How To Start A Blog And Make Money Blogging In 2021
The ultimate guide for new bloggers to learn:
How To Start A Successful Blog In Simple Step-By-Step Guide
Did you know that over 50% of the blogs that are going to be created today will fail within their first 90 days of existence?
These are not small numbers
- There are over 152,000,000 blogs on the blogosphere.
- Every 0.5 seconds, a new blog post is published daily.
- WordPress CMS powers over 76.5 million blogs.
Now, here is another devastating sad fact,
What happens to most blogs?
The blogs that survive their initial 90 days will receive less than 1,000 visitors per month. And on top of that, most blogs that survive past 90 days, will earn less than $100 per month!
If I may ask you, why is that so?
As you ponder about that, let me be quick to say that, after starting several blogs that all failed miserably...
I knew that there was something amiss.
It's for that reason why we have published this blog post for anyone looking for an in-depth free guide on how to start a successful blog that attracts readers and makes you money.
Here's how to start a successful blog in 2020
The Definitive Guide On How To Start A Blog
You must have seen some of those commercial ads all about starting a blog. They make it seem so easy, right?
You click a few buttons, add some text and images, embed a video and ab·ra·ca·dab·ra...yeeha. Here we go, get ready. You made it!
You're now a proud owner of a beautiful blog with raving fans and a growing customer base that keeps shopping and buying and shopping.
How I wish it were that simple.
Of course, you know it's doesn't work that way.
Creating a blog is simple.
Anyone can start a blog, get it set-up, and running in less than 20 minutes from now. And that's just the beginning, which happens to be the easiest part when creating a blog.
Now here is the hard part that most blogging guides and commercial ads don't like to talk much about.
Starting a successful blog that will thrive and succeed in the long run, is an entirely different ball game.
It's a long process that takes time, money, and effort.
That is what this guide is all about, "how to create a successful blog."
This is the moment when most people looking for an easy, non-existence way to create a successful blog, will drop off.
But you, you're serious about starting a successful blog...
How To Start A Blog That You Can Grow Into A Business
If you head over to Google and search for the phrase "how to start a blog," you will see a lot of ads like the one shown below:
You are also going to find some compelling guides about blogging that you're going to love.
Like the one shown below.
The mere fact that we have ads about how to start a blog...
And also, the fact that there are real bloggers publishing blog posts documenting their blogging experience, tells us one thing:
That blogging is mainstream.
Start A Blog To Help Others
Do you have a wealth of knowledge, a particular skill, or a hobby you enjoy? If so, you can take your knowledge, skill, or hobby and share it with others.
Starting a blog is a great way to help other people.
With a blog, you can build a thriving online business around what you already know and love to do.
Start A Blog To Help Aid Good Causes Or Influence Public Policy
Some people don’t think that they can be an influential voice to be reckoned with in your sphere!
Did you know that starting a blog gives you a unique way to let your voice be heard and be influential within your circle?
Your voice is important. Blogging is a great way to use your voice to help aid good causes. It’s also a great way to work on influencing public policy.
Start A Blog To Make Money Online
One of the most popular reasons why ordinary folks start a blog is because they want to earn extra income and gain financial freedom.
Did you know that some bloggers have been able to turn their blog into a lucrative online business? If you’re willing to do the work, blogging has the potential to enable you to earn extra money.
There are 3 main component that goes to starting and managing a successful blog:
This is where the rubber meets the road. It's the second component and ingredient.
How To Start A Blog And Grow Your Audience
You're here, probably because you want to start a blog...
And if my guessing is correct, you have seen them, right? The online ads, radio, and TV commercials about how to start a blog. They're all over! No matter where you go, they keep following you, and they won't stop!
They promise you that:
You can start a blog in 20 minutes and that it's fast, easy, and fun!
Okay. Setting up a beautiful blog is quick and easy, that I agree. That's is why everybody is doing it. It's also the reason why most blogs fail.
If you are an individual seeking notoriety, a job-seeker who is looking to advertise your talents, skills, and knowledge, a student, an entrepreneur, a newbie, a small business owner, a consultant, or a CEO of a major corporation.
It does not matter. Starting a blog is a smart decision, and it's fast and straightforward.
But, what is the point, is it smart to start a blog, quick and easy and fail within the first three months, or is it better to take your time to plan and do it right?
Maybe a few years from now, you'll be thankful for making the right choice!
If you're contemplating about "how to start a blog" that people will read, connect, and engage with: you've come to the right page.
You're about to begin the journey.
On this page, you're going to learn about 10 actionable steps you can implement to create a successful blog that attracts thousands of loyal readerships and new opportunities.
Start your free guide on how to start a blog today
How To Start A Blog The Right Way: Big Overview Picture
1.) Select A Profitable Niche
This is the most important step. Most bloggers fail miserably because of this. You can't afford to!
2.) Set Up Your Own Blog
Time to buy a domain name and web hosting, install WordPress, choose a theme and plugins
3.) Write, Publish And Promote
This is the stage where you publish high quality content and distribute it to your audience
4.) Make Money Blogging
Unless you're only blogging just because it's fun, this is the place and time to test, analyse and optimize
How To Create A Successful Blog: A Blogger's Quick-Overview
What We Like
What We Don't Like
Summary
How To Start A Blog In 10 Steps - Quick Navigation
1. Find A Profitable Niche
If you want to start a successful blog, you must find a niche market for your blog.
Keeping your blog within a niche market makes it easier for you to plan, focus, and have a direction for your blog. It also makes it easier for the new and regular audience to connect with you and understand the purpose of your blog.
That seems fun and easy to do, but did you know that for most bloggers, finding a profitable niche market is one of the hardest steps to do when starting a blog?
The easiest way to discover a profitable niche is to ask yourself the following 4 questions:
- 1What is it that you're really passionate about,
- 2What knowledgeable, talents and skills do you posses,
- 3What problems have you identified and know how to solve,
- 4What opportunities are being under-served by your competitors?
For example, ask yourself, are you able to help other people by doing what you love to do?
Maybe you’ve learned how to take care of people having dementia, and as a trained caregiver, you want to help people with dementia by educating families about better ways to take care of dementia patients at home.
Maybe you want to help other people to learn how to cook because you have a passion for cooking.
Maybe you have a passion for buying, renovating, and selling houses. Maybe you want to learn something new and share your journey along the way.
Okay, here is a spoiler alert! Some people will love to learn what you know. You can start a blog and use it to help others by sharing your experience and expertise.
But still, the question remains,
How do you go about selecting a profitable niche market for your blog?
How to find a niche in 3 different ways
Blog About Your Passion
The most profitable niche will be the one that you’re passionate about.
Blogging about what you’re passionate about will keep you motivated as you build your blogging business from the ground up.
You want to build your blog around a niche that you can write about regularly and indefinitely.
Share Your Knowledge, Skills, Or Life Experiences
Did you know that your skills, knowledge, and life experiences you’ve accumulated over time can be precious to someone else?
Here is what you need to do, make a list of your skills, and the knowledge you possess.
They can offer an excellent niche idea that will prove lucrative for you.
Turn your experience, skill, or knowledge into a blog that will help other people.
Follow The Money – Learn A New Skill
Some of the most profitable but very competitive niche markets to blog about include but not limited to niches such as loans, credit cards, gaming, digital cameras, mortgages, finance, and the list goes on.
But wait a minute!
What if you know nothing about these profitable niches?
If you’re willing and ready to compete, you can always learn a new skill and knowledge, and get yourself involved in a niche that is already lucrative.
2. Choose A Blogging Platform
The second step you need to do is to choose a blogging platform.
But keep in mind that, the most important step on how to start a blog and make money blogging is to find a profitable niche you'll be comfortable to blog about unless, of course, you want to blog for fun!
A blogging platform is a content management system that manages your blog.
Many blogs fail because they choose the wrong blogging platform even though they're in a profitable niche market. You need to choose a blogging platform like WordPress.org.
Many bloggers love using WordPress.org.
WordPress blogging platform allows bloggers to customize their blogs by installing their favorite plugins and themes. If you can't find free plugins or themes, you can always buy premium WordPress themes and plugins, or you can hire a WordPress developer to custom code for you.
In doing so, most bloggers can make their blog look the way they want, be user-friendly and interactive. Read about the 15 of the best blogging platforms.
With WordPress content management system, as long as it's codable, you can do anything you want to do with your blog.
3 Reasons why most bloggers choose WordPress.Org
Add-On WordPress Plugins And Themes
WordPress is an open-source content management platform. Just about any willing WordPress developer can contribute to making its source code better, or they can build their custom plugins and themes.
Most of the themes and plugins are free. Even the premium versions are much more affordable compared to paying for a custom build website.
Unlimited Customization Options
WordPress provides unlimited customization options.
By adding plugins and widgets to a basic theme, you can transform the simplistic appearance and functionality to correspond to the blog idea you have in mind.
WordPress has an intuitive content management system (CMS).
WordPress CMS enables bloggers to use plugins to put together a complex project without learning how to code or needing the assistance of a website designer or developer.
Frequent Updates And Support
Bugs are dealt with quickly and efficiently, giving you a website that’s safe from hacking and malware. Bugs are dealt with quickly and efficiently, giving you a website that’s safe from hacking and malware.
You don’t need to have a lot of knowledge and experience to launch a WordPress blog.
If you face some issues during the setup or the operation, you’ll get adequate and easy to follow tips on how to solve the problem.
3. Choose a Domain Name
In this step, you're going to learn how to register a domain name for your blog.
The right domain name is the one that will brand your blog by creating the right impression about what your blog is all about. For that reason, you may want to stay away from free domain names.
Let's again use the example we had used in step one - cooking as your passion.
You'll now want to look for a phrase that is related to your passion (cooking).
If you find that "Healthy Cooking Recipes" is a phrase you like, then you should choose a domain name that includes part of or all of that phrase.
Bear in mind that because of competition, it may take a little creativity, playing around with phrases and ingenuity before you'll be able to find a phrase that you'll be able to register as your domain name. Read more about 11 tips on how to purchase a domain name for your blog.
Notice that the phrase you choose contains the word "Cooking," which describes your passion. People will know that if they visit your blog, they'll are going to learn how to cook healthy recipes.
Why you should keep your domain names and email separate from your web hosting
Avoid A Single Point Of Failure
If your web hosting provider goes down, you lose your hosting, your e-mail, and your domain name in a single swipe. Keeping them separate prevents that from happening all at once.
If there is an extended service outage, your whole business and website become ineffective until your hosting provider has everything back up and running. Meanwhile, you could be losing a lot of money.
Add An Extra Layer Of Security
When everything bundled up together, hackers have an easier time gaining access to all your information from one central place.
A quick security fix to this problem is to separate your domain name, e-mail, and web hosting accounts and not have them relying on one service provider.
Gain More Freedom And Options
If you have a lot of websites and domain names, you can choose to keep your domain names in a single place for easier management but move your sites based on their needs to a various web hosting companies.
That way, you avoid paying for hosting packages that cost you a fortune solely for the convenience of keeping your domain and website together.
4. Find The Best Web Hosting Company
You'll need to host your WordPress blog.
There are many web hosting companies that provide WordPress hosting services.
Choosing the right hosting provider and web hosting plan for your WordPress blog can be intimidating. The folks at WordPress recommend
- 1Bluehost web hosting company
- 2Dreamhost web hosting company
- 3SiteGround web hosting company
A good web hosting company not only stores your blog and its content on their servers, but also makes sure that your blog is available and accessible to the world 99.999% of the time.
One common web hosting mistake new bloggers make is the tendency to choose a free or cheap hosting service to host their blog as opposed to selecting a hosting provider that is fast, secure, and reliable.
It's essential to make sure you choose the best web hosting service because your business depends on good hosting services.
Choose a WordPress hosting service that provides fast, secure and excellent customer support.
3 Factors to consider when choosing a good web hosting company
More Speed
The speed at which your web pages load is essential to the success of your website.
Your website loading time will affect how your pages rank in the search engine results.
If your website loads slow, people will leave your site.
Your website should load in just seconds. Your web hosting must offer well-optimized servers that support high-speed connections to ensure your website loads quickly to keep visitors on your site.
Top-Notch Security
A good web hosting company provides top-notch security to protect your website and your customers from hackers and WordPress security breaches.
Choose a web hosting plan that provides high security that safeguards private, personal, and financial data that passes through your site.
A good hosting company makes use of secure servers to ensure that your data and that of your visitors are always kept safe.
Reliable Customer Support
Choose a web hosting company that has a track record of providing excellent technical and customer support to its existing clients.
If your site ever goes down, you want to be sure that you can contact your web host and talk to a person. You also want to ensure that the support staff can get your website up and running quickly.
5. Install WordPress On Localhost
WordPress is free and open-source software.
You can download and begin using it immediately.
Thankfully there are two relatively simple ways that you can go about it.
This is the preferred method that most new, intermediate, and advanced bloggers use to install WordPress blogs in the least time possible. That's why its referred to as the famous 5 minute WordPress installation.
You will need a web host provider with cPanel access for installing WordPress and creating a database. However, if you don't have time to perform these steps, then you may want to:
The most significant advantage of working with a WordPress specialist is that they will be able to install your WordPress blog and have your site up and running within the shortest possible time-frame.
A WordPress specialist can develop a custom WordPress theme that incorporates your company branding.
A professional WordPress developer can also install the right plugins that will add value and functionality to your website and be able to install security solutions that protect your site from hackers and rogue software.
6a. Choose A WordPress Theme
Over a decade ago, Matt Mullenweg and Mile Little created and released WordPress.
Since that time, WordPress has developed into one of the most highly-respected and popular CMS. Today, millions of websites owned by small to fortune 500 companies around the world, dependent on WordPress CMC to run and manage their sites.
First, you want to choose a WordPress theme to spice up its aesthetics.
Because of competition, you'll want your blog to stand out by choosing a responsive, beautiful WordPress theme that has been professionally designed and is user-friendly.
Pick a theme with colors, design, and layout, which appeals to your senses and brands your blog. And then add plugins to enhance your blog's capabilities.
In today's world of innovation and technological advancements, most WordPress themes that are currently available are easy to set up, load extremely fast, and have a Responsive Design.
The WordPress theme you choose could make the difference between a successful blog that delivers results or a blog that fails miserably.
3 Factors to consider when choosing a good WordPress theme
Premium WordPress Themes Vs Free Themes
Each WordPress theme comes with its pros and cons. Choose a WordPress theme that has a clean, well-written code that is optimized for speed and security.
Choose a WordPress theme that is extremely easy to set up, does not require a lot of additional work to work, and is within your budget!
A Good WordPress Theme Loads SUPER Fast!
A well-optimized WordPress theme is critical when it comes to the success of your visitor engagement and retention and your search engine ranking.
If your pages load too slowly, online readers will leave. Speed is a critical component when it comes to search engine optimization.
Choose WordPress Theme That Has A Responsive Design
Your WordPress theme should be responsive, is very user-friendly, and provide the optimal viewing experience for your visitors.
Choose a theme that is responsive to a wide assortment of internet-accessible devices such as mobile phones, tablets, eReaders, laptops, and desktops without the added complication of resizing the content or scrolling.
6b. Choose The Best WordPress Plugins
One of the reasons why WordPress is the most popular CMS is because of it's versatility and flexibility to install WordPress plugins that change the performance and function of your blog.
However, because of the sheer number of a seemingly, endless list of WordPress plugins available for download, it can be challenging to find and choose the right plugin for your blog.
For starters, the general rule of thumb is to obtain an overview of user feedback by reading the reviews and ratings of the available plugins. Remember, it's not necessary to install all the WordPress plugins available for download.
Start with plugins with the highest rated reviews, but don't ignore the ones with low ratings. More popular plugins will generally have more community support compared to plugins without a strong user base.
Choosing the best WordPress plugin for your blog is much easier if you know exactly what to look out for and what to avoid.
To help you out, we've put together a list of the top WordPress plugins that every blogger ought to install on their WordPress blog to harness the power of WordPress.
Top 3 factors to consider when choosing a good WordPress plugin
Read The Plugin Ratings And Reviews
It’s a good idea to read reviews that are articulate and detailed so that you can have confidence that the ratings are a fair representation of the plugin.
Some plugins have thousands of reviews and ratings on the official WordPress website as well as on other third-party sites. These reviews will tell you more about how other website owners feel about the plugin.
Check For Plugin Compatibility Issues
Before installing a plugin, scroll down to the main description and read more about the plugin to see if there are any on-going compatibility issues.
The plugin description will tell you the minimum WordPress version requirement as well as the version of WordPress that the plugin is compatible to run on.
Install only the plugins that are up-to-date with a version of WordPress you’re running.
Find Out If The Plugin Developers Offer Customer Support
Be wary of downloading a plugin that is no longer supported by the developer or the WordPress community.
Before you install a WordPress plugin, ensure that, at a minimum, there is no warning alerting you that the plugin is not up-to-date for some time.
Also, try to see if there is a support forum about the plugin that you can find on the internet.
7. Publish Unique Content
Once you've started your blog, installed your favorite theme and plugins...
The next logical step is to start publishing informative, entertaining, and shareable content on your blog.
Writing and publishing content to your blog is easy.
The most challenging part is understanding how to get the right people to visit your blog and read your content.
Always write something useful to your readers. Your goal is to stick to writing and publishing content that is useful, informative, persuasive as well interesting to read.
Good copywriting vs bad copywriting
The good news for you is that many online copy-writing courses will not only train you on how to publish great content online but also they will teach you how to distribute your content and reach a broad audience.
When you consistently publish great content, your blog audience will catch the fun syndrome and will keep coming back to your blog to read, engage with you, and share your content.
3 Simple tips for writing persuasive blog content
Most Of Your Posts Should Be Short
The sweet spot is between 700 and 1500 words. Keeping your blog short will help keep your readers engaged without losing their attention.
You can also publish longer content for SEO and product releases. Your blog posts should contain content that is concise and easy to digest.
Important Information Should Be Covered In The Introduction
Your readers need to know what subject your blog post is covering. They also want to see the benefit they are going to take away from it.
People have limited time.
People want to know that if they commit themselves to something, even if it is five minutes of their life, that commitment is going to be of benefit to them.
Understand That Not Everybody Will Read Your Whole Post
Even when you present the information upfront and keep things simple, most people will scan through your blog posts, looking for specific information.
Use enticing headings and subheadings.
Make sure to use visual media that is relevant, interesting, and compelling. Keep paragraphs short so that it is easy to pick up vital points at a glance.
8. Promote Your Blog
Once you start a blog and you are actively publishing unique content, the next thing you want to do is to start attracting readers to your new blog. Promoting your blog can be intimidating.
It's not easy for new bloggers to consistently attract a large volume of traffic.
Don't entertain the false belief that if "you build it, they will come."
Hardly people know your blog exists. It takes time to build your brand. Learn more about how to promote your blog and get new subscribers.
There are hundreds of ways to promote your blog and drive traffic or instance, with a little upfront effort, you'll make friends with influencers in your target market who will in-turn help you get noticed in your niche market.
Social media sites contain 100% real human traffic.
Be strategic using social media sites to promote your blog and remember that social media traffic is not for free.
Guest blogging offers you the opportunity to network with other bloggers.
When you guest blog, you're also optimizing your blog in the search engines. Write content for other bloggers to publish on their blogs in exchange for them linking back to your blog. Just know that search engine optimization strategies take time to work.
The quickest way to send targeted traffic to your blog and also to boost your conversions is to use paid traffic sources. It will cost you money.
With paid traffic sources, you have to make sure that you know your ROI.
3 Reasons why it's important to promote your blog
Get More Traffic
A well planned and executed blog promotion strategy will help you increase website traffic to your blog, capture more leads, and make sales online.
This is especially true if your main goal for starting a blog was for monetary gains, and you want to improve your business publicity and exposure.
Capture More Leads
Treat every page of your blog as if it was your landing page.
Include a call to action on every post. It can be subtle without ruining the content flow of your blog post.
A well-thought call to action will help you to capture more leads, allowing you to maintain a more effective sales funnel and improve your ROI.
Make More Sales
Placing calls to action promoting your top content, free trials, free consultations, or sign-up to specific mailing lists will engage your audience and boost conversions.
Blog promotion is essential since it improves your online visibility, and it also helps in generating traffic, capturing leads, and increases sales!
9. Make Money Blogging
Each time you browse on the internet, you must have read some of the stories about ordinary folks just like you and me, working full or part-time hours, struggling to pay bills and barely scraping by and then suddenly,
They discovered a life-changing online business opportunity that took their dire financial situation and transformed their income earning potentials.
The stories then conclude how these people were able to gain their financial freedom, travel the world, and get to spend more time with friends and family.
If you happen to be one of the unlucky ones...
You probably ended up getting sold into the so-called-money-making-opportunities such as "paid to read email, take online surveys, and perhaps MLM (Multi-level marketing) or junk affiliate marketing program."
We all know how these wild money chasing adventures end.
If you are reading this, I can almost guarantee you that those get-rich-quick online opportunities will not transform your life or your money situation. If you go ahead and invest your hard-earned money...
Listen to me; chances are you're NOT going to earn one red cent from those "money-making opportunities."
If you want to learn about how to start a successful blog the right way and build a successful online business that will not only allow you to earn money, but over time, it's going to let you quit your day job eventually...
And transform you into a better you while at the same time helping other people to become their better selves!
If you're not looking for a get-rich-quick opportunity and you're willing to work smart, hard, and persistent to succeed, then learn more about how to make money blogging from home!
Top 3 ways you can improve your chances to make money blogging online
Never Stop Acquiring New Knowledge
Blogging is a very competitive niche.
If you stop learning and perfecting your skills, another blogger will seize the opportunity and appeal to your audience.
You have to learn new advanced blogging techniques. The more curious and willing you are to evolve, the more success you’ll likely achieve as a blogger.
Get Help From Mentor
Learning through trial and error is an excellent approach to discover new blogging techniques, but it can be very time-consuming.
Instead of struggling on your own, find someone to guide you through the blogging process.
A mentor or having someone to look up to will make it much easier to figure out blogging strategies that deliver results and tactics that fail miserably.
Invest In Your Blog
You can’t just start a free blog and expect to make money blogging online. You have to approach blogging as a business and come up with a budget.
Even though the investment required to start a blog is minimal, if you want to make money blogging, you may have to invest in your blog theme and plugins to make it professional and appealing.
10. Invest In Blogging Tools And Resources
Typical a blog is an entertaining, informational, and discussion site.
A robust blog always has to be regularly updated. And a successful blogger is one that stays informed about breaking trends and new opportunities.
An essential component of your new blog and online business is keeping abreast of useful blogging resources and tools. You have to keep learning new ways that will make you a better blogger.
That does not mean that you have to sign up for every information source you come across. You have to be proactive by not buying everything that comes your way promising to turn you to a pro-blogger.
To achieve success, what you want to do as a blogger is to work smart and work hard.
Not only does a blog allow you to expand and grow personally, but it also allows you to grow professionally! A successful blog will help you to advance your personal growth, help you move up in your career, be able to express your opinions, and improve your financial situation!
Once you get your blog up and running, sooner or later, most bloggers discover that to advance, you'll have to invest in a few blogging resources and tools to enjoy many successful tomorrows!
3 Reasons why you should start a blog today
Advance Your Career
As innovative and technological advancements continue to develop in our digital-based world.
More employers than ever before are turning to online resources; such as social media platforms and blogs, to discover new talent.
If you are seeking to advance your career, you may utilize a blog to outline your skills, specific talents, and expound more about your life experiences.
Start A New Business
If you are an entrepreneur and have a desire to start a new business, you will need to build your brand and trust within your industry as well as your potential customers.
Blogging is one easy way to build trust and a brand!
A blog is a highly-productive means of engaging with your audience and people that have a future vested interest in your business, such as investors.
Connect And Engage With Potential Clients
If you have an existing business, you may start a blog and use it to boost conversion and sales by engaging with former, active, and potential clients.
You may blog about your products, services, offers, and discounts!
It's wise to start a blog for your business and use it to communicate and engage with your customer base.
Making money with a blog is about publishing quality content that helps your readers to solve their problems.
The more people you help, the more money you earn.
Starting a successful blog can be complicated, will require your time and effort, and it's going to cost you money. I hope this blog post has been a helpful resource that has shed more light on how to start a blog in 10 steps.
You can review those steps by clicking the button below:
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