Blogging has grown so much in the past years. More and more blogs are created now than 10 years ago. It is easier now to build a blog or website from scratch than before.
Most people who make blogs write about their personal experience and skills they learned and acquired. That’s why it is more personal than news website.
Some people also want to create side income from making blog through affiliate marketing and advertisement posted in their site. For example, many blogs are discussing topic related to make money online and personal finance.
Make money online is one of the most searched words in the Internet these days because many people are looking
for ways on how to earn extra money apart from their day job. Basically, there is much information you can get
from the Internet on how to start your journey on how to make money online.
Blogging is one sure and proven way to make money online. A blog is a website that is usually updated regularly
by the blogger. The “blog” word comes from the combination of “web” and “log”. I have been blogging for more than 8 years now.
I started to make my own self-hosted blog in April 2010. My first blog is about personal finance. Prior to that blog, I have created several blogs in WordPress and Blogspot.
However, I’m not satisfied with those blogs because of several limitations. Anyway, if you love reading, definitely
you will have a greater chance to succeed in blogging. Even if you’re not good in writing, you can still blog. I’m one
example of that.
I’m not really a good writer. However, it didn’t stop me to blog because I want to help other people through the blogs I’m writing.
It is true that you can make money from blog. But, it should not be your first motivation why you want to make a blog because the money will not come easily. You need to work hard to earn your first dollar. Blogging is not a rocket science that you will make money overnight. It may take several months or years before you earn decent amount of money.
There are lots of information out there about how to start a website or blog and they require you to pay a big amount of money. Don’t be hooked up to these sites, most of this information you can get it for free in the Internet. Yes, most are FREE like this post!
Actually, I listed here the important things you all need on how to start a blog. Read on to see the list below to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.
A blog is not meant only to make money. First and foremost, your aim in starting a blog is to share your knowledge and help other people along the way. As you continue this goal, more and more people will come to your blog because they find it helpful and a solution to their queries and problems.
As your blog’s traffic increase in time, it will give you a good chance to make money from placing ads like Google AdSense, Infolinks and other affiliate sites such as Amazon and ClickBank.
So let’s get started on how to start your own blog and afterwards, make money from it. Here are the 10 steps you should take.
1. Choose a Profitable Niche or Topic
A niche is what your blog is all about. It is the main topic of your blog.For example, the niche of my first blog is personal finance. My blog’s name is “Learn Financial Education”. You can blog anything you like and what interested you the most.
Some niches or topics are more profitable than other niches simply because more people are searching for those topics. For example, if you blog about “eagles”, only few people maybe searching for that topic and hence less traffic for your blog. Lesser traffic to your blog means lower earning.
Therefore, it is very important to think what niche you should start. I would suggest you start in the things you know or the topic related to your job. For example, if you’re an accountant, you can start a blog about banking and economy-related niche. It is easier to start in what you already know.
When choosing for a profitable niche, you need to learn what people want and look in search engines like Google and Yahoo. Theses search engines are the two good sources of traffic to your blog so you should write topics that can be seen in these search engines.
Many people are searching for topics related on how to make money online, finance, investing, new gadgets, latest technology, news, music, photography, travel, business and movies. Thus, I recommend you consider these niches if you don’t have any in mind.
It must be also your interest and you’re a bit knowledgeable about it. Visit my post on how to choose a niche for your own blog.
2. Think of a good domain name related to your niche
A domain name is the name of the blog or website you type in the address bar of Google Chrome and Firefox browsers. A good example of domain name is www.facebook.com and www.google.com.
Your domain name is very important. Think of a domain name that can be easily remembered. As much as possible,
it should be short as possible and don’t use special characters in your domain name like hyphen, ampersand and others.
Only use letters as much as possible. The dot com domain is the most popular and easy to remember so I suggest using it when registering your domain name. As an example, your blog should have this domain name:
www.yourblogname.com
However, if you cannot find the exact .com name, you can try the .net or .org domain. As an example, www.yourblogname.net or www.yourblogname.org
3. Buy a domain name and web hosting
Domain name is the address site of your website or blog, for example, www.google.com. Web hosting is where your website or blog is located or housed. You need both to start your blog and make it accessible via the Internet. You
may buy both at the same time or separately.
You can register a domain name without buying a web hosting. Normally, it will cost around $10-15. My recommendation is NameCheap and GoDaddy. However, I would suggest buying both (domain name+ web hosting) as a package because it is cheaper than buying it separately.
There are many cheap web hosting companies that offer both domain registration and web hosting at the same
time. I am using Just Host and Blue Host as my domain name registration and web hosting companies. Just Host has one of the cheapest prices for hosting and domain registration.
Tip: If you want a particular domain name and it is still available (no one has registered for it), you should immediately buy it because someone can register for that domain in the future.
When I started my first blog, the cost of free domain name registration plus web hosting for two years is USD $77. This is a lot cheaper than any other web hosting companies out there such as Host Gator and Blue Host.
I personally used Just Host for all of my blogs and it has a superb customer service support. The software they are
using called cPanel (short for Control Panel) is also user-friendly.
I have easily set up my blog in just few minutes.
If you don’t know any web hosting, you can consider Just Host because they have one of the cheapest prices for web
hosting with free domain. If you want to pay on a monthly basis, you will just pay as low as $3.45 per month. You can
lower that price if you will get a 2 or 3- year plan for your web hosting services plus you get a free domain.
However, if you don’t have a credit card or PayPal account at the moment and you also don’t want to pay for domain
and web hosting, you can register your domain name and hosted it for free by Blogspot and WordPress. However, your domain name is long with the blogspot.com or wordpress.com.
If you are really serious to start your own blog and want to make money online, you should buy your own domain name without the WordPress.com or BlogSpot.com. Your blog will look more professional and more manageable if you have your own domain name and self-hostedby Just Host.
You can see my video tutorial here on how to buy a domain name and web hosting at Just Host to help you out when
you finally consider starting your own blog. I have created a blog post regarding some tips on how to register a
domain name and how to buy a web hosting, you can see it below.
4. Setup your blog to WordPress platform
WordPress (WP) is the most popular blogging platform and website-builder software today. It has many features you
can easily use for building your own blog. WordPress provides plenty of plug-ins that can help you to set up your blog or website easily.
A plug-in is very similar to a Smartphone application which you can use to make certain activities easier. If you are newbie in blogging, WordPress should be definitely your starting point. Using WP, you can choose different blog’s
theme and create the overall appearance of your website.
If you don’t know HTML code or computer programming, WP is the best platform you’ll ever need because it
requires no HTML editing or any complicated code. For more details about WP, you can visit their website here.
5. Research for highly searched keywords related to your niche
What is keyword? Keywords are the words usually search by people when using search engines like Google and Yahoo. Keyword is very important for the overall success of your blog.
As much as possible, when you write a topic for your blog, you should use these keywords so that there will be a higher chance that your post will be seen in the search results of major search engines.
However, in the beginning of your blog, you can write anything you want so you’ll be more confident about what you write. You can focus on keyword research at the latter part when you have already master how to write a good post.
Let’s go back to keyword topic.
There are many tools that you can use to find good keywords for your post. First, you can use the free tools which I am also using, the Google Keyword Tool.
It is very easy to use and you are sure that the results are accurate since it is the product of Google.
This post is just the first part. Stay tune to part 2 where I will discuss more on the next steps on making a blog that will give you money in the long term.
