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The focus of this mini-guide is how YOU can start a profitable blog…right now.
Starting a blog is easier than ever. In fact, while you can launch your first blog in a few hours, if you want it done properly, you can launch one in a matter of days.
If you have finally made the decision to start a blog now, and you’re looking to start as fast as possible, here’s your express cheat sheet. This article will cover the crucial steps you need to launch your money-money blog.
Please note, this article is a little long. If you can’t finish it in one sitting, we recommend saving or sharing to your socials or email, so you can read it later.
- Pick a niche
The conventional advice that most bloggers give new bloggers is to blog about something that you are passionate about. However, that is only part of the truth.
You can’t run a profitable blog by treating it like a hobby. In order to run a profitable blog you have to treat it like a startup.
You need to pick a niche that is at the intersection of what you’re passionate about, has the potential to generate a decent audience and revenue, and that has enough sub-topics that you won’t run out of things to write about.
Who are you? What do you know about? What do you care about? When it comes to starting a blog, the most important thing is to pick a topic that is relevant, unique and is monetizable.
What Are the Most Profitable Blog Niches?
| Category | Examples |
| Tech | Tom’s Guide, Techradar, Wire Cutter, CNET, Engadget |
| Personal Finance | NerdWallet, Fool.com, WalletHub, CardRatings |
| Marketing | Moz, Orbit Media, eMarketer, HubSpot |
| Food | Pinch of Yum, Love and Lemons, Minimalist Baker, Smitten Kitchen |
| Lifestyle | Cup of Jo, The Blonde Salad, Better Living, Goop |
| Mommy Blogs | Mama Maven Blog, Scary Mommy, Clean Mama, Mix and Match Mama |
| Travel | Hey Ciara, Atlas and Boots, Nomadic Matt, The Broke Backpacker |
| Business | Forbes, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Fast Company, Mashable |
2. Choose a Blog Name
Here are some quick tips to choosing a name for your blog:
- Pick a name that’s appropriate blog name
- Make sure not taken by someone else
- Easy to remember
- Avoid hyphens, punctuations, numbers
- Keep the name short and simple
Once you’ve decided on a name, it’s important to make sure that no one else is using it. The best way to do this is to search for variations of your blog name online. This will give you an accurate idea of whether or not your potential business name is taken. If the blog name checks out, then you’re ready to start deciding what type of content will be featured on your site.
Web Search
Start by conducting at least a cursory search on the web to determine if there are any existing blogs that already have that blog name or something similar. If there is a similar sounding blog out there that could be confused with yours, consider change your blog name.
Who Is
Go to WhoIs.com to see if your desired domain is already taken or not. If so, you have the option of (1) potentially buying it from the current owner; (2) finding another domain name.
Trademark Search
Go to the USPTO.gov website to see if the name is already trademarked. If so, you can’t use it. If you do, you may be sued for trademark infringement.
Secretary of State
If you plan to form a business entity around the name of your blog, then you may want to check the secretary of state website for the state in which you live to ensure the name isn’t already taken.
Social Media
Check the various social media platforms to see if your ideal social media name is taken.
If after conducting this search you find that your desired blog name and domain are available, then find a good domain provider to purchase your domain.
3) Purchase a Domain
Once you have selected a niche and a name for your blog, purchase the domain.
Our favorite domain name provider for newbie bloggers is Namecheap. Not only are they very cost effective but they include free privacy protection, which hides your ownership of the domain from the public.
What Steps Should I Take Before Purchasing a Domain?
However, before you dive into purchasing the domain, there are a few things you’ll need to do before confirming the domain is a viable option for your new blog.
- Who Is – Go to WhoIs.com to see if your desired domain is already taken or not. If so, you have the option of (1) potentially buying it from the current owner; (2) finding another domain name.
Also, before you purchase, check to see if the web-hosting provider that you chose provides a free domain with purchase of web-hosting service.
4) Purchase Web-Hosting
Now that you have your domain, next you’ll need a service provider to host your website. Web hosting is the place where your blog files are stored. Hosting will also allow you to access your site remotely, from anywhere in the world.
Our most recommended web host provider for new bloggers is Bluehost. What’s nice about Bluehost is that they are super inexpensive, they provide good customer service, and the site is fairly user-friendly.
To get started, step through the process we’ve laid out for you below:
- Go to Bluehost.
- Click the “Get Started” button.
- If you’re just starting one blog/website, then click on the “Basic” plan. (If you plan to start multiple blogs, select the “Choice Plus” plan.) Click the “Select” button.
- Bluehost will prompt you to set up a new domain, use one you own, or you can skip this step. Under “use a domain you own”, type in the domain you registered earlier under step 2 above (i.e. www.therichable.com). Hit the “Next” button.
- Enter your Account Information.
- Under Package Information, choose your preferred package.
- Uncheck all of the “Package Extras”. (You don’t need them at this point in your blogging journey.)
- Enter in your Payment Information.
- Complete your purchase by hitting the “Submit” button.
- Choose your login and password.
- Complete the onboarding questions or skip them. However, make sure to choose “blog” when asked.
- Click “skip” when you are asked to choose your theme. (We’ll cover this later in the process.)
- From the dashboard, click the WordPress button. You’ll be taken to the WordPress website.
You did it! You now have a self-hosted WordPress blog ready to go.
5) Install WordPress
When it comes to selecting the best blogging platform on which to host your blog, you should really only consider having self-hosted blog on WordPress. WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that makes it easy to create a blog. It comes with everything you need to start a profitable blog: templates, plugins, and widgets make it easy for anyone with basic knowledge of HTML and CSS to create a stunningly beautiful website.
Many bloggers in the past have made the mistake of starting with a different blogging platform, such as Wix, Blogger, HubSpot or Tumblr. Ultimately, they realize that those platforms do not compare to WordPress and they end up moving their entire blog over to WordPress. This process is not only time consuming but can be costly.
Don’t make that mistake. Choose the right blogging platform from the start.
Luckily, if you’ve decided to use WordPress as your blogging platform, Bluehost has a one-click WordPress install from the Bluehost dashboard, which takes the stress out of figuring out how to set up your WordPress blog on your own.
6) Choose & Install Your WordPress Theme
Once you’ve completed the one-click install of WordPress, you’ll have the opportunity to choose your WordPress theme from your dashboard.
The best free WordPress themes are Astra or Kadence. If your budget allows for it, Divi is the best paid WordPress theme that is absolutely worth the money.
What’s nice about all these themes is that you don’t need to know about coding to put together your blog. Most everything is visually presented in a drag and drop format that is easy for non-technical bloggers.
7) Customize Your Blog
Once you have your WordPress theme installed, you can begin customizing your blog.
The best place to start is by installing a few basic, but really crucial WordPress plugins. You will want a WordPress plugin for each of these categories:
- Security
- SEO
- Image optimizer
- Website speed
- Cookies
What Are Some of the Best WordPress Plugins for New Bloggers?
- Yoast SEO
- ShortPixel Image Optimizer
- Wordfence
- JetPack
8) Begin writing your first batch of posts
Now, let’s get to writing that first blog article.
What Should I Write About On My Blog?
Here are some ideas:
- Write about something related to you job or career
- Write about something personal – what makes you happy? What is something unique about yourself? What do people often ask for advice on in life?
How Do I Write My First WordPress Blog Post?
Start by going to your WordPress dashboard. This is what the admin (you and your team) see on the backend of the blog and allows you to create new posts, pages, and control the look and feel of your blog.
Go to the left hand navigation bar and hover over “Posts”.
Then click on “Add New”.
Before you start writing, you need to choose one main keyword that you want to focus on for that blog post. You’ll need to do this for every single blog post too.
This will help with SEO optimizing your blog so that it gets ranked higher on the search engines.
The higher you rank, the more easily your audience can find your content. The more people that come to your website, the more easily you can monetize your blog.
How Do I Optimize My Blog Post for SEO?
Here are some quick tips on how to use your target keyword to throughout your blog post to SEO optimize it. You should aim to include your keyword:
- In the URL of your blog post. (For example, if your website URL is www.greatleaders.com, and your target keyword for the article is leadership skills www.greatleaders.com/leadership-skills.)
- Title of your blog post.
- First and second paragraphs of your blog post.
- In a few of your blog post subheadings.
- Throughout the content of your post.
How to Create a Great Title for your Blog Post
Creating a title for your post isn’t as easy as just coming up with title, adding your keyword to it, and leaving it at that. There is some strategy involved with crafting a post title that is not only compelling to your readers but also for purposes of SEO optimization.
Tips for Creating a Great Blog Post Title
Here are just a few tips to create a great blog post title that is great for the humans but also the robots.
- Add your target keyword to the title.
- If you’re writing a blog post that is a listicle (i.e. 7 best places to travel), then use an odd number in the title. For some reason this tends to draw readers more than if you used even numbers.
- Add a qualifier to the title such as “Best”, “Ultimate”, “Complete”, etc.
- Adding language at the end of the title enclosed by brackets or parenthesis also tends to attract readers to your post. (i.e. “7 best places to travel (in 2022)”)
Tips for Writing a Great Blog Post
When you are ready to get into the meat of your blog post content make sure you:
- Break up long paragraphs for enhanced readability.
- Include images, bullet points, infographics, and/or tables in your blog post so it breaks up the monotony of one long, boring blog post. You will keep your reader’s attention much better adding variation throughout your post.
- Add value. Don’t just write a lot of fluff. The way you keep readers coming back is to ensure that you are providing them with value or solving a problem.
- Format your H2 and H3 headings throughout your post and include your keyword in some of those headings. This will help search engines better understand the context of your post and will help you rank better.
- Use larger font for easier readability. A font size of 17 or 18 is good.
- Use unique images if you can. Using copyright-free images like everyone else, will make you…like everyone else. Using your own, unique images will help with bettering your SEO.
- Check your grammar and spelling. You lose a bit of credibility with your audience if you can’t get basic grammar and spelling done well. Use the spell check features in Microsoft Word, Google docs, or use third-party tools, such as Grammarly.
- Done is better than perfect. Do not keep writing and editing until your post is absolutely perfect before you publish it. This will slow down your process and isn’t the way to build a profitable blog. Just get the post written and published. You will eventually go back and update your post every 6 months to a year anyway to keep your post rankings anyway so you’ll be improving the post over time.
9) Legally Protect Your Blog
The legal stuff is the boring stuff that no one likes to think about but is really crucial to protecting your blog content and yourself. You need some of this stuff to protect yourself if you are ever sued and/or to protect yourself from violating the law.
Before you hit the publish button on your blog, make sure to have these in place:
- Privacy policy
- Terms of use
- Disclaimers
- Disclosures
Don’t go to other wbsites and copy their privacy policy of terms of use policies. This is technically copyright infringement and you could be sued for it.
Instead, you’ll need to get your own policies that match the individual needs of your blog. If you don’t want to pay thousands of dollars to a lawyer to do this, you can purchase template bundles from a number of lawyer-run websites catered to providing these documents to bloggers.
10) Promote your blog
Once you are up and running, you can start promoting your blog by:
- Guest posting
- Utilizing Social media
- Link building
- SEO optimization
Promoting Your Blog on Social Media
Social media marketing is the most effective way to promote your blog. You can use social media to build an audience, which will make it easier for you to sell products on Amazon. The key is knowing your audience and how they use social media.
For example, if you’re writing about parenting tips for new moms and dads, then it makes sense to do more promotion on Facebook than Instagram or Twitter. On the other hand, if your target audience is millennials who live in major cities like New York City or Los Angeles and spend a lot of time online using their mobile devices (e.g., smartphones), then you should focus more resources on these platforms rather than Facebook since they tend not only have higher engagement rates but also more reach when compared against older demographics like Baby Boomers (people born between 1946–1964).
In addition to promoting with social media ads like Facebook Ads Manager where advertisers create ad sets based on targeting criteria such as location type/behavioral data such as age group/interests etc… one may also consider email marketing through MailChimp wherein emails are sent out based upon certain criteria such as gender preference; interests related topics; behavior patterns etc… or even paid advertising through Google AdWords which lets users bid amounts per click specified by keyword searches entered into search bar thus allowing advertisers provide specific information about themselves without necessarily knowing who might be looking at said ad!
11) Monetize Your Blog
Finally, once you start building your audience, you can think about monetizing your blog. There are many ways that bloggers monetize their blog. You should think about your audience’s experience with your website and how you want that to look when determining your monetization strategy. You should also consider what would make sense for the type of blog that you are producing.
Ways That Bloggers Make Money
- Sponsorships
- Affiliate Programs
- Sell Digital Products
- Sell Physical Products
- Online Courses
- Ads
- Offer Services
- Offer Consulting Services
- Coaching Services
- Host Webinars
- Memberships
- Job Boards
- Write Tutorials
- Product Reviews
How to Start a Blog – Summary
Starting your own blog today is easier than ever. Follow these simple steps to get started, and you’ll be creating content in no time!
- Start your blog by getting a domain.
- Sign up for a web hosting service.
- Install WordPress and your WordPress theme.
- Begin writing your first batch of posts.
- Legally protect your blog.
- Promote and monetize your blog.
Starting a blog can be intimidating, but it’s actually easier than you think. There are many tools and resources available to help get you started, and in this post we’ve outlined some of the most important ones. By following these simple steps, you should be well on your way to becoming an expert blogger in no time!
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