Start A Blog For Beginners
The first thing to do is to decide on a blogging niche. Something that you know a lot about or want to write a lot about 🙂 Who do you want to reach? Who do you want to help and what problem do you want to solve or question do you want to answer? There are many popular niches that you can monetize, such as lifestyle, business, cooking, wellness etc!
There are two different types of hosting: self hosting and web hosting. Self hosting means that you host your own website and use a blogging software like WordPress, and you would have an authority domain name like .com. Web hosting means a company hosts your website for you such as WordPress and it is hosted on a software like WordPress and your domain would include something like .wordpress.com.
Next, it is important to choose a blogging platform. Most blogs that make money use WordPress, it is by far the most popular blogging platform. This tutorial will be talking about how to build a self hosted WordPress blog.
- Bluehost: sign up for a web host. This is a popular hosting company. It is low cost and beginner friendly.
- Domain: choose a good domain name. You get a free domain name from Bluehost after signing up for Bluehost hosting. Make sure to check to see when it expires.
- WordPress.org: install WordPress.org. This can be done in your Bluehost account. You click a button and it will install it for you.
- Design: choose a web design theme. There are many WordPress design themes that you can purchase and install n the WordPress software. They are reasonably priced as opposed to purchasing a completely custom theme designed just for you. Code + Coconut, 17th Avenue, and Bluchic are all great examples! Look at other blogs, if you see one you like, look on their footer. A lot of times they write who created the blog theme, and sometimes it was a purchased theme and somethimes it is custom just for their blog.
- Legal: add your basic legal pages such as a Privacy Policy, Terms, Disclaimer etc. See A Self Guru for more info.
Start blogging!
Photos: When blogging it is important to use photos that are copyright free, photos that you have permission to use, or photos that you took. Here are a few popular websites where you can get good quality free photos for your blog: Pexels, Pixabay, and Unsplash.
Social Media: Market your blog where your target audience is. Pinterest is a very popular platform for bloggers. People already go on to Pinterest to click onto another site.
SEO: use keywords that your audience is using so that your audience can find you. There are keyword research tools that show you the level of competition. There are also autofill suggestions when you type a word into google, so you can see what people are searching for in regards to your keyword. Add alt text for your photos and a meta description.
How To Monetize Your Blog
Display Ads: Google AdSense is very beginner friendly. Most bloggers want to get into an Ad Agency that pays higher. Mediavine requires 10,000 views to your website in the last 30 days with Mediavine Journey, and 50,000 views in the last 30 days with their regular service. Raptive requires 100,000 views in the last 30 days. Also, a requirement to get into a lot of Ad Agencies is to be in good standing with Google AdSense.
Affiliate Marketing: if you link a company’s product or service and they make a purchase with in a certain number of days, you get a commission. A few popular affiliate marketing sites are: Impact and Amazon Associates. You could also go directly to a company website and see if they have an affiliate program. One tip to get your first affiliate link is sign up for your web host’s affiliate program, put that link on your sidebar, and say they are recommended by you!
Sell A Digital Product: this could be templates, printable’s, e-books, courses, png’s etc!
Sponsorships: companies pay for bloggers to talk about their products / services.
Advertising Placement: rent out a space on your website for a company’s ad.
Pro-Tip: Many bloggers write income reports. Look at those income reports to find out how they are making their money.
Benefits To Creating A Blog: You can learn new skills, put this on your resume, and earn money!
Tips: Focus on creating great content that is helpful. Amazing content is what gets viewed and shared. Use keywords so that people can find your posts. A keyword finder can help locate keywords. If you use Pinterest, use keywords in your title and description too. Create backlinks (a link going to your blog post or website). When you post your domain link or blog post link on Pinterest and someone clicks on it, those are backlinks.
Next Steps
- Sign Up for Google Analytics so that you know how much traffic you are getting. Google Analytics is the tool that most Ad Agency’s want to see your traffic from.
- Just start publishing articles. And share them with your audience! Everyone starts somewhere and if you use the Wayback Machine on popular blogs, and look at their blogging beginnings, you will notice that they usually look very different. And they have been blogging a lot over a long time. Set goals, and track your progress! You can edit your blog posts as needed, add to them, and make sure they are current!