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Hey there to everyone looking for an easy, step-by-step guide to learn how to start a blog as quick as in 20 minutes or less without any coding skills!
My name is Ryan chase, a digital marketer, a full-time blogger and the proud creator of a popular blog called – bloggersplan.com. I also published a completely free step-by-step blogging course for beginners!
I’ve been active in the world of online marketing and blogging for a long time now and helped a lot of people with simple issues, others with baby steps towards their goals and in some cases assisted to change their lives.
I made it up to earning 6-figures per month by driving millions of visitors to my blogs while leaving my life to its fullest and I know few things about the importance of not wasting your time on incomplete, misleading information which can be found all around the web.
That’s the exact approach I took while creating my free in-depth course and this free “how to start a blog” guide for anyone who wants to join and start a blog.
You might want to build your blogging career or do it part-time, for fun, it’s totally up to you.
But, one thing for sure – My journey helped me to learn a lot of things about this market, a lot of tricks and more methods to make it. And I definitely know what any beginner needs at this stage to actually START!
I created a free step-by-step, “how to start a blog” guide for beginners in order to make sure that my visitors are easily able to start their blogging journey, the right way without any unnecessary confusion.
Click here to jump to the launching step!
Blogging is simple and it should always feel that way! Especially at the very beginning of your journey!
Unfortunately, there was no free guide like this back when I was just a beginner. That led me to a lot of stupid mistakes, waste of time and money.
Long story short… I promised myself that one day, I would create a FREE step-by-step guide for beginners to make sure that nobody goes through the same needless uncertainties.
So, I did just that!
This guide will take you through the whole process, step by step and will answer all of the possible questions you might have at this stage regarding how to start a blog, how to set it up, how to drive traffic, make money out of it etc. I filled it up with all of the pieces I can think of to make sure that this guide will fill in all of the gaps.
And even if it won’t, you can ask me personally and I will make sure to answer your questions!
Why You Should Start A Blog
There are a lot of reasons why people start a blog and blogging in general and I’m pretty sure you can find your reason in the list below:
To Have Fun
There were times when blogging was just for fun. The same thing is possible today as well, some people just blog to share their thoughts, ideas, stories. Some of them do it without any intention to monetize, at all…
But, keep in mind that there are a lot of ways to earn money without even being commercial about blogging.
To Communicate With People Sharing The Same Interests
Got a story to tell? Others want to listen. Got an opinion? Others want to read it. Want to communicate with people who like the same stuff which you are talking about? Others want it too. A blog is a great platform to do that.
Grow A Brand / Become Popular
A blog can draw so much attention and easily attract traffic. Well-established brands like Coca-Cola and others, people trying to turn themselves into the influencers, sports teams etc. All of them are using the blogging platform.
On the other hand, as I’ve already mentioned, blogging is amazing for those who want to make money with it!
Side Hustle
Some people like their “real-life” job. That’s terrific. But there is always room for some side hustle, isn’t there?
Extra Money
A lot of people start blogging to earn some extra cash each and every month. Students do that, adults do that, successful people do that. Everybody wants some extra cash and blogging makes it so easy.
Even people blogging for fun can easily make some extra cash with ads and affiliate marketing. Why not?
Especially when it can be done without any extra effort.
Build An Online Career/Start A Business
Blogging for money has become an enormous market. People around the world are quitting their boring, pointless, time-consuming jobs and switching to online careers and start changing their lives. They acknowledge that their time is too precious to waste it, especially when there is a legit chance to take full control of it.
Trust me, I’m living proof of that fact – I’m making up to 6-digits each and every month! And I’ve been doing that for the past 2 years now! Not just that but, I’m as happy about my life and career as I could’ve ever imagined. My blogging career can take full credit for that!
Okay… that’s the basic view of the reasons why people start blogging, but I like to think about those reasons otherwise. All of them can be put together in one simple word:
Freedom– Blogging platform offers people a lot of free choices! A choice to express yourself, a choice to earn money the way you want it without selling your soul, a choice for the proper mix of the life-work balance, a choice for the time-management, a choice for developing the comfort-zone and so on…
I can honestly say that one of the best decisions I made in my life was to learn “how to start a blog”. Period!
Blogging For Money?
In case you are interested in blogging for money, here are some answers to the most frequent questions:
How much can you make?
Well, this question basically has no answer. You can make as much as you are willing to. Sounds a little unrealistic? Don’t worry, it should sound that way at this stage. In fact, not a lot of people know about that “perception”.I actually teach it in my “Limitless Blogger” course. Long story short –It is all up to you!
How fast can you make money?
It truly depends. It depends on the amount of it as well as the long-term goal.
You can make thousands from the first month and you can make them after 6 months, it’s all about the tactic you choose.
Isn’t it too late to join?
Too late for what? There’s plenty of room for new blogs just as there is a growing interest in the new content which you can bring to the table. Unique or not, it brings the content and people want to get that content, so you can always offer them something new.
Okay, now that we addressed the elephant in the room, let’s switch back to the main topic of the day:
There’s absolutely nothing hard about starting a blog other than actually STARTING it.
This guide will cover all of the steps needed to launch a soon-to-be successful blog:
- Step 1 – The START – Make the first steps to starting a blog by choosing the niche, domain, hosting.
- Step 2 – Get A Blog – Take action and actually learn HOW to start a blog, create a blog and publish it online.
- Step 3 – Use & Publish Your Blog – Get into your blog and try the basics.
- Step 4 – Customize Your Blog – Customize the blog to make it look ready.
- Step 5 – Fill Up Your Blog – Write, organize and disturb your content.
- Step 6 – Drive Traffic To Your Blog – Learn how to attract visitors to your blog.
- Step 7 – Make Money Blogging (Optional) – Go through all of the ways to make money blogging.
Now, it’s time to start the start!
(Advice: To have a better experience of following this step-by-step guide, try doing it from a computer device to take the full advantage of a simple sticky navigation panel!)
From my experience, the most challenging step is to actually START a blog and avoid confusion. The reality is, It doesn’t take long and you’ve already come around a guide to lead your way, step by step.
Once you complete the steps, you will have a blog online! We will talk about the following steps of customizations, writing etc. as well.
But first, let’s focus on actually starting a blog!
Come Up With An Idea
Before launching your first blog, you probably need to think about what you really want to write about. You are going to spend a lot of time to make most of it.
Already know what your plans are? click here to skip this step!
If not, you might want to continue reading!
Think about it, you want to jump right into it and START your journey. What do you want your future website to be about?
The first thing you have to keep in mind is – You can run a blog about anything, drive traffic and make an enormous amount of money from it!
There’s money in all of the niches! This fact makes it much easier to choose a niche or combine them in one blog.
And since your goal might (and probably should) be to stay in your comfort zone, you can choose the one which fits it the most!
It’s totally up to you!
Let me advise you a couple of popular ideas:
- Health
- Fitness
- Parenting
- Home Décor
- Animals
- Traveling
- Gadgets
- Relationships
- Cars
- Making Money
- Recipes
- DIY
- Games
- Music
- Finances
- And so much more…
Maybe you have your own idea.
Or maybe, you don’t even have one. You don’t have to… Some of my followers just learned how to start a blog and launched a website with a random nonsense name (or combined their first and last name) and only then figured out what they will write about.
That is totally fine. Maybe even better than having an idea as a beginner. It won’t limit your ideas in the future.
Anyway, I have a great list of ideas for you as well – Check out the list of free ideas by following this link.
Decided which way you will go? Let’s go on…
As you probably already understand, you don’t need to have any coding skills to learn how to start a blog!
How? Simply by using the C.M.S.
C.M.S. (Content Management System) is just amazing. With little to no knowledge of creating a website, you can create one which will be just as good as the one that professional has made from zero.
Plus you can add all these amazing features (Plugins) which will make your blog even cooler and more functional.
Even though there are a lot of great C.M.S. platforms, the most popular one that you’ve probably heard of is – WordPress.
WordPress is definitely one of the bests when you need to launch a site as a beginner. Hell… Not just a beginner, everybody uses it. Even this site is built on WordPress platform.
And it is not a matter of, you-do-what-you-can-at-this-stage. You just do it because it is all you need.
But, even though it is so popular, not every hosting plan offers simple installation. In some cases, you need to install it yourself.
It’s very important to start a WordPress blog using the hosting which is truly recommended (better yet, recommended by WordPress itself) and offers free and simple installation.
Don’t worry you don’t have to panic and search for it, I will tell you how to get the best one once we get to that stage of this guide.
This how to start a blog step-by-step guide is all about saving your time!
So, without further ado…
Come Up With A Domain Name
Now before you go to launching a website you need to pick a domain name.
What is a domain? Well, think of it as a shortcut (or a link) to access your website.
www. … whatever you want to call your website … .com/net/org,etc…
In most cases, you need to think about the domain that can be related to the topic you are going to dedicate your blog to.
On the other hand, you may not do it as well and come up with something creative.
Either way, domain names don’t matter that much. People will access your blog if they want to see your content and not because of your catchy domain name.
However, you might get bonus visits for your right-on-point domain name though. You can check out my article for tips about coming up with a blog name.
It’s up to you.
Check if your domain name is available by typing it below.
.com names are somewhat better when it comes to free traffic through search engines, but other ones are great as well.
I rarely spend a lot of time on thinking about the domain name. But if you want some help with picking one(just picking, no buying unless you want to waste money because you can get it for free later on), you can visit this site called NameMesh.com and have fun with great names it will offer you. Enter a word (or a keyword) and enjoy the ideas.
Pick your domain name and come back to this step-by-step guide to learn how to get it for free.
Did you come up with an idea? Great. Now it’s time to choose your hosting plan and as a bonus get that domain name for free!
Choose A Hosting/Where To Start A Blog
We already discussed what is “a domain”. Now you need (Or maybe you don’t) to understand why you need the hosting.
Your hosting is the space where all of your content is stored. Just like a hard drive on your computer.
Think of it as a folder on your desktop. In order to access the content which is in that folder, you need to click the icon twice, right?
Well, that icon is just like the domain name and your folder is your hosting a.k.a. the server.
Whatever you do on your blog, is on your server and your hosting provider is taking care of its safety.
You want to receive visitors to your blog 24/7. That’s why it is important to pick a hosting plan which is trustworthy and works flawlessly all the time.
And THAT is why I don’t ever recommend using the free hosting plans. In fact, you don’t need any a lot of explanations for that one – Slow speed, bad/no support, Random shutdowns (In some cases lost/deleted content), Unintentional ads on your blogs which you don’t get paid for, bad reputation at the early stage… I mean, it’s free for a reason, what can you expect from it? No need to go in-depth for that one honestly…
While there are a lot of great hosting providers, Bluehost is definitely one of the bests (and especially great for beginners).
Their target market is mostly filled with beginners or new bloggers with no experience. This is why their platform is recommended for everyone who is starting their blogging career.
They made everything extremely simple, newbie-friendly and easily customizable with a lot of “Freebies”. One click to install WordPress, another click to pick from the free themes. Their support works 24/7.
Besides, they are recommended by WordPress itself.
What else can you need as a beginner?
This way you will get the premium hosting service for the price which is equal to one of the cheap, low-quality service providers… Ultimate win!
Ready to take the most important step in your career of being a blogger? to START?
Move on to the next chapter to follow the step-by-step instructions on how to start your blog and get the free domain name!
You made it this far, great job!
That tells me that you are super motivated to not only learn how to start a blog but to actually start one.
You truly deserve to take advantage of the deal that Bluehost has issued to my readers!
You can get the hosting for the whoopingly-cheap price of $3.95 instead of $7.99 through the link below!
+ Free domain name!
Let’s start then!
Here’s a link to your first step!
Follow this link and click the “get started now” button.
You will be redirected to the page of options offered by Bluehost.
The cheapest option of $3.95 per month (you are welcome for a discount) is probably great for you. But you can get the prime one with additional free bonuses as well.
It is recommended by Bluehost itself, but it’s totally up to you!
Make your choice and go on…
Remember, you already came up with a domain on at stage one, right? Now it’s time to get it!
After you choose the hosting option you want, you can pick a domain name.
Enter the name only (without .com .net .blog etc.) and click next.
Now Bluehost will reserve your domain name for a limited time…
Next page will load.
On this page, you have to fill all that boring information about yourself.
Once you scroll down you will see the package option you picked and an option to pick the duration of your hosting agreement.
All of the prices should be discounted by now because you are using our discount code.
We want to stick with the cheapest option and 3.95 per month for 3 years. I advise doing just that.
You are free to pick other options as well (they are also discounted to some degree), but it will cost more in a long-run. My advice is – You are starting this thing for a great goal, which can last way more than 3 years, keep that in mind.
Now, look at the additional options… Honestly, for starters, you don’t need any of them. But you can use “domain privacy protection” if you want to keep your personal information private.
Now scroll down for payment information. Fill the form, check the terms agreement below and click the submit button.
Now it’s time to be proud of yourself!
Congratulations! Right now you have a blog which is online and ready to receive the visitors!
Let me guide you through the next few, simple steps as well…
You are already an owner of a blog. Now it’s time to choose a password.
You can pick any password just make sure that it is safe and write it down!
Great!
Now it’s time to see the amazingness and install the WordPress without any extra effort!
Actually, you need to choose a theme for that! (Don’t worry you’ll be able to change it later on as well!).
Aaaaaand…
Congratulations!
Now, it’s time to start using your blog.
As I said, this guide is not only about learning how to start a blog! It’s about the next steps as well!
Don’t worry, even though it’s simple enough, you will be guided by the step-by-step instructions I provided for you!
Now you already have a blog. Now it’s time to learn how to make a blog work. There are a couple of things that you need to learn to use it.
Don’t worry, I will teach you all of them, step by step!
For starters, we will talk about the complete basics of using your blog. We will talk about the more advanced steps in the upcoming chapters of this guide!
For now – Let’s start!
- Access Your Admin Panel
- Name Your Blog
- Create Pages
- Create Categories
- Write Your First Post
- Publish Your Blog
Like I said, these are the basics needed to start understanding the simplicity of WordPress platform and truly launch your blog!
Access Your Admin Panel
First of all, you need to access your blog.
All of the WordPress sites use the same formula – yoursite.com/wp-admin.
Type that Url and hit the enter button on your keyboard!
Of course, it is secured and locked by a password which you picked in the previous steps.
(In case you forgot your password, don’t worry, you can click the “lost your password?” under the login section and receive it to your email!)
Name Your Blog
There are a lot of buttons and a lot of options but in my opinion, the very first thing you want to do before getting into any specifics is to name your blog!
Look at the left side of the menu and find the “Settings” button.
Roll over it to see the additional menu and click “General”.
Now you can change the name, description and other general details about your blog.
Scroll down to hit the save button!
That’s it! Now your blog is already unique because you gave it a little customization!
You might not think it’s a big deal, but hey… Every step counts.
Create Pages
Now it’s time to create a page for your blog.
It’s pretty simple (just like anything else honestly). All you need is to find the “Pages” in the menu on the right side, roll over it and click “Add New”.
Obviously, there’s nothing complicated in here as well.
For starters, you should write the title to your page and the text which you want to appear on it.
Try to type a few test sentences and hit the publish button on the right side of your screen.
Create Categories
Ideally, your posts should be categorized.
However, you might not want to do that just as well. It’s totally up to you.
But, for starters, let’s just create a category to understand how it’s done.
Just like in the case of creating a new page, it’s pretty simple.
You need to find the “Posts” button in the menu, click on it and select the “Categories” section through the additional menu.
Just type in the name of your new category and hit the save button.
(There are some advanced options at this page which you can experiment with in future, but you don’t need them at this stage.)
Write Your First Post
Every blog needs some articles!
So, you should definitely know how to add one!
Since it’s one of the most important things, the “Posts” button can be found at the very beginning of the menu located on the left side of your screen.
Roll over it with your mouse, and click the “Add New”.
Everything is pretty simple in here.
Just write the title, text, optionally add some image by clicking the “Add Media” button located under the title and click publish.
( you can scroll down to choose the category as well as other options, but your first post can be published without that as well.)
Your first post is ready to be seen!
Publish Your Blog
Now it’s time to hit a couple of buttons to publish your blog!
Find the Bluehost button in your menu and click on it.
There’s only one button!
“Launch”.
Get ready and click on it!
Just like that, your blog is published and ready to receive some visitors!
Before that, you might want to use this basic knowledge to fill your blog with pages, categories and blog posts.
But, as I said… This is just a beginning and the most basic stuff you can do with your blog!
However, now you started a blog, know how to do these basic things and have hit the publish button. so that’s yet another thing to be proud of!
At this stage, you already have a blog, know how to access it, create a page, create categories, write posts and you hit the publish button.
Even though that’s enough to run a basic blog, there’s so much more that you can do with it to make it look super good, feel professional and enjoyable.
In order to get your blog truly ready, you need to do the following:
- Choose A Blog Theme
- Customize The Theme
- Add Plugins
- Pick some Widgets
- Create A Menu
- Customize Admin Details
- Customize URL Addresses/Links
Once you follow these steps, your blog will be as good as any blog out there!
Let’s start, shall we?
Choose A Blog Theme
The very first thing you want to do to make your blog look good and professional is to choose a theme!
The theme which will meet your requirements and will truly represent the mood your blog is all about.
Plus, it has to be responsive, enjoyable and easy-to-use.
Fortunately, there are tons of free themes out there which will do just that!
And they are pretty easy to find. In fact, you can do it without even leaving your admin panel!
Great, right?
To start, look at the left side to find the menu. Look up the “Appearance” tab and roll over it with your mouse.
The additional menu will show up. Click the “Themes” tab.
What you will see is all of the themes which are already installed.
They are free and they are ready to be activated.
But… You want to find “The theme” and not just use the stock ones.
For that, click the “Add New” button as shown on the photo below:
The page which just opened is the local “market” for the free themes.
You can preview each and every one of them, search for a specific one and even filter them.
To filter them click the “Feature Filter” button.
Now once the filtered results will show up, you can just scroll down and find the one which you like.
Hit the “Install” button. (don’t worry, you can just install it even if you won’t use it. There’s no limit to it.)
Once you choose the one you like the most, you can hit the “Activate” button.
(Once again, don’t worry, you can change it whenever you want.)
Now your blog has a theme and looks way better, doesn’t it?
Well, you can make it look way better… Just follow my lead…
Customize The Theme
Yes, you have installed the theme and it looks great.
But, the themes can be customized even further to look even better!
Just scroll over the “Appearance” button and this time click the “Customize” button instead of “Themes”.
On the left side, you will see the options to customize this theme without any coding. Just a couple of choices to be made.
Some themes offer more options while others are pretty limited.
That’s a thing with free themes.
However, you can look up the theme which will both look great and be customizable.
You can switch them as many times as you want, so why not look up for “the one” to find it? It’s free.
Mostly, all of the themes give you an opportunity to change the basic identity.
Change the name, the slogan, upload a logo etc.
Upload whatever you want and hit the save button.
Add Plugins
You don’t need any coding to have a super-functional blog.
Especially, when you can just download the plugins (for free)!
Plugins are one of the best things that WordPress users can get.
Just like in case of themes, there are a lot of free plugins which are available without living your admin panel!
You can just search for the ones you like and install them just to see your blog getting some additional awesome functions.
To start, find the “Plugins” button in your menu, roll over and click the “Add New”.
Like I said, this section looks just like the “Themes” one.
Just explore the plugins…
Found the one you like? Hit the “Install Now” button.
Wait for the loading phase to finish…
Now, it’s time to hit the “Activate”.
Just like that, your blog got some additional abilities!
A lot of plugins will place an additional tab in the general menu on the left side. Others will be available via scrolling over the “Settings” option in the same mentioned menu.
You can always see all of the installed plugins by just clicking the “Plugins” tab.
Widgets
Widgets are a great addition to your page. They can represent an additional panel, function or invisible code.
There are a lot of great widgets out there. Most of them can be found via the same “Plugins” section.
Others are already installed.
To see the ones which are already installed, roll over the “Appearance” tab once again and click the “Widgets”.
As you can see, a lot of widgets are already available.
The ones on the left side are inactive and ready to be used.
The right side represents the places where you can place those widgets.
Just pick the widget and drag it to the section on the right side.
Most of the widgets are saved automatically, while others have a “Save button”.
The stock ones are pretty simple and useful as well.
Have fun!
Create Menu
Once you are done designing your blog with the theme, plugins and widgets it’s time to start taking care of the navigation.
Your visitors should be able to navigate your blog easily!
That’s why you need a great menu!
To create one, go to the same “Appearance” tab in your menu and click the “Menus”.
You need to create your first menu.
Just enter the name and hit the “Create Menu” button.
Now, your menu needs to be filled in.
There are a couple of options. You can fill it with:
- Pages
- Categories
- Custom Links
To add a page, click on the “Pages” tab.
Tick the one you want to add and click “Add to Menu” button as seen in a photo below:
Now click the categories and do the same thing.
In case you want to add a custom link like a link to one of your posts or another site, you need to use the Custom Links option.
Just enter the URL, give it the name which will appear in the menu and hit the “Add To Menu” button.
You are almost set.
Now it’s time to make your menu visible.
As you probably already understood during the process of actually creating a menu you can have more than 1 menu.
You might want to place one in the navigation tab and another in the footer. It’s up to you.
But for the first menu, you want to learn how to activate it.
For that, click the “Manage Locations” tab as seen on the photo below:
Chose the menu you’ve created and hit the “Save Changes” button.
You can go to your blog and see your menu!
Customize The Details About You/Admin/Author
You probably don’t want to be called an admin all the time, do you?
You might want to change your public name (visible for visitors) to your real name, blogging name, blog URL, company or whatever.
In order to do that, go to the “Users” tab in the menu.
You will see the existing admin a.k.a. the only user.
Click the “Edit” button under the name.
Username is the only thing which you can’t change. It’s not visible for anyone anyway, but in case you want to change it, you should create another user.
Change whatever you want and save!
Customize URL Addresses/Links
The one last thing which I think is important is to customize your links to look better.
You might or might not want to do that, but still need to know how it’s done.
Find the “Settings” tab in your menu and click the “Permalinks” which will appear.
There are a lot of formats you can use.
I recommend using the “Post Name” format as it is the most popular one and makes your hyperlinks look way better.
That’s it!
Just like that, you know how to handle all of the common functions which WordPress can offer!
Your blog should look way better now, doesn’t it?
Plus, apparently, you can add some awesome plugins and stuff as well… FOR FREE!
Wow, right?
Throughout the previous steps of this how to start a blog guide, we covered all of the basics to set up your blog and get ready to step into the amazing world of blogging.
At this stage, your blog is probably empty.
But… In case you followed the previous steps, you are past the majority of the technical work. In case you haven’t, it’s a great idea to go back and follow them!
Now, in case you’re ready, it’s time to fill up your blog.
I usually split the upcoming tasks into three parts to make it simple:
- Content
- Advertisement/Promotion
- Monetization (Optional)
Once you do all of these properly, your blog is 100% ready!
You might be happy about learning how to start a blog and setting it up, but not so fast… This guide promised to deliver way more and it will!
A few steps to get your blogging game to another level!
And it’s not even complicated… At all!
Content
The first thing to know it – Content is the king! Remember that! You can only be successful in case your content is great!
There are a couple of “rules” every blog follows. Let me discuss them:
- Have a great menu to make the navigation simple. Split your content into the categories and create a menu. Everybody likes some shortcuts to make stuff more specific.
- In order to have a successful blog, you need to write the content (mostly articles) which people are interested in. Start with the topics you are interested in yourself. Odds are high that others want to read that content just as well.
- Hook, Body, C.T.A. – Every blog out there uses the same formula. Your article should start with a little description of what’s coming (A.K.A. The hook), followed by “the body” which represents the majority of your article and followed by C.T.A. (Call To Action), the last one tells your readers what they can do next (Comment, Follow the link, Subscribe etc.)
- Keep it plain and simple, but informative and eye-catching.
- Add awesome graphics like videos, infographics, stock photos etc.
- Include some IntraLinks (links to your other articles).
There are a lot of things which help your content to stand out, but the ones described above are just enough to get started!
Advertisement/Promotion
The content itself won’t drive traffic. Which means that you have to do a couple of things to make sure that somebody will see your new awesome blog!
There are a lot of techniques to attract people to your blog. We will cover them in the upcoming sections!
Monetization (Optional)
Some people like to blog just for fun and don’t have any intention of making money out of it. While that’s totally fine, you should probably know that even just-bloggers can make some money without any extra effort and by actually providing an additional value to their readers!
Others, want to start a blog to make money… Some want to earn extra cash, some have a side-hustle while others (like me) turn it into a full-time job to make more than 6-figures, monthly.
Anyway, it all starts with a simple blog, regardless of the long-term plan.
Only after completing these steps, you will have a successful blog! But once you’re done, you WILL HAVE a real deal!
Now since everything is ready, you probably want to drive traffic and actually start earning some money!
There are a lot of ways to do so, but let’s combine them into these three:
- S.E.O. – Search Engine Optimization helps you to rank for the search engines like Google, Bing etc. This activity also includes building “the backlinks” (valuable mentions of your blog at sites of other people.)
- Social Media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest etc.
- Paid – Of course you can pay for both of the above-mentioned ones in some way. But that’s definitely not the best way for the majority of beginners!
These 3 can help to drive the massive amount of traffic to your blog which will transform into a huge income, but all of them probably sound very confusing right now.
Actually, they are not, and they can be broken down into some simple steps.
But, in case you are not ready to join the army of my students for that course for more information, let me tell you a couple of methods which you can bring some traffic with at the early stages!
– Deliver good quality
Content is the king! It’s been like that and it will always be like that! Be sure that your blog is all about good quality which your visitors will enjoy, share and remember. This is probably the most important part of any traffic-oriented activity! No matter what you do out there, none of that will count unless your content is totally worth it!
– Guest posts
These are the posts which are published on blogs of other people and contain a link to your website. You can offer them to some popular blogs to receive the instant traffic and get your S.E.O. rankings higher!
It’s so amazing! This search engine (also known as a social media) makes it so easy to drive a lot of traffic to your blog in no time.
– Social Sharing Buttons
There are a lot of free plugins for WordPress which you can install. Social sharing buttons will allow your visitors to easily spread the word and tell their friends about your blog. This will increase your traffic dramatically!
– Comments
There are a lot of websites which are talking about the same thing your blog is about. Make sure to check them out and dive into the conversation in the comments section. Don’t be spammy though! Provide a link to your blog only if you believe that it will help readers of that site to get some further information which they are interested in.
– Answer The Questions
There are a lot of sites where people ask questions like Google answers, Quora etc. Try to answer the questions and link to your articles for the additional information.
– Facebook Groups
A lot of facebook groups consist of people interested in a specific niche. In case your blog is about one of the topics, it’s a good idea to join those groups and communicate with the potential visitors of your blog.
– Other Social-media channels
Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Google+ … There are so many of them. Find the one packed with people interested in your niche and rock it!
– E-Mail Marketing
While this is not specifically a way to drive new traffic, bring the old one is already important. Install the plugin (I will teach you how to install plugins later on) to give your users an opportunity to subscribe to your blog. This way you can easily bring them back!
– Be Active
A lot of people will come to your blog as long as you are regularly visible around the web, whether it is with your articles or your social activity.
Oh and don’t ever be spammy about anything! Make sure that your blog is associated with a quality rather than being annoying!
As long as you do that, neither these nor any other activity can ever be useless.
There are no specific limitations of what blogger can and can not monetize a blog with. Monetizing blog itself is only one small part of a big picture.
With that being said, an average blogger (beginner) has 3 general options to monetize a blog when he or she is blogging for money:
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Monetize A Property (the blog itself)
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Sell Product
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Sell Service
Truth to be told, these are not only a digital marketer’s (bloggers in particular) options. These three options are basics of any type of business.
I know for a fact that it sounds a little confusing at first, especially for a beginner.
No worries though… I got you covered!
I do talk about monetization and other “blogging-for-money” stuff in my “Limitless Blogger” course. You can click here to check it out…
The information below is just a small part of it but still should be enough to get the general understanding of monetization:
1. Monetize A Property (the blog itself)
The most common and popular way to monetize a blog as a beginner is definitely to use its content commercially, without making an effort to monetize it otherwise.
The concept is simple – as long as the blog receives some significant amount of traffic, people will pay to get a piece of it.
Let’s talk about the most common ways of monetizing a blog for being a website.
- Ads – There are a lot of ad providers like Google Adsense (which is probably the best one) that will place banners and commercial text snippets on your site in exchange for money. All it takes is placing a certain code (there are a lot of plugins for newbies that help with this) in places you would like and just wait for the moment it will start paying off. You can check out my article about Google Ads by following this link.
- Banners – As long as a blog receives traffic a lot of people want to place their commercial banner on it to target this specific blog’s target audience.
- Paid Articles – A lot of times bloggers and companies will pay for a specific article to appear on your blog. As long as the blog receives traffic of course…
- Membership – Not all posts have to be available for any visitor. People will often pay to see some “hidden” content.
- Subscription – Yeap… There’s a great chance to get some bucks in exchange for the chance to subscribe. It’s pretty rare but is still worth mentioning.
- Donations – Some bloggers do not use a specific monetization method. They prefer to leave income up to people that want to thank them. That’s when donations are a great option. Might not sound like a great source of income, but it actually is for a lot of blogs.
Bonus: Sell A Site – You can always sell your site at sites like flippa.com and make money out of it!
2. Sell Product(s)
Some of you might be surprised. How can a blog sell products, it’s not an online shop.
Well… A blog is like a magnet for free traffic. Therefore in a lot of cases, it might be serving as a promoter, recommender or hype-man for a specific product.
A simple link in a text or in a menu can turn a blog into a commercial platform.
There are two types of products that a blogger can sell:
- Physical Product – Any product that can be “touched”. For example – Shoes, CD’s, Books, Cars, Houses etc. There are a couple of ways to sell them:
- Create Your Own
- Affiliate Marketing – Sell products to other people and get a commission for it.
- Dropshipping – (requires an e-store) buy products from other sites once somebody buys from your store and send it to a customer. Without ever seeing the product.
- Digital Product – Products like online e-books, movies, games etc. Anything that is strictly digital and doesn’t have any type of physical appearance.
- Create Your Own – Writing an educational digital book is one of the most common ways that bloggers monetize their blogs with.
- Affiliate Marketing – There’s a huge amount of digital products on the market. Bloggers can earn a lot of money by just linking to them.
3. Sell Service(s)
Just like in the case of selling products, services are once again another option that a blog can monetize with by motivating its traffic to do a specific action.
- Physical (real-life) Service – Any type of service which is delivered in the world outside of computers and other digital products. Selling flight tickets or hotel reservations would be a great example.
- Digital Service – Freelancing and support are one of the best examples of digital service. And it’s not rare for a blogger to show off the skills and offer the service.
Both of these services can be offered by a blogger or be a part of affiliate marketing (recommendation of other company’s/person’s service).
Now you’ve found out the basics of blogging for money.
You can go in-depth with blogging for money by joining my eCourse.
That it! Now you actually know how to start a blog, set up and customize it!
Click here to get a free printable PDF!
Got questions? I’m ready to help you! Comment below, join our Facebook group or contact me personally and I will make sure to answer your questions as soon as possible (not just about starting a blog but with other blogging questions as well)!
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