Although starting a blog is a simple process,  creating one that you can earn from is challenging for some people.

If you have been searching all the internet looking for articles that might help you start a money-making blog, look no more, as you are in the right place.

I have written a very comprehensive blog with a lot of passion since I also love blogging, and I hope you will like it.

All the steps highlighted in this post are crucial in almost all websites/blogs.

Steps on How to create a money-making blog

Step 1: Choosing your blog niche

Your blog niche refers to the specific topic that you will create content about.

There are thousands of niches that you can choose from, including finance, product reviews, nutrition, health, beauty & fashion, etc.

Avoid writing about a broad topic such as health; instead, you can write about a specific thing about health such weight loss, workout, training, etc.

While choosing your blog niche, consider the following;

• It is important if your niche is based on your passion, hobbies, etc.
• How you will monetize your blog. For example, if you will monetize your blog through affiliate marketing, you should select a niche that suits the products that you want to market.
• Is your niche ‘overdone’? Some niches, such as tech, how-to, have articles all over the internet. If you decide to write about such niches, your blog will not rank high on search engines

A good niche will help you rank high on search engines and increase your revenue.

Step 2. Come up with a name/domain for your blog

The name for your blog will depend on the niche you choose in step 1 above.

A domain name usually has two elements; for example, the domain name onlinejobsupdates.com has the blog name ‘online jobs updates’ and the extension (.com). 

Since it is your blog brand name, it should be unique, short, and easy to understand.

Most domain names have already been taken, and you have to check their availability before choosing one. I have shown how you can check domain availability later in this article.

Let’s say you have already decided that you will write product reviews on air purifiers; some of the domain names include dustfreehomes.com, cleanairrooms.com, etc.

With a little brainstorming, you will easily come up with a better domain for your blog.

Step 3: Host your blog online

You will need a place where you can write and publish your posts online so that people can read them.

To do this, you must have a hosting service such as Bluehost, HostGator, etc.

There are both free and paid web hosts. Some of the free web hostings include blogger.com and wordpress.com. I have tried both of them, and as much they are free, I have realized it will take time for you to generate revenue from your blog. Consequently, I decided to try paid web hosting services such as Bluehost, especially for my affiliate marketing websites.

If indeed you are serious about making a significant income from your blog. It would be best if you chose self-hosting your blog where you have the freedom of monetizing it in the way you like and have access to blogging tools for free.

If you are still in a dilemma about which hosting service you should use, I recommend you try Bluehost.

Why use Bluehost to host your blog

• It is a trusted hosting service with over 2 million users.
•  Bluehost will register your domain for free, where you will save about $15, and you will also get a free SSL certificate.
• You will get a free one-click installation of the WordPress blogging tool.
• It is cost-effective since you will get a 63% discount and only $2.95/month instead of $7.99/month.
• It has very supportive customer care.

To host your blog using Bluehost, follow the procedure below;

Click here to grab your 63% discount on your Bluehost web hosting and then follow the procedure illustrated below;

Click Get Started as shown below

Choose your Web hosting plan

If you are a beginner, I recommend choosing the basic plan instead of choosing a more expensive plan and getting tools you might not need. You can upgrade to a more expensive plan later if you need some tools, not in the basic plan.

Register your domain.

In step two, I had highlighted how you could come up with a unique domain name.

You can set it up as shown below. You have to type it under create your domain section and check whether it is available. If it is not available, type another one or choose from the list that appears.

Choose (.com) extension since it is highly ranked and available worldwide unless you want a local domain.

Fill in your details

You can choose to fill in the form or sign in using your Google account as shown below;

Customize your plan

First of all, your plan will have great packages such as a free SSL certificate, one-click WordPress installation, etc.

Choose your package’s duration; the higher the plan duration, the larger the discount you will get. You can bill your plan for 12 months, 24 months, etc.

Don’t forget to uncheck some package extras that raise the cost of your plan, although you might need them. These package extras include codeguard basic, Bluehost SEO tools, Microsoft 365 Mailbox Trial, etc.

Step 4: Install WordPress blogging tool and Choose a WordPress theme

As soon as you successfully purchase your hosting as described in step three above, you can then login into your account and install a blogging tool. To log in, click here.

Once you log in, a WordPress icon will appear, which you can install with one-click. WordPress tool is user-friendly with many free plugins; hence it is preferred to other blogging tools, which are relatively expensive.

Choosing your WordPress theme

The next step is choosing a theme of your choice, which you can also change anytime you want. There are thousands of themes, your niche, and how you want to design your blog will aid in determining the best theme. There are also premium themes that you can opt for if you do not like the free ones. Some of the best themes that you can use include OceanWP, Astra, etc.

You can easily change your theme by clicking Appearanceson the left menu and then selecting the theme you like, install it, and then click activate.

Step 5: Customize and install plugins to your WordPress blog

Before you write your first post, there are other essential things that you should first do, which include;

Installing plugins such as contact form, jetpack, google analytics dashboard, etc.

Now, click on settings and do the following

a) Under settings, click Permalinks and then select post name and click save.

b) Also, under settings, enter the title and description of your blog.

Step 6: Carry out Keyword research and set up your SEO

The quantity and quality of traffic that your blog gets is the major determinant of the amount of money you can make. Search Engine Optimization is essential for any blog/website.

Yoast SEO is offered free by WordPress; it is a plugin that is a must install. Otherwise, you can use other plugins that are not available in WordPress, such as the WordPress SEO plugin by Rankmath. You shouldn’t worry about the configuration of the plugins since you can easily use the setup wizard.

Keyword Research

Most bloggers rush into writing their first article without carrying out keyword research and end up regretting later. It is important to avoid doing the same by creating content that helps answer your readers’ search.

Whenever someone uses search engines such as Google, they are asking questions. Therefore, your aim should be answering specific questions that have not been ‘over-answered.’ But how will you know the keywords(questions) that your audience searches for so that you can write content based on them? You will need to carry out keyword research first.

For your blog to get real traffic, you need to be targeting keywords with considerable search volume but not ‘over-blogged.’ It might sound like a complicated process. Still, it is not that difficult, as I have highlighted below.

How to carry out keyword research

There are many websites where you can carry out keyword research, including SEMrush, ahrefs, etc. I will use Ahrefs to explain the steps to be followed, although you can easily use any other keyword research tool use the same procedure described below:

• Create a free trial account using Ahrefs by clicking here. Use a PayPal account so that you can easily cancel your subscription once the free trial expires.
• Look for a website/blog that is a high competitor in your blog niche. For example, if I blog about air purifiers, I would consider websites like breathequality.com, air-purifier-reviewsite.com, etc.
• Copy the URL of each site in the Ahref search bar and then click enter.
• In the menu panel on the left, find organic Search>>Organic Keywords and click on it. It will give you a list of keywords that people are using on search engines to find your competitors’ websites.
• To make your Search easier, sort your results in various ways available on the header, such as volume, traffic, keyword difficulty (KD), etc. Preferably, sort the keywords by volume in descending order (from largest to the lowest). Your keywords shouldn’t contain many words; at most, three words per keyword are recommended.
• After sorting your keywords, look for a keyword with a Keyword Difficulty (KD) of less than 10. Then highlight and copy it.
• Login in Ahrefs using another tab and paste the keyword you copied in the step above on Keyword Explorer located in the top menu. You will see other seed keywords list related to the one you copied.
• To download a copy of the keyword results, click the export button. Repeat the process to look for more keywords from your other competitors’ websites.

After determining the keywords, you can now write your first post based on the keywords you determined above, as described below

Writing your first post

First, identify your post’s topic, which can easily help your readers understand what your article is about. If you are not sure about what you want to write about, there are different sites such as answer the public, HubSpot’s Blog ideas generator tool, which will help you come up with different topics to write about.

Remember to carry out thorough research on the topic to write an in-depth article that will attract many readers and have a high ranking in the search engines.

If you are using Bluehost and WordPress blogging tool, writing your first post will not be a problem. Click on the plus (+) under the admin menu and then click new post to start writing your first post.

Although it is not a major issue, the font you use to write your articles should appeal to your readers. Some of the best fonts in WordPress include Roboto, Mina, etc.

Step 7: Drive in traffic to your blog

If you were to ask many bloggers, especially newbies, the main challenge they face in blogging, the answer will probably attract enough audience into their blogs.

This post’s main aim was to guide you on how you can create an income-generating blog. The fact that all the earnings from your will highly depend on your blog traffic quality and quantity makes this step more important than all the previous. If you already have a blog and are not getting enough traffic, you should try applying some of the tips I have given below.

How to attract traffic to earn money blogging

·         Sharing your posts on social media. Although it has high competition, sharing your posts links on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram &Pinterest will increase your blog stats. One important thing you should consider is targeting the appropriate audiences. For example, you may use hashtags related to your blog niche while using Twitter or Instagram; you can create a Facebook page for your blog or share your links in Facebook groups with members interested in your articles.

·         Answer questions on Quora. Having tried this method, I can assure you that getting quality traffic through Quora is mind-blowing provided you do it right. Make sure you answer questions related to your website’s topic, and in the answer you have given, find a way of inserting your blog URL.

·         Have an email subscription where your readers can subscribe; this will help you in maintaining your traffic.

·         You can also use telegram by creating a channel where you will be posting your links. Since some of your subscribers might be bored, you might decide to create a channel with entertainment content and let your blog posts links be secondary things you share.

·         Always use appropriate tags/labels to optimize your posts on search engines.

Step 8: Monetizing your blog

Since you have a blog with substantial traffic, making money with your blog is what you need.

Think of TVs where they show entertaining, educative content to their viewers. Companies will approach the management so that they can advertise their products to the viewers. The channels with the highest number of viewers usually attract more advertisers, and therefore their earnings are higher.

Similarly, since you already have viewers(traffic) in your blog, you can easily start advertising products and start earning. However, earning money from your blog is somehow different, as described below.

How to earn money from your blog

1. Affiliate Marketing

Here all you need to do is recommend products and services to your readers. The products must be related to the niche of the blog.

Affiliate marketing is also effective in blogs that are purely based on product reviews. Here you can easily compare two or three products giving both the advantages and disadvantages. As you highlight them enter the banners and affiliate links so that your audience can easily find them.

In affiliate marketing, you will be earning commissions per sale (when someone buys the product you are marketing).

Amazon, CJ Affiliate, and Share sale are sites where you can find products to promote.

2. Display ads on your blog

You can monetize your blog by letting AdSense display ads in your posts.

All you are required to do is apply for AdSense, and once your site is approved, your viewers will start seeing ads on your blog as they read your content.

Your earnings are based on the number of views your blog gets. The quality of your traffic is the main determiner of your earnings. Organic traffic (traffic from search engines) has a high conversion ratio, and you will earn more from it.

If Google AdSense does not approve your site, you can try alternatives such as Popads, Propellerads, Adsterra, etc.

3. Sell your Digital Products

If you can create products such as eBooks, online courses, and software, there are high chances you will start earning even with less traffic than displaying ads on your website.

The quality of your content will aid in increasing the number of sales of your digital products. Your content must be attractive to your audience; you must create curiosity while writing your post so that readers might want to learn more.

You can add a payment method so that people can easily purchase your products.

Create your blog NOW

Having gone through all the steps above, it is your time to create your money-making blog. Convert your ideas into passive income today.

Click here to create your blog

Also read: 11 Websites that pay Writers $100 and above

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