How to Start and Make Money with a Blog For Beginners

There has never been a better time to start a blog. With digital readership at its peak, blogs have never been in such demand. What’s more, get your blog right the first time, and you could just make money from it!

Here we offer a step by step guide on how to create a blog that attracts traffic, but more so, one that creates a profit. Most importantly, alongside telling you what to do, we also offer some vital advice on what not to do if you want your blog to be a financial success!

Step One: Choose a Domain Name

You could have the best blog in the world, but if the names not enticing, you won’t get anyone visiting it!

The name of your blog may seem the most difficult if you find yourself struggling for inspiration, but it can make or break your blog’s ability to derive a profit.

If you’re looking to target a specific niche, you’ll need to choose a name that reflects this and gets people clicking on it, so take some time and consider this wisely.

Above all, you’ll need to check that your name is available – this can be done by typing it into a domain search. If you don’t get an exact match, you’ll be offered the next best available choice.

Step Two: Purchase a hosting service

Successful bloggers will suggest that you select a separate domain and hosting provider here for ongoing simplicity. So, once you have your domain name sorted, it’s time to get the best hosting service.

This is a package that you’ll choose to display your blog on and make it both visible and accessible to visitors worldwide. There is often a small charge to the provider for this service, as essentially a web hosting provider keeps your blog running.

Yet, most hosting providers allow you to pay monthly for this service and are quite minimal in costs.

However, be warned that the customer service and support offered by hosting providers can vary, with some having terrible reputations as a result of poor support. Site ground hosting continues to have a fantastic reputation for both support and speed, as well as a whole host of features they offer, which is why I too recommend them.

Step Three: Design your blog

Once you know your domain name and your web hosting service is up and running, now is the time to implement your design.
Your blog should be an online extension of what it is you want to promote. It’s also where you want to get your message across.

However, to do this while also making a profit, the design of your blog will need to complement your goals. Consider the type of visitors you want as traffic for your site. Then work your design around them, promoting your content in a way that will keep them intrigued, but more so likely to stay on your page and read further once they’ve landed on it.

Step Four: Plan and write fantastic content

A blog’s primary goal is to offer content in the form of articles. Yet, any old content will not do here. If you want to drive people to your blog, you’ve got to offer high-quality subject matter that captures them.

Furthermore, if you want to make a profit from your blog, this good quality content has to be written with SEO in mind.
By getting a balance of fresh, relevant, well written, and indeed search engine worthy content, you make your blog posts work for you financially.

Step Five: Monetize your blog

Once you’ve found your niche and know what content works well for your blog, if you want to make money from it, you’ll have to monetize it.
A simple method of creating money from a blog, monetization is perhaps one of the most common ways to generate a profit.

Monetization can work successfully in several ways by:

1. Affiliate Marketing

This involves offering affiliate items for sale on your blog that relate to the content you put out. So, if your blog is a family one, you can consider baby items and toys, for example. If make-up is your niche, you can promote a range of make-up products.

2. Advertising

Another hugely popular money maker for blogs is the ability to advertise.
By looking to work with advertisers directly, you can display their adverts and receive a more competitive income, as opposed to standard pay-per-click ads.

Once again, if you can work with those companies which relate to the content of your blog, your ads are more likely to attract more of the right people.

3. Email Marketing

By creating a list of readers, you can market your blog, inform people of your posts, and keep those interested updated on any new content via email.
Email marketing also allows you an additional way of promoting your affiliate items as well as your selected advertisements.

Step Five: Promote your blog

Once you’ve established your blog and begin writing regular content, the work doesn’t stop there. Having a profitable blog requires a good promotion of its presence. So, look to ways that you can let more people know where to find your blog.

Make your presence known on social media, write the link for your blog with external articles, and reference it in comments you post on other blogs.
The key here is to keep looking for visitors even when you develop a good fan base.

Engagement is crucial to keep your blog moving forward and is the only way to ensure future profitability.

Step Six: Keep your blog fresh always

A problem many new bloggers have is letting the blog become outdated, taking long breaks between posts, or creating blog posts that offer little to no relevance to the targeted reader.

Those blogs that thrive are the ones with their finger on the pulse. This means keeping up with what’s occurring in the industry and supplying a wealth of valuable blogs to capitalize on the current market.

Never get into bad habits when it comes to content – for content is your blog’s USP. Therefore, look at creating a posting schedule and offer your readers regular articles and reviews that matter at that moment in time. Keep your content easy to read, format it well, and provide good quality pictures with each post.

But, most importantly of all, keep at the fore of your blog posts, your individuality. In an over-saturated market, the key to remaining successful and therefore profitable is to offer your readers something they can’t readily find elsewhere.