domain name in the left box and click next to continue the registration. If you already have a domain, you can input it in the right box to continue.
- At this stage, you will register and create an account by filling out your personal information.
- Select the right hosting plan. At this stage, you are required to choose a hosting plan for your account and uncheck all the boxes. Bluehost does not offer a monthly payment subscription for their plans, which means you will have to pay from a 1-year subscription to a 3years subscription upfront.
- The next step is to enter your billing information and check the box to agree with Bluehost’s terms and conditions and hit the submit button to complete your registration.
At this point, you now have your domain and hosting ready for the next step, which is to sign in to your Bluehost account and continue with the setup.
Once your account is ready, you will be taken to your Bluehost account to continue the setup from there. In your Bluehost account, you have to click on the WordPress button to access your WordPress dashboard. Bluehost automatically installs WordPress for you to save you from that stress.
Setting Up and Customizing your WordPress Site
At this stage, I will take you through the step-by-step process of setting up and customizing your blog.
Setting Up your blog
The design and layout of a wordpress.org blog are controlled by themes. WordPress.org comes with a lot of paid and free themes you can choose from in their library. There are several WordPress themes already installed on the blog you can use.
However, if you don’t like any of these already-installed themes, you can install new a one from WordPress’s library. To install a new theme, click on the Appearance tab on the menu in the admin dashboard and click on Themes then Add New. You can then choose your preferred theme from the thousands of themes in their library. Click on activate to apply the theme to your blog.
Customizing your theme
To customizing your theme, go to your admin dashboard and on the left side menu click Appearance then customize. A tab will open and from there you can add a logo, change the site title and tagline, change theme colours, customize your blog menu, change your homepage settings etc.
Creating pages
Before you start publishing articles on your blog, you must complete all the necessary pages on your blog and optimize them for SEO.
To create a page go to the menu on the admin dashboard and click pages. Here you can create a new page by clicking on Add New.
Below are the most common pages used on the blog
- Homepage: A Homepage is the main page of a site, where a visitor will land first after clicking on your blog URL. It is also the page where your visitor will get their first impression of your site. Depending on the type of layout you choose, you can display your homepage as a static page, which is ideal for a business website. For a blog, it is recommended you choose a dynamic page, so it will constantly be updated to display your latest posts.
- About Us: This page is one of the most important pages to have on your site. An about page tells your visitors who you are and the story behind your blog.
- Contact Us: This page allows your visitors to get in touch with you. It also gives your visitors the assurance that you are reachable in case they need to contact you for more information or report a problem.
This page is usually a simple page that contains your email address and a business phone number. You can also use a contact form from plugins like WP forms and Ninja forms in place of the email and phone number. You can also add links to your social media accounts for them to check out.
Adding Plugins to your blog
Plugins are collections of code that modify the appearance and functionality of your website. They can expand the functionality of your theme, add new functionality to your WordPress blog, and completely or partially customize a blog. There are currently over 50,000 distinct plugins available on WordPress.org, most of which are free.
You check out the various plugins by clicking on the plugin tab on the left side of the admin dashboard to install new plugins, deactivate, delete, and update them.
Check out my full post on the Best WordPress Plugins to Grow Your Blogs and Websites in 2022.
Write Compelling Content your Readers will Love
After setting up and customizing your site, it is now time to write and publish articles on the site. Before you decide on a blog, you have to do some research to know if the topic is worth writing on. This research process is known as keyword Research.
Conducting a Research Keyword helps you to choose topics people are searching for. Also as a new blogger, it is best you choose keywords that are low competition and have a good amount of search volume. Although you can still write on topics with high-competition keywords, choosing topics with low-competition keywords can easily rank in search results. There are a lot of great tools out there you can use for your keyword research process. Some of these are SEMrush, Ahref and Keyword Planner.
Ways to Get Blog Post Ideas
Below are some of the easiest ways to come up with more blog post ideas to write on.
- You can get blog post ideas from what other bloggers in your niche have written.
- Check out famous sites like Quora and Reddit to find out the questions people for in your niche.
- By expanding your old blog posts that did well.
- You can also get topic ideas by reading your blog comments to find the topics people request or recommend.
- By jumping on new and trending keywords before they become competitive. Keyword Research tools like SEMrush and Ahref have features for discovering new keywords in your niche.
- You can also get ideas by using idea generators like Buzzsumo and Portent’s Content Idea Generator to come up with content ideas.
To save yourself from the stress of coming up with your next blog posts. It is best you create a content calendar that will help you plan and organize all your content. That way you know what topic to write on next and when to publish. This is a smart way to stay organized and ahead of the game.
How to write a great article for your blog
- Before you start writing on a blog topic, you need to research more on the topic in order to get in-depth knowledge and understanding of the topic.
- Come up with a good headline that will capture your reader’s attention. The headline must of course have some information about what the content is about.
- The third step is to come up with an outline for the blog posts. This makes it easy to break the write-up into headings and subheadings. It also makes it easy for people to read and understand your content. Try and keep your paragraphs and sentences short for easy readability.
- The next step is to write the posts per the research you have done which can be done in word or google docs. Remember to add images or videos to your posts to enhance the post and also to further explain complex parts of the article. Adding images and videos to your article helps your readers to engage better with the article.
- The last step is to edit your article to avoid any grammatical errors. You can give it to someone to proofread it for you or check out sites like Fiverr and Upwork to find professional proofreaders and editors to proofread it for you. Also, using tools like Grammarly will easily help fix a lot of errors in the article.
Publishing your article to make it live
To write and publish your first article on your site, go to Posts on your WordPress dashboard, and click on Add New to open an editor area where you’ll start writing your article. To publish the article, click on the publish button located at the top right corner of the screen to make it live after writing and editing your article.
The WordPress editor has a feature that allows you to add blocks such as images, videos, table of content, related posts and many more to help you create a beautiful layout for your blog post.
To add a new block or section to your post, click on the plus button at the top left corner of your editor and select the block you want to use to apply it.
Before you hit on the publish button make sure you optimize your content for SEO. This will help the content rank well in search results thus driving organic traffic to your blog. We will have an in-depth look at how you can optimize your blog post for SEO in the next section.
Optimizing your Site and Blog Posts for SEO
SEO is the practice bloggers and website owners do to get their site rank higher on search engines such as Google, and Bing for organic traffic.
As a blogger, it is important for you to learn and master the various techniques and practices of SEO and how to apply them to both your site and content if you want to drive organic traffic to your site.
Optimize your Blog Pages and Posts for SEO
Before you make your blog live or publish any article make sure it is well-optimized for SEO. Below are some of the ways of optimizing your blog posts, pages and your blog as a whole for SEO.
On-Page SEO
- Keyword Optimization
Keyword research is a blog topic research that helps you to find long tail keywords with low competition that can rank well in search results. You can use tools like Google trends, keyword planner, SEMrush and Ahref to help make your keyword research process easy.
However, it is also important to optimize your keywords for your blog posts and pages. To optimize your keywords, it is crucial to choose the primary keywords you want to rank for on each page or blog post and to make sure that you incorporate them within the content. In this way, it will be easier for search engines to comprehend the subject matter of a particular web page when they crawl it, and you will stand a better chance of appearing higher in search results.
- SEO Meta Tags
Another On-page SEO practice is adding Meta tags to each page of your blog as well as your blog posts. SEO Meta tags are used by search engines to better understand what the webpage or article is about. Some of these Meta tags include:
Title Tag: Title Tag is the page title search engines show in search results. This tag tells search engines the title you want to be displayed in search results.
Meta Description: Meta description summarizes the content of the page. This tag is used by search engines for the snippet in search results. The Meta Tag usually informs the user what that page is about. However, Meta description is not a ranking factor for search engines but increases your page’s click-through rate.
However, plugins like Yoast SEO and AIO SEO make it very easy to add the necessary Meta tags to your pages and Blog posts and optimize your pages to improve their ranking in search results.
Off-Page SEO
Signing up for Google Search Console helps you track our blog’s performance on Google. It helps to know the type of content to put on your blog by providing data on the keywords that bring you the most traffic.
To submit your blog to Google Search Console go to Googlesearchconsole.com and create an account. Add your blog by clicking on Add property and following the steps to submit your blog.
You can also submit your blog to Bing by signing up for a Bing webmaster account and following the steps to add your blog.
Promote your Blog
Having a beautiful blog with great content but no one to see it, can be very discouraging. That is why it is important to know how to promote your blog to the right audience. Here are some of the proven ways to promote your blog to build and grow your audience.
Using Paid Advertising
You can drive a lot of traffic to your blog by promoting your content with paid advertising such as Google ads, Facebook ads and Bing ads to help your content gain more exposure. You can also make use of content discovery platforms like Taboola and Outbrain to spread the word.
Promote on Social Media
Another great way to promote your blog is to post on social media platforms like Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram. Promoting your blog on social media platforms not only drives traffic to your site but also allows your followers to share your post with their friends and followers thereby increasing your site’s traffic.
Tip: Always engage with your followers and add hashtags to your posts to make them more discoverable.
Building an Email list
It is important that your start building an email list for your blog from day one, as it helps notify your audience to notify your readers when you post new content. Building an email list can be done by collecting the email addresses of your visitors. This helps your visitors to keep coming back to your blog and also helps you to build a better relationship with your readers.
Guest Blogging
One of the best and easy ways to drive traffic to your blog is Guest Blogging. Guest Blogging which is also known as Guest Post is the act of writing content for another website in your niche in order to drive traffic back to your site. Guest Blogging is also a great way to build authority in your niche and get backlinks to your site.
Repurposing your Content to Other Platforms
Another way to drive traffic to your blog is by repurposing your content to sites that have a lot of audience and readership. This will give your content and blog more exposure.
Below are some of the ways you can repurpose your content;
- By submitting your content to bookmarking and content curation sites such as Flipboard and Reddit every time you publish a new blog post.
- By republishing the content on platforms like Medium and LinkedIn. Remember to link back to your original articles to redirect your readers on those platforms to your blog.
You can drive traffic to your blog by sharing your ideas and being active on forums, Facebook groups and online communities in your niche. Also commenting on other blogs in your niche can give your blog more exposure.
Making Money from your Blog
There are many ways of monetizing your blog to generate a side income. Here are some of the most popular ways of monetizing your blog;
Advertising Networks
You can use advertising networks like Google AdSense and Media.net to run ads on your blog, which pays you according to impressions and clicks on your site. This is one of the easy ways to generate some revenue from your blog that is if you already have some traffic coming to your site. However, some ad networks like Google AdSense require that your blog must be at least six months old before you can apply.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing is another way of generating income from your blog. With affiliate marketing, you will receive a commission for referring a customer to a product or service you believe in.
This is usually done by displaying or discussing the product or service on your blog or Social media platforms. Examples of popular affiliate programs that are great for beginners are Amazon Associates, Patnerstack, Awin, Clickbank and Shareasale.
Selling your Own Products
Another great way of monetizing your making money from your blog is by selling products and services to your audience. Most established bloggers used this method to skyrocket their blog’s revenue and you can too. Once your blog starts generating a decent amount of traffic, you can create products to sell to them.
You can start selling on your blog by adding an online store to the blog. One way to add a store to your blog is by using a WordPress plugin called Woocommerce which easily integrates with your blog.
- Selling physical products
You can sell physical products such as Merch, Notebooks, and framed art to your audience. You can use sites like Printiful to manufacture and fulfil orders for you while you create the products and market them. This is one of the easiest ways of selling physical products without having to worry about manufacturing, fulfilling orders and shipping products to customers.
- Selling Digital Products
Most bloggers and influencers love selling digital products as it is one of the best ways to create a passive income online. Many of these content creators have made a lot of money selling digital products. You also take advantage of this gold mine by selling digital products like eBooks, courses, webinars and digital downloads to your audience either on your blog or on established marketplaces like Esty and Kajabi.
Selling digital products will greatly increase your blog’s revenue provided it gives value to your audience. One Major advantage of selling digital products is, it requires no overhead costs and shipping. Also, you’ll only have the products once and sell them multiple times.
Selling your Services to your Audience
One of the fastest and easiest ways to start generating income from your blog is by selling your services or expertise to your audience. Examples of freelance services you can render to people include:
- Social media management
- SEO services
- Marketing
- Writing services
- Virtual assistant
- Graphic designing
Sponsored Post
Another way bloggers make more money from their blogs is through Sponsored posts. This is where advertisers pay you to place a post about their products or service on your blog to get their products or service in front of your readers. However, this monetization method is viable when your blog has a considerable amount of visitors and developed an authority in your niche.
Selling a Paid Membership Program
Selling a paid membership program is also another great way of increasing your blog revenue. Running a membership program allows you to offer exclusive content to your members, who can access the platform only by paying an amount of money. Examples of content and services you can offer to your members are free consultations, private community forums or group and useful content.
