How to Start a Blog (and Make Money) in 2023The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Start Blogging and Make Money in 6 Steps

You will learn how to create a blog in 6 steps, which takes about 10 to 15 minutes. Click here to jump straight to step 1 and become a blogger now.

Follow these steps to learn how to start a blog and start making money today Earn:

Reading: How to create a blog that will make money

Start a Blog (and Make Money) in 6 Steps: Easy Beginner’s Guide

The ultimate beginner’s guide to starting a blog and making money blogging in 2023 (new bloggers)

1. Choose your blog name and niche
2. Bring Your blog online (web hosting)
3. Design your blog with a free WordPress theme
4. Write your first blog Post
5. Promote your blog to attract readers and traffic
6. Make money from your blog

Disclosure: Please note that some of the Li nks are affiliate links and I receive a commission at no additional cost to you. If you buy hosting through my Bluehost affiliate link, they compensate me, which helps make this step-by-step guide to starting a blog and making money blogging free for you. Know that I only recommend products and services that I have personally used and stand behind.

Follow these 6 steps to learn how to start a blog and start making money as a blogger today:

If you’re ready to take the plunge and learn how to start a blog that can grow into a real online income stream, then let’s dive in.

1. Choose Your Blog Name and Niche

First, it’s time to choose a name and niche for your new blog.

Your blog name will be the first thing readers will see (e.g. yourblog.com). , so ideally it should either represent the general topics you are going to write about – or it could be your own name, your company’s name, a clever combination of words, or something else.

Your blog’s niche is general Subject area where you will focus your content. Examples are blog topics like travel, food, fashion, lifestyle, technology and others. Including a word or two in your blog name (like fashionbyjane.com or walkwithryan.com) that clearly signals what your content is about will be very helpful to your future blog readers.

2. Get Your Blog Online (Web Hosting)

The second step in starting a blog is to actually get your blog online. A web hosting company will do that for you. In this step, you will select the blogging platform and web hosting plan you will use to get your blog online.

The blogging platform and web hosting combo that I personally use (and which most other bloggers use) is a WordPress blog hosted by Bluehost. WordPress is a free publishing platform that has been around since 2003 and now powers more than 60% of all blogs on the web. Bluehost is one of the most established and reliable companies in the blog hosting industry. We use this combination to start your blog. Now let’s set up your hosting.

—> Click here to switch to Bluehost and click the green “Start Now” button

Choose your web hosting Plan Off

First select a hosting plan (next you need to enter your blog name). Personally, I recommend going for the Choice Plus plan because it comes with Domain Privacy, which protects your personal information (your full name, email, phone number, and home address) from it , to be published somewhere online.

Your plan selection looks like this. Just click the green “Choose” button for the plan of your choice:

As I said above, I recommend going for the Choice Plus plan so you can get the domain privacy feature yours personal data protects information online, but any of these plans will do when you start your blog – and you can add domain privacy later during the checkout process for about $1/month.

Choose the domain name of your Blogs from

Next you will be taken to the page where you can choose your blog’s domain name:

Once you have reached this step in the checkout process, simply enter the domain name a domain name you want to give your blog (mine is ryrob.com).

If you want to do a quick search to see if your domain name is available, you can do a quick search here using my domain name generator:

Get Domain Now”; }else{ document.getElementById(“availabi lity-result”).innerHTML = “Sorry, “+domain+” is not available.”; } } }); var domainCheck = formData.domain.value; if(domainCheck.indexO f(“.”) == -1){ domainCheck = formData.domain.value+”.com”; } domainCheck = domainCheck.replace(/[^0-9a-zA-Z.]/g, “”); console.log(domainCheck); xhr.open(“GET”, “https://domainr.p.rapidapi.com/v2/status?domain=”+domainCheck); xhr.setRequestHeader(“x-rapidapi-host”, “domainr.p.rapidapi.com”); xhr.setRequestHeader(“x-rapidapi-key”, “719aad359amsh8a4ceb17f353410p1b1516jsnfbaaf13366db”); xhr.send(data); } const form = document.getElementById( “domainNameForm” ); var lastMove = 0; shape.addEventListener( “submit”, function ( event ) { event.preventDefault(); if(Date.now() – lastMove > 600) { sendData(form.elements); lastMove = Date.now(); } } ); } );

If the domain name of your choice isn’t available, you can either try another option that comes to mind or (which I recommend) select the option to choose your domain name later after you get it, put away the rest of your account and took a little more time to think about the name. Also, later in this guide, I explain how to choose the right name for your blog if you haven’t decided yet.

You can click here later to choose your domain (it’s a popup, that appears if you hover on this page long enough or move your mouse to the top of the page):

After you’ve either selected your domain name or decided to choose it later, you’ll become the last step of the signup process – creating your account.

Create your Bluehost account

First, enter your account details such as your name and email address (it’s great important to use an up-to-date email address as this is where your login and account information will be sent) and address. If you don’t want to enter your information manually, you can connect your Bluehost account to your Google account. Both work!

Choose the right hosting plan package

This is where you choose an account plan based on the price you want to secure and how far in advance you want Pay for hosting your blog.

Note that Bluehost only gives you options to prepay 1, 2, 3, or 5 years. They don’t offer a monthly payment option (as most hosting companies that offer monthly payments tend to charge a little more). Regardless of which plan you choose, the price is still a good deal to start your own blog and get it online today.

With what web hosting plan and prices is it best to start a blog?

Personally, I recommend choosing the Prime 36 Month Price if you want to secure the lowest possible price for your new hosting package. I use that. And it secures your blog hosting at the lowest price (and gives you domain privacy) for the next 3 years. And since these low new customer prices only apply to the first payment you make, your prices may increase after that first year if you opt for the 1-year plan.

Therefore, if you decide With the 36-month plan, your prices stay at this tariff for 3 years. For this reason, I recommend going with the longest term plan that your budget can handle.

Choose the right blog hosting plan package extras (skip all but one)

I recommend keeping the Domain Privacy Extra, but you can skip the rest. Later in this guide, I’ll show you the many free and cheap plugins and tools you can use for things like SEO optimization, extra security, and website backups that eliminate the need for most other package extras.

< However, as I mentioned earlier, with the domain privacy extra, all of your personal contact information (your name, email, phone number, and address) stays private. Now, if you opted for the Choice Plus plan on the previous screen, your domain privacy will be listed as “Free” just like this screenshot above shows – it’s included with this plan.

If you have chosen a Basic or Plus plan, you should check the box to add domain privacy protection to your order for about $1/month.

The total amount, you see now is the amount you will pay today. However, remember that depending on the package you choose, you will not have to pay again for 1, 2, 3 or 5 years. There’s also a 30-day money-back guarantee if things don’t go as planned with your blog.

Enter your payment information

Now enter your payment information , check the box that you agree to the Bluehost Terms of Service, then click the green Submit button.

Woo! It’s time for a little celebration 🙂

You’ve officially taken the first big step in starting a blog.

After the initial signup process is complete, it’s time to move on to the next Phase to continue on how to fully set up and optimize your blog.

The next page will walk you step by step through the process of installing WordPress on your blog via Bluehost – and later in this guide , I have tons of helpful tips for optimizing your blog, free and cheap plugins you can install to make your blog look great, and more.

—> Click here to go to Bluehost and register Your domain if you haven’t already.

Well, if you haven’t set up your web hosting yet and want to explore other options, there are other web hosting providers worth considering.

The 2 Best Alternative Blog Hosting Platforms Worth Considering

• Dreamhost – I’ve owned literally dozens of over the years Websites hosted on Dreamhost (and I still do). Aside from all the similar features like 1-click WordPress installation, free SSL certificate, and site security, one of Dreamhost’s biggest advantages compared to other hosting companies is that they offer a real plan that you can pay monthly to them pay the costs for your blog hosting every month without obligation. Here are a few other web hosting companies that also offer monthly payment plans and have a 30-day money-back guarantee.
• HostGator – What sets HostGator apart from other hosting company is their fantastic customer support and the fact that they also offer a true monthly payment plan (which helps if you’re starting your blog on a budget). HostGator is one of the largest hosting companies and now powers more than 8 million websites around the world, making them a great partner to help you scale your blog over time.

< If you want to review even more of the best blog hosting providers, then move on to my breakdown of the best web hosting plans for bloggers to check out this year. And if you've already taken care of your hosting with Bluehost, you can log into your hosting account here.

Now we’re at the point in this guide where everything from here on out is based assuming you have already registered your domain name and selected the right hosting plan. So if you haven’t already done so, just take a few minutes to set this up quickly.

Ready to register your domain name and set up blog hosting?

I created this in-depth video tutorial to take you step-by-step through the entire process, from choosing your web host to getting set up. Launch your blog and publish your first blog post in the next 10-15 minutes :

Disclosure: Please note that they compensate me for purchasing hosting through my Bluehost affiliate link, which helps me create this ultimate guide to starting a blog for free for you . Know that I also use Bluehost hosting and I would never recommend any product, tool or service that I don’t personally use and endorse 🙂

I know firsthand that starting a blog on WordPress is a daunting process.

So if you need a little more in-depth guidance, I’ve put together a free master class that breaks down all of that work into a series of action-packed lessons, and here we go goes into even more detail than this tutorial.

While the first critical step to starting your blog today is registering your domain name and setting up hosting, my free course expands on growing your blog. During this 7-day course, you’ll go from zero to publishing (and promoting) your first blog post. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Want my free course: How to start a profitable blog in 7 days?

Enter your name and your Enter your email address and get instant access to my course, which has been featured on Forbes, Business Insider, and Entrepreneur.

3. Design Your Blog With A Free WordPress Theme

Now that we’re past the crucial setup phase of starting a blog, it’s time to have some more fun.

WordPress blog is when you might start to feel a bit of friction with this process (if you’ve never worked on a blog before), but I promise this won’t get too technical.

Also…the last thing I want is for the very minor technical side of starting a blog to derail your progress today. That’s why in my free course Create a Blog in 7 Days, I break down this technical setup process into an even more actionable step-by-step checklist for you.

If you’re a Want to start a blog and make money as a blogger, WordPress is the best blogging platform

Let’s cover some basic terms so you understand why WordPress is the right platform (aka Content Management System or CMS) to power your blog.

I’ve been running my blog on WordPress since I started blogging over a decade ago and I couldn’t be happier with the flexibility, control and long-term growth potential this made the decision. And while it’s been a fun journey, make no mistake – blogging is hard work.

Well, one thing to be aware of is that WordPress is available on two very different platforms. There’s WordPress.com and WordPress.org. They have almost the same name, but there are very big differences between the two:

WordPress.com:

• Is free to use ( with severe limitations)
• Does not let you select a custom domain name (e.g. 👉 yoursite.wordpress.com)
• Has very limited monetization options (can’t sell your own ads)
• Doesn’t let you upload plugins (for email capture and other things)
• Has limited support for blogging themes so you’re stuck with very basic themes
• You’ll have to pay to remove WordPress branding and get your own domain like yoursite.com
• Restricted SEO (search engine optimization) and analytics

WordPress.org:

• Fully customizable theme (using WordPress themes), unlimited plugin options and no branding
• Your own custom domain name to run your blog on (like ryrob.com)
• Total control over your own monetization efforts
• Powerful SEO features with great plugins (to make it easier for people to find your site)
• Let’s have one Start or add an ecommerce store or membership site
• Small monthly fee (from the cheap hosting plan you use to get your blog online)
• A free domain name during sign up (on most blog hosting platforms)

While you have choices if you want to take full advantage of your blog, grow it with you and eventually make money as a blogger, WordPress .org is the way to go (and the exact process we’ve followed in this guide). It’s the CMS of choice that sits in the background and powers your blog.

How to install WordPress (and configure your blog settings)

Here’s a step-by-step -Video guide on how to install WordPress on your new blog, start creating your blog pages and configure the right settings:

Of course we don’t cover everything about WordPress in this one video, but remember, that these are the basics that you need to do first.

Spend time getting familiar with the admin area of ​​your WordPress blog. You’ll get a much deeper understanding of how WordPress works and what things you can quickly change over time about your website’s visual appearance and functionality.

Choose the best free WordPress theme for your new one Blog (3 Top Options)

If you’re new to starting a blog, I usually don’t recommend buying a paid WordPress theme right away. Once you get some traffic and can justify the investment, it’s wise to go for a premium theme with more features and options. Right now, however, a complex blog theme distracts from your top priority of getting readers to your new blog.

WordPress offers a ton of free blogging themes to choose from, so start with one of the options that You like, under Appearance > Themes > Add New Theme > Popular, without spending much time on it for the time being. You can always come back and change it later.

I recommend choosing Kadence WP, Elementor for WordPress or Astra (all 100% free blog themes – they are lightning fast and also have the ability to do that later on theirs Upgrade premium theme versions at affordable prices).

I like these three quick WordPress themes the most because they’re crisp, clean, and simple, and you can set them up without having to invest in a paid blog theme , since you are just starting your blog. Later, you can try more of the other WordPress themes or upgrade to their premium themes for more features.

Why Blog Theme Is So Important When Starting A Blog

Even If You If you don’t really care about the design yourself, your readers will dramatically change their behavior based on the features of your blog layout. In fact, during a 2012 study by Google and the University of Basel, researchers found that users judge the aesthetic beauty and perceived functionality of a website in 1/20th – 1/50th of a second. And thanks to a little psychological bias called the Halo Effect, people will extend that judgment to all aspects of your blog.

Good blog design builds trust. It tells people that You care enough about your blog to keep it looking good. That doesn’t mean you need crazy animations or tons of fonts and colors. In fact, the best designs are simple, clean, and easy to read.

Once you’ve decided on the right theme for your WordPress blog, it’s time to dive into the world of WordPress plugins to they unlock even more customization of your blog design and functionality. This is the necessary preparatory work to give your blog a chance to grow into a real business over time.

9 Essential WordPress Plugins You Should Install on Your New Blog Today

WordPress plugins play a crucial role in how your blog works, and dialing in the essential plugins as quickly as possible is an important step in serving your audience as well as performing well for search engines.

< The only problem with WordPress plugins is that there are literally thousands of different plugins and blogging tools to choose from.However, to help you cut out all the noise, these are the must-have WordPress plugins you need to install if you start blogging today:

1. Yoast SEO: The more people can find your content, the better your blog will do. The Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress helps you optimize your blog post titles, descriptions, content length, and other elements across your blog so search engines can find you more easily. This is by far the most established and best SEO plugin out there and it’s worth installing on your blog first.
2. WPForms: You want your readers to It’s easy to get in touch with you, which I highly recommend as it gives other bloggers who want to work with you an easy way to get in touch with you. WPForms is an easy-to-use plugin that allows you to drag and drop contact forms onto any page on your blog.
3. Google’s Site Kit (Analytics Dashboard for WordPress): This is a 100% free plugin from Google that allows you to display all your relevant Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google AdSense and Google PageSpeed ​​optimization data right in your WordPress dashboard. Connect the plugin to your Google Analytics and Search Console accounts (you can sign up for a free Google Analytics account right here) to find out who visits your website, how long they stay there and what your most popular blogs are -Posts are .
4. UpdraftPlus: Again, sometimes things go wrong on your blog (and it won’t always be entirely under your control). It’s always smart to have a backup plugin that saves all your hard work on a regular basis, and this free one stands out from the rest.
5. WP Rocket: Faster websites rank higher on Google and give your readers a better experience. WP Rocket is a plugin that will cache your blog pages, reduce your file sizes and do a lot more to make your blog load faster for everyone.
6. Bunny CDN: Speaking of speed, Bunny.net makes an awesome WordPress plugin-based CDN that loads images and other static elements of your blog at lightning speed, giving this plugin top marks to consider as a complement to using WP Rocket.
7. Insert headers and footers: To edit your blog design, you sometimes need to add code snippets to your header or footer (it’s not as scary as it sounds) . However, doing this in your theme’s code can cause problems. With this plugin you can easily add small snippets of code to select locations on your blog.
8. Lightweight Accordion: If you like how I like the collapsible (accordion-like) Creating Content Boxes Here in this guide and in the FAQ section at the bottom of this post, I recommend installing the free plugin I use to bring these content widgets to life: Lightweight Accordion. This plugin allows you to quickly add collapsible FAQ box functionality to your WordPress blog with just a few clicks.
9. MightyShare: Automatically generate social share images in WordPress for free . Instead of using the boring social share image your blog uses by default, this free plugin automatically generates beautiful social media images with multiple templates, fonts, color choices, and robust customization. It includes support for all post types, multiple templates, and new templates added monthly.

How to (quickly) install a WordPress plugin on your new blog

The quickest way to install a WordPress plugin is to find it in the plugin directory once you’ve logged into your blog. To do this, follow these simple steps:

1. Navigate to Plugins > Add New:

2. Search for the WordPress plugin you want to install:

In this example, I searched for the WordPress plugin Yoast SEO (which is a must-have plugin for the search engine optimization is what you need). If it wasn’t already installed on my blog, you would see the big “Install Now” button here, where it currently says “Active”:

3. Click Install Now on your plugin of choice:

Once you’re ready to install the plugin you’ve been looking for (or browsed the top charts to see what’s popular ist) to install on your WordPress website, click the “Install Now” button and it will be added to your blog. The final step is to click “Activate” the plugin once it has been successfully installed.

Basic WordPress blogging platform settings you should now familiarize yourself with

See also: How to create a website navigation menu with notepad

There are many different reasons to start a blog and just as many unique blogging goals you may have in mind. Regardless, it pays to have a basic understanding of the broader aspects of how WordPress works so that you can control the visual appearance of your blog.

Let’s explore some of the larger image settings you may find you in your WordPress dashboard.

Permalinks (URLs)

Clean your default site URL

Set up your blog homepage (custom recent blog posts page)

Set up your blog’s menu (header and footer menus)

Okay, we’ve covered the basic basics of dialing into your blog’s WordPress settings. Now let’s dig deeper into creating some of your blog’s main pages.

Create your blog’s main pages: About Me, Contact Us, Settings (on the WordPress blogging platform)

From the moment you start a blog, you want to present some basic information about yourself. Who are you. Why people should listen to you. How they can contact you if they have questions or want to work with you.

These pages are all pretty standard, but they’re also a great way to have fun and get your readers involved to let you know In fact, I use my own “About” page not only to introduce myself and tell my story, but also to explain my value proposition (to potential clients who want to hire me as a freelance content marketer) and my recent accomplishments to show.

Here are step-by-step instructions on how to write an “About Me” page that does the same thing on your blog:

How to write an “About Me” page for your blog

You may not think much about it, but your About page can quickly become one of the most popular pages on your blog.

Use your About page to show the value you create for your readers—and work hard to earn that attention.

How to write a contact page for your blog

Another often-overlooked page to include early on when you start a blog is an easy way for people to get to you contact us.

While mine goes into more depth, your contact us page can be as simple as listing your email and social media accounts on one page.

Think Think about what types of content you don’t want to share with your readers and the communications you want in return, use your Contact Us page to immediately meet those expectations.

New to blogging with WordPress? 10 WordPress Blogging Platform Technical Tutorials

If you’re starting a blog on WordPress and want to spend some extra time tweaking things and experimenting with all your settings, check out these quick WordPress -Tutorials to:

• How to change the font size on your blog
• How to change the font color on your blog
• How to make a clickable link
• What is a 301 redirect?
• What is an RSS feed?
• How to add images in WordPress
• How to create a WordPress table of contents
• How to highlight HTML text in WordPress
• 12 blog layout examples (and best practices)
• 20+ blog examples (Case Studies of Successful Blogs)

Would you like my free course: How to start a profitable blog in 7 days?

Enter your name and your email address and you will receive instant n Access to my course, featured on Forbes, Business Insider and Entrepreneur.

4. Write your first blog post

You don’t read a blog because it looks good or because it gets published frequently. (Although both help).

You read a blog because you care about what it says. Creating quality content will bring you readers and ultimately help you make money from blogging.

Before you go too far with creating a blogging business plan, lay out your content roadmap and writing your first blog post – you need to answer one simple question… Why?

• Why are you interested in the topic you are blogging about?
• Why should others hear the People to what you say?
• Why is this a blogging topic that you can add real value to?

To answer these questions I like to think stick to a blog like any other business and reiterate the importance of picking a clear niche.

Well, if you’re not sure or can’t think of a niche right away, that’s fine. We can lure it out with a few questions.

Ask these questions to determine a smart niche to blog in:

• What is an interest or dream from your childhood are exciting?
• What is the absolute best part of your day?
• Do you have any hobbies or hobbies that you would like to learn?
• What is an ingrained value of yours?
• What achievement are you incredibly proud of?

Should you have an idea or two for a clear niche you could start immediately to blog. It’s okay if your niche grows, evolves and changes over time.

How to know if there is a business opportunity for your blogging niche (to eventually make money blogging)

If you want to monetize your blog, you should also do a little research to see if there is a market demand for your niche.That means: Are people actively searching for what you write about? And can you add value and help them in a way that makes money?

To turn your blog into a business, you need to solve a real problem for people. To do this, I’ll use a simple spreadsheet I call the Niche Market Demand Checker (you can get a free copy of this in my class here) that will help ensure you’re creating content that suits your Target Match Audience will find it useful.

Take the blog niche you have in mind and think of 5-10 keyword phrases or blog topics within that niche to write about would. So if we want to start a blog about playing guitar, you could choose keywords like “best guitar books”, “how to play guitar”, “guitar chords for beginners”, “which guitar should I buy” and so on

Also keep in mind that some of the new AI writing tools out there today can provide a lot of help in the ideation, research and writing process for your new blog.

Now , we do a little keyword research. Type one of these keywords from above into your Google search. If there are tens of millions (or more) of results, that’s a pretty strong indicator that people are interested in that particular topic. But just to be safe, I use my own free keyword research tool to check monthly search volume (how many people search for that term each month).

Use my free Keyword Research Tool

Try my free AI-powered Keyword Tool for dozens of research-backed keyword and topic ideas to blog about today .

Do this for each of your keywords and see the results. If all of your top keywords have a monthly search volume of 5,000 – 10,000, you definitely have a potentially profitable niche. If you’re going too far, into the high hundreds of thousands of monthly searches, you might want to get more specific with your niche rather than compete with much larger, established sites on more popular topics. Eventually, your goal will be to learn how to rank higher on Google than all of these competitors.

Brainstorm for smart blog post ideas (using keyword research)

Even once you’ve determined the niche you’re going to blog about, you must do some smart keyword research to generate the right blog post ideas that will actually bring you readers.

So what about the actual posts you will be writing? The good news is that you can honestly write whatever you want! This is your blog, after all, and one of its main benefits is that it’s your platform for talking and sharing. But ideas don’t always come by themselves.

This is where I think a simple editorial calendar is so important. It’s just a basic document to fill out so you always know what to write next. So you can spend more time having fun putting together posts and not banging your head against the wall trying to come up with blog post ideas.

5 ways to come up with clever blog post ideas

h4>

Here’s a simple process I use to create the specific blog posts I write for my own blog.

If I still need more ideas, I reach out a few more creative tactics…

• See what other bloggers in my niche have covered (and what did well).
• Take a look at my top-performing posts, um to see which readers like the most.
• Do more citation summary posts (like my posts about business consulting and online business tools) that don’t require much original thinking and effort on my part.
• Chat with bloggers in my area and get new ideas.
• Talk about specific blogging lessons I’ve learned recently t (and my advice).
• Thinking about the blogging mistakes I’ve made and the tactics that work today.

At this point I have usually a full content calendar. Need inspiration for more content? Here are 201+ winning blog post ideas.

Now you’re ready to write your first blog post

Once you’ve decided on the first blog post you want to write, you can She navigates to the Add New Post section from your WordPress dashboard.

Go to Posts > Add New, which looks like this:

Next you will be at a brand new article page which will look like this (a completely blank canvas 🙂):

Write a blog post headline that encourages readers to click through

One of the reasons you blog to attract readers, right? Well, it pays to put some effort into learning how to write a headline that will entice readers and most importantly – deliver on the promise that your article actually helps readers.

Fortunately, I’ve developed a free blog title generator tool that gives you an unlimited number of blog title ideas for the topics you want to cover.

Try it Check out my free AI -Powered Blog Title Generator Tool to get dozens of SEO-friendly headline ideas to make your blog posts stand out today.

So let’s say you’ve decided that your hiking blog (like Hike with Ryan) by breaking down some underrated hikes in Yosemite, compiling a list of the best hiking shoes on the market, rounding up gifts for the hikers in your life, and talking about when to visit Yosemite throughout the year . Next, click on the Add Title bar on your new post page and type in a title like…

As a starting point for writing a strong title, learn by reading the headlines of other successful bloggers in your observe niche:

• Do they often lead with numbers?
• How many of their article titles contain brackets?
• Seems like a best practice at first Capitalize letters of each word?

Check out some of the recent headlines from my blog for inspiration on how to structure your headlines (be sure to read See my ultimate guide to writing blog headlines and my quick tips on killer blog titles).

If you’re still not sure how to title a new post, then do one Google search for the target keyword phrase you are searching through and inspirat ion for the way other titles are written – be careful not to copy other bloggers directly, but this will point you in the right direction.

Choose a SEO-friendly blog post U RL

It is extremely important that you customize the URL (blog link) of your new post if you hope it will rank well in Google’s organic search results.

Create a compelling introduction to your new blog post

You have a sentence or two to convince readers that your new post is worth their time. Here’s a sample blog post introduction I just wrote in under two minutes for our wander example:

While you’re learning to write a blog post that keeps readers engaged, here are a few do’s and don’ts and don’ts for creating a compelling introduction (and my free blog post templates to follow and use in your own content creation process).

The simplest strategy for writing a compelling introduction is to reply of who, what, where, when and why as quickly as possible. This may sound counterintuitive, but another trick is to start with your conclusion first. In the age of short attention spans, people are tired of wasting time on clickbait blog posts that go nowhere.

The faster you can establish relevance to your readers, give them strong reason to believe that they will find what they are looking for in your blog post, the more likely they will delve into your article and share it with others.

Optimize your blog post design and layout

Ultimately what looks “good” is subjective and up to you based on what you think will resonate best with your (future) readers. But one of the most important lessons I’ve learned from starting my own blog is that design is very important.

These five proven design principles will help you immensely in creating an appealing blog layout (That’s easy for readers to digest).

Click publish on your first blog post. ) you’re almost ready to publish!

Take a few minutes to double-check Yoast’s SEO suggestions and make sure your blog post is SEO-friendly, giving you the best Search has a good chance of ranking organically.

After you’ve set up your SEO settings, select which “Category” you want this new post to fall into and check this box. Then you can click publish!

And boom! It’s as simple as that if you let yourself 🎉

Well, if like me you appreciate great design – before you publish your first blog post, there is one last step you could do.

Studies show that blog posts with images get 94% more views than those without. And when it comes to posts shared on social media, tweets with photos get 150% more retweets than those without, while Facebook posts with photos get 2.3x more engagement. Adding a few visual elements can almost double the number of views and increase the number of shares a blog post gets.

Free blog photo resources (stock images and blog graphics)

One of the simplest Ways to add some visual flair to your blog posts are with beautiful images and designs. Thankfully, in recent years there have been a number of quality content sites that offer incredible photos that you can use for your blog completely free – my favorite being Unsplash:

Unsplash (for free blog images and stock photos)

Unsplash is the best online resource for totally free user-uploaded photos for your blog.Every photo that makes it onto Unsplash is curated by their team to ensure it’s high-quality content. Under the Unsplash license, you don’t even have to credit the photographer (which they recommend, though), making Unsplash the easiest option for free blog photography.

Other great free blog photo resources worth checking out to be mentioned

• Wikimedia Commons: Over 21 million photos and images from history that are now in the public domain and free to use.
• Life of Pix: Awesome free -to- Use (open source) photos donated by an advertising agency in Montreal, Canada.

Bonus: Create a blog content strategy

I’ve been fortunate to work for some amazing companies and get paid to learn about the importance of a comprehensive blog strategy and content marketing strategy for your blog. I’ve successfully applied the same lessons to my own blog, making many tweaks and additions along the way. And if you’re having trouble with your content planning, grab my free blog planner pack and check out my other free blogging resources pack to start making things better today.

Create like this A Basic Blog Content Strategy Today:

1. Define Your Blog Goals: What is your goal for starting a blog? What do you want to achieve with your blog content? Your blog goals may change as you grow your blog, but it’s still important to know this early on.
2. Get to know your blog readers (and where they are): Your readers determine whether your blog will be successful or not. In order to write for them, you need to really understand them, so it helps if you write for yourself too. It’s useful for doing some research about the audience you’re writing for. Think about the demographics and psychographics of your target audience. Demographics are the quantitative characteristics of your readers (age, gender, location, job title) and Psychographics are the more non-measurable characteristics such as values, interests, attitudes, and belief systems. Once you’ve written down these qualities, you can start dreaming up an audience persona—a fictional version of your ideal reader.
3. Decide on your blog’s most important content pillars: When it comes to deciding what to write about, it’s good to have a few guide categories to fall back on. I like to call these content pillars because they form the foundation that supports the rest of your blog. For example, if you start a personal finance blog, your pillars might be: personal finance tips, interviews with experts, industry news, debt settlement, or others. Hundreds of blog posts can be written under each of these pillars. They also all work together to show that you are a thought leader in your niche.
4. Plan the content you will create shortly after launching your blog: Short After When you launch your blog, it pays to take a little time to plan your content pipeline for the weeks (possibly months) ahead. You never know when your first blog post might go viral. In that case, you should at least have a game plan in place to quickly win over the new readers you’re getting. Even just a blog post or two under each of your most important content pillars is enough to get you started, ideally in the form of evergreen content that stands the test of time.

We have now come a long way in this guide. You’ve worked your way from learning the technical details to publishing your first post.

Now it’s time to talk about what happens after you publish your first blog post…your content to promote, increase traffic and finally make money from your blog.

Would you like my free course: How to start a profitable blog in 7 days?

Enter your name and email address and get instant access to my course, featured on Forbes, Business Insider and Entrepreneur.

5. Promote Your Blog to Gain Readers and Traffic

Now that we’re heading into 2023, we can look back and see that my blog gained more than 4.4 million readers in the last year alone has. We will use my experience to go from starting a blog to quickly bringing millions of readers to my content. What do you do after you click publish on your first few blog posts? It’s time to learn how to promote your blog content.

This is why I’m hired as a consultant by companies like LinkedIn, Zendesk, Adobe, Close, Intuit and more, to write content for their blogs, teach them how to promote their content and attract new readers.

Here are some of the best ways to share your blog posts and get them in front of new readers close. And if you want even more strategies, here’s my guide to driving traffic to your website, where we dive even deeper into the tactics I’ve used to grow my blog to millions of annual readers.

Using Social Media to Promote Your Blog

The obvious first place to go if you want to find readers is social media. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok are some of the biggest networks today. Whatever platform best suits your niche and audience interests is the right one for you. And that’s an important clue. There’s no point in trying to promote your blog posts on every social media platform.

Look for the social channels that give you the best ROI

The most important ones The takeaway here is that you need to experiment and see which networks work best for you.

Blog as a guest on other relevant blogs and sites like Medium, Quora, and Linkedin

One One of the best things about starting a blog is that you’re joining a community of other bloggers who love to help each other. Guest blogging on other relevant sites is the best way to connect with an already established audience. Check out my ultimate guide to guest blogging for full instructions, but we’ll cover the highlights here.

See also: How to Create User Accounts on a WordPress Website

I’ve written literally hundreds of guest posts over the past decade, and it has been the best strategy for promoting my blog content.

The key point in all of this is that you want to look for places where your audience is – and have a presence there, be they other blogs , communities or social platforms.

Forums and message boards for bloggers

Often it’s not very effective to just throw your ideas into the void of social media.

Part of it instead Being of targeted forums and online communities can get you a much better return – if you find the right ones. Browse through relevant groups on Facebook to see if there are any vibrant communities that would be a good place to start.

Well, if your search doesn’t turn up any Facebook groups with a decent number of members (5,000+) , there are other options. Look for more general groups related to your niche on Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, or standalone forum sites.

Remember that forums and message boards aren’t just places to post links to your blog posts. You must offer value before you ask for anything in return. So I recommend building relationships and connecting with the people there first.

Using an email newsletter to grow your blog audience

One of the best Forms of blog advertising is not advertising other audiences, but (over time) your own. Building your own email list (or email newsletter) is the most effective way to engage existing readers with your work – and one of the things you should start doing right away.

Start building your email lists from day one with your blog — it can be surprisingly easy. Place a signup form in your posts and on all important pages of your website. I use a tool called ConvertKit, which I love, to manage the 150,000+ email subscribers I now have on my blog, but Mailchimp is the best free email marketing tool to get started /p>

Not sure which email marketing tool to use to start a blog?

Read my detailed ConvertKit vs AWeber vs Mailchimp comparison to learn where to start and when to transition to more robust email marketing tools.

I send my community an update when I post a new blog post, have a resource I want to share, or when new podcast episodes go live – and that now ensures my content is quickly seen by thousands of people the first time. Email marketing and promoting content to my own email list has been by far the biggest growth and revenue driver for my blog, and something that of all the blog marketing strategies you can invest in, I Can’t recommend enough.

Other ways to promote your blog and get more blog traffic

Besides promoting on social media, guest posts, forums and email – here are a few other techniques I’ve personally used to grow my blog blog audience fast.

Remember that the only thing standing in the way of your blog growing is yourself are. It takes some ingenuity and experimentation, but it’s well worth the effort. Trust me, I’ve had to reinvent myself many times over the years and I’m still learning with my newest side blog, VeganWiki.

Almost every guide to starting a blog stops long before this point. Now I’m going to arm you with the tools (and strategies) to go from starting your new blog to building a real business on it – based on my experience of growing this blog to 500,000+ monthly readers and $50,000/month in sales .

Let’s talk about how you can (ultimately) make money from your blog.

6. Make money from your blog

Last year alone, my blog generated $449,107 in revenue (ignore the $0 expenses here, you can find those details in see my blog income reports).

I’m not sharing this to brag, just so you’ll understand that when it comes to starting a blog and making some serious income, I know what I’m talking about achieve.Also, I’ll be the first to tell you that these kinds of earnings numbers aren’t typical of blogging – and it’s taken me over 6 years to get to this point in my blogging business.

It There’s a why you can make money from your blog at the end of this guide to starting a blog. Unless you already have a massive audience somewhere, don’t expect to start making money right away – monetization shouldn’t be your number one goal right now, it should be something to work towards.

Plus the journey How you monetize your blog depends on the nature of your blog. For example, a lifestyle blog will have different monetization strategies than a personal blog, a mom blog, a food blog, or a travel blog.

Nevertheless, it’s good to have an idea of ​​the avenues you’re taking want to blog money as you embark on this new adventure, especially if you prioritize passive income. Some of these monetization strategies will be easier to implement than others while your readership is still growing.

1. Freelance (Selling Your Services)

If you want to make money from your blog as quickly as possible, then selling your services (by landing blog jobs, writing freelance gigs, or otherwise providing your expertise as a service sell) the right thing the easiest option by far. In fact, I was still freelancing as a blog monetization channel for my own business until recently:

All it really takes to land a freelance client is a strong enough pitch, which is where the decision is made , starting a blog (first) will help significantly. You should build out your key pages (About Me, Contact Us, Hire Me) and present at least a few examples of the type of work you’ve done that you’ll soon be offering to freelance clients.

If you don’t have these work samples yet…don’t let that hold you back. Create these sample articles, designs, or other deliverables and host them on your own blog as if they were a project you’re being paid to create.

If you have a skill that you can sell as a service , then you’re already ready to go out and engage potential customers. This skill could be something like…

• Writing (one of the best blogging skills to master)
• Design
• Photography
• Marketing (whether content marketing, digital marketing, or otherwise)
• Development (check out these WordPress developer job sites)
• Public Relations
• Social relationships media management
• Virtual support
• Community building
• SEO or paid advertising campaigns
• Business strategy or project management
• The list goes on…because every skill can be monetized

Today, I still regularly book new freelance clients (like LinkedIn, Zendesk, Adobe) for $5,000/month or more and I’ I was hired to consult on creating and executing blog marketing campaigns for their organization.

If freelancing sounds like your cup of tea, check out my (free) collection ng to grab all of my best resources and tools and templates for freelancers. This resource pack is the culmination of 8+ years of refining my freelance contract template, proposal template, cold email templates that attract new clients, and more.

I also have an in-depth guide to the Getting started with freelancing you’ll want to read, and another great foundational read on how to develop a pitching process that works for your type of business, is my freelancer’s guide to cold email. And if you want to check out some of the sites that freelance clients are already looking at for talented help, here are my lists of the best blogging job sites and the best freelancer job sites.

2. Affiliate Programs

Every month I earn a significant amount of passive income (sometimes over $50,000) from the affiliate programs I am a member of. For example, here is a screenshot of my blog earnings from just one affiliate program (Bluehost) for the first 5 months of last year.

Since I started a blog here 10 years ago, the affiliate Revenue has gradually grown to be the biggest source of income for my business – and I’ve structured my blog to generate affiliate revenue because it’s so passive once you’ve done the (hard) work of finding a sustainable source of traffic for your content. I strongly encourage you to do affiliate marketing in your blogging niche.

Most of the biggest brands have affiliate programs. Think from companies like Amazon to major players in specific niches like online education, where brands like CreativeLive and Udemy offer lucrative programs. Here’s a snapshot of my recent earnings from just a few other programs:

Once you’ve built up a small readership, you can negotiate a more advantageous affiliate deal with companies that have relevant products you want to promote your audience.For more information on monetizing your blog with affiliate earnings, check out these guides:

• 57+ Best Affiliate Programs For Bloggers (To Earn Affiliate Earnings)
• 10 Ways Affiliate Marketing Can Completely Transform Your Blog
• How I Make An Extra $1,000 A Month With Amazon Affiliate Marketing

While All Blog Income Streams Changes At any point in the market, affiliate marketing has proven to be one of the most sustainable in almost a decade of blog monetization here – and I’m constantly testing new affiliate programs to keep growing my blog’s income.

3 . Sponsored Blog Content

Unless you already have a decent audience on your blog (or social accounts), it will take time for your readership to grow to the point that Having sponsored content available is a viable monetization option.

The best way to create sponsored content without alienating your readers is to embed it in your typical publishing style (like I did with this sponsored post and also did with this one).

4. Online Courses

Once you have a skill (or experience) that others would also like to learn, it’s relatively easy to combine your best advice (like my blogging tips), strategies, tactics, and tutorials in an online -Packaging a course where people can pay for access to accelerate their learning much faster than they would otherwise go through the stumbling process of learning through trial and error.

In the last year alone I got through earned the launch of my premium $60,000 blogging course, Built to Blog, which takes students well beyond just starting a blog and introduces them to advanced strategies for attracting readers and generating revenue from their blogs.

What’s great about using an online course as a monetization path for your blog (or like I’ve done with selling blogging books) is that you don’t need a large audience to start making money from online courses earn. The same applies if you decide to write an e-book and sell this digital product to your audience.

5. Traditional blog ads (ad networks)

I used to have several small blog ads that were displayed above my content (from one of these top blog ad networks) and in my blog sidebar, giving me around 1,500 to $2,000 per ad added month in additional revenue before turning off ads to optimize page speed and other revenue streams.

In the early years of blogging, I was a member of a small ad network called Carbon Ads Journey, where they partner with bloggers and match us with ads from quality startups like Slack, Asana, Freshbooks, Monday, Upwork, and other targeted brands that my audience is already familiar with.

Overall, traditional CPC or CPM advertising doesn’t become very profitable (at least as a viable source of sizable blog revenue) until you get over 1 million monthly readers, so it’s not great monetar channel to focus on in the short-term. Term if you only host a few ads in yo your blog sidebar. But starting a blog can be one of the easiest ways to monetize your traffic without much extra effort – just make sure you set the right expectations for now.

6. Podcast Sponsorship

Another great way to start monetizing your blog is to start a (simple) podcast for your readers. You can use your traffic and early listeners to book sponsorships from brands that want to reach your kind of readers and listeners. Here’s how my podcast grew in its first year:

You can even combine podcast ad placement offers with sponsored blog posts on your site to really sweeten the deal. And I understand that starting a podcast while you’re still blogging might sound like a distraction, but remember that a podcast can be as simple as having casual conversations with other bloggers in your industry.

For many more on the mechanics behind starting a podcast and monetizing it alongside your blog (including choosing the right podcast hosting), check out this episode of my show with Michael Sacca of Rocketship.fm, whose podcast is a side income source of $10,000/month while still sticking to his day job in sales and digital marketing. It’s a real masterclass in starting a podcast not to be missed.

7. Physical Products (eCommerce) and Software Tools

The concept is similar to launching an online course for your blog audience. Another great way to monetize your audience is to sell a physical product or software tool to the people in your community — especially if you’re starting an ecommerce store (with the right ecommerce website builders) to sell products related to your readers’ needs.

At the end of the day, this all comes down to solving your blog readers’ problems. If you need an extra incentive, consider that 75% of online shoppers say they use social media as part of their buying process.

Take for example my AI-powered content creation platform, RightBlogger, which I started with a friend to solve a big problem for new bloggers – by giving them affordable access to amazing technology-powered Tools to speed up their content creation process.

On the physical product side, it used to be a much more labor intensive business, a business to open online store and get into e-commerce. However, with platforms like Shopify, it’s getting easier and can be a great way to monetize an audience of readers on your blog – especially with the proliferation of dropship and order fulfillment services.

In addition to just selling For Leverage your own audience with loyalty programs that encourage customers to invite friends to buy with offers like first-time customer discounts, free one-month trials, gift programs, and more. These channels create opportunities to amplify your message and spread your products through word of mouth that won’t cost you nearly as much as advertising fees.

Check out my interview with Hiten Shah, who was no longer self-taught how to start a blog, but now uses his personal blog to connect with his audience and release profitable software tools as a result of the validation discussions he’s had with them.

8 . Business Partnerships

Of all the ways to monetize your blog, this is the most informal. Who knows who you will meet as a result. What about future guests on your podcast? The opportunities to come across partnership opportunities here are endless.

Having stuck to my own personal blog for over a decade now, I’ve been able to use it as a tool to meet some incredibly talented entrepreneurs. Here are a few examples of how my decision has turned into profitable partnerships:

• I worked with my friend Jory (a writer) whom I met through my blog to create a $20,000/mo Content Marketing & Digital Marketing Agency combined
• I’ve launched new websites (like RightBlogger, SmartWP, and MightyShare) with my friend Andy, who has a similar audience to mine.
• I’ve teamed up with a friend to help her grow her vegan food blog Vegan Anj with a view to monetizing it soon
• I worked with a former podcast guest to help with the To help build a blogging software tool that I’ve envisioned for years
• I’ve received offers to sell a blog several times over the years and may one day pull the trigger

It’s true that there aren’t that many poss Be authentic about creating these types of partnerships—aside from growing your brand and blog reach—then be open to the creative people and ideas that come your way. Discover.

On the other hand, if there is someone in your field that you really want to work with and collaborate with, strategize how you can add value to their business.

How to start Blogging (and Making Money) in 2023: Final Lessons for New Bloggers

Ultimately, building a successful blog comes down to getting excited and engaged with your new blog. If you want people to read what you write, you need to give them a reason to do so.

Write compelling content, connect with people in your niche, and be enthusiastic about sharing what you’re passionate about work.

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Traffic, monetization and everything else will follow.

I wrote this guide because starting a blog is one of the the most powerful, life-changing decisions I’ve made in my life.

And I hope that now you’re feeling confident enough to go out and start your own blog.

Me would love to have you on my free 7 day course expanding on the teachings of this guide. We also dive deeper into topics like increasing traffic, my personal writing process, monetizing your blog and more.

Would you like my free course: How to start a profitable blog in 7 days?

Enter your name and email address and get instant access to my course, featured on Forbes, Business Insider and Entrepreneur.

Infographic: How to Start a Blog ( for Profit) and Become a Blogger This Year

For those who are more of a visual learner, I’ve also put together this infographic that breaks down the process of starting a blog – and my personal experience how to generate both traffic and revenue with your blog. Enjoy!

Want to share this infographic on how to start a blog on your site? Email me at [email protected] and I’ll connect you!

How to start a blog FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions by New Bloggers): People ask too

I get dozens of questions every day from readers (like you) learning how to start a blog for the first time.Here are my answers to the most common beginner blogging questions that people also ask when they start blogging.

Frequently asked questions for getting started as a new blogger

Frequently asked questions for getting started of Blog Traffic

Frequently Asked Questions About Making Money From Blogging

Phew! Alright, I’ve answered a lot of questions – but please come in the comments below.

Quick summary of how to start a blog and make money today in 6 steps

In summary You:

• Choose your blog name and niche
• Put your blog online (web hosting)
• Design your blog with a free WordPress theme
• Write your first blog post
• Promote your blog and get readers
• Make money from your blog

That’s it! Follow this step-by-step guide to starting a blog and you’ll be on the right track. Well, if you’re looking for some additional reading to help you on your blogging journey beyond my guide to starting a blog, here are my biggest hits to read (and bookmark) today:

• How to Write a Blog Post (People Will Want to Read It)
• How to Name a Blog the Smart Way: 25+ Blog Name Examples
• How to Pick a Blog Niche ( 60+ Profitable Blog Niche Ideas)
• 16 Best Web Hosting Hosting Plans for Bloggers (This Year)
• Guest Blogging 101: How to Guest Blog Post for SEO
• How to Find Your Target Audience (for Your Blog)
• 10 Blog SEO Strategies to Get More Organic Traffic
• 32 Best Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog (Increase Blog Traffic)
• How to Promote Your Blog: 12 Strategies to Get 584,863 Readers
• 202+ best ideas for blog posts that will (actually) attract readers n
• How to Create a Blog Business Plan (Free Template)
• 27 Best Blogging Courses (For Beginners and Advanced Bloggers)
• 21 Best Blogging Books for every blogger to read this year
• 50+ blogging tools for better marketing, SEO, writing and research
• 12 ways to make money blogging and make $451,238 this year earn
• 20+ blogging examples to learn from (case studies of successful blogs)

And if you’re looking for even more, here’s a collection of all my blogging related content.

Are you going to take the leap to learn how to start a blog (and become a blogger) today?

Now I also want to know how your blogging journey is progressing. Good luck!

Message me or ask questions in the comments below!

Would you like my free course: How to start a profitable blog in 7 days?

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Enter your name and email address and get instant access to my course, which has been featured on Forbes, Business Insider and Entrepreneur.

See also: 10 excellent platforms for building mobile apps

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