So you want to start a money-making blog?
But, you aren’t sure where to start, or what you need to learn. Perhaps you are feeling a bit overwhelmed?
I wish I had started my own blog a long time ago. I’ve spent a number of years looking after other people's blogs whilst thinking I really wanted to do the same. But, at the time, I didn’t have the guts to give up my day job.
My biggest blogging mistake was not starting my blog long, long ago, and it is a mistake that makes the other slip-ups I made insignificant by comparison.
One of those slip-ups was not getting on Pinterest from day zero.
In this guide, I will explain how it is paramount that you get your Pinterest account up and running as soon as you know what your blog topic will be so that it is ready to feed your blog with traffic the minute you publish your first blog post.
Do I recommend blogging?
Absolutely yes! I love it. I love writing particularly. Give me a laptop and some peace and quiet and I will write for hours.
If you can say ‘yes’ to most of these, then I recommend blogging to you too.
You are comfortable treating your blog as a business, not a hobby If you want to write a blog about your musings, what it’s like to be you, including what you had for breakfast, then blogging for income isn’t for you.
You are not easily discouraged In the beginning, it can take time to get traffic, especially from Google. (However, I am going to show you a way to get traffic pretty much from day one).
You are happy working from home For many people, this is the number one reason for starting a blog. The freedom a blog gives you to work wherever you wish is a major draw.
You like writing You will be doing a lot of writing; it helps if you like it! You don’t need to be great at it, improvement is always possible, but if you like writing you are off to a head start.
You like to learn new things There are a lot of things to learn when you start a blog. This guide will get you off on the right track. Learning will be a continuous thing, because the world of blogging is always changing.
You are not scared of technology It isn’t necessary to be tech-savvy to start a blog. If you are comfortable in the knowledge that there are techie things to learn, you will be fine, but if you are plainly scared of the prospect, perhaps blogging isn’t for you.
Still with me? Then let’s crack on and find out how to start a money-making blog today!
In this guide, I will take you through the complete process from having an idea for a blog through to setting up your blog, writing posts, setting up a mailing list, and getting traffic, and ultimately drawing an income.
Let's GET STARTED
Step #1 Find your niche
When you first start your blog, the first thing you need to do is choose the subject of your blog.
Your blog is most likely to be a success if:
It is specific You should be able to define your blog subject in one sentence.
You are passionate about it Ask yourself the question, ‘could I write about [insert subject], day in, day out?‘
There are lots of other blogs on the same subject If making money is an aim, a good sign is if there are many other blogs on the same subject. The chances are good that it can make money.
Step #2 Choose your audience
Create a picture in your mind of whom you are writing the blog for. Perhaps your blog is for a new mum with postnatal depression, a single dad, mothers of twins, parents of an autistic child, or a mother with financial struggles.
The options are vast, but it helps if you are in, or have been in, your target audience too.
Who is your reader?
Don’t be broad. Be very precise about who your reader is. Imagine that every post you write, every email, everything you post on Pinterest, and on your Facebook page is for the benefit of your one reader that you have got to know so well in your head. I used the word reader rather than readers because it really helps to think of your audience singularly.
You must know what he or she likes to read, (let’s assume a woman for now), what TV shows she watches, what her worries are, where she wants to go in life, what her struggles are, what is stopping her from reaching her dream, the list goes on.
the time I sit down to write.
Knowing your reader makes blogging so much easier.
You know what sites she likes to visit so you know what kind of site design she might like and what graphics to choose for your posts.
You know roughly what her schedule might be so you can choose the best times to email.
You know what kind of shows she likes to watch so you could mention them in your chatty intros.
When it comes to advertising, knowing her makes it much easier to decide where to place adverts and what type of audience to target for Facebook ads.
Of course, when your blog grows, and you have an email list, you can use it to find out much more about everyone that reads and benefits from your blog.
Step #3 Choose a domain name
If you search ‘choose a domain‘ on the web. So much comes up it’s bewildering. So it’s best not to go there, and carry on reading instead!
If you don’t have a domain yet, here are some things to consider:
Should be memorable Test it out with friends and family, does it roll off the tongue, or is it too obscure?
Six letters or less is good But not always possible, so don’t worry if you can’t do that.
Avoid hyphens myfirstblog.com is preferable to my-first-blog.com
Is your domain available on social media Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram? Namecheckr.com lets you know which handles are available, so do check that before you make your final choice.
My advice is not to get too hung up on your domain name. It really doesn’t matter too much, as long as you don’t go for something that has no bearing at all on your blog content or could get misconstrued.
Try out your domain idea on your friends and family. Do they think they could remember it? What picture/feeling/emotion does the name conjure up for them?
You can register a domain with whomever you like. You don’t have to register your domain with your hosting company, in fact, I always like to keep the two separate, so that if I need to re-host, I don’t need to change registrars too.
Domain registrars are Bluehost, GoDaddy, 123Reg, and many more. You don’t have to think too carefully about the registrar company because they don’t do much. As long as your registrar company reminds you when to renew, and provides decent tools for editing the DNS records, they are good enough.
Find the cheapest place and stick with that. I use Bluehost for all my domains, so I recommend them if you are not sure. They always remind me to renew so I’ve never found myself in trouble with expiring domains.
Step #4 Decide on your blog topics
I know we haven’t yet set up WordPress, we don’t even have a blog yet!
However, it is vital you think about your blog topics upfront.
If you are going to be starting a lifestyle blog, for example, your main topic areas might be fitness, healthy recipes, and money-saving tips.
There is no need to get too specific at this stage, that will come later, but for now, we need a list of topic areas.
Check out blogs on a similar subject. What subject areas do they write about?
The blog topics you come up here will define the categories and tags you eventually set up in WordPress, and will also help you make your Pinterest boards in the next step.
Step #5 Embrace Pinterest
Pinterest is the number one purveyor of traffic for new blogs. We will be using Pinterest to its fullest.
In order to make sure we get traffic to our blog immediately, it is necessary that we utilize Pinterest at the very beginning. You don’t need a blog to start an account.
Later on, when your blog matures, Google will likely be the primary source of traffic, but until then, Pinterest is your traffic feeder. So let’s set it up now.
So that Google does eventually become a traffic source, we need to pay attention to good SEO. We will be doing that in a later step when we learn how to write posts.
Open a business account at Pinterest.
Make Pinterest boards for each of your topics Each board name should correspond with a topic that you decided on in the earlier step. Do a search for each topic within Pinterest to ensure that you use key search terms for your board name. For example, I have a board called Blogging Tips
Find influencer accounts Find and follow some large accounts in your niche with a monthly view count of at least 1 Million
Start pinning Pin regularly to each of your boards. The key thing to understand here is don’t simply hit the Save button. Each pin you save must be a new pin, otherwise, Pinterest will see you as a content consumer rather than a creator. You can create a new pin by clicking through to the post and then sharing to Pinterest**
**Some Pinterest accounts don’t save their pins on the post, so when you go to share the post to Pinterest, the Pin image that you wanted to share is not available. To get over this go back to the pin and download the pin image, copy the post link and then create a new pin using the + create pin icon. Pinning this way is more time consuming, but well worth the effort.
From now onwards, you should be pinning at least 30 new pins per day on Pinterest, the more, the better. These pins should be popular (with a high repin count) originating from the large influencer accounts you identified. They must also be pins that your eventual reader would be interested in..
Step #6 Let’s be clear about WordPress
WordPress, by Automattic, is a content management system or CMS for short which can be used to create and update websites.
A CMS makes it much easier for a person without knowledge of HTML and CSS (the languages used to write web pages) to update a website.
WordPress has a simple editor that allows you to write content without knowing HTML and CSS. WordPress also allows you to do things like add pictures to your content by drag and drop and embed videos by just entering the Youtube link.
If you can use a word processor, then you should be comfortable creating content with a CMS. It is straightforward to learn how to use the WordPress editor. We will look at how to write posts in WordPress later on.
Before we move on, there is something I need to make clear, and it is a source of confusion for many people.
There are two types of WordPress
WordPress can be hosed either at WordPress.com or by a generic host such as Bluehost who will install and run the version downloaded from WordPress.org.
If you don’t have time just now, read on for a quick explanation.
At WordPress.com, you can get free hosting on WordPress’s own hosting platform. It is very easy to start a blog at WordPress.com. Open an account, choose a theme and start blogging … pretty easy. You can even use a personal domain name.
WordPress.com is an excellent place to host your blog if all you want to do is write, but it’s not suitable if you intend to monetize your blog, because there are restrictions on what you can and can’t do. Crucially, the can’t dos include not being able to insert your own ads, and not being able to upload your own theme and plugins.
Since we are talking about starting a money-making blog, I don’t recommend you go for WordPress.com host. But, do not fear because WordPress is what is known as Opensource.
Opensource means that the WordPress code is free, and you can run it on any web server you choose, along with having the freedom to do whatever you like with it, including putting whatever ads and affiliations you want and installing whichever theme and plugin you need to create your successful blog.
Websites that run WordPress from WordPress.org are known as self-hosted WordPress sites. You may have heard that term before, but don’t worry if not.
The technicalities of self-hosting a WordPress site are not something you need to worry about, as all hosts that I recommend make it super easy to install WordPress with just a button click. So don’t let technical worries put you off a self-hosted WordPress, it really is pretty straightforward. The main thing, as I said earlier, is not to be scared!
Step #7 Choose WordPress hosting
Many hosts allow WordPress to be installed on a website with just a click of a button, so there is no need for you to be bothered with the technicalities of doing it yourself.
The next step is to choose a web host for your shiny new blog
and for self-hosted money-making blogs, I thoroughly recommend Bluehost
Bluehost One of the most popular hosting companies out there, Bluehost powers over 2 million websites.
This company is officially recommended by WordPress. So, if you’re a WordPress user, Bluehost would be a great fit for you as they provide an easy, one-click WordPress installation.
In addition, they’re at the top when it comes to uptime percentage. Their average load time is one of the fastest, even on their shared hosting plan.
The cheapest promotional plan offered is the Basic plan, which will run you $3.95/month. It also includes a free domain name for the first year and an SSL certificate (provides website security).
Bluehost is a hands-down when we come to talk about web hosting cause it gives you a whole hosting system that will take your website to the next level and all of that cost you only $3.95 monthly which is nearly a free web hosting service.
If you're starting a blog then I highly recommend Bluehost Why?
2 million use it and it is recommended by the best. Bluehost powers over 2 million websites all over the world. And it is recommended by WordPress itself and by some of the most respected and best bloggers there is Problogger.com and Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income.
One-click installer. A second important reason is that they have what’s called a one-click installer. And that’s exactly what it sounds like. You press a button and then you have a WordPress blog just like mine set up.
You’ll be self-hosted. And that's a big benefit as I've already mentioned.
You get a free domain name. This is the address to your website (mine's for example positivityblog.com).
A free SSL certificate. You can use this to add an extra layer of security to your website (this is something Google and many others are getting very serious about in 2018).
24/7 support. So that you can ask questions or get help whenever you need it.
63% off for Positivity Blog readers. A final reason is that Bluehost has been kind enough to offer all Positivity Blog readers a 63% discount for anyone who sets up a WordPress website or blog. So you can get started at only $2.95 per month.
Get your hosting package.
I use images from the Bluehost website during this step to make things easy to follow.
Click the green Get Started Now button in the new window you just opened.
On the next page choose which one of the 3 Webhosting plans you want.
After you’ve done that you get to choose your own domain name on the page shown below (use the new domain section).
And on the following page, you choose if you want 12, 24 or 36 months of hosting and then simply type in your account and payment information.
Here you can also choose if you want any of the extras like domain privacy or site backup – I’d skip them but it’s up to you – and then you put in your payment information and click submit.
Set up your WordPress blog by using the one-click installer.
You’ve now purchased your domain name and hosting package and you have gotten access to what’s called the Cpanel (this is your control panel for your web hosting account).
As you log into the Cpanel you may see a message that tells you that you can have Bluehost install the WordPress website for you.
But that comes at a cost and it’s very easy to do it yourself for free.
Here’s how:
First, find the blue Install WordPress icon on your Cpanel page and click it. This is the one-click installer.
On the next page simply fill out the few options there. Be sure to set both a complicated Admin Username (do not use admin as a username) and Password. This will make your website a whole lot more secure against attacks. Write down the username and password on paper and keep it somewhere where you can easily find it when you need it.
Then click the Install button and your website/blog is created instantly.
You’ll then get the website address for where you log into your website. There you simply type in your admin username and your password and then you’re ready to start writing and shaping your very own website or blog.
Click here to get good deals when joining Bluehost!
Step #8 Get to know the WordPress dashboard
If you are new to WordPress, it is well worth getting to know the dashboard. It will save you so much time later on.
Step #10 Choose a theme
This is the most important aspect of setting up your blog. You could waste a lot of time later switching themes if you don’t get it right at the beginning.
When you choose a theme, go for something that has the type of layout you need, because the layout is the hardest to change. It is easy to change fonts and colors, and add your own logo and images, but the layout is more difficult to change.
Step #11 Set-up your new WordPress blog
At this point, I advise taking a backup of your site and then getting to know the theme you have installed.
Hopefully, you have learned a bit about your new theme during your research. If not, it is well worth paying a visit to the theme site and watching any videos and tutorials they have. Find out how to get support. This will save a lot of time later.
Depending on which theme you chose, there may be customizations available such as setting the accent color (colors for links, etc.) and font.
Usually, you can do this in the WordPress customizer which you can get to here:
If you have chosen a solid WordPress theme (like GeneratePress), you will be able to make all your changes I list above within the customizer itself, with the added benefit of being able to see the effect of changes immediately.
My favorite thing about the customizer is that, should you not like what you see, you can always hit the Discard button, and nothing will change.
Of course, if you happen to hit Publish instead and you need to go back, you can always restore the backup you made earlier (so don’t forget to do that!).
I have a full post on using the theme customizer:
Step #12 Start writing posts
What we have done up to now is probably the easy bit. The next much bigger step is to start writing your blog content!
Here are the top three things that I have learned about blogging:
Content is king! Google your blog idea and make sure that your article is better than anything you see ranked in Google.
A catchy title is a must The title should be something that your readers can’t help clicking on.
Market, your posts like mad Create a Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest page and post your articles regularly. Social media marketing, is a huge subject and I recommend that you find out more on this, but the main thing to know is, don’t expect your readers to find you, you must find them!
How to find topics to write about
This can be the most perplexing question for many new bloggers. Fortunately, we have a plan!
If you want to make money from your blog, what you cannot do, is write whatever you fancy writing about. I’ve done it, and it doesn’t work!
We want to write about subjects that our tribe wants to read about. The way to find out is to do some research.
Up to this point, you will have been diligently pinning popular pins from the influencer accounts you follow.
The Tools You Need For Grammar That Will Save You A Lot Of Time
Grammarly Free Grammar & Spell Checker
Grammarly is the best grammar checker software ever, It detects grammatical errors in real-time. You can use it as a browser add-on, integrate it with Microsoft word & even use their text pad.
The free version only supports spelling and grammatical correction, whereas the paid one offers.
Advanced checks for punctuation, grammar, context, and sentence structure.
Vocabulary enhancement suggestions.
Genre-specific writing style checks.
Plagiarism detector checking over 16 billion web pages.
Personally, I use Grammarly to detect most of the errors in between my articles!
Step #13 Set up a mailing list
Every blogger I speak to or read the blog posts will say how important it is to cultivate an email list, and the best time to start one is yesterday!
Many bloggers and I recommend Aweber, The smallest plan is only $19 per month for under 500 subscribers. AWeber is the best deal for new bloggers cause they give you access to many email marketing tools which will make things run easy when you are getting sign-ups for your list, get your AWeber 30 days free trial here
It is really worth getting to know Aweber well because it can be an excellent sidekick for your blogging business.
Step #14 Get ready to launch!
Technically your blog was launched as soon as you signed up for hosting, whoops sorry I forgot to tell you that!
We didn’t make your new blog private in the sense that no-one has access to it but you, because there is no point, no one knows about your blog yet unless you told some friends. Anyway, I don’t recommend you ever make your blog private, because it is all too easy to forget to turn it off.
Here are some pre-launch checks to make before you start marketing your blog to the world.
Step #15 Make a home page
This is an optional step because most themes will show your latest posts on your blog. It was a while before I put a home page on my blog
Step #16 Getting traffic to your blog
Because we very diligently created our Pinterest account right at the start, the potential for gaining traffic to our blog at the very start is high.
The work on SEO optimization we did to our blog in general, and within blog posts, means we have laid the foundations for potential traffic from Google. But traffic from Google will take time to come.
In the meantime, Pinterest will provide us with our readers.
Here are some pointers for helping you to get traffic from Pinterest:
Make at least one fabulous pin (several is better) for each blog post Great pins are tall (800×1200-1600px), have large catchy titles, and look great. Look at your Pinterest Analytics and notice the kind of pin designs that get pinned and clicked on the most.
Use keywords in the pin title, and description Keywords will help Pinterest to understand what your pin is about and help then to rank in searches.
Step #17 Monetising your new blog
Ultimately we wanted to make money from our blog, didn’t we?
Traffic from Pinterest will start to trickle through and it will get larger as you have more blog posts and get better at creating attention-grabbing headlines and graphics.
Later on, the hard work you did on SEO will pay off and Google will start sending you traffic.
How you monetize your blog will depend on what you are comfortable with. There is more than one way and you can use a combination.
Here are some options:
Advertising When you have achieved steady traffic you can apply to various ad networks. These include AdSense, Mediavine, and AdThrive. Mediavine and AdThrive require a minimum number of monthly sessions to qualify for acceptance on their program.
Sponsored posts You can approach products that are aligned with your audience or they will approach you. You then write a review of their product in return for cash.
Affiliate links You talk about products that are relevant to your readers and then add a link which when your reader clicks and makes a purchase you will receive a fee.
Create and sell your own product or service Once you get to know your audience it may become clear that a particular type of product is desirable(Ebooks, courses, consultation...etc)
How Much You Can Make As A Blogger!
Let's have a serious convo! having your own blog is a money snowball, I mean the more you provide good content the more money will come across your bank account!
I know so many bloggers who are making a living from their blogs like the great Michel from making sense of cents where she is making over $50,000 monthly from her own blog! that's huge, no! that's really huge as a home staying side hustle.
So what are waiting to start your profitable business which will cost you nearly nothing except the $3.95 Bluehost monthly membership which is really a free service due to the big support which they afford to your own blog!
CONCLUSION
In this guide, we have gone through everything that you need to do to start your blog with WordPress.
I hope you now have a clear picture in your mind about what is involved, and how to create your dream blog.
I have a lot of posts on this blog to help you with technical struggles, and it is growing all the time. If you have a particular problem that you can’t find the answer to, do let me know on my contact page, or comment below. I’m always looking for new ideas for blog posts.
I love blogging, it gives me enormous pleasure, and I am sure that you will love it too, just keep pushing, and you will have the profitable blog you dream of!
THANKS FOR READING
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