How to start a blog and make money online in 9 steps (Free consultation available)

How to start a blog and make money online? Looking for a step by step guide? Let’s get started.

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Blogging is one of the most popular ways to earn money online and it has certain other benefits as well.

Besides making money, there are other valid reasons to start blogging. It allows you to pursue your passion and create your own identity online.

It gives you an opportunity to educate people by providing useful information and also addresses their problems.

It is the best way to strengthen your online presence and utilize your skills. Blogging eventually makes you more confident.

Some interesting blogging stats

  • About 77% of individuals who use the internet read blogs on a regular basis.
  • Every 0.5 seconds, a new blog gets published.
  • At present, there are more than 152 million blogs on the web.
  • The percentage of WordPress based websites on the internet is about 34.5%
  • Every month about 70 million new posts gets published in WordPress

The following post is a detailed step by step guide for starting a blog in 2020.

Step 1: Pick a Blog name & domain name for your blog

Hosting and domain are 2 things which we need to launch our website.

Domain Name

The very first step is to decide on your blog name because it is what the users will see first.

The domain name refers to the name of your website that is going to be your address on the internet.

It is also known as the URL (uniform resource locator).

The domain name is the name by which you will be recognized online, irrespective of your niche.

Your domain may be the widely-known “.com” or some other extensions like “.org, .net or .me” else it may be specific to your niche or country.

Users knowing your URL can access your blog by simply typing the URL on the address bar of the browser.

Ideally, your blog name should give an idea about the topic you will write, or else it may be the name of your business, your own name, or something appropriate.

It should include such words that represent your niche, for example, fashion, food, travel, technology, lifestyle, and others. This will help future blog readers.

If you need help with finding the right domain name, you can try some wonderful naming tools like Wordoid, Bluehost, LeanDomainSearch.

Your domain name should be easy to remember, type, and pronounce. It should not be too long or confusing.

Pro Tips:

It is best to keep it within 12 characters and prefer a .com domain name. Try and avoid domain with extensions like .net, .info because they don’t rank high in search engines.

Purchase Domain name from Godaddy.

Follow these steps to buy domain name from Godaddy.

Go to the website and type the domain name you want to purchase.

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If that domain name is not taken, you can Add it to the cart.

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Click on Continue to Cart

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By default, there can be a lot of options selected like Privacy policy, email. You can click on No thanks and click on Continue to cart option.

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You can select the number of years you want to purchase the domain name and before you can purchase you need to create your account on Godaddy or login via Facebook/Google.

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After login, you can purchase the domain name by making payment via different payment options available.

Step 2: Purchase hosting from A2hosting.

Pro tip: Don’t buy the domain and hosting from the same place as if it gets hacked or something bad happens to your server then your entire account can be blocked and you will not be able to access your domain name also. But if your hosting and domain are in different places and some bad happens to your server then you can quickly upload the backup in the new server and make the website live again quickly.

Once you have created your domain name, the next step is to host your blog online.

Hosting is actually an online server that stays online 24*7 and saves your data somewhere on the internet.

It performs the same functions as the hard disc of a computer.

Hosting your blog online enables you to save the images, texts and videos that your blog contains.

Hosting keeps your blog live and running round the clock so that users can access it.

There are many companies that offer hosting services but you must be very careful when you choose them.

You need to select a publishing platform and a hosting service provider. An ideal combination is a WordPress blog with A2hosting as the hosting company.

Things to keep on mind while purchasing hosting:-

  • Your hosting company must have a 24×7 support system. In case of any issues, you can contact them and get it resolved.
  • Moneyback Guarantee in case you don’t like it.
  • It should offer 99.99% Uptime Commitment

You can click on Get Started or Shared hosting option at the top

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These are hosting plans they offer:-

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When you are starting new, you can go for shared hosting as it comes at a cheap price.

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You can select SWIFT plan as it offers unlimited websites, so in the future, if you want to add more websites you don’t have to purchase hosting again.

Next page they will ask to Choose a domain, select I will use an existing domain and update my nameserver.

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You can choose 12 months or 24 months duration

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You can click continue and purchase the hosting.

Step 3: Update the nameserver

You will receive an email from the hosting company once you purchase the hosting with all the details.

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You need to go back to Godaddy and update the nameserver which was sent to your email by following below steps:

Login to Godaddy -> Click on DNS

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Choose custom nameserver and add the nameserver which you received in an email.

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It will take 12-24 hours to reflect. After this, your website will be live on your domain name.

Step 4 : Installing WordPress

Now the final step is to install WordPress on your server. You need to login to Cpanel for this.

Find Softaculous Apps Installer -> WordPress

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Click on Install now

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Enter the basic details (Choose strong admin name and password)

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And click on Install. Your WordPress website will get installed and you can log in using username and password which you just created.

Step 5 : Choosing theme

In WordPress, there are many predefined themes available which you install and make the website live in no time.

There are a lot of free and paid themes available in the market.

To access the free themes in your WordPress, login to WordPress-> Navigate to Appearance -> Themes->Add new

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You can filter it our if you want to explore only blogging related themes.

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You can also search for any theme according to your requirement, you need to first install them and then activate them.

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Please note all the above themes are free.

If you are looking for a professional theme, you might need to purchase the premium themes. Check out this article for 5 best WordPress theme

Once your theme is activated, you can do essential customization by navigating to your WordPress Dashboard -> Appearance -> Customize

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You can edit Site Title, Tagline, Logo, etc and publish it

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Also, check out 7 Things you need to do after installing WordPress

Step 6:  Set up your blog Plan your content (Deciding the niche)

The success of your blog largely depends on the niche you choose.

Niche means the topic on which you will plan your content, for example, technology, finance, health and wellness, photography etc.

Most of the time people get confused about selecting a niche.

It is always best to create content on a single topic and avoid blogging on multiple topics because readers subscribe blogs that follow a particular niche.

In addition, Google favors websites based on a single topic.

Certain factors that help you to identify your niche are your passion, knowledge, and interest.

You should improve your knowledge on the niche you select, identify your readers and also find out ways to make it profitable.

You can start by performing some simple tasks. Try and figure out what is that topic you never get bored with when you talk about it, read or write or listen to.

The topic should be such that you can add some value to it with your own knowledge and insight.

What you can do is make different columns on a piece of paper with some topic names as the heading and then create 5 post ideas under those headings.

While framing the title, just give a thought about what you can write without taking the help of any reference.

When you have finished framing 5 titles under each heading, you will get to know your niche.

Step 7: Writing your first Blog post

Now when your framework is ready, it’s time to write your first content.

To begin with, you must remember that your content should provide useful information to your readers.

It should be engaging and interactive so that readers come again and again to your site.

Most importantly, your content should speak to your target audience and should be presented in a proper manner.

While writing your blog make sure to use the first person that is “I and You” because a single person will read the blog and you will be talking to the reader.

The content should be a detailed one enabling you to provide all the information.

Ideally your blog should not be less than 1000+ words.

It is better to avoid copying any images from Google and to download images from sites that don’t require you to pay. Videos can also be embedded from YouTube.

To make sure that your content is error-free you can use tools like ProWritingAid and Grammarly.

The more you write, the more fresh ideas you get, and eventually your content will grow interested among your readers.

To get more and more new ideas, it is advisable to read more about your topic, follow newspapers, and discuss it.

Once you have finalized the niche, you need to go to WordPress Dashboard -> All post-> Add New

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You can start adding the title of the post, paragraphs, etc.

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You can insert the images by clicking on the +(add block) button which appears on the right-hand side. You might need to hit Enter to add the block.

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Once you are ready, you can hit the preview button to check how your blog will appear and publish it when you are ready.

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Also, Don’t forget to add Featured image in your blog.

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Step 8: Driving traffic to your blog

After you have written a compelling content and published it, your next job is to promote your blog and drive as many new readers as possible.

When you promote your blog, it becomes visible in Google search. There are many ways to get traffic to your blog.

A successful blog promotion is based on the ability to engage readers in your blog.

In fact, the truth is that one should spend more time promoting their blog rather than writing.

There are certain activities that can drive traffic to your blog.

You can do that by learning SEO, including your blog URL in an email signature, listing it in social media profiles, being active in your niche and promoting it on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Youtube, etc.

Commenting on other blogs and writing guest posts also helps to promote your blog.

 When the number of audience gradually increases, their email addresses should be collected so that they can be notified about the new articles you write.

Besides organic traffic, you can opt for major paid traffic options like Google AdWords and Facebook.

Through various Digital Marketing techniques, you can start getting millions of traffic for free.

Start Learning Digital Marketing techniques from here:- Learn Digital Marketing for free

Step 9: Make money from your Blog

Now that you have posted your first blog and promoted it, it’s time to monetize it.

Monetization enables you to earn money through your blog activity.

After delivering useful and informative content for quite some time and establishing a name in your niche market, gradually you will have an increasing number of subscribers and followers.

It is only at this time when you can expect your blog to generate passive income.

Some of the most popular ways to generate passive income are to use Google AdSense, Media.net, affiliate marketing, Amazon affiliate program, sponsored content, direct ad sales and owning digital products.

Check out this article on How to Make Money Online without paying anything

Conclusion

Though blogging is one of the best ways to earn passive income but when you begin, the sole purpose of your blog should not be monetization.

Initially, you should identify your audience, build relationships, and form a community by creating value-added content consistently.

Start your own blog and get paid in the long run, and also don’t forget to share your experience with me while doing so!

Tada! All set to rock and roll. I hope this article helps you, let me know your thoughts on the comments below.

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