Let me guess, you saw someone making six-digit per month just from blogging and you wanna do the same? You wish to start a blog and make a huge amount of passive income.
Am I right?
Yeah, I get it. Blogging is a great income source giving you every freedom you want with lots of money and thus it appears to be a dream business to many of us.
So, How do you plan to achieve those figures income? It is true that a blog can definitely give you 1000 of dollars but just creating it and writing whatever stuffs you want is not gonna work.
It’s a harsh truth, trust me.
In reality, it takes time as well as lots of hard work to build a successful blog and start making money from it.
If you agree to do both here are some facts you have to consider first before starting.
Starting a blog to make money?
Once you begin your blogging journey, you must be clear with “why you wish to start your blog?”
Do you want to turn it into a real business and make money from it or do you just want to start it as “giving a try” to earn 6 figures monthly?
If your concern is towards serious blogging and wishes for generating lots of money from your blog, first of all, you have to take it seriously.
Meanwhile, if you just read a blog’s income report claiming “I made $10000 this month from blogging” and it enough you to start your own blog and earn the same amount in your first month then I am very sorry to say, Blogging is not for you.
I have no intention to disappoint you but it’s the truth.
There is hardly any chance you are gonna make $10000 in your first 6 months of blogging. At least, it seems impossible for me.
But, hey I didn’t mention you can’t make $10000 a month from blogging.
The only thing which you require to achieve this income is TIME, CONSISTENCY, and PATIENCE.
There is no one-night-rich scheme or miracle in blogging at least.
It takes hard work and persistence.
So, I would suggest you not start a blog until and unless you are ready both emotionally and physically to put the working efforts into it.
However, if you promise yourself to work hard and give your 100%, then you should definitely start a blog.
Hard work always pays off!
Go self Hosted From the Beginning
You might be wondering, why should you pay for a blog hosted on your own hosting when you are provided with various choices of blogging platforms which are free?
Honestly, this question arise in my mind too when I first wish to start my very first blog.
But let me tell you, Blogging is a real-time business and every business needs some investment. So, do blogging but in this case, the investment is very minutes in money. It will hardly take a few dollars of investment to get your first-year self-hosted blog ready. The main investment in this business is TIME.
So, don’t move back is investing this amount if you are really serious about Blogging.
In free platforms, things get more complicated, and earning a really good amount through those platforms via blogging is really hard.
Most of those free platforms inhibit blog monetization or even if they do they keep most of your earning shares or limited.
However, when you host your blog on your own, you are building a real brand. You are actually creating awareness of your brand to your audience and the companies that you are serious about blogging and are in the long term in this field.
This will help you get more sponsors and companies will be happy to work with you. You can even think to scale your business and invest in startups in the future.
Eventually, if you might be thinking that there will be many technicalities associated with a self-hosted blog set up, My friend you are wrong.
It is much easier than you think and let me guide you in the next step.
How to Start a Blog to Make Money
1. Choose a niche you are interested in.
This is one of the crucial steps in Blogging. You need to select a niche for your blog in which you have your interest.
Now, what actually is a niche, might be your query, right?
Well for simplicity, A niche is a specific topic of your blog.
Eventually, if you are interested in its definition, A niche is the market segment that aims at a specific group of people.
Still confused?
Let me break it down for you further.
In niche blogging, you are writing your blog post not about everything or for everyone. Instead, you are writing about one specific topic
In short, you are writing blog posts for one specific group of people.
So, now you need to figure out, you want to write your blog post for whom? Then find what you will be blogging about.
It is necessary for blogging in 2022 to define your ideal readers. Eventually, this will give you clues about what answers they are struggling for and their biggest problems. Then write content that provides value to them, content that solves their problems or gives answers to their questions.
Why do you need to niche down?
There exist lots of answers to this particular query. But I am gonna include only the important points of niching down in blogging.
Firstly, niching down serves great results in the case of SEO or Search Engine Optimization.
When you write your blogs about a particular topic, you appear to be an “expert” to both the Search engines and the readers as well. This satisfies search engine’s algorithm, “E.A.T” and thus most of your blog posts tend to rank higher in the SERP with much lesser time.
Meanwhile, if you are struggling with the terminologies, here is it.
The “E” in E.A.T stands for “Expertise”, A stands for “Authoritativeness” and “T” stands for “Trustworthiness.”
Likewise,
SERP stands for Search Engine Result Page.
Secondly, I have mentioned before, as “expert in your reader’s views”.
Suppose, your reader came to your blog to discover the “pancake recipes”. His/her interest is related to recipes or food only. If you blog about multiple topics like gaming, home decor, will he/she read it? once the pancake recipe reading is over.
No, They won’t.
Additionally, they won’t come back to your blog again. But if you blog about food recipes only, your reader will have this in their mind this blog provides a good step-by-step guide in recipes and this will even enhance your branding.
They will only come back if 9/10 blogs are co-related in which your readers are interested. This will urge them to come back and even subscribe to your email list so that they can be as early as they can once you publish your blog post.
Niching down also helps in content creating.
When you choose broader topics you get lots of different topic ideas which might get you to feel overwhelmed. This can deteriorate your opinions and choices.
But don’t niche down too much.
When you are choosing a niche you must not narrow down too much, such that you wrote only 5 posts, and your ideas of post get exhausted.
So, ask yourself if it’s something in which your blog writing ideas won’t end up.
2. Pick a blog Name
Done with choosing your niche? Let’s now move to the blog setup steps.
Here, first of all, you need to pick a perfect name for your blog.
Here are a few things you need to keep in mind while choosing your blog name:
- You need to find a name for your blog that should be as short as possible. (I hope you don’t remember that blog with 15 letter names, you visited last time)
- Choose a name, that is easy to remember and catchy.
Not sure? which name should you choose? I am here to guide you on this as well.
Get a pen and a piece of a white sheet. List down all those possible keywords you gonna include in your blog post or write content about. Once you are done, try mixing these words one by one and see which fits better.
You can even go with Canva, for visualizing these ideas. Here is an example.
When you finalize your blog name, don’t forget to check it, whether it is available or already acquired by someone from here.
3. Choose a web hosting provider
Not sure what actually is a web hosting provider?
Ummm, Basically, it is a service that permits you to post your website on the internet wirelessly. You are just gonna rent a storage space available on the internet on a yearly basis and in return, you will be able to store all your website data, files, and information in there.
Now, if you ask me about the best web hosting provider in my view, I would highly recommend you to go with the first choice of bloggers, The Bluehost.
This Bluehost hosting comes with a user-friendly and use to use functionality and thus can be easy for beginners in setting it up with only a few clicks.
Apart from that, what makes it perfectly fit for beginners is its affordable price. They offer their basic plan starting from $3.95/month, which is quite affordable and much much cheaper if you compare it with other hosts.
Additionally, you can claim a FREE DOMAIN for the first year and some other benefits associated with it.
Why should you choose Bluehost?
- It is recommended by WordPress itself.
- You don’t need to pay for DOMAIN in the first year, just pay for hosting and it’s done.
- You will get a free email with it
- WordPress installation is simple, easy, and fast.
- It is a trusted and reliable hosting provider.
- Their customer support is good, knowledgeable, and fast.
How to set up Bluehost?
You will hardly take 5 mins to set up Bluehost without getting any much technical complexities.
Just head over to the Bluehost homepage and click on the “Get Started” button.
Now, choose your preferred plan,, that satisfies your need and then click “select”.
If you are a beginner and want to start for the first time, I would suggest you go with the Basic plan, It is all a newbie blogger would need. However, if you plan for hosting multiple websites in one hosting, you can go with higher plans as well.
After choosing a plan, you need to set up with your domain. Here you can either create a new domain (you are eligible for a FREE domain for 1 year with every Bluehost hosting plan) or if you already own a domain with other registrars, just type it in the “use a domain you own” section.
Once done, Bluehost will redirect you to the next page, where you are required to enter your account and payment details.
When you filled all the information boxes and click “submit” you will be redirected to a new page to set up your “password” for your account.
Not it down in your notebook or somewhere else, if you are not good at memorizing things.
4. Set up WordPress
WordPress set up in Bluehost is too easy and simple.
Once your Bluehost account has been created, click on “Go to Login” TO BEGIN SETTING UP YOUR WORDPRESS BLOG.
You will find a page similar to this once (below) once you sign in to your Bluehost account,
It is where, you need to enter the name of your blog and the related information of your website, and what is it about.
When done, click on “continue”.
Next, another page will appear in front of you, asking you to choose a theme for your blog.
Here Bluehost will recommend you some of the free themes based on the previous information you entered for your website. However, you can choose the theme of your wish and find it through the search options.
I would suggest you choose your theme according to the content you gonna share in your blog. If you ask me what theme this blog is using, it is Astra. If you want want you can go with it, it is both lightweight and fast.
However, if you don’t want to choose your final theme right now, you can change it later from your WordPress dashboard. So, don’t get too tense about it right now.
Just pick one randomly and you will be happy to see the official WordPress installation.
Thereafter, you will be taken to this page shown below,
Click on that button “Start building” followed by “Login to WordPress”.
Here is how the dashboard will look.
Now that you are done with all the setting up and WordPress installation, it’s time for you to finally explore the backend of your website and customize it the way you want.
Look at the left menu and identify the “plugins” menu. Click on its sub-menu “add new” and get all these necessary plugins for your blog.
5. Set up Important Pages
When you are done with setting up your blog and customization, it is now time to add some mandatory pages to your blog.
Every blog available on these webs should contain these pages,
- About
- Contact
- legal
To add these pages to your WordPress blog, you need to create them first. So, head over to the “pages” section on the left side of your WordPress dashboard and click on “add new”.
While creating your About Page, write about yourself, who are you and what you are blogging about, or what your readers can expect from your blog.
On your Contact Page, you can either add a contact form or simply write your email address, through which people can drop you an email if they need to contact you.
When you are done creating these two pages, it’s now finally time to create your legal pages,
Legal pages are required by law and are therefore it is very important to have them in your blog.
Additionally, if you wanna learn about every possible legal side of blogging, you can enroll yourself in this free legal course.
Meanwhile, the most vital legal page of a blog is the Privacy Policy. Without a proper privacy policy page, you cannot have a blog running.
On your Privacy Policy page, all the statements should be present regarding the cookies and personal data collection.
And trust me, you are going to collect the personal information of the users even you are unaware of that. It is through Analytics or even collecting someone’s email id.
So, make sure to check twice about this Privacy Policy page, before you finally launch your blog.
Though privacy policy is the most important legal page in a blog, other legal pages are also equally important especially when you are going to build a money-making blog.
6. Write Some Content
Once you are done with everything including publishing all the important pages needed for a blog, it’s now time to write some content for your blog.
Make sure to write 5 posts of different types, before your blog goes public.
You should ensure that all these 5 posts are relevant to your niche, this will give an idea to your audience what they are gonna get through your blog.
However, you may not be in too much hurry while writing the articles. Ensure the quality of the articles is top-notch.
This will leave a good impression on your readers and lead you to a step ahead towards success. Moreover, this will also urge the visitor to come back to your blog.
Always remember, CONTENT IS THE KING!
7. Go Live
The final and last step of the blog is to make it public.
So, to do that move towards the Bluehost dashboard in WordPress and click on “Launch your site”.
Now, Congratulation!
Your blog is ready to be seen and read by your readers.
Now your focus should move towards the pageviews or getting traffic to your blog. This will let the world know about the awesome blog you have created.
How do I get Traffic to my Blog?
Till now you created a blog, published some awesome content, and made your blog live. What Next?
How will your blog reach your people who want to read the type of post you have published? How do you bring traffic to your newly published blog?
These are the best two ways to get traffic:
- SEO
However, social media like Facebook and Instagram can give you traffic for your blog as well. Quora and Email marketing can also help you get traffic.
But the best way to get huge amount of traffic is either by Pinterest or through SEO.
So, when you are a newbie just stick to Pinterest and SEO. Once you become an expert in this two you can shift to other things.
However, if you compare Pinterest and SEO, then I will suggest you go with Pinterest for your blog promotion.
Through Pinterest, you can literally get, 5k blog views within just 1-2 months of blogging. And I have seen many sites which completely reply on Pinterest for traffic and are getting more than 1lakh monthly pageviews just from Pinterest itself.
Follow my Pinterest tips and tutorials, to get that result with the ultimate Pinterest profile and Pin optimization guide. You will really need to find the right keyword!
Eventually, when your blog gets running and receives decent pageviews from Pinterest you should also focus o SEO or Search Engine Optimization.
SEO takes around 6month to 1 year for a new blog to appear on the search result, that’s too if the niche which you chose has not already been captured by blogs of higher authority.
Organic traffic is important but for that, you need to master your keyword research tactics.
Once you know how to do SEO and perfect research of keywords, you will finally see your blog rank on page 1 of search engine.
How to make money with your Blog?
Blog monetization is an essential part of blogging and also an exciting one especially when you are a newbie. I know it, I was like you as well when I started my blogging journey.
Eventually, there arise lots of questions regarding monetization including the number of page views required for my blog to get monetized or number of followers needed for the same.
So, it’s now time for your blog to get it. Yes, you heard me right.
Additionally, it is also possible for a small blog to make money from the beginning.
The best way to make money blogging as a beginner
Blog monetization consists of various ways. However, my favorite one is through Affiliate marketing. It is even beneficial monetizing way especially when your blog gets less traffic.
Affiliate Marketing is a process of earning money commission) by promoting and bringing sales through other company’s products.
You will discover lots of services and products in your niche provided by high companies and brands. You can simply join their affiliate program and promote it in your blog.
And when you bring sales to those companies, they will track it through their unique affiliate link. Once they confirm they will credit the4 commission to your account.
Affiliate marketing is the only monetization that doesn’t need thousands of traffic or followers. Only a few amounts can really get your good amount without any doubt.
Other ways to Make Money Blogging in 2022
Affiliate Marketing undoubtedly is the best money-making source for new bloggers. But hey, it’s not the only one.
A sponsored post is also a way to make money. It is actually a post, that is created in a company’s collaboration. The company pays you to write about them or their product and present it to your readers.
You can even start selling your own product through your blog and create a good amount of money. This can be another monetization process. Your product can be both physical as well as digital.
You can even include coaching services, writing services and earn money out of that through your blog. Thus a blog can you earn money in multiple ways.
Final Thoughts
It is all you need to know.
This is how you can start a blog in 2022.
It is not actually that hard, you will need a little patience and smart work to achieve it.
I hope this post adds value to you and helps you in creating the best money-making blog in 2022.
If you are still left with any question, feel free to comment it below, I will be more than happy to clear your query.