Making money online through blogging is not a myth, even for beginner webmasters. Contrary to rumors, blogging is alive and well, and there are plenty of content creators that successfully monetize their sites. Many bloggers have earned thousands of dollars per month, and now it’s your turn.
How to Start a Blog That Makes Money (Proven Tips)
Begin your blogging journey with this article covering a step-by-step guide on how to build a blog that generates money.
1. Choose a Web Hosting Platform
Web hosting acts like the house of your blog, where you store content, media, and code. You have tons of hosting platform options. Choose one that gives you affordable web hosting packages with essential features like SSL, WordPress installation, and enough storage.
Make sure the company has reachable customer service through live chat and ideally offers support in your native language. Additionally, be sure that the platform is scaleable – you won’t have issues adding more resources as you grow.
You can start out with a shared hosting solution, and later move to more powerful types, like VPS, once you’re monetizing your blog or acquire sustainable traffic.
2. Pick a Brandable Domain Name
A brandable name can be a good representation of your blog. It builds trustworthiness and distinguishes you from your competitors. Pick a short and easy-to-pronounce name. Ensure it’s unique, so you won’t find other people use the domain name.
To spark inspiration, here are three types of brandable names.
- Keyword-based names. Hint your blog’s niche. For example, if you plan to have a traveling blog, you can incorporate keywords like nomad or wanderer into your domain name.
- Evocative brand names. Speak your brand’s purposes. A prominent example is Uber, which means super or more than any in German.
- Invented names. Refers to completely made-up names like Google and Kodak.
3. Select a Nice Theme and Customize Your Blog
Most blogs are based on WordPress, as it’s the most popular CMS out there. When selecting a WordPress theme, prioritize simplicity. A theme with many elements makes your website load slowly. Also, your readers might struggle to focus when faced with a cluttered blog design.
Another requirement for a blog theme is responsiveness across devices. It’s important as a significant amount of website traffic comes from smartphones. Before applying a theme to your blog, test the theme’s demo page using the mobile-friendly test tool from Google.
After picking a theme:
- Personalize it based on your brand personality.
- Adjust the fonts, color combinations, and background.
- Design an iconic logo to get a professional look for your blog.
4. Publish Valuable Content
Valuable content drives traffic and eventually generates money for your blog. Let’s see what makes content valuable.
- Show you’re the expert in the industry by producing in-depth content. You can provide useful tips and how-to articles or helpful recommendations in the form of a listicle.
- Broad topics are highly competitive, so narrow them down with another relevant term. For instance, when you use the keyword “fashion tips,” change it into “fashion tips for body types.”
- Google penalizes duplicate content as it may seem like an attempt to manipulate search engine results. Before publishing content, use a plagiarism checker to make sure your content is unique.
5. Post Consistently
Blogging frequency matters to attract organic traffic. Brands that post 16 pieces on their blog gain four times more traffic than blogs with less than four posts per month.
To post consistently, do a brainstorming session and list the ideas. Then, decide on certain days to publish the content and put it in your content calendar. If you’re struggling, use tools like Ahrefs to find keywords that are relevant to your niche, and start producing content based on their search intent.
6. Grow a Community Through Your Blog
A large following can encourage social shares that can generate traffic to your blog. Maintaining a genuine relationship with readers also increases the chances of them linking to your post. The link building will improve your site’s search engine optimization (SEO) ranking.
Here are several strategies to build a community through your blog.
- Engage with them in your content. Ask your readers to comment, and don’t forget to reply.
- Be active on social media. Share your blog posts on social media and apply popular hashtags related to your content to get discovered.
- Hold a challenge that is relevant to your content. For instance, you create a 7-day eating breakfast challenge and send readers recipes every day. A challenge builds readers’ anticipation to keep reading your content and finish it.
7. Start Monetizing Your Blog
The previous steps help you gain enough organic traffic and have convertible content before actually monetizing your blog. Assuming you have reached the level, let’s see how you can make money from your blog.
- Display Google Ads. Get money when readers click on the ads on your blog.
- Write reviews. Brands will pay you to place their links on your blog or talk about their product and promote it to your readers.
- Join an affiliate program. It means you sell other people’s products and get a commission.
- Sell your products. You can sell courses or eBooks on your niche to your followers.
Conclusion
Now, you know how to start a money-making blog. Blogging is not an easy job, so I hope this guide will help you get through the process of becoming a high-paying blogger.