Blogging Guide: How to Start a Successful Blog & Make Money

Blogging is one of the most lucrative online businesses you can start. Once you have successfully grown a blog, it keeps generating monthly income for you. It worth noting that it takes time and determination to succeed as a blogger. That is why many new blogger quit blogging after few months of creating a blog. You need a practical guide to help you do things right, so that you reap the fruit of your labour on the long run. This guide will help you get started successfully with blogging.

What is a Blog?

A blog (weblog) is simply a website where you update online readers or researchers with information on a particular category or group of categories (niche). A blog is a type of website where the content is presented in reverse chronological order (newer content appear first). Most company websites have blog sections where they update their subscribers on their company’s plans and changes. It also helps new users searching for similar information on search engines to locate their websites and even patronize them.

I will reveal all you need in order to build a successful blog and the various ways you can monetize your blog. You can check out these 7 Powerful Tips for Bloggers to Create High Quality Content.

Important Things to Consider in Order to Build a Successful Blog

It is very true that you can make a 6 figure, monthly income from blogging, but there are tips you need to know. You can only make money from a blog when it has become popular and successful. Blogging is a long term investment, it is never a “get-rich-quick” business. Once you have this in mind, then you will make money from your blog in due time.

Now let me reveal these important tips that will help you build a successful blog.

Here are some of the tips that will determine how successful your blog will be:

Your blog niche/category
The blogging platform
Your blog domain name
How user-friendly and search engine friendly your blog theme is
The quality of the blog content and how search engine-friendly it is
How well you promote your blog

Now let me explain these tips bit by bit.

Choosing the Right Blog Niche/Category

Before you even go ahead to setup a blog, you need to conclude on the category of information or articles you will be writing on your blog. There are 2 ways to choose a blog niche. You either choose a niche you have passion for, or choose a trending niche that is not yet saturated. I recommend the latter because a niche might be trending and also saturated. Example of such niche is tech, sports news, entertainment and celebrity news, tutorials, business, etc. Their search densities are high, but the competition is much that it might take a new blog up to a year of hard work to get noticed in that niche. Some trending niches that are not yet saturated are: Fashion, Health and fitness, Online food recipes, Android games, Blockchain (play to earn) games, etc.

One of the secrets of breaking through in any blog niche is your ability to discover the information gap in that niche and then fill it up. This is why keyword research is very important.

You can combine more than one niche in your blog, but make sure the niches are related. For example, health and food recipes niches are related. But note that the more niches you add, the more works you have to do in order to get noticed in all those niches. Instead of combining multiple niches, you can concentrate on one and grow it faster.

Also, you can combine a trending seasonal niche with an evergreen niche that brings traffic all year round. For example, scholarship is a seasonal niche. You can combine it with tutorials on some trending software.

Discovering the best niche for your blog can be challenging at times. A smart way to go about this is to combine up to 3 different niches. With time, you shed off the unfavourable niches and concentrate on the favourable ones.

There are tons of blog categories or niches you can choose from. The infographics below reveals some popular broad blog categories.

popular blog niches and categories — Popular blog niches and categories – Source: wpromote.com

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Choosing a Blogging Platform

There are 2 popular blogging platforms: WordPress and Blogger (Google free blog platform). I recommend WordPress because you will have access to tons of free plugins that will help you grow and optimize your blogs faster. Also, you have total right over your blog. For a WordPress blog, you will need a hosting plan, a theme and a custom domain name. Before you decide to host your blog with a hosting company, first check the features available in the hosting plan you are opting for especially the band width. Go for a plan that offers high band width if you are planning to build a huge website with many media like movie, audio, etc.

Blogger.com is a free platform provided by Google to help bloggers who have the passion to build a blog but don’t have money to start a paid hosting blog. One of the advantages of this platform is that you don’t need to buy a hosting plan. Google hosts your blog for free. In order to use or create a blog on blogger, you must have an active gmail account. You can always create one for free at gmail.com. The con is that you must all Google blogger policies. Failure to do so might deny you access to your blog. Blogger offers a free “.blospot.com” domain name extension. But you can always buy and use a custom domain name which does not include the “.blogspot” extension.

Check out this step by step guide on how to create and setup Blogger blog.

What most new bloggers do is to start blogging on Google Blogger platform. Once they are ready to take blogging as a full time business, they switch the blog to WordPress. But I will advise you to start blogging on WordPress at once because if the Blogger-to-Wordpress switching is not properly done, you might lose your blog traffic and ranking.

If you wish to buy a hosting plan now, I recommend BlueHost because they are one of the most trusted web hosts in the world. There other recommended web hosts.

Check out the 7 Best Cheap and Reliable Web Hosting Companies for Bloggers.

Choosing a Domain Name

Here comes another crucial aspect of blogging. Your domain name is a unique link that users will type in web browsers to be directed to your blog. Example, www.YourDomainName.com. Domain names are usually renewed annually. There are other available domain extensions apart from “.com” such as “.net”, “.edu”, “.org”, “.info”, etc.

These days, getting a good domain name is a difficult task. Here are tips to help you choose a good domain name that will help your blog grow faster:

Don’t choose a domain name that is too long. It might be a bit hard to remember, though there are long domain names that are easy to remember.
Don’t choose domain names that have many spelling options/alternatives. Someone else might buy the spelling alternative. Once your site visitors make a mistake in the spelling, they will land in your competitor’s blog.
Don’t choose domain names that start with numbers.
Look for a name that has one of your blog’s keyword. For example, if you wish to blog on fashion, you check out a domain name like Fashionwiki, Fashioncruise, etc.

There are tons of domain registrars where you can purchase and register your blog domain name, but I recommend BlueHost. They are one of the most popular and most trusted domain registrars and web hosts in the world and also charge an affordable price.

Choosing a Good Blog Theme

The user-friendliness of your blog is determined to a large extent by your blog theme. A blog theme is a customizable framework of your blog.

A good WordPress theme has the following features:

Ease of Customization
Search engine optimized and user-friendly
Affordable
Premium support
Updated regularly

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Always use premium themes because they offer advanced features that you will not enjoy in their free versions.

Writing Quality and Search Engine Optimized Blog Contents

Content has always been the king and will remain the king. That is why you need to go extra mile to write quality blog articles. It does not only end in writing quality blog articles, you also need to optimize them so that they will rank high on search engine result pages. Search Engine Optimization is simply the proper arrangement and usage of keywords so that search engines can properly crawl and index your web pages. Writing quality blog articles and proper SEO work hand in hand.

A quality blog article is always engaging. The idea flows smoothly and should never bore your blog readers. Your readers should always find your articles very interesting and also spend quality time there. An engaging blog post must not necessarily be too long. An article can be long without being useful or engaging. It can contain relevant links to other blog pages where some terms are explained better.

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Promoting your Blog

It does not end with creating a blog and writing quality blog articles. You need to go extra miles to promote your blog. There are many platforms and media where you can promote your blog and its articles both free and paid. Some of these platforms and media include: Facebook, Pinterest, Reddit, Quora, Medium, Mix, Email marketing, Google Ad, etc.

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Another effective way to promote your blog is by writing guest articles to popular blogs and online magazine sites.

10 Proven Ways to Make Money from your Blog

The most exciting aspect of blogging is making money from your blog. After the hard work and stress of writing great blog articles and promoting your blog, you need to make monetize your blog and the most out of it.

There are many ways to make money from your blog. Though you might not be utilizing all of them at the same time, you can combine one or two of them. Some of the popular ways to make money from your blog include:

Google AdSense and Other Paid Ad Networks
Affiliate Marketing

Other Proven Ways to Monetize a Blog

Apart from affiliate marketing and joining ad networks, there are other ways to monetize your blog. But always know that you can only make money from your blog when you have grown and promoted it. Here are some of the lucrative ways to make money from a blog.

Offer a Paid Membership Plan on your Blog
Accept Donations on your Blog (if your blog is a non-profit blog)
Sell Physical Products Online Using WordPress
Accept Sponsored Articles on your Blog
Become a Freelance Blogger in your Niche
Sell Digital Products like eBooks to your Blog Audience
Create and Sell Online Courses
Start a Coaching/Consulting Business

You can check out other ways to make money online blogging with WordPress at WP Beginner. Here are some cool, but unpopular way to make money from your blog.

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Conclusion

You have learnt the basic things you need to know in order to start a blog successfully and different ways to make money from it. Always remember that blogging is not a “get rich quick” business. You need to put in hard works (more of time, and even money), and then in the long run, you will earn the rewards for your hard works. Feel free to apply these tips revealed in this tutorial article when starting your new blog. Also feel free to drop your comment below. Enjoy!