Blogging is the most recommended way of earning money. It is listed in almost every blog related to this topic and videos you can find on the internet. There are just a ton of them. Even I have an article like this here. This is your single destination to set up, start a blog, and earn money online through it
I love to write and read blogs and just like me millions of people on the internet love to read blogs and yes! you are also one of them. I don’t know that you had that question in your mind but I had. ” Do people still read blogs?” the answer is YES!
Let me explain it to you there are almost 1.5 billion websites on the World Wide Web. Google is the major traffic source for all of these blogs. Google served 100 billion searches a month. More than 70% of the search traffic goes to blogs only.
Not only this, Google is continuously reporting 10% growth each year which means there is still have room for opportunities for you. Without a doubt, blogging is still working in 2020. But now blogs grow in a different way. I mean those old methods of growing a blog are not as effective as they were. I will explain it in this article.
An average income of a blogger is $24k per year and there is no limit on how much more you can learn. Finally, let’s see how to start a blog. Patience is still needed in this because success does not grow overnight, It demands patience, sacrifice, and hard work. Keep that in mind!
How to start a blog?
1. Choose your niche
The first thing you need to decide is which niche you want to target. A niche is a group of people interested in the same thing. Before you start writing, you need to know for whom you want to write. Understanding your niche will help you to write in a better way.
If you don’t know which topic you should write on then I have a checklist for you. But in short, You can choose a topic in which you are most interested and you have plenty of knowledge about that.
You might think to start a blog to start anything on a single website, Like what a news website does, right? This is called a generic blog which does not work nowadays. Just telling you to save your time. Don’t do this if you really want to be successful in this.
2. Platform
This is the part where most people step back. There are two reasons, they choose the wrong platform or they just don’t continue. Because there are two ways of platforms some platforms are free and some are paid.
The most popular platform for a website or blog is WordPress.org. Wix, Squarespace is also popular nowadays. I personally use WordPress and I also recommend you to choose this because I already used all paid platforms but there is no match for WordPress. All of these platforms are paid.
Now let’s talk about free Platforms available. Blogger, Tumblr, WordPress.com are some popular examples. The best thing about these platforms is you don’t even need to spend any money. The worst thing about these platforms is Maybe you will not make any money.
Because they don’t give you much more flexibility and freedom to customize and edit your site there are many more reasons to not go with these. If you are really serious about making money with blogging then you need to do some investment for a self-hosted site.
3. Name your website
A domain name is the virtual address of your website or blog. your visitor can reach your blog by entering this in the URL field of the browser. choosing a blog can be a headache because good domain names are very hard to find.
Namechk is the best tool available to check if your desired name available or not, It also tells you, is your name available on social media platforms or not? which is a plus point.
The domain name can also help you rank your website on google. Let’s suppose, Your domain name is "Newyorklaptops.com". You can easily tell that this website is about some laptop stuff in New York, right? Google also gives it a preference when someone searches for “Laptops” and “New York”.
After deciding your name you can register it easily on Godaddy which is the largest domain name registrar and they provide really great deals. You can check it here.
Just follow these following steps to find the right domain name:-
- Choose a unique Domain name: Every domain name is unique and no one can purchase the same domain name again unless they forget to renew it.
- Make it easy to remember, type and keep it as short as possible: Think about a domain name and it is very obvious that the domain name you thought possibly had this rule. For example Google.com, Facebook.com, and amazon.com
- Use Keywords: Try to use the keyword on which you want to be your website ranked on google. Try to add some meaning to it if possible.
- Don’t use Special character and numbers: Special character can confuse any person if you use it in your domain name. It makes it difficult to type and sometimes difficult to understand. You shouldn’t use numbers in a domain name unless it has a meaning. For example Gadget360.com.
- Choose your domain extension: .com is recommended no matter what your niche is. But if you want to make your website categorized on the basis of their niche or type. For example, if you are running a non-profit organization then you should choose the .org extension. If you are blogging about some tech stuff then you also choose the .net extension. You can also categorize them on the basis of countries like, .us for the USA, .in for India, .ca for Canada.
There is a lot to tell you about this. For now, It is enough if you do focus on these things while choosing a domain name.
4. Choose the web hosting service
There are so many options out there in the market. I suggest you choose that fits your budget but don’t compromise with the quality, support, and speed of the hosting service you buy.
If your budget is good and you want fewer complications then go with the Bluehost hosting which provides you 1 press WordPress install along with great customer support which resolves queries in minutes. Bluehost provides a free .com domain name and a free SSL certificate for 1 year. You can get a discounted price of the hosting here.
Namecheap shared hosting is another great option which is really budget-friendly and I personally use this on this website. It comes with a free .website domain and 50 free SSL certificates. You can use these certificate hosting on the same hosting package you can unlimited addon domain access for stellar plus plan.
Name cheap is good but it is really difficult for a beginner to set up his blog in this. Because he will need to use the c-panel which is a bit difficult for a beginner. Check Namecheap shared hosting plan here.
Siteground is another great option like Bluehost but I see a performance increase when I Migrate one of my websites here which is still running well even after 6 months of use. Check out Sitegroud hosting plans here.
How to design a Blog
Designing is another step which is skipped by most of the bloggers on the internet personally I give up many times. When I start a blog I don’t know how to set up my blog in a professional and free.
There are plenty of themes in WordPress but I am going to tell you the most simple, easy to use, with a lot of features and free methods that I know for beginners.
The Vmag theme is my personal recommendation for a beginner who wants to start a blog it’s lightweight and comes with a free step-by-step guide for installation and set up a blog here.
But if you are really serious about your blog and ready to invest some money into it then I recommend you purchase an elegant theme package. It provides you super lightweight themes with many additional features. Currently, they are giving it in discount also so you can also check it out here.
There are many more options available. I am assuming that you are a beginner that’s why I don’t want to confuse you because I really want you to do this.
You can add some plugins to some cool things with your blog website.
Elementor:-
Elementor is a page builder plugin which gives you a very advanced and easy to use features so that you can design your website the way you want I personally use this plugin in this blog. it gives you many features like adding some cool animations into a blog resize and design borders of any element you use in this change for and colors or even an individual text or character.
You can edit every centimeter of a website with this plugin. It is compatible with many third-party plugins which can be used to extend its functionality. “Essential addons for Elementor” is helpful to set up your blog page.
Elementor is free but its free version can’t satisfy everyone’s needs but if you want to spend in only one or should I say All in one Plugin then you should invest in Elementor Pro it comes with so many features pre-installed which you can not find in any other plugins there. Like there you get inbuilt form builder and trust me you can do anything with that
You get every pro feature unlocked and it can add any feature that you might want on your website. You should definitely purchase this plugin. I assure you it can be the best purchase of your life because it does a lot for me. Still not convinced? Click here to see what you can do with the Elementor pro then click here to get your offer.
You can also do very great things with the free version if you use these plugins.
AddThis:-
This plugin is can solve all of your problems related to your blog’s shares on social media. It is very simple and easy to use easy to set up as well. This plugin provides floating social media share icons. “AddThis plugin” can automatically add social share buttons at the start or end of your blogs which is really helpful for your SEO efforts.
Ultimate Addons for Gutenberg:-
Gutenberg is the default editor in WordPress. I use Elementor for the design but if I talk about writing articles. Your articles should be as simple as possible. I only use Gutenberg for writing articles.
But compared to Elementor it has fewer features that’s why I use “Ultimate addons for Gutenberg”. This plugin can add some extra features in your default editor which you can use to try different things and experiments with the design of your article.
Everest form:-
The form of your blog helps you to collect leads but it also is a part of your blog or website design as well. I have tried so many forms available. The best was “Elementor pro in built form” which comes with the pro version only.
The other forms I use has no good design templates or option. If they have then they are paid and if they are free then they don’t give you your leads unless you paid.
That’s why I have a free option for you which has really great design and customization options for free. You should try “Everest form” and please ignore “WP forms lite”.
Now let’s talk about how your blog should look like?
I have given you so many tools to design your blogs in many different ways and you can test and experiment that what is good for you. I design a custom home page where I manually change blogs with the help of Elementor. The rest of the site pages are automatically modified when I post a new article. For example my blog page.
You can also use the Vmag theme default magazine design which is perfect for a blog website. You can also take inspiration from your favorite blog. Try and learn is the best practice I can suggest to you.
Speed up your site (Caching and Security)
The first thing after you start a blog should be setting up a CDN. You can do it by using Cloudflare. It’s free and you can do it very easily with the help of an article available on this site.
The full form of CDN is a content delivery network. It creates multiple copies of your Website on the internet. let’s suppose your website is hosted on a server that is available in the United Kingdom. your visitor who wants to access your site is in India.
It will take time to connect with the server because of its difference. On the other hand, CDN will create a copy of your website in a server located in India so that it can load faster.
Some plugins like W3 Total Cache which is a must-have plugin for a site have some features in it, which can complement your site.
Now let’s talk about some important plugins that you should install and activate
W3 total cache– It is a must-have plugin for all the bloggers around the world. This plugin helps your site to load faster on a browser because it helps to store a copy of your site in their computer offline. Which is its main feature and there is a detailed article here to get most out of it.
Wordfence security– It is pretty easy to set up just install and then it will guide you what to do and how to do. WordPress is secure but still, your WordPress should be updated for the latest bug fixes. The workforce security plugin will help you to secure it from hackers who are very active right now. So yes it’s a must-have plugin.
AMP Plugin– AMP is an open-source framework developed by Google in collaboration with Twitter. Accelerated Mobile Pages create better, faster experiences on the mobile web. At its core, the framework allows you to build lightweight experiences for mobile by simplifying the HTML and following streamlined CSS rules.
Setup your URL Structure (Permalink)
The URL structure is one of the most important settings you should set up before writing a blog or creating a page on your website.
It is very simple to do just login to your WordPress go to permalink and choose “post name” as the default save settings.
Link your website to track your performance
When you start publishing awesome content. You should keep track of your performance and the efforts you are making. There are some tools that you should use to do that.
Google analytics – It is a free easy to use and setup tool available to track your traffic information and make the decision according to that. It provides you the information about how many visitors are live on your site. Which are the most visited pages, from where your traffic is coming? It has many more features that you can use throughout your journey.
Search console– It is a great tool to keep track of your organic performance and also I have noticed that It can help you to be more visible on google search engines. You can submit your XML sitemap and you can track your keyword impression with their CTR and search queries also.
How to install Google analytics and search console
Site kit is the all in one plugin you need to set up these tools on your website. it is an official plugin by google and it provides you hesitation a free setup wizard and a dashboard so that you can check it without going to of these sites individually. Just install this plugin and you are all set up.
You can also submit a sitemap which helps Google to easily locate all the links in your site.
SEO
SEO means search engine optimization. You will change some settings and create some content according to the search engine guidelines so that it can rank higher in google. When you start a blog it is really important to so because if you don’t optimize your site you will not get enough visitors to generate a decent income.
For a start, you should work according to Google webmaster’s guidelines. First, you should get used to the guidelines and after that, you can start experimenting with content in the future. SEO is a long term, slow but effective way to get visitors on your site. You can get in touch with us for the latest updates on SEO.
Now let’s talk about some plugins which are going to help you in this long journey.
Yoast SEO– Yoast SEO is the first choice for the bloggers because it provides you some awesome tools. You can make sitemaps in it. It gives you score according to what you write in the post. Your goal should be to do whatever it tells you to do. If you keep doing this, very soon you will be able to write an article according to the SEO standards which can easily boost your rankings.
Rank Math– It is also a great plugin with a lot of features and comes with a setup wizard. It is very easy to set up and control. In simple words, this single plugin can work better than Yoast. Which is my choice but it’s on you what suits you best. just try that two one by one.
Write quality content
I suggest you just write detailed and useful content for the people genuinely with your heart because that is what Google wants from people. There are more than 1 billion websites on the world wide web so google has a lot of content to offer its users.
So focus on the quality instead of quantity. You will rank higher and faster if you do this. Take your time to write a great article and the rest of the things google will handle, just give it a try and you will see the results very soon.
Get Traffic
If you don’t get traffic on your site you are not going to make any money from it. It is very important to have visitors on your site. SEO is not the only way to get organic traffic on your site. There are many more ways to do that. Let’s have a look
Social Media
Facebook has over 2.3 billion users around the world. Instagram has over a billion. Tik Tok is the fastest growing platform that is the most downloaded social media app in the play store. There are many more social media platforms out there like Twitter, Linkedin, Snapchat, etc. The best about these platforms is no matter what your category is you will find any type of niche here.
What you have to do is post your content to social media as well you can do it by asking visitors to share it on their social media. You need to make a Facebook and Instagram page where you need to promote or post your blog whenever you write it. It takes a few minutes to do that.
To make graphics for your site or social media posts you can use Canva Which is a free graphic design software online and I personally use it. Social Media in itself is a very broad topic to talk about but for starters, you can do this and get in touch with for updates on social media as well.
Email Marketing
It is one of the easiest and best ways to get repeat traffic on your blog. Just sign up to email marketing platforms like Mailchimp, Convert kit, Aweber, etc. Choose one that suits you best after this. You need to embed it into your blog. You will also get plugins for most of them in WordPress. Which will make your work very easy.
Build backlinks and guest post
A backlink is a link to your site on another website. Suppose someone visits a site and read an article in which your website is mentioned. There are chances that the same person can also visit your website or blog. You can understand now how you can get traffic from this. This method is very helpful for your SEO effort as well.
Let’s see, how you can do that?
Ask for backlinks
You can ask for backlinks by contacting the webmasters you know. You can get their contact information on the about or contact page on their blog or website. You can contact them via social media also. You will face a lot of rejection in this method that’s why it is recommended you first build a relationship with the webmasters by actively commenting on their post or social media.
The main benefit of this is you can learn a lot from others as well.
Question answers site
There are a lot of question & answer sites available. Quora, yahoo answers are some popular examples. A very large number of people visit these sites for asking questions because they don’t find any answers related to their queries on the web. Bloggers also use these websites for finding new ideas for their next blog post. You can use this as well.
Simply search for questions related to your niche. Try to answer them and give a link to your blog post related to that question. You can get thousands of visitors by doing this.
Join social groups
There are a ton of applications on the internet, in which you can join the groups where many people like you can connect and share their ideas. Just connect, learn and share your ideas and blog with them it will help you a lot. Also, these groups motivate you to don’t give up easily. Because there is a possibility that for a long period of time you will not get any visitors or less.
But if you did all that I said then you no need to worry because I used all of these methods many times and every time I got results.
Guest post
Why someone will promote you without any benefit from them. Even you are not going to do that as well. In return, you need to give something that can be beneficial to them. If you don’t have any money to invest then you can write blog posts for them and you will get the opportunity to give your backlink in it. It is a win-win situation for you both.
Webmasters get an article for their website and you get a backlink that can boost your SEO and drive visitors to your blog.
Note:- You should only link your site to the relevant websites.
How to monetize your blog?
We start a blog, give it a good design and set it up properly for the best user experience. Now It’s time to extract some money from it. Let’s talk about some methods from where you can earn from your blog.
There is no such a fix method of earning from your blog and you can also try something new as well. I am going to tell about those methods which I use and most bloggers use it in this world.
All these methods take time to give you consistent results. So don’t assume that you will get rich in some days, weeks or months. In some case, it can take years.
Ads
By signing up on some ads platforms like Google Adsense, Media.net, propeller ads, Chitika, and revenue hits. You can run ads on your blogs. By signing up give them permission to show ads on your websites.
Google Adsense is the most popular and used ad platform ever used. It is recommended for beginners because it is very easy to use and setup.
When you start earning from it you can shift to other platforms as well to test which of these gives you the best results.
Personally and honestly I am not a big fan of running ads on my site for revenue. Because sometimes it interferes with my user’s experience. Also, there are many other better sources of income available.
Affiliate Marketing
You sell something for someone and in return, you get a commission for that. It is called affiliate marketing. It gives you far better results than ads. You get join affiliates programs of the products you used and they will give you an affiliate link. When someone clicks on that and purchase the product you get a commission for this.
Simply search on google ” affiliate+your product name” and you will find their affiliate program. If you want to know that a website is having an affiliate program or note simply go to the footer of their site. you will simply find an affiliate program link in it.
There are many other websites available that help you to join them easily like CJ.com, Clickbank, Jvzoo, etc. Just search for affiliate sites and you will find many of them. After that, you need to embed those links in your blog posts so that people can buy that product from the link you mentioned.
Sell your own products and services
In affiliate marketing, you get a percentage of the product sold on your site. If you sell your own product then you will earn more. This product can be your online course or it could your product that you can sell from your blog.
Make sure that your customers always get what you told them that you will give. Otherwise, you will lose them and they can consider you as a fraud. Which I am sure, you don’t want to be.
If you need any help you can easily find me on Instagram. Please provide any suggestions in my blog posts to make it better. I will really appreciate it.
Thank you!
