Tips to Help You Start a Blog and Make Money Online
If you’re passionate about something, then blogging about it and earning a passive stream of income is possible.
I must warn you though – a lot of people have followed this path but failed because they’re too ambitious yet unwilling to do the hard work. They give up after three months of not seeing results.
The truth is, making a name for yourself isn’t easy. It never will be! But again, making a living blogging can become a reality if you’re ready to tackle the challenges.
So, how do you start a blog and monetize it?
1. Think About Your Blogging Niche
One of the first and most important steps of creating a blog is to decide on its niche. Put simply, a niche is your website’s main topic. For example, your blogging niche can be car loans, baby care, or Christian dating.
Since you may already have something in mind, you’ll want to make sure that your topic of interest doesn’t get you zero returns. Here are ways to know whether your niche is profitable or not:
- Do keyword research to check the volume of searches per month.
- Visit Amazon and click “Best Sellers” to find out which products are selling best now.
- Use common sense. What are the things that most people spend their money on?
Remember that it’s important to pick a profitable blogging niche that you’re good at. That way, you’ll be able to easily come up with great content daily.
2. Set up Your Blog
After you are sure of your blog’s main topic, you’re now ready to create a blog. To do it, you need to follow three essential steps:
- Pick a blog platform.
- Get a domain name and web host.
- Design your website.
Pick a blog platform.
When it comes to selecting a platform for your website, there are tons of options to choose from. Great choices include WordPress.org, Squarespace, Wix, and Weebly.
However, many bloggers consider WordPress.org the best platform since they can easily create and publish content and customize it the way they like. What’s more, WordPress.org puts your search engine optimization needs in mind.
Get a domain name and web host.
Next, visit different domain name and web hosting services of 2017 to register one and get your site hosted. Let me be clear on this: Your domain name and host may or may not be under one service.
Make sure you’re satisfied with what you’re getting, especially with your hosting. Important aspects to consider are uptime, the control panel’s ease of use, availability of free CDN, and customer support.
Lastly, you’ll need to install your blog in your hosting account. It’s a good thing that a lot of web hosts nowadays provide a one-click install process or step-by-step tutorials for bloggers who hate dealing with technical stuff.
Design your website.
One thing you need to pay attention to is your blog’s design. Whether you choose a free or premium theme or have a web designer create a totally new theme for you, here are some design tips to follow:
- Maintain only 2-3 font types throughout your blog to avoid making it look messy.
- Pick color schemes that match. Use the color wheel as your guide.
- Be sure that your theme is mobile-optimized and doesn’t slow your blog down.
- Embrace more white space.
- Have a consistent look and feel for your call-to-action buttons.
Put in mind that a beautiful blog design is one that matches your brand or niche. Different colors have different meanings so you’ll want to be extra careful on selecting yours.
3. Start Monetizing Your Blog
How much money can you make blogging? That depends entirely on you, as there are many ways to earn income through your blog.
I’ve outlined three popular monetization techniques below:
Affiliate Marketing.
A common way to make money online, affiliate marketing is about earning a commission by promoting products from other brands.
Remember the part where I mentioned checking Amazon for your blogging niche? You can actually use that technique to find top selling products to promote if you’re interested to become an Amazon affiliate.
The advantage of choosing affiliate marketing is that you don’t have to invest time and money to create a product which might not sell!
One way to convince people to buy from you is to write daily blog content that readers find helpful. For example, if you are an affiliate of gardening tools, you can write a review about the top best garden tools or an article where you share tips on using those tools.
Create and sell an online course.
Are you good at a particular subject and want to teach people what you know? Starting an online course is a brilliant way to demonstrate your expertise.
You’ll be able to help people who want to know something right away without having to enroll in an expensive school. After joining your online course, they would be able to immediately put their learning into action.
You can sell your online course directly on your blog or at Udemy, where most people look for online courses. No matter what you choose, you’ll still need a blog to create content around your topic and promote it. That way, you can get more customers.
Write an ebook.
If you have a talent for writing, then creating an ebook is a great option. Amazon Kindle ebooks sell a lot these days since avid readers find it more convenient to read from their devices than a paperback.
The best thing about getting published on Amazon is that millions of people are ready to buy at any moment. Before writing an ebook, you need to do some research on genres that are most popular.
Promote your ebook on your blog by writing blog posts about your ebook’s topic. If you’re going to publish an ebook about dating and relationships, you’ll want to create content on dating tips and advice.
Over to You
Building a blog is only half the battle. Monetization is challenging but achievable….
There are, of course, other ways to monetize your blog other than the ones I’ve mentioned here. I hope that this post was able to help you get started with blogging. 🙂
August 17, 2017 @ 1:23 pm
I learned my lesson about picking a platform years ago — the moment Google shut down my Blogspot blog for no apparent reason. Thankfully I had my content backed up elsewhere.
Needless to say, always go with WP or something far more professional than a non self-hosted platform.
Thanks Kevin!
Elvis
August 17, 2017 @ 2:12 pm
Hi, Elvis!
I totally agree with you. Starting a self-hosted blog is definitely a better option. In addition to making you look professional, WordPress.org gives you the freedom to customize your site with great themes. You can also use plugins and do more with it. If you want to build a digital business, then this is the way to go. 🙂
Kevin
August 18, 2017 @ 1:03 pm
I have found wordpress to be just woderful; now I just need to optimize it for business!!
August 20, 2017 @ 10:01 am
Hi, Patrick! Yes indeed. There’s a lot of things you can do with WordPress.org for blogging, especially if you install the best tools/plugins.
August 19, 2017 @ 8:44 pm
Great tips and very logical. I’ve been in the process of monetizing my main site (started site in 2011 for my biz, but now starting to monetize). So far, for me, Amazon has been working well, as well as ads (as I get a bunch of traffic). Hoping to accelerate things further by the end of the year.
August 20, 2017 @ 10:05 am
Hello Richard,
That’s great news. By the way, what niche are you in? Yes, Amazon is among the top affiliate programs and there are a lot of stuffs you can choose from. Glad to know yours is working well and good luck on your business! 🙂
Kevin
August 25, 2017 @ 10:29 am
That’s great to hear, Rich!
Did you implement traditional ads just recently? And if not, have you found any negative effects after ad-blockers became popular?
Wishing you continued success 🙂
Elvis
August 20, 2017 @ 9:41 am
I think wordpress is great for blogging it has everything what a blogger need to start a blog and earn from it.
August 20, 2017 @ 10:07 am
I agree. I’ve personally tried other platforms in the past and WordPress is by far the best. Thank you for your comment!
August 27, 2017 @ 9:37 pm
Awesome one Kevin,
Nice post. WordPress remains my main stay. If I’m to build a thousand blogs I will still still choose WordPress. Blogger dealt with me and is still dealing with me on one of my blogs using blogger platform.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here.
Emenike
August 30, 2017 @ 3:39 pm
Hi Emenike,
Have you tried other website builders/platforms? There’s this speed issue on WordPress that I keep on reading. And security too (with the WP plugins that are widely available).
However, I still love WordPress because of the “look and feel” it gives to my blog posts, especially the customization options.
Unless there’s a better one that WordPress (in terms of blogging) that someone can recommend, I would like to check it out.
Thank you for your comment and have a great day! 😉
August 31, 2017 @ 7:32 am
Hi Kevin,
Great tips on starting a blog and monetizing it. I personally use WordPress as my blogging platform of choice.
Love your tips about creating a course. That’s what I plan on doing in the future, once my traffic and tribe grow more.
I’ve already written an ebook and it’s on my site. Now I need to just add it to Amazon. This is something that I’ve been putting off because I’ve never published on Amazon.
This means that I’ll have to spend time learning how to do something else.
Thanks for sharing these tips, I know that they will help bloggers learn how to start and monetize their blog.
Have a great day 🙂
Susan
September 4, 2017 @ 12:16 am
Hi Susan,
I’ve tried using other platforms like Kajabi and Shopify and indeed, nothing comes close to WordPress in terms of blogging. By the way, have you heard of Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) service? That’ll help you get your book out faster 🙂
You’re welcome, Susan. You have a great day yourself!
Kevin
September 26, 2017 @ 5:23 am
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for the article, you got it all covered!
Useful and interesting read. 🙂
October 8, 2017 @ 1:22 am
Hello, Kevin!
I haven’t been into the money making side of the blogging but I find it the right time to jump into it, nope?
To get me rolled into this awesome blog post, I was once the all-niche blogger writing about every single thing and anything which I could think of on my just one blog.
With that, I did not do good (and how can I do good at all?)
Glad that I found my own voice; my one voice which I am so satisfied in pursuing since 2015.
To the start, I feel like starting with the affiliate marketing and later write some eBooks upon my enhanced knowledge which I’ll hopefully gather by the time.
Courses are indeed the better option but I am still not so good with what I do but will surely hit some in the near or far future. 🙂
Thanks for the great pointers!
~ Adeel
October 31, 2017 @ 2:59 pm
I’m a huge proponent of affiliate marketing when it comes to monetizing a blog. The main reason being, it comes off a lot less spammy than using advertisements and provides the reader with actual value.
That is as long as you’re not making every image in your article an affiliate link, instead just naturally linking throughout the article using anchor text.
Always write for your audience! Not to make money.
November 29, 2017 @ 10:58 am
Amazing blog it was very helpful
Thanks for the article, you got it all covered!
Useful and interesting read