How to Start a Blog and Earn Money: 5 Steps To Get Started

Blogging is a great way to earn money in your spare time. It doesn't require much equipment or expertise, and it can be done at home with just a computer, internet connection, and some creativity. Bloggers complete many tasks in order to build their brand and earn money online. This guide will provide you with a step-by-step process of how to start a blog and make money from it. We'll teach you the basics of blogging that will help you get started on your journey of making money from home. We'll also share different ways of making money from blogging, show you how to get started with affiliate marketing, and give you tips for making posts that get more views! Follow these steps to learn about the world.

What do you need to start a blog?

Before I show you how to start a blog, I want to give you a run-down on what you’ll need. This is not a tutorial about how to code your own website (if you want that, check out this guide), this is about how to build and maintain a blog. If you want a full-on tutorial on how to build a blog, then check out my best guide: How To Build a Website.

Here’s what you need to get started:

The domain name (the.company.com)

(the.company.com) Blog (this.company.com)

(this.company.com) Domain privacy (where.company.com)

(where.company.com) Hosting (where.company.com)

(where.company.com) Controllers (here.company.com/blog)

(here.company.com/blog) Pages (here.company.com/pages)

(here.company.com/pages) WP Engine (here.company.com/wordpress)

(here.company.com/wordpress) Squarespace (here.company.

Pick the right domain name

When picking a domain name, remember to be original and unique.

When researching domain names, remember these:

Be unique

Unique domain names get more links from search engines. Google and Bing (the two most popular search engines) are constantly comparing and examining what domain names get more links from the search engines. As such, they’re going to reward the most unique domain names, which is why you need to pick a unique domain name.

In general, the following are always a bad idea:

Your name

Certain companies or brands that you’re associated with (e.g. if you’re an employee of Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc.)

Phone numbers

URLs

Example: Amazon.com/amazon.com

Forget about any of these. This is why having a good domain name is crucial.

Create your blog design

Download your free WordPress theme & theme design template

Download your free WordPress plugin of choice (must be basic, nothing fancy!)

Install your WordPress theme on your website.

Choose your domain name and register it with a registrar like GoDaddy

Create a page template for your new blog. This is a ‘Blog Intro’ page, it should belong, very simple with your goal(s), guest posts, and sponsors.

Post your ‘Blog Intro’.

And ‘Blog 2.0’.

This is your new blog page template. Now, do you want to make money from it?

Yes.

Stop saying ‘I want to make money from blogging.

Your job is not only to create the best content, it’s also to grow a business around your blog. In other words, the blog is your friend and business partner.

Choose the right blogging platform for you

WordPress

Blogging.com

WordPress has come a long way from the early days. Nowadays, it has hundreds of different hosting plans that suit many people’s needs. You can choose a plan that best suits your requirements.

In addition, it also offers plugins to add new features to your blog (in order to increase your earning potential). For example, you can write ads with Google Adsense or other AdWords plugins. There are plugins that you can install on your blog and display your ads in such a way as to make your blog easy for visitors to find.

To be able to get more exposure, you can upgrade your blog or buy a premium theme.

WordPress comes preinstalled on some hosting plans. Hence, you can just turn it on. You do not need to do any installation or setup. You only need to update your plugins.

Set up your site

If you have no website yet (for whatever reason), you need to create a blogging account. It’s FREE!

1) Signup to WordPress

2) Install the WordPress plugin

3) Install the plug-in to automatically set up your domain

4) Install the plug-in to make payments on your site

Set up your site

Now we have everything set up and ready to go, time to set up your domain name and blogging platform.

Add content that will be valuable to your readers

Have you ever visited an article you read online when you don’t even enjoy reading it? And you said, “I’ll just skip it, I have so much content to get through that I just don’t have the time to read every article.” You’re not alone. Most of the time, most of us don’t have the time to browse through a whole page of content just to read an article, so we miss out on good information.

A similar situation happens with websites too.

Let’s say you’re scrolling through a website you visit every day. You see a great article titled “How To Stop Eating Sugar” and you’re so fascinated by the information inside it that you don’t even read the body of the article.

Monetize your site

Once you have a site and you have some content, you need to monetize it. You need to start earning from it. That’s why I’m going to show you how to monetize your site.

Why monetize your blog

The reason you need to monetize your site is to have an ongoing income from your site. The good news is you can make money online in many different ways, but the best way is to monetize your site.

I have some affiliate links in this post, but I’m not paid for the content on the site. I make money from the affiliate links, but I only link to products I would buy myself.

You also need to make money from blogging if you want to continue blogging. Once you start making a few dollars a month, you’ll want to continue.

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