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 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:
- Using the totally free method by making use of free blogging platforms like Blogger.com, WordPress.com, Wix.com, etc,
- 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
- 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.
- Choose a blog topic to write about.
- Research the market for viability of your topic.
- Find and confirm if there are existing affiliate products and services already selling in the marketplace.
- Conduct keyword research.
- Get a domain name and web hosting.
- Install WordPress blog on your domain.
- Optimize your blog.
- Set up data analytics.
- Regularly publish content on your blog.
- Monetize your blog.
- Promote your blog.
- Build backlinks to your blog.
- 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment