There are currently more than 600 million blogs in the world. That means, there are a lot of bloggers out there. There are bloggers making millions per month blogging and bloggers that are making next to nothing blogging. This is why you need a good roadmap if you want to be successful at blogging.
This article is a comprehensive guide for beginners who are considering starting a blog or have started a blog and don’t know the next step to take.
Let’s go!
Table of Contents
What is a blog?
First of all, what is a blog? After all, you shouldn’t start a blog if you don’t know what a blog is.
A blog is a place for writers (you don’t have to be a professional writer, you can just be a common folk who writes) to publish content on various topics.
The things bloggers may blog about may include how-to type articles, and list-type articles with the purpose of helping those understand a subject matter better. A blog may also be a place for people to share their thoughts on something through blogging.
Why you should start a blog
There are many reasons to start a blog:
- Blogging is the cheapest business to start with the greatest return
Other types of business take much more capital to start compared to a blogging business. You can start a blog for less than $150. Sometimes you can even get started with $18 when they’re having a sale.
I once started a blog at HostGator and it only took $18 for hosting and domain name for the first year.
- Blogging income can be extremely passive
Once you have built up enough loyal stream of monthly readers and have enough articles that do well enough, you really don’t need to do too much to maintain your blog. You may hire someone to put out a blog post every few days, reply to comments, send out weekly newsletters, etc. Other than that, you can have a pretty hands-off approach to blogging.
You get a point where you can continue to make passive income from your blog without doing much work. You really only have to release an article once in a while to keep your readers engaged and maintain your high-ranking articles on Google.
- Ability to work 5 hours a week and pull in a six or seven-figure per year
With blogging, you can potentially work 5 hours a week or less and still pull in a 6–7 figure salary from your blog. You can use the rest of the time to do anything you want wherever you want since you won’t be tied down to a specific location.
- Blogging isn’t dead. It’s very much alive.
Some people think that the era of blogging is over. That they are too late to the blogging scene. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Google is like an unmovable mountain. Everybody uses Google to search for things. What they don’t do is use Instagram, Twitter, Tiktok, and Snapchat to search for the best restaurants to visit in a city, to read the latest article on entrepreneurship, or search up a recipe for lasagna.
One day, most social media sites that are big today will be overtaken by another and they’ll fade out of view (just like Vine). Building your income on those platforms simply isn’t sustainable over the long run.
What you should do, is look into building a presence on Google and YouTube. It’s better to build your brand on both Google in the form of a blog and on YouTube than relying on Instagram for your influencer income. If you only have your brand on YouTube, it’s time to create a blog for your brand as well so you won’t be too influenced by any sudden algorithm change.
There will always be searches done on Google, there’ll always be people needing to learn stuff from a blog. A blog is a vital piece of the internet that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. And if blogging shall be replaced by something else in the future, the changes would be much slower than a social media giant being replaced by another. You’d see it a hundred miles away and make your changes accordingly.
Financial Cookbook started her blog in 2021 and within 7 months, she was making $2k per month consistently she can basically quit her job now if she wants a year later.
Adam from AdanEnfroy.com started his blog in 2019 and made more than a million within 2 years of starting his blog. He’s now making $200k per month from his blog with a plan to scale his blogging business up to $10 million by 2024.
You see, it’s not too late to start a blog. There’ll always be a need for bloggers and content for the web. If you’re willing to produce high-quality blog posts for Google, there’ll always be money to be made.
Read this article if you want to learn the 8 reasons to start a blog if you want to be your own boss.
Read this article for the 8 reasons why you should be your own boss.
A brief list of bloggers and their earnings
- Adamenfroy.com: $200k/month (Made more than 1 million within 2 years of blogging) in the making money and software niche
- FinancialSumaria.com: $500k to 2 million + per year in the personal finance for women niche
- Pinchofyum.com: $60k+ /month in the cooking and recipes niche
- Makingsenseofcents.com: $100k/month in the millennial money management niche
- Anastasiablogger.com: $30k/month in the blogging niche
- Justagirlandherblog.com: $35k+/month in the DIY and home decor niche
- Horkeyhandbook.com: $57k+/month in the freelance writing niche
Step 1: Choose a niche
Step 1 is to choose a niche. A niche is the general topic of your blog content. Look at what people in different niches are doing. Look at the type of posts they are producing on their blogs. Are there problems you can foresee? Perhaps you aren’t knowledgeable enough on the topic? Pick a niche that you have some knowledge in, that you’re passionate about, and that you can make money from.
A lot of people think that you should blog about something you are passionate about. The truth is, if your ultimate goal is to make money, you should pick something that can make you money. Preferably, this would also be a niche that you’re passionate about. The more passionate you are about a certain niche, the more likely you are to persist and if persisting doesn’t make you money because you’re in a niche that doesn’t make you money, then, you’d also give up pretty easily.
You want to pick a niche that you’re passionate about, that is profitable, and that you have some knowledge in.
Consider picking a sub-niche. A sub-niche is like a subtopic of a niche you’ve chosen. Picking a sub-niche can help you establish authority within a space faster than a bigger niche.
Now that you have some niche ideas, try to think of 200 articles to write about in your niche. If you can think of 200 articles, you’re good to go. Not all of those articles may be good to write about but at least you won’t end up like some bloggers who after writing 5 blog posts, realized they have nothing more to write.
Read this article for the most profitable blogging niches.
Step 2: Choose a domain name
Now that you have chosen a niche, it’s time to choose a domain name for your blog. The domain name of a blog is the address of your blog.
For instance, HelloMoneyTree is the name of my blog and the domain name of my blog is HelloMoneyTree.com
Note, the following web addresses all lead to my blog: It’ll work the same on your blog as well
- https://www.HelloMoneyTree.com
- www.HelloMoneyTree.com
- http://www.HelloMoneyTree.com
- HelloMoneyTree.com
Note, the following domain names are different:
- HelloMoneyTree.com
- HelloMoneyTree.ca
- HelloMoneyTree.io
The differences in extensions make the above domain names different.
I’ve written an article here to help you choose your domain name along with all the things you should be aware of when choosing a domain name.
When choosing a domain name, make sure it’s short, easy to spell, and to remember. If it’s too long, too hard to spell, and too hard to remember, it’ll pose an extra barrier to the success of your blog.
Step 3: Pick a hosting company
There are many hosting companies to choose from. I recommend you to choose either BlueHost or HostGator.
BlueHost is the best hosting platform overall but it’s not the cheapest one.
HostGator offers a high-quality hosting experience while being more affordable than BlueHost. BlueHost does spend more on advertising.
When you sign up for a hosting plan, you’ll be asked what domain name you want and if you have already gotten a domain name, you’ll have to change the DNS (don’t worry ask the live chat service to direct you). Or, if you use HostGator, it would come with a free 1-year domain name.
Step 4: Install WordPress
You can ask your hosting company to install WordPress for you. You can also watch tutorials if you want but depending on the specific hosting company you use, the process installing of WordPress would be different.
The best thing you can do is to go to live chat and ask your hosting provider to set it up for you. They’ll do so at no extra charge.
You should also ask them to turn on the SSL certificate.
Step 5: Pick a theme
Next, you’ll pick a theme. You can use a paid theme or a free theme. I recommend you start with a free theme. There are a lot of good free themes to choose from.
Step 6: Publish content
Now that your site is set up and the theme is selected, you need to start publishing some content. Your site may look a bit off when it has less than 6 articles. Try to create more articles and release them at once so your site looks decent.
Step 7: Promote content
Now that you published your blog posts, it’s time to promote it. Visitors won’t just magically appear on your site for no reason. You have to lead them there or wait 6–8+ months for Google to suggest your articles to searchers.
Step 8: Build backlinks
Next, you want to build backlinks. Backlinks are the links others have on their sites that lead to your site. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the higher your blog posts will rank on Google when someone types in a key term.
The more backlinks you have, the higher your Domain Authority score would be.
- DA 0–40: Below average
- DA 40–50: Average
- DA 50–60: Good
- DA 60–70+ : Excellent
You can reach out to other bloggers in the niche and ask if you can guest post on their blogs. When you write an article on their blog, make sure to include links to your own website. That’s one of many ways to get backlinks.
You can also buy backlinks which is not a good practice and can be discouraged by Google.
Step 9: Add affiliate links
With more backlinks added to your site, the content should be rising in ranking on Google. More visitors should come to your site.
With more visitors, you can start adding affiliate links. You can also add it in the beginning stages of your blogs if you want but you won’t get many sales since there won’t be that many readers to your blog.
Step 10: Sell your own products
The next thing you can do to monetize your blog beyond affiliates and ads is to sell your own products.
The type of products you can sell include:
- Course
- Printables
- Book
- Consultation
And more! See the “Ways to make money from your blog” section to find out how.
Don’t try to create a product to sell in the beginning since you don’t have many readers yet and your time would be better spent on creating content and guest posting.
Step 11: Persist
If you’re doing everything right, you should see a steady increase in visitors. There might be some ups and downs but the general trend will be going up.
All you have to do is to persist. Most bloggers quit too early and they fail to account for the fact that it takes Google about 6–8+ months to rank your article so before you see a steady increase in page views, giving up should not be something you should attempt.
Keep going. Keep putting out high-quality content and you should see the fruit of your efforts soon.
Step 12: Expand to other sub-niches
Now that you’ve pretty much covered all the things to be talked about in your current niche, move on to another sub-niche.
For instance, if you have a food blog and your niche is baking, may be expanding to other sub-niches within the baking niche. For example, you can start to create content centered around historical baking techniques.
You don’t want to pigeonhole yourself by signing up for a domain that is too specific because say you have a domain called www.Emilybakepies.com You may only be able to blog about pies and not other types of bakery treats.
A lot of people start a blog using their own names as the domain name and that allows them to go in any direction they want with their blogs. (Unless your name is super hard to spell, in which case, I wouldn’t suggest you do this)
Step 13: Automate your business
You’ll get to a stage in your blogging career where you can hire someone to do the blogging for you if you’re successful.
You’ll hire writers and marketers for your blog and whoever other personnel you need.
It’s possible to spend less than an hour per week with your blogging business!
Step 14: Start another blog!
Now that you tackled this blog, you may decide to start another blog in a related niche. Or, a completely different niche if you feel like it but it is easier to start another blog in a similar niche as you already established yourself as an expert in a similar niche.
Ways to make money from your blog
- Affiliate sales
- Guest posts
- Courses
- Printables
- Editable PDFs
- Dropshipping
- 1-on-1 consultation
- Ads
Most common reasons people failed as a blogger
- They didn’t persist
- Their content is not high-quality
- Didn’t monetize blog enough
- There’s not a big enough market in their niche
- Didn’t publish consistently
- Didn’t promote blog posts
- Use passive linkbuilding
FAQ
- Should I use a paid theme
You can use a paid theme if you want but it’s not very important. If you found a free theme you like, you can just use that. When you’re making enough money from your blog, you can invest it to hire a web designer and a web developer to create a better website for your readers.
- Can I use Wix or Squarespace?
If you want to make money, using Wix or Squarespace is not something you should do. It’s not good for SEO. DON’T DO IT.
- How important is the social media presence for a blogger?
It can help drive traffic to your site but when these social media platforms realized that you’re leading users off their platform and into someone else’s platform, all of a sudden, no one is viewing your videos anymore because it’s not being suggested to them.
This is what happened to my TikTok account. You can see that my earlier videos get more than 500 views and they even earned me some followers but soon after the views dropped and currently, the last two videos have 0 views.
You can use other social media to build up your brand but don’t try to get traffic from there. There are other things you should spend your time doing that can earn you more money faster than trying to be everywhere and build up all those accounts at once.
- How to drive free traffic to your blog
Click here to find out.
- Should I pay for traffic to my blog?
You shouldn’t pay for traffic to your blog in the form of an ad or otherwise because it’s like trading dollars for pennies. It’s not worth it!
Several things you need to do more research on:
- Sitemap
- SEO
- Yoast SEO
- Table of the content plugin
- How to prevent content scrape
- Email marketing for bloggers
- Backlinks
- Keyword research
Final thought
Making a full-time income blogging is definitely possible but it’ll take a lot of hard work and continuous learning. If you’re willing to wake up extra early before work and stay late into the night to work on your blog, you may have a chance at becoming a successful blogger.
I hope this has been a quick and informative guide into the world of blogging for you!
If you’re looking for other ways to make money online, click here.
Learn how to become a content creator and make money by clicking here.
