Did you know that you can create a Blogspot website and earn money online from it for free without spending a dime? In today’s article, I’ll show you how to create Blogspot step by step so that you can use it to turn your business idea into reality in a matter of months.
The best part of this guide is that you can start and grow your own money making blog while you work from home as a side hustler and still be fine. As it were, this is how to make money online without spending anything if you ask me.
Like I said before in my previous blog posts, I decided to create a Blogger blog as a case study to prove that anybody can make money on the internet with little or no investment if you can work hard and work smart. Hard work from starting a blog to promoting your website is what you need to be successful.
In case you don’t know, Google.com owns both Blogger.com and Blogspot.com and Blogger manage all the Blogspot blogs on the internet. Interestingly, I discovered that most of Google’s products and services like creating a Blogspot blog for personal or business use are free. This is definitely pocket friendly if you’re working on a budget.
So, I want you to know that Blogspot is a free blogging platform where you can start a blog and make money blogging online without paying for website hosting services. But if you’re ambitious like me, you may want to register a domain name for less than $10 and use it as a custom domain to set up your blog. This will look more professional and business like when you start promoting your website.
This is exactly what I did with this side project. I bought a domain name and simply mapped it to the sub domain name I registered with Blogger. I’ll be spending about $10 per year to renew the domain and I only need to close 2 to 3 affiliate sales to cover that expenses and be in profits.
With a simple and quick Blogger sign up using your free Google email address, you’ve what it takes to start blogging for money on the World Wide Web. And if you want to build your influence and authority in your space, the world is your oyster as well!
So, what I want to teach you in this comprehensive blueprint is how to create Blogspot step by step and make money blogging online for free. Stay with me as I walk you through all the steps to sign up with Blogger up to the point of monetizing your blog and earning money online from your efforts.
Step #1: Create a Free Google Account
Obviously, this is the first step to get started. You’ve to create a free Gmail email address for this purpose. You’ve to separate your business email ID from your private email address. This will help you to manage your business correspondences seamlessly without skipping, mixing or messing things up in the long run.
If your goal is to start a business blog, you’ve to be professional in everything about creating a Blogspot from the get go. Create an email ID that is generic or contains the main keyword for your target niche market.
For example, if your blog is about side hustle ideas, you can include “side hustle” in your Gmail account creation. You may come up with something like sidehustlepro-at-gmail-dot-com if it is not taken yet. This is exactly what I did with one of my Blogger blogs which I created recently.
The email address is the same with the Blogspot sub domain I got. And as luck would have it, I also registered the domain name which I may flip or use for business. This will always help in your SEO (search engine optimization) and branding efforts when it comes to online marketing.
Step #2: Sign Up with Blogger
Now that you’ve a free Google email, use it to sign up with Blogger. Open up your favorite browser and type Blogger.com in the address bar. As soon as the website opens, sign in with your Gmail account. From Blogger’s dashboard, you can create a Blogspot in any niche market you’re targeting as long as you’re within the ambit of Google terms and conditions.
You can take a look at the screenshot below.
That is where you can start creating Blogspot blog for yourself.
Step #3: Choose a Niche Market to Focus on
At this step, you’ve to decide what you’ll be blogging about. Do you want to talk about sports, beauty and lifestyle, entrepreneurship, travel and tour or cyber security? It’s your call!
Personally, deciding on a niche market to focus on at any particular point in time should be a function of the following:
- What you’re passionate about,
- What you’re strongly interested in, and
- What you know a lot of.
For instance, I’m putting plans in place to start a personal finance blog in the near future. This decision was informed as a result of my keen interest in the personal budgeting space. And because of my interest in this niche, it will get keyed up when writing content topics until the blog becomes profitable.
But before you finally settle for a niche market, you’ll do yourself a world of good to make use of good keyword research tool to learn more about search queries, volume and CPC (cost per click). This will give you ideas on search terms to target.
Basically, keyword tool will always help you to learn about different types of search queries which web users are typing into search engines to find information about specific topics to learn about, products to buy or service to subscribe to.
A good and free keyword research tool to use is Google Keyword Planner tool.
Step #4: Create Your Blogspot Blog
The following walk through will help you to create your Blogspot blog. From your Blogger dashboard after you’ve signed in, click on “New Blog” button on the left hand side of the page to create a blog within your account area as shown in the image above.
Firstly, you’ve to fill out your blog title which should include the main keyword phrase you’re targeting. The way to go about picking the title of your blog website is to make sure that the most popular search query is included in it.
For example, if you’re focusing on the “side hustle” market, you can pick a long tail keyword phrase that includes the main search term i.e. side hustle. Let me give you a typical instance which you can work with.
Side hustle: This is the main search query of the market or industry you want to focus on.
Side hustle business ideas: This is the blog title that includes your target long tail keyword phrase as well as the market’s primary search query above.
Here is a screenshot of the average monthly search volume and CPC (cost per click) of “side hustle,” “side hustle business” and “side hustle business ideas” with focus on the US market.
As you can see from above, by targeting “side hustle business ideas,” you’re automatically targeting “side hustle” and “side hustle business” keywords as well. You can always use variations of these keyword phrases to build authority back links to your blog when it comes to promotion.
Secondly, you’ve to choose your blog URL address to register. But it has to be a name or keyword that has not been taken. Obviously, you’ve to include the primary keyword of your target niche market if you’re actively in the side business space.
The sub domain you register matters a lot in your website promotion. For example I registered side hustle business ideas specifically to show you how to go about it targeting a keyword. In the above URL, I simply attached the word “vim” to my target search query.
Step #5: Optimize Your Blog
You can type and check your domain name blog on a browser to see if it is live after creating your blog. If it is live, it means you can go ahead to optimize your blog and start publishing blog posts on it.
At this level, you’ve already filled out your blog title. The next step will be to write a short blurb for your blog’s Meta description. This is a snippet of what your blog is all about. But you’ve to make sure that there is strong CTA (call to action) and also your target keyword is included.
For example,
Click here to learn how to make money online with ease and without spending your fortune.
It should be short, concise and to the point.
Step #6: Custom Domain Set Up with Blogger Blog
If you don’t want to use Blogger sub domain for branding and promotion because it’s too long, you can register a domain name and set it up as a custom domain. The financial implication of this is that you’ll spend about $10 or less to buy a domain for a whole year and about the same amount to renew it in subsequent years.
For instance, I simply mapped my custom domain (EarnVim.com) for this blog to the sub domain I earlier registered with Blogger. So, I’ll be spending only $10 per year to renew the domain name to run my blog and make money since Blogger provides the free web hosting. For my blog website promotion and branding, this domain name is shorter and more brandable than the sub domain.
To set up your custom domain with Blogger, you can go about it like this. Register a domain name with your target keyword in it. You can get a domain from my recommended and good domain registrar like NameCheap.com. I use them often to buy domains for my online businesses and domain investing purposes.
As soon as you’ve registered the name, head over to your Blogger admin dashboard and click on the “Settings” link on the left hand panel. It’s time to do basic on-page SEO (search engine optimization) in order to make your blog search engine friendly.
Next, scroll down to the “Publishing” section of “Settings” and click on “Custom domain” as shown in the screenshot below.
The window that will pop up is where you can type your custom domain with www. You’ve to type www . customdomain . com for it to resolve properly. But remember to replace “custom domain” with the actual domain name you bought.
Blogger will return another pop-up window which will show you the CNAMEs records to configure your domain name with your registrar. This first CNAME is general while the second CNAME is specific to your Blogger blog.
Whichever domain registrar you make use of, you should be able to locate domain management section and edit the A-Records and CNAMEs to reflect the information Blogger gave to you. And if you’ve successfully done so and saved your changes, you’ve to wait for few hours for it to resolve to Google servers.
If you’ve done everything right, it will resolve; just wait. What this means is that your website visitors can go to your blog by typing your domain name on their browser or follow a link. But remember to click on the “Redirect domain” below “Custom domain” you just configured in order to make it active.
If you’ve left your Blogger sub domain URL address somewhere on the web before setting up the custom domain name, it will automatically resolve your custom domain name. This is a proof that business domain name is working properly.
You should also ensure that visits to http redirects to https is on as shown below.
If you scroll down, you’ll be able to know other fields you should edit and configure to your personal requirements. For instance, at the Posts section, you can set the number of posts to display at your homepage. The default is 7 posts.
Step #7: Create Your First Blog Post
Now that you’re set to write first blog post, all you need to do is to click on the “New Post” link on the left hand pane of your dashboard.
Blog post template will open up where you can type your blog post title followed by the main content field. If you make use of any form of word processor, you can simply copy and paste your content in the box which is what I usually do. I hardly type directly into this field.
Across the main content box are blog post editing tools which you can use to highlight and hyperlink any text you want, upload images, set ordered and unordered list, bold text, etc.
Also, on the right hand side of the page are “Post settings” where you can schedule publishing date, assign related labels or keywords to post, set custom permalink to target your blog post keyword phrase and so on.
As soon as you’ve completed the house keeping details of the blog post with respect to SEO, you can “preview” your post to see if there is any further edit or correction to make. If everything is okay, you can click the publish button to make your blog post go live. It can never be easier!
I’m writing a comprehensive ebook on how to create Blogspot step by step and make money blogging which will include building backlinks to your blog, monetizing your blog in addition to Google Adsense, how to do internal linking structure in order to get most of all your blog posts indexed, how to transfer your Blogger blog to a paid website hosting like HostGator company when you’ve made enough money to purchase web hosting, etc.
If you’re interested in the ebook when it is ready, you can indicate your interest from the comments section and I’ll point you to where to download it.
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