How to Start a Blog and Make Money Blogging Online

 

If you ask me, I’ll tell you that blogging is one of the best ways to start a side hustle business, build wealth from the web and achieve financial freedom goals in record time. And all it takes to start a blog and make money is for you to register a domain name and get web hosting.

 

And the best part is that you don’t have to be tech savvy to create a blog website in any niche market of your choice if you make use of CMS (content management system) software like WordPress.org. The icing on the cake is that with less than $100 business startup costs, you can build your own business from the ground up.

 

So, in this blogging guide on how to start a blog and make money blogging online, you’ll discover that starting an online business is easier than you think. Few months ago, I started this side hustle blog as a case study to teach my digital marketing coaching students how to get started on the cheap.

 

My main business goal with this side business blog is to create a blog and make money investing only $10 to register a domain name and then use the free hosting service from Blogger.com to keep it visible on the World Wide Web. I decided to buy custom domain name for this side project for ease of branding instead of making use of the long sub domain from Blogspot.com.  

 

But let me make it abundantly clear that blogging using free website hosting is not the best way to make money online for the long term. With less than $100 to sign up for paid web hosting services  from HostGator for a whole year, you can build a blog website and grow it into a full-fledged online business even if you’re doing it on the side in a matter of months.

 

I’ll gladly recommend HostGator website hosting company for you to sign up with because I use them and I’m fully satisfied with their web hosting services. You can click here now to get web hosting from HostGator on the cheap along with an offer for a free domain name registration.

 

I want you to know that it’s not rocket science to start a blog and make money and anybody can do it. So, if you’re searching for information on how to make money online with little investment, you can make use of this business model which I’ll discuss here for you to get started in earnest.

 

Obviously, there are three ways to create a blog on the internet:

 

1. Using the totally free method by making use of free blogging platforms like Blogger.com, WordPress.com, Wix.com, etc,
2. Using the partially-free option by buying a domain name of your own and mapping it to a free hosting site like Blogger which will allow you to use a custom domain to be configured to their free hosting services, and
3. Getting paid hosting option like HostGator website hosting services which supports WordPress hosting and use it to start an online business and work from home or anywhere in the world.

 

In this blueprint, I’ll teach you how to start a blog and make money using method (3) above if you want to maximize your ROI (return on investment). But if you cannot invest about $100 to start your own business online right away, you can read my comprehensive blog post on how to start a blog with Blogger by making use of their free hosting services.

 

First and foremost, I want you to know that blogging for money is not a get rich quick scheme. It requires hard work, smart work, consistency, focus and determination to make your business blog to become profitable. And you cannot do this in a twinkle of an eye.

 

Secondly, you’ve to understand SEO (search engine optimization), keyword research, content marketing, social media networking, etc, inside out in order to maximize your efforts, time, energy and money invested in building a profitable blog.

 

Just to mention it so that you know what makes a successful blog; there are three pillars that make blogging effective, namely: content, audience and the connection. Your first step to become a successful blogger is to create high quality content on a regular basis to attract your target audience and build your brand and relationship with your readers.

 

The second step is to know and connect with your audience. Understanding your ideal reader, prospect, lead or customer is critical to your success. Also, you want to build affinity with your target audience so that it becomes easy for you to sell to them from time to time. 

 

You’ve to understand that blogging is very profitable because it can be used to increase targeted traffic to your blog website through search engines and entrench visitors’ engagement. In other words, a blog is an amazing tool to start your own business and make passive income online.

 

Be that as it may, let’s get started!

 

Without going into the history of blog evolution, I’ll outline the basic steps to start a blog and make money.

 

1. Choose a blog topic to write about.
2. Research the market for viability of your topic.
3. Find and confirm if there are existing affiliate products and services already selling in the marketplace.
4. Conduct keyword research.
5. Get a domain name and web hosting.
6. Install WordPress blog on your domain.
7. Optimize your blog.
8. Set up data analytics.
9. Regularly publish content on your blog.
10. Monetize your blog.
11. Promote your blog.
12. Build backlinks to your blog.
13. Measure, analyze and improve on your metrics.

 

I’ll go through each of the above blog creation steps to explain what it really takes to create a blog and make money blogging online.

 

Step #1: Choose a Blog Topic to Write About

 

The first task in creating a blog is to choose a topic to write about. You’ve to take the time to do this because it will make or mar your overall blogging efforts from the foundation. The reason is quite obvious.

 

Choosing a wrong topic means your interest will wane over time and your blog will become inactive as you may derelict or be overwhelmed in publishing content regularly. The blog topic you should go for is a subject you know a lot about or you’re good at, passionate about or have keen interest in learning it. It will keep you keyed up in the life of your blog even if you’ve not started making money from your blog.

 

You can look at a broad market and from there niche down to select a topic with relatively wide coverage. You can take a look at the example below so that you’ll understand how to choose a niche blog topic.

 

Health >> Weight loss >> Diet for weight loss >> Paleo or Primal diet for weight loss

 

As you can see from the simple diagram above, the broad market is health. The next narrower market is weight loss. Now, as a blogger, I may want to focus on specific diets for losing weight. And I’m not done yet. I want to laser target primal or paleo diet for weight loss. So, my weight loss blog will start of by creating content around natural foods or paleo diets.

 

Side note: While picking a specific niche topic is a good start to build a blog, you should register a domain name with a broad meaning so that you can easily expand and grow your blog without limitations in scope. Instead of buying a domain that includes the keyword of primal or paleo, you’ll get a domain that has “health” or “weight loss” in it.

 

As your business blog grows, you can discuss topics on exercises, fitness, wellness, and so on because the domain name you registered is not restrictive.

 

There are various topics or broad markets to evaluate including:

 

• Jobs and employment
• Computer and internet
• Travel and tour
• Make money online
• Work from home business
• Etc

 

Don’t forget that you’re tentatively picking this topic for further scrutiny. In step two of this blogging guide, you’ve to conduct market viability to vet the profitability of your blog topic. If it fails the test, you simply revert to step one to pick another blog topic to evaluate.  

 

Step $2: Research the Market for Viability of Your Topic

 

The truth is this. You may know a lot about a topic to start your blog but it will not be profitable for you to invest money, quality time and energy to pursue it because the people you wish to target are not willing and able to spend money in that niche.

 

Your focus audience may just be teenagers or youth looking for free downloads on the internet or anything similar. But your goal is essentially to continually create valuable content for your blog readers which you can monetize to make money online.

 

The simplest and best way to conduct market research is to look out for problems, pain points or challenges of people you hope to serve. You can do this by actively participating in niche forums and online communities related to your subject.

 

Or you can build an email list of subscribers and conduct survey or send questionnaires to your list members for first hand information about what their pain points are and/or their preferred solutions to address them.

 

You can also make use of questions and answers sites like Quora.com to complete this task. People go to Q&A sites to ask questions about what they want to learn, seek solution or answer to their pain points or the best way to achieve a goal. By making use of the search function on this website will unearth a lot of information to work with.

 

A simple keyword research will show different queries which will reveal search intent of each keyword by close scrutiny. Obviously, there are markets you don’t need any research to confirm their viability but they can be competitive. In such markets, you’ve to look out for soft landing spot to start from.

 

If the market has been adjudged profitable by you, your next step is to find affiliate products and services to monetize your blog with since this is going to be our primary blog monetization strategy. 

 

I can assure you that on this topic on how to start a blog and make money blogging online, I’ll not leave any stone unturned. You can bookmark this blog because I’m going to publish all the steps in parts for easy assimilation so that you don’t get overwhelmed.

 

Where to Register a Domain Name to Start an Online Business

Before I point you to where to register a domain name to start an online business successfully as soon as possible, it’s important you understand domain name registration basics so that you don’t make the mistakes which majority of aspiring internet entrepreneurs fall into.

 

The truth is that a good domain is the most valuable digital asset you can have and it’s easy to lose it too if you don’t know how to manage it successfully.

 

Are you in a hurry to read further but to ahead and register a domain name for your internet business? No problems!

 

 

 

 

Click here to go to NameCheap registrar where to register a domain name

 

My Earnings Disclosure: Please take note that some of the links in this content are affiliate links. And, at no extra cost to you, I may earn commission if you make a purchase following the links. But I only recommend products and services I’ve personally used or strongly believe will be relevant to you or your business success. As it were, any company I partner with compensates me which helps me and my team to continually write and publish high quality content for my readers free of charge.

 

What is a Domain Name?

 

A domain name is a website URL (universal resource locator) which represents an IP address on the World Wide Web. It could be a word, phrase, alphanumeric or numbers only that takes you to a specific website when you type it on your browser’s address bar or by following a hyperlink text where the URL is embedded.

 

For example, HustleVim.com is a domain name with the .com extension or TLD (top level domain). When you type it on your browser, it may take you to a landing page, content website or parked page depending on who the incumbent owner is as at the time you’re reading this blog post.

 

As a beginner or newbie, you should know that registering a domain which has a high value is really building a solid and strong foundation for your web business. This is why domain flipping business will continue to be a viable and booming business in the near and remote future.

 

You’ll discover that domain flippers or investors are constantly buying and selling domain names on the internet because a premium domain name can be used for branding and promotion with ease by startups or existing business that wants to upgrade.  

 

Characteristics of a Good Domain Name

 

Before you can classify a name as poor, good or best domain, you’ve to look at a lot of qualities it possesses. The qualities of a good domain name are many and I’ll outline it here for your perusal. But you’ve to understand that no one domain name can possess all of these characteristics of a good domain name.

 

In any case, a good domain should have most of these qualities:

 

• Short
• Memorable
• Passes the radio test
• Brandable
• Not prone to misspelling
• No trademark infringement
• Commercially viable
• Rich in target keyword
• No numbers, symbols, hyphen or dash
• Easy to remember, type and pronounce
• Marketable

 

A good domain name should be able to say something about the topic of your web business without necessarily explaining it to someone. Again, if you own https://hustlevim.com, any visitor to the website should favorably expect to read about side hustle business ideas, all things being equal.

 

The only exception to not register keyword domain is when you want to invest in a brandable domain name. In this case, the business goal of this type of domain is essentially for branding and to simplify online user experience in some way. But huge advertising budget has to be made available in order to be able to create brand awareness as quickly as possible.  

 

Domain Name Registration Tips

 

It’s quite simple and easy to register a domain name. All you’ve to do is to visit your preferred domain registrar and use their domain name availability checker to confirm if your desired name is taken or not. I can tell you most of the time that the name you want to register will not be available for registration especially if you’re hunting for the .com extension.

 

NameCheap.com always makes it easy to buy a domain name from their web site. Also, it will make possible suggestions as well for other domain name ideas you can run with. You can quickly evaluate it and decide if you’ve to buy a domain name suggested to you on the spot.

 

Click here to go to NameCheap official site and type your domain name idea into the search box. You’ve to wait for few seconds after clicking the search button to get the results. If it’s available, you’ll be given the opportunity to add it to your cart before checking out.

 

I’ll advise you to sign up with NameCheap now before you start checking for available domains so that you can quickly register your domain on the spot if it is available. At every point in time, one or two aspiring online entrepreneurs and domain investors are thinking and generating the same domain ideas as you and me are doing. And domain name registration is on first come, first served basis. So, don’t allow another smart online business owner or domain flipper to beat you to the game.

 

Even if you’re not building a website or creating a blog on your domain, you can reserve it for later use. Sometime ago, while I was planning to start web hosting reseller business, I went online to check for a domain name I have in mind. As luck would have it, it was available for hand registration.

 

But guess what happened? I vacillated to register it on the spot and the next time I checked it has been registered by someone else! You should not let this happen to you. I can actually inhibit your motivation to start an online business if you cannot find a choice name to brand with.

 

Types of Domain Names

 

These types of domain names depend on the way you want to classify them. Broadly, you’ve:

 

1. EMD (exact match domain)
2. Keyword domain with action word or phrase attached
3. Brandable domain name
4. Product or service domain name

 

Exact Match Domain (EMD)

 

EMD is a domain name that is registered with a target keyword in it “as is.” Registering “side hustle business” (i.e. SideHustleBusiness.com) in that order as a domain name is an example of EMD because it’s a searchable keyword phrase if you look it up with keyword research tool.

 

If you get a domain as EMD and you’re able to build a website or create a blog on it with high quality content, you’ll be miles ahead of the competition. And if you optimize your blog or website and target low-competitive keyword phrases, you can rank higher on the SERP (search engine results pages) over time.

 

Keyword Domain

 

This is a domain with the target search query plus a descriptive word or phrase attached to it. For instance, HustleVim.com has “hustle” as the target word with “vim” attached to it to get a domain in this niche market.

 

Since, EMD are hard to find and register these days, people are getting more creative by appending action word or phrase to search terms to get a domain. Although there may not be outright SEO benefits accruing to keyword domain, I believe it can help in conversion because prospects and leads will have an idea of what the purpose of the website is.

 

Brandable Domain

 

Brandable domain name is creative in nature and it can help in future growth and expansion. It could be invented, blended, playing on a letter/word in the domain, and the like. A good example of a brandable name is Google.com. This is not an English word but invented which has become a household name and synonymous with search engine on the World Wide Web today.

 

Also, a lot of brandables have become popular in some way. Let’s take Lyft.com domain name as an example. What the owners did was to replace letter “i” with letter “y” and you’ll still come up with the same pronunciation of “lift.” This can be seen as deliberate misspelling in order to come up with something that is unique and brandable.

 

Some domains owners do go to the extent of dropping a letter from English words e.g. Tumblr.com instead of Tumbler.com where the letter “e” is conspicuously missing. To be frank with you, getting these types of domain names is like searching for a needle in a haystack in today’s tech world.

 

Product or Service Domain Name

 

This type of a domain name refers to specific but generic product or service name. If you own HairShampoo.com, you’ll fall into this category. Product domain name should not be confused with EMD or keyword domain because there is a thin line of difference.  

 

A lot of domain investors scooped up lots of these domains in the early days of the internet and they use it as type-in traffic.

 

Domain Name Life Cycle

 

A domain name life cycle refers to the states a domain is assigned during its life time. As soon as a domain is registered and paid for, it enters an active status. This will, however, depends on the number of years it was paid for up to a maximum of 10 years on a row.

 

To break down the domain states, we have:

 

1. Active status
2. Renewal grace period
3. Redemption period
4. Pending delete
5. Deleted or expired  or available status

 

Active Status

 

A domain name is in active state when its period of registration or renewal has not expired. For instance, if I register a domain name for one year period on January 1, it is going to be active until the anniversary day of my first registration.

 

During this period, web services (both free and paid) being offered by the registrar which are related to this domain name should work properly without any encumbrance.  This includes URL forwarding, email forwarding, updating or changing domain name severs (DNS), and so on.

 

If you’ve a valuable domain name which you don’t want to lose for any reason, it’s always advisable to set your domain to auto-renew in your account with the registrar. As long as your checking account is funded, you’ll have no problem renewing your domain name since it will become automatic.

 

With your domain name in active status, you’ll be able to build a website or create a blog on it. Yes, just register a domain name and get web hosting and you’re good to start a blog and make money blogging online.

 

Renewal Grace Period

 

For some reasons best known to an incumbent domain owner, a domain name can lapse and enter into renewal grace period at some point in time. This is about 30 days or so (it depends on your registrar anyway) after the domain active status ceases because the owner eventually failed to renew it in order to bring it to an active state again. 

 

As it were, the incumbent domain owner can still renew it at the normal domain renewal price without paying any surcharge. This is the best time to renew and reclaim your digital asset if it is valuable to you without paying through the nose.

 

Redemption Period

 

Redemption period is a state of a domain name after the renewal grace period lapses. At this time, the current owner cannot get the domain back without paying restoration fees because the registrar must have requested the domain to be deleted from the registry.

 

For a domain name you should have renewed for only $10, you may end up paying as much as $120 to get it back via restoration. And most times, it’s a 50/50 chance of recovery because domain backorder services may also snap it up before your registrar does.

 

Pending Delete Status

 

Pending delete state is usually a 5 day period when the domain name is finally removed from the registry by deletion. What this means is that the name will become available for hand registration at the regular price.

 

But more often than not, a valuable domain name may have been backordered which will preclude it from dropping. A lot of these types of domain names go to auctions and closeout for buyers to pick up and purchase for a winning bid.

 

Where to Register a Domain Name

 

Domain registrars and their resellers are saddled with the responsibilities of registering and managing domain names in their custody. For you to be on the safe side, it’s advisable to sign up with ICANN accredited domain registrar.

 

Also, web hosting companies carry out the business of domain name registration as well. If you want to buy a domain name and purchase web hosting at the same time and place to start your own business online, you can get that from a reliable web host like HostGator. They will give you a free domain name of your choice when you sign up for their web hosting services.

 

Otherwise, you can go with domain registrar like NameCheap.com to purchase a domain name. This is how to check availability of a domain name.

 

First, click here to use the domain name search box on NameCheap’s website.

 

 

Then, go ahead and type in your domain name idea into the search field. This feature also doubles as domain name generator because it will suggest a lot of other domain name ideas to choose from in case your name is not available to register. 

 

You can go through the list of domains to see if any of the ideas appeal to you and buy it before someone else does.