Make Money
How Much Does it Cost to Start a Blog
Are you wondering how much does it cost to start a blog or start a blogging business? In this article, what we’re gonna do for you is break this down into two sections. One is your first three months of blogging and then what you can expect after that.
I know that many of you are interested in starting a successful blogging business but you just haven’t taken those steps forward. You might have seen online that people are making a lot of money blogging and be really like weighing the pros and cons of starting a successful blog.
Because we want to outline really what your most important expenses are at the beginning and show you that you can actually get started for a very reasonable amount.
We get this question all the time: how much it costs to actually start my blog?
We know many of you are sitting there considering doing it.
You probably have seen the income that people are making blogging. You’re like “I’m really considering doing this” but you’re probably feeling a little overwhelmed by the financial decisions that you have to make.
We want to clarify this for you so you can make the right decision.
The Blogging Mindset You Should Have When Starting
The first thing that we want to talk about is that when starting out you really have to treat your blog like a business. It’s important to remember that a new blog is very distinct from any purchasing activity because it’s an actual business.
When you start a blog, you’re actually starting a business that can bring you money.
Keep in mind that as a business there’s always a risk that you won’t make any money with your blog. Although we are in the belief that if you don’t give up, it’s really going to be hard for you to fail.
One of the distinctions I would say between blogging and other businesses is that blogging is just not a get-rich-quick scheme.
So you have to understand and accept that you’re gonna have to make investments in your business for that profitability over time.
It’s more of a long-term play than it’s a short-term play.
Why You Should Avoid Free Blog Software
Let’s talk about why you should avoid free blogging software before we get into specific finances.
If you start a blog on the cheap you can expect cheap results.
What specifically tell people is that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, somebody always has to be paid, right?
So if you start your free website on Wix, the people who run those ads that have to get paid somehow. They’re going to get you to give them your money somehow down the road.
Let’s say you have a blog and you’re getting a few thousand subscribers or some readers, they’re gonna be like “hey! your traffic’s maxed out, now you have to pay us”.
You’re going to have to pay some amount of money at some point.
If you want to be successful, don’t go with the free option first. Go with a higher quality option which is WordPress.
Free Blog Hosting
Another thing that people do, is to start out on a free platform like blogger or free WordPress.
Free blog hosting platforms are incredibly limited.
They’re gonna be limited on what they allow. For instance, they don’t allow you to advertise, and they’re going to be limited to how much bandwidth you can use.
You don’t want to be limited in making a business and making a blog by using these free blog platforms.
Free Blog Theme
A free blog theme is another way that people try to avoid money.
This one is probably the most important thing you can spend money on. Because most free themes don’t allow you to make simple customizations like changing the color, even changing your menu, etc.
So with a free blog theme, you’re going to run into a ton of problems.
When you are opt-in for something free, you are never going to get as high-quality as something else.
Free Email Marketing
If you want to make money from your blog as quickly as possible then you need to start building an email list right away.
If you’re new, email marketing might be way over your head to start. But this is the same thing goes is that people try to start with free everything.
Because they just think that free is the way to go. It’s really not the way to go.
How Much Does it Cost to Start a Blog?
If you are trying to make money from your blog, you will have to spend money to make it.
Blog Expenses in The First 3 Months of Blogging
The good news is that the expected costs of you starting a blog is not going to be that much.
Let’s walk through what you can expect from starting a blog.
Blog Hosting
Blog hosting you would expect to be really expensive but you can start it for as low as $2.65 per month on Bluehost. That price is only available through our link!
Bluehost is the top provider recommended by WordPress. You can sign up for a 12, 24, or 36-month plan.
This is going to end up costing you about $59 to $95, depending on what plan you sign up with.
That’s one of the expenses you will have and trust me this is the way you want to go.
WordPress is the only place you want to be if you want to get massive traffic and have a fast website. You don’t use Wix or Squarespace.
If you start on Wix and you start to get traffic and your website’s slow, you’ll eventually have to switch to WordPress anyway. So start on WordPress.
Estimated Blog Hosting Costs: $59 (one year) to $95 (three years).
Blog Themes
A blog theme is a tool that allows you to customize the appearance of your website, including the layout, color, typography, etc.
Premium themes usually have a reliable code base and offer support if something goes wrong.
The funny thing is people will try to save $60 by getting a free theme. But they’ll end up spending many hours trying to get that theme to look the way they want to.
Usually what ends up happening is people get frustrated and they quit.
Divi theme is probably the first recommendation for new bloggers.
Another great theme is called the Avada theme. If Divi isn’t right for you, you can try out Avada as well.
Avada is very customizable and beginner-friendly. It comes to a lower price tag of $60 as a one-time payment and not a yearly payment as Divi.
Estimated Blog Theme Costs: $60 to $89.
Email Marketing Service
Email marketing service is very important. The lifeblood of blogging and making an income blogging is having a solid email list.
Even though MailChimp is your best free option, it’s really only free until your first 2000 subscribers, and MailChimp obviously is going to be significantly limited compared to other services.
The software that we recommend the beginners is actually ConvertKit. You can actually try it for free. We have a special link where you can have a free trial to testing out ConvertKit.
It’s the simple best email marketing software for bloggers. ConvertKit saves you tons of time and helps you focus on content creation.
Estimated Email Marketing Costs: $29/month (first month free)
Social Media Tools
We recommend Social Media Warfare and the Tailwind app.
Social Media Warfare allows your content to be shared. It’s actually very cheap.
Tailwind is something that you use for Pinterest. If you’re a blogger, Pinterest is sort of the peanut butter to the jelly of blogging.
So we added in another $10 to $30 per month.
Estimated cost in the first 3 months:
- First Month: $119
- 2-3 Months: $39
We believe that is the bare-bones minimum of doing it the right way.
Obviously, as your business grows, your spending will increase (the courses you buy, the products that you need to run a successful blog, and the hosting package you need will grow over time).
Thankfully, and if you’re doing it right, your income will be growing over time as well.
So it won’t be so hard to pay off the expenses as they grow over time.
Blog Expenses After 3+ Months of Blogging
After the initial “start a blog” phase, including set up and website design, you will start focusing on bringing visitors to your site and monetization.
Depending on how fast you move, you will reach this stage one month after starting.
if you are good with WordPress, you can get a blog started and set up within a month. It’s not that hard once you have the right tools and the right roadmap to do it.
At this stage, you are going to start incurring some additional costs of growing your blog.
These costs will grow as your blog grows. So they are harder to estimate because it based on how quickly you grow your blog.
If you are growing really fast and you’re getting a ton of traffic, your expenses are gonna be a little bit higher for those who are starting out a little bit slower.
Investment in Courses
The learning process is not stopping because the internet is always changing and there is always more to learn! If you’re starting out, it’s just not gonna stop at the very beginning.
So as you’ll continue to grow and continue wanna make money, you’ll want to continue to invest in your blog.
Total estimated blogging costs After 3 Months:
- Regular software on a monthly basis: $50-$100/month
- Investment in courses: $150+ (optional)
This is going to be kind of an average thing that you do as you move forward.
The right mindset about going into blogging is that you make the best investment that will get you money back.
Time Investment
Another investment is your time investment. Obviously, this is going to be the biggest investment that you make at the beginning. You have to have a massive amount of time focused on your blog in order to make money.
Keep in mind that in order to make this work, you will have to invest a lot of time.
Let’s summarize It!
The First 3 Months of Blogging
- Blog Hosting: $59 to $95 ($2.65/month with our Bluehost discount)
- Blog Theme: $60-90 (#1 recommendation: Divi theme)
- Email Marketing: $29/month (first month free)
- Social Media Tools: $10-30/month (Social Pug + Tailwind)
Total Expected Costs in the First 3 Months of Blogging: $119 upfront + $39/month after that + optional blogging courses.
Expected Costs in the After 3+ Months of Blogging
- Other Software: $50+
- Additional Blogging Courses: Optional
These expenses will definitely grow over time. So just keep that in mind, these expenses will grow as you move forward.
Make Money
How to Make a Full Time Income With Affiliate Marketing
If you have an online presence, whether it’s a website, an email list, or social media pages, you’ve probably heard of the term “passive income“.
For those who have never heard of it, it’s nothing less than money coming in while you sleep at night.
Most of us all make the same mistake in the beginning. We tell ourselves that since it’s passive, we don’t have to work, so it’s easy.
Let’s get started. You start a blog about your passion and add Google AdSense advertising. You’ve got the perfect package!
A few months later, you realize that your SEO strategy is not as effective as you would have hoped.
Yes, you have some traffic, but not enough to generate enough revenue with PPC (pay per click).
However, it was your friend “who knows about the web” who suggested it to you!
Well, he should have told you about affiliate marketing.
What is affiliate marketing and how does it work?
Affiliate marketing allows you to promote someone else’s products & services to your audience and earn a commission on sales.
You’re the one who has web traffic and is looking to monetize that traffic.
This can be through your site, your social media pages, or your email list.
If you decide not to go directly through the company, you can join an affiliate network that normally has a directory of hundreds, if not thousands of companies.
There are many and I am sure there is at least one with an offer in your niche.
Finally, we have the consumer, an individual targeted by your ads. When he clicks on your affiliate link, a cookie is installed in his browser.
If the duration of the cookie is 30 days (the duration varies for each seller) and the user buys the product/service within those 30 days, you get a commission on the sale.
5 Steps to Make a Full-Time Income With Affiliate Marketing
You can actually turn affiliate marketing from a side business into a full-time career:
1. Build Your Credibility
Before buying a product, consumers love to look for reviews, unbiased sources, and people who have experience with the product or the service.
If someone actually feels that they come across someone that they can trust and recommends this product, then they’re more willing to buy it.
So, you want to make sure that you’re building some credibility, you’ll be able to sell more of that product.
2. Choose The Right Niche
If you want to make affiliate marketing a full-time income, then choosing the right niche is very essential.
A good niche is one that you have some experience in. You want to make sure to be the product of the product and make sure that you know what you’re talking about.
3. Diversify Your Content
You know we all learn differently. So, whether it’s doing a video, writing a blog post, or even podcasting, you want to make sure that you’re diversifying your content so that you’re able to reach more people.
You can even do a live stream video and repurpose it online.
You can have it transcribed and written to a blog post, have it converted into audio, and make it to a podcast. There you go, you’re having one piece of content being able to diversify all over the Internet.
4. Choose The Right Affiliate Programs
If you want to create a stable online income and make this a full-time job, then you want to make sure that you have a product that has a great foundation and reoccurring revenue.
The magic key right there is if you’re able to sell a product that you’re getting payments for on a monthly reoccurring basis, that almost helps you create more of a stable income.
Also, promote a product that has high commissions.
A lot of programs, if you’re a beginner, like Amazon will be a lower commission but if you’re promoting a product that has 40% or even higher, then you can make a lot more money.
5. Stay Innovative
The Internet is always changing. So, it’s great that you are on top of your game and promoting yourself as the credible expert in your niche.
How to find affiliate offers on the web
Sometimes people have a clear idea of the products & services to be promoted because that’s what they use in everyday life. So there is a good chance that it will also interest their audience.
To find these products & services, simply do a Google search for “affiliate program + company name + product name”
Chances are that if the company has an affiliate program, they will have a page that explains how to become an affiliate.
Some companies decide to insert this page in the footer of their site, while other companies decide not to index this page.
For those who don’t know what to promote, it’s best to go through affiliate networks like Clickbank, CJ, Amazon associates, etc.
Be aware that all affiliate programs and affiliate networks are free to join.
7 ways to promote your affiliate links
The seller or affiliate network will give you a URL link.
According to the restrictions and terms of service of the sellers and affiliate networks, you promote the products & services.
There are many ways to promote an offer, here are a few of them:
1- Create a Blog
The best-known way is to insert a link in a blog text.
The advantage is that you can put your selling points throughout the text without it appearing because you give the reader the content they want.
2- Review / Best of
“Review” & “best of” websites abound on the web and it’s a great way to do affiliate marketing.
Many of these websites are affiliated with Amazon.
3- Coupon
Coupons work because people are always looking for ways to save money.
4- Push Notification
A push notification is a message you receive on your phone, tablet, or computer.
For example, if a new product is launched or a new blog post is published.
And why not put an affiliate link that leads to a landing page?
5- Search Engines
You can appear on Google for free, thanks to SEO strategies. It may take a few months to a few years before it appears in the first search results, but once it’s done, it’s very rewarding.
The good thing about Google is that people are looking for specific information, often a solution to their problem.
So it can pay off to put affiliate links in it because the user’s intention is great.
6- Email Marketing
The email list is one of the oldest marketing methods on the web, but it remains the one that converts the most.
It may require a greater investment when you have a lot of subscribers, but it’s worth it because it’s still a great way to turn a reader into a buyer.
7- Social Media
Facebook is still a very good platform to promote products & services.
Social media is the source of traffic that fluctuates the most because they respond to current trends and because platforms are free to do whatever they want.
So, I advise you not to rely only on social networks, because in the end, the traffic does not belong to you.
How to maximize your chances to convert as an affiliate
Now that you know where to put the affiliate URL, here are some tips that might help you increase your revenue.
Submit Affiliate Offers That Your Readers Needs
Let’s take again the example of the Moment lens. The blogger on photography and videography with smartphones could promote the lens of Moment AND also raincoats. Yes, raincoats, because his blog often talks about outdoor activities and he likes to take pictures & videos of animals in nature, rain, or shine.
Don’t limit yourself only to what you talk about, but think about everything your audience might need (related to your niche of course).
Build a Sales Funnel
No matter where and how you present the product & service, you may need to add selling points to get it converted.
To do this, you can add a landing page to your sales Funnel.
If after clicking on your link, it takes him directly to the buying page, he might turn back because he is not convinced enough.
So, the user can click on your link and then bounce to a capture page and then the buying page.
Tell a True Story
Tell about a problem you have experienced in relation to the product & service, mentioning that the solution is the said product & service.
Offer a Discount
The fact that they buy from you may give them an advantage over others, such as a 10% discount.
Conclusion
Remember that the goal is to monetize your traffic, so you shouldn’t rely only on leads, but rather on conversions.
Until now, you must have used very friendly language with your audience. This is normal because you didn’t have a sales intent behind it.
Now you will have to keep this language, but sell something without it appearing. That’s the marketer’s job. That’s what you become.
You want to be the one we can confide in our problems and who brings us real solutions.
Since you already have your traffic and becoming an affiliate is free, it would be very simple to become an affiliate starting with just one product & service today.
Make Money
13 Easy Steps to Create and Sell eBooks Online
If you intend to create and sell ebooks online, you’ve come to the right place! Online courses offer an excellent opportunity, for those who wish to work on the internet, to generate income from their knowledge and skills.
Through these ebooks, it is possible to create a business and even work on your own, as many people wish!
In this article, I’ll walk you through how to create your ebook and finish with the different ways to sell it on the web.
Do You Know About Ebooks?
The ebook is a book in digital format, which can be read on any electronic device, such as a computer, smartphone, e-reader (digital book reader), or tablet. They can also be printed and read like a traditional book.
They have great potential to generate new business, and they are very simple to produce.
Read this article to learn how to create an ebook to sell on the web!
1. Adopt The Ebook On Your Content Strategy
Ebooks are more complete than a blog post and, therefore, they are very useful to educate your audience about you and to show what kind of problem you can solve with your product.
When you deliver valuable content to your reader, you reinforce your authority on the subject.
2. Define The Theme of The Ebook
Choosing the theme is one of the most important steps in the process of creating your digital book. It is important that your ebook is about something that you master and can easily teach, thus conveying more credibility to the reader.
The chosen market niche must also have enough demand to guarantee a good volume of sales and make your investment worthwhile. Use tools such as Google Trends and Semrush to find out which themes are most sought after in the segment you want to act on. This can be a tip for the most common customer issues.
Don’t forget to access the sites that are on the top of the search results to see how they handle the topic and think of ways to differentiate your content and deliver even more comprehensive material for your audience.
Another strategy is to use your blog data (if you have one) to find out what topics your audience is looking for to get to your page and which articles are most accessed.
3. Know Your Persona
Even before writing your digital book, you need to know the reader’s profile to create content that is aligned with their needs.
This type of information is also important when choosing the best channels to promote your ebook.
4. Optimize The Production of Your Content
If you already have content published on the same subject in your ebook, you can use it to create your digital book.
Blog posts, videos, or podcasts can become more complete material on the subject, and the reverse can happen too: an ebook can become smaller content for your blog or YouTube channel.
When we talk about a digital product, it’s always good to think about multi-channel strategies. This way you will be able to reach more people with your content and optimize your production time.
5. Organize and Structure The Elements of Your Digital Book
Once you have decided on the theme, the persona, and your objective, it is time to decide which elements you will cover on your ebook.
Make a draft on each one and organize the chapters coherently, to keep the reader interested.
It’s important to justify your ideas, so do good online research on what has already been written and what is newer in the discussion of the topic you want to talk about.
Remember that your text must be easy to understand and, at the same time, it must offer all the information your reader needs to solve his or her problem.
Keyword search tools, such as Google Keyword Planner, can help you a lot with the selection of topics.
These tools help you understand the interests of your target audience. As a result, you will be able to organize your content more efficiently.
6. Illustrate Your Ebook
The use of images helps reading and leaves the content more attractive, especially when the subject is very technical.
You have two options to use pictures on your digital book, without the high cost.
The first option is to use images from your personal folder or to produce your own images, which will not cause you any problems with copyrights.
In this case, the only requirement is that the photos are in high resolution and that they are related to the content being discussed.
The second option is to use photos from image banks. On the internet, there are several available, even free of charge. Here are our recommendations:
ShutterStock
Search site that brings together thousands of royalty-free photos at affordable prices.
Pexels
Pexels is free, so you can use the images there for your personal project or for commercial use.
Public Domain Pictures
More than 5,000 photos and 8,000 illustrations for free use.
Pixabay
Over one million royalty free photos, illustrations, and vector graphics.
The advantage of image banks is that you save one step in the ebook creation process and you are sure to get high-quality images.
7. Choose The Format of Your Ebook (PDF or Epub)
The main difference between the two formats concerns the adaptation of the texts to the reader’s screen.
An ebook in the Epub format is reformattable, i.e. it offers the possibility of adapting the text and the size of the source automatically to the available display area.
Nevertheless, files available in PDF always maintain the same format as the printed version, regardless of the display area.
Features of Epub :
- Allow text resizing and source modification;
- Allow word search and insertion of highlighted parts;
- It is possible to change the page using the touch;
- Ideal for simpler ebooks without a lot of images.
Features of PDF files :
- They exactly reproduce the printed page model;
- Allows you to enlarge or reduce the page to better display the content;
- The navigation bar can be used to browse the pages;
- Ideal for more complex ebooks, where the number of images is significant and the format is more complex.
Again, your audience profile will choose: Is your consumer used to using mobile reading devices like tablets, or do they use the desktop instead?
8. Pay Attention to The Layout
In addition to being well written, your ebook must have a good layout. This will give a more professional look to the work.
One of the factors that most influence the user’s experience is the reader’s ability to take a look at your content and already know what it is about.
Pay attention to very long parts and check if you can separate them without disturbing the consistency of the text.
Another important tip is to choose images that are related to the topic you are discussing. This visual consistency helps increase consumer loyalty to your product.
And, finally, the visual identity of your ebook should be aligned with your other communication channels, such as websites and social networks.
The intention is to make money with the free, so if you are not familiar with the formatting tool and implementation, analyze the possibility of hiring a professional to perform the task.
Compared to the expense with a common book layout, the costs with an ebook will be much smaller. You will find good freelance professionals on websites such as Upwork or Workana.
9. Review The Content
When we are focused on content, a few details can go unnoticed. For this, we recommend having an external perspective. This ensures that you are running the best possible version of your material.
The revision of your ebook should have two steps: content revision and grammar revision.
From a content perspective, your text must be clear and objective. Ask for feedback from people in your market and outside, and ask them the main questions about the content.
For grammar review, consider hiring an editor, as this professional is more experienced at identifying errors in handwriting, accent, and tuning, almost invisible to those with no experience on the subject.
It is always good to remember that the Internet allows a certain informality, but this does not mean that you have to deliver complex or erroneous texts.
10. Set The Price of Your Product
As we said at the beginning, the ebook serves the different stages of your sales funnel and can even be your main product.
Generally, an ebook used to attract leads, also known as “digital bait”, is distributed free of charge, in exchange for the contact information of the downloader.
For obvious reasons, this strategy has no immediate financial return. You will need to nurture a relationship with these users if you want to convince them to make the purchase. Nevertheless, this model has shown excellent results for entrepreneurs who wish to have a recurrence business.
In case your ebook is your main product, its price will depend on the value you deliver to your audience.
In fact, good design wins people’s trust and screams “high quality!” Exactly what you need to stand out from the crowd, and sell more at a higher price.
If your content is of high added value, equivalent to a course on a subject, feel free to put a value above what is charged in the market.
11. Choose The Distribution Platform
After your ebook is ready, it’s time to set :
- How do I deliver my ebook after the sale?
- How to receive payments by internet?
- How to guarantee that my content will not be replicated by third parties?
To answer these questions, choose an online course distribution platform.
The platform you choose should have all the tools and infrastructure for all the details of the sales process so that you can only worry about creating a quality product.
12. Promote Your Ebook
Create strategies to publicize your work. Don’t forget to focus on the channels where your audience is most present.
Tips for promoting the ebook:
Social Networks
Promote your work on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and any other social networking sites that your target audience uses.
Don’t forget to leave the CTA clear for your subscribers to download your ebook.
Partners
Contact the sites that provide content related to the theme of your ebook and offer articles for publication, also known as guest posts.
This strategy is also good to strengthen your domain, very good for future launches.
Blog
Create a blog on the theme of your ebook, to create a network of contacts with individuals interested in the theme, and use the tool to market your ebook.
Affiliate Program
Through an affiliate program you can offer a commission to all those who sell your ebook, you can still define what the value of this commission is.
Email marketing
Build an email list of people interested in your content. From this, you will be able to communicate with your audience directly and promote your ebook.
Landing Pages
The landing page is ideal for highlighting your content and making it easy for users to download your material. Today there are several free tools for creating landing pages for people who have no knowledge of design or programming.
Sponsored links
If you don’t have a lot of traffic on your blog, use sponsored links to give visibility to your ebook.
This technique consists in paying the network of search engines, such as Google, to display ads that direct the user to your landing page.
13. Follow The Results
You wrote the ebook, paid attention to every detail, and put it online. You have the right to celebrate this result, but after that, get ready for the follow-up step.
This work is fundamental to understand the weak points of your promotion and optimize them for better conversion rates.
5 Advantages of Creating An Ebook And Selling It On The Internet
If you’ve come this far, you may have noticed some advantages of making an ebook and marketing it on the internet!
Prices
With a low production and disclosure cost, a high-quality ebook may be for sale at a lower price than a traditional book, allowing the seller to reduce the price to sell more, or simply maintain the price and increase your profit margin per sale.
Portability
To use a digital format, it can be distributed quickly and efficiently over the Internet to any part of the world.
The consumer does not have to go to a store or wait for your book to arrive at your home after an online purchase.
It is available immediately after payment approval and the customer can already start studying as soon as possible!
Development
There is also the possibility to make sales for people from all over the world, regardless of the day and time.
With a system that receives payment and makes the product available automatically, you automate the whole process, and boost your sales even more.
Possibility to work with what you like
If you have something that you really love to do, why not take advantage to make money with your talents?
You can teach your ability to thousands of people and, therefore, earn with it.
Some digital producers end up working integrally with their new business and there is also the possibility of getting extra income to supplement the salary.
At work!
With all of our tips, it became easy to organize ideas and create your first ebook, which will also be your digital product to sell online!
Make Money
How to Make Your First $1000 Blogging
Learning how to monetize a blog is not as hard as you might think. In this article, I’m going to show you how to make your first $1000 Blogging in 10 easy steps. The great thing is that anyone can do it and tons of people already have.
Starting a blog can change your life. It can help you quit your daily job and work when you want, wherever you are, and on what you want. And that’s just the beginning of the long list of benefits blogging can offer.
It can help you earn a secondary income or even replace your full-time job. And it doesn’t take a lot of time or money to maintain and keep a blog up and running.
To help you avoid dozens of hours of hair-pulling and frustration, I’ve created this simple step-by-step guide to help you get your blog started and make your first $1000 from it.
How to Make Your First $1000 Blogging In 10 Simple Steps
You want to create your own profitable blog but you don’t know where to start. Maybe you already have a blog but it’s not making you money yet. These 10 easy steps will put you in the right direction from the very beginning, and give you a solid plan to follow that will generate results in the fastest possible way.
Step 1 – Start Your Blog The Right Way
Just like a home needs a great foundation so does your blog. We do this in three easy steps:
1. Choose The Right Blog Niche
The first question most people have when blogging is: what the hell do I blog about? When finding your purpose or finding your passion, it happens through taking action and getting feedback from the action that you’re taking. So you’d start your blog about something that you either have experience in or something that you want to learn about.
Another way to think about this is what topic or subject do you bring up all the time with your friends and family. So choose a blog niche and a topic that you are either interested in learning about and something that you kind of already know about.
2. Select Your Domain Name
The domain name is another word for URL. This is another place where most people spend a lot of time overthinking.
When it comes to a business in blogging you’d be surprised by how little names actually mean, Samsung could be a local music store and Avis could be a place where you bought drones on the internet, the thing that defines these businesses is not their name, it’s what they do.
So don’t overthink, you don’t have to come up with some perfectly clever name to succeed as a blogger, I promise.
3. Choose The Right Hosting and The Right Platform
And by far the best place for you to get started is WordPress.
I know there are some other options out there like Wix and Squarespace but the problem with those is those websites are more geared to stand-alone stagnant websites. So something like a personal portfolio or a resume.
They’re really not that great when it comes to getting continuous blog traffic coming in overtime to your blog and having continually updated posts, they’re just not optimized for that.
What’s gonna end up happening if you start with a Squarespace or Wix is you’re gonna end up going back to WordPress anyway, so just start there.
In order to set up a blog, you will need web hosting. Think of hosting like the physical store for your new website.
We’re essentially buying a space on the internet for our business so that people can visit you.
Bluehost is the top provider recommended by WordPress enabling you to create your blog in just a few minutes and at a very affordable price. Find out more about bluehost and get a special discount using our link to get started for as little $2.65 a month.
Let’s Grab This Great Discount!
1. Click on the “Get Started” big button.
2. This will take you to basically their shared pricing plans. Scroll down and select the basic plan.
3. Next, you can use a domain name you own or create a new domain name. The great thing about Bluehost is that you get a free domain with your hosting, so you won’t be charged any extra for this.
4. And now comes the most important step to get a great discount and start with just $2.65 a month.
Just move your mouse pointer away from the page right up to the tab, and you’ll be welcomed with a pop up with an amazing offer of $2.65 per month. Click on the “Claim Savings” button and the payment page will be refreshed.
If for any reason you don’t get this pop-up, just clear all your browser’s history and cookies.
5. Now scroll down to package information.
So you can have 12, 24, or 36 months, the longer you select the bigger discount you get. But for a beginner and since you’re just starting out, will start with the basic 12-month price.
Scroll down you’ll see a bunch of package extras. Many of these are not important.
Go ahead and submit your payment information.
Click that you have read and accepted the Terms of Use and then submit your payment.
Congratulations, you’ve got your domain and your hosting!
Step 2 – Make Your Blog Sexy Through Blog Design
Let’s walk through some simple steps to make your blog clean and beautiful.
Choose a Great Blog Theme
Choosing the right blog theme is like choosing the right or wrong car at a used-car dealership. You choose the wrong car you’re gonna spend hours and headaches on the car breaking down, on maintenance, and on fixing everything, it’s gonna be a constant hassle in your life. Versus if you choose the right car and you never have any problems with it, you’re gonna feel great.
Right now, the best free themes out there are Flash Blog, Ocean WP, and Hestia.
While some of the best-paid themes are Divi and Genesis. Don’t forget to install the Elementor plug-in because it’s a great page builder that’s a perfect drag and drop for a newbie wanting to get started and building their blog and making it look the way that you want to.
Now you’ve started your blog and got a design like you want to, let’s move on to the next step.
Step 3 – Create The Content People Need
It’s time to answer the million-dollar question of what should I write about?
Well, this is actually a rather simple answer if your goal is to make money. You need to create the content that other people are searching for on the internet.
Every day millions of people type in searches into Google, Pinterest, and YouTube when looking for videos, articles, and blog posts trying to solve their problems. If you’re able to serve that content to them the best and get to the top of those search engines, it’s very easy to make money online. Okay, it’s not super easy but it’s a lot easier than you think.
Here’s how you do this:
1. keyword research
First, you start doing keyword research. There are all sorts of tools on the internet to see how often people are typing in certain terms.
Start with a tool like Pinterest, type in your topic into the search bar, and hit enter.
After the page loads, if you look to the right you will see all sorts of additional suggestions. These are keywords people are looking for as well and using this method will help you come up with endless topics that you can cover on your blog or website.
After using this tool for a while you can upgrade to more professional tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, and Google Keyword Planner will give you more accurate search data.
For more detailed instructions see our Semrush tutorial.
2. The 80/20 rule
Now, this doesn’t mean you only have to post things that people are searching for, there’s room to create your own sort of unique content when making money blogging.
You just need to follow the 80/20 rule. 80% of the content that you create should be that things that people are searching for and problems that they’re trying to solve, and 20% should be where you flex on them a little bit and tell them a little bit more about you and blog about the things that you want to write about.
So after your first 5 posts are written, it’s time to move on to step number 4 and time to get traffic to your blog.
Step 4 – Get Traffic to Your Blog
There are lots of ways to get readers to your blog.
- Google SEO
- YouTube
- Guest Blogging
- Email Drops
- Forums
I’m sure a dozen more that I haven’t listed there. The biggest tip that I can give you right off the bat, is to start with one traffic source.
I know there are lots of entrepreneurs like Gary Vaynerchuk telling you that you need to be everywhere, be on every social media, and be on every platform.
But the truth is that’s kind of a one-man show what ends up happening with most people is when they try to be everywhere, they usually end up just mediocre at everything.
The next question you should probably have is how do I find the perfect traffic source for my blog? There are tons of different factors to consider here, including competition, type of platform, demographics of your target market, and more.
To make this simple here are my thoughts on the top 5 traffic sources:
1. Facebook
Facebook has the most users of really any social platform but it also comes with the highest competition. They have made algorithmic changes that really don’t feature blog posts anymore, it’s very few and far between that, you’ll read blogs, much where the content is geared towards memes, video content, and things that just don’t blog posts.
Facebook groups however are still going very strong and it’s actually a great place to meet like-minded bloggers. But it might not be the best source for driving traffic to your website but that being said I wouldn’t write it out because those groups can be so valuable especially to beginners starting off.
To find these groups, you can just type in your search term into the Facebook search bar and hit click groups and you’ll see dozens and dozens of groups on almost any topic.
Again not the best way to drive traffic to your blog but a great way to interact with potential customers, peers, and people you look up to in your industry.
2. Instagram
You’ll find that Instagram follows a similar trajectory as Facebook where it has a high amount of users but it also has a high amount of competition.
The thing it’s a purely visual platform. Yeah, you can write captions in the description but really if you’re not creating dope images you’re not gonna get anywhere on Instagram.
The niches you want to be in to succeed on Instagram are going to be mainly visual. Things like travel, health, and fashion work really well because they’re visually stimulating.
Unfortunately and something to keep in mind, it’s kind of stupidly hard to get people off of Instagram and on to your email list, on to your blog posts, or over to your products. People tend to stay inside of the app and Instagram is designed that way.
3. Google
Google is similar to Facebook and Instagram in that it has high competition. But it comes with one big difference and that difference is that it’s a search platform. So the people that type in how to make money blogging, for example, will continue to type that in month after month after month and you will get organic traffic coming in all the time.
This is very different than Instagram or Facebook where things are more viral in nature and then they die off over time.
So you can optimize your posts and continue to be shown over and over and over again and get organic traffic.
But obviously, because of this value, it’s very hard to get at the top of the search it can take a long time to do, and just be prepared that if this is the route that you want to go on you need to go in for the long haul. It might take you up to six months to get serious traffic to your blog.
4. YouTube
YouTube is the highest barrier to entry by far because most people do not want to get on camera and I understand why. This barrier to entry provides actually an easy way to connect with your audience, build a following, drive them back to your blog, and make purchases with them.
Again, comes with a high barrier to entry because shooting videos is difficult and very time-consuming. so if you don’t mind being on camera, YouTube might be a great option for you.
5. Pinterest
Last but not least, our favorite traffic source for bloggers is Pinterest. Pinterest like YouTube and Google is also a search engine. So there’s that opportunity for organic traffic. But unlike Google, it doesn’t take as long to get results.
Because of its speed of results and the fact that you can get organic traffic, Pinterest does end up being our number one traffic source for bloggers if you’re in almost any niche I would definitely get Pinterest a try.
Alright so you built your blog, you’ve designed it, you start to get your first readers, your first visitors, and checking out the content that they want to see.
Now it’s trying to turn those readers into raving fans.
[mo-optin-form id=”KghDcQEBYu”]Step 5 – Build a Subscriber Fanclub
Here’s the truth about blogging, is that most people are never gonna buy your products until they’ve built up a certain level of trust with you and the best place to build that trust is through an email list.
An email list is one of the most valuable assets you have as a blogger and setting it up is not as hard as you think.
1. Create a lead magnet
The basic formula is that you first create a lead magnet. This is just a simple download for people to have, a checklist or a simple guide will work. You’ll want to create a small but helpful download for people so that you can give that to them in exchange for their email address.
2. Add opt-ins to your blog
Then you need to add these opt-ins to your blog with an email subscriber service like GetResponse, ConvertKit, AWeber, or MailChimp.
This way when people are scrolling through your posts, they see the opportunity to put it get your download and they put in their email address and receive the download.
3. Create an automated email sequence
Finally what you’ll want to do is create an automated email sequence. This is just an automated sequence of emails that you send after somebody gets your download.
Your blog is all set up, it’s beautifully designed, you’re getting people in the door, you’re getting your fruit and first few subscribers, now it’s time to make that money.
Step 6 – Learn The 5 Different Ways to Make Money Blogging
What we’re gonna do now is we’re gonna go over an overview of these different ways and then we’re gonna walk you through which steps you should start with and at kind of what phases of your blogging journey.
1. ADS
The first way to make money is through ADS. There are a few different types:
- Display ads: You’re scrolling through content and then you’ll see an AD for something. Another term for this is pay-per-click because when somebody clicks on it you get paid.
- Sponsored content: This is when somebody like a big company pays you to write a review or write something about their product.
- Giveaway: This is very similar to sponsor content but instead of the company paying you, they give you their product for free.
2. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is where you earn money promoting another person’s product or service.
So let’s say you write a post about your top 5 favorite books on whatever topic your blog is about, what you can do is you can actually link those books in the blog posts themself and link them to Amazon. When somebody clicks and checks out that book and buys that product, then you will get a small commission from Amazon and that is a kind of affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is a huge category and you can make a lot of money on it.
3. Sell Your Own Digital Products
There are a few different kinds:
- Ebooks: These are electronic books like kindle downloads.
- Printables and workbooks: Where people can purchase a printable that you’ve created and print it out and use it for themselves, something like a journal or a workbook.
- Online courses: Where you can teach them via video.
- Membership websites: Where people pay a certain amount to get access to regularly updated content usually by yourself.
4. Sell Physical Products
You’ll find with physical products they’re actually a lot easier to sell because they’re tangible, people when buying that product they get something tangible back. It’s much more satisfying usually than a digital product.
Also as well there are margins to be had, so you have to ship the product, you have to create the product, and you have to manufacture the product. That’s a lot more steps than selling something like a digital product.
5. Services
Speaking engagements, digital services, dog-walking, speaking engagements for dog-walking, coaching, virtual assistance, freelance writing, and any other service you can sell through your blog.
In fact, it’s a great way to do this because you’re already building massive trust with your audience.
Those are the types of ways to make money blogging, now, we’re gonna get into the nitty-gritty of where you should be starting.
Step 7 – Start With ADS and Sponsored Posts
The first thing that we see bloggers doing when they first start their website is usually running around trying to throw up Google Adsense on their website to make a quick buck.
The problem is that the reality of your ad earnings is probably gonna fall pretty short of your expectations.
So here’s a recommendation for newbies like yourself: ADS are kind of a good place to start for newbies just because it can be motivational or give you a little inspiration at the beginning but it is not the primary way you need to be monetizing, you can be focused on the bigger picture here.
Try to wait until you’re getting a consistent amount of traffic so you can partner with premium Ad networks like AdThrive, Mediavine, and Media.net.
This will net you a lot more money than just throwing up Google Adsense and praying that somebody clicks.
Sponsored posts
As explained before are where people are paying you to write an article on your blog. Usually kind of reviewing their product or service. These articles often come in the form of print reviews and recommendations.
There are many bloggers that make upwards of 10 grand a month doing sponsored posts. So it is a viable way to make money and make money pretty quickly.
Sponsored posts might be perfect for you if you love to write, can find good opportunities that fit your niche, want to build relationships with other companies and brands in your niche, and want a way to diversify your blogging income.
The sponsored posts might not be right for you if you face a lot of time constraints it can be very time consuming finding good opportunities and filling out the required work and have your heart set on passive income.
Sponsored posts opportunities can be found on websites like BlogDash, Blog Meets Brand, Linqia, and others.
I’ve got your feet wet a little bit started with sponsored posts and ADS. Now, it’s time to take things to the next step.
Step 8 – Progress and Master Affiliate Marketing
There are risks associated with every form of monetization method when it comes to blogging but affiliate marketing is unique as it will teach you not only how to sell but it will also prepare you for creating your own future products.
Mastering affiliate marketing is usually kind of one of the key steps to becoming a successful blogger. You’ll see that a lot of successful bloggers first start on affiliate marketing, learn how to make money, and then progress on to higher margins with their own products and services.
Why Amazon affiliate program?
Just like in our example when we talked about writing a blog post on the top 5 books, you can start out by doing this exact process with Amazon Associates. This is a very small and very easy way to start out in affiliate marketing and it progresses and gets much more advanced later on.
Getting signed up isn’t too hard, just go type in Amazon Associates to Google and you can join for free. Once you’re approved you can recommend Amazon products on your blog. This creates an awesome form of passive income for most bloggers.
We have a great article on the cheapest and effective way to Amazon affiliate wealth that you can check out when you’re ready to build a successful Amazon affiliate site!
Once you sold a few affiliate products on Amazon, it’s time to start leveling up your affiliate marketing and thinking about going to big affiliate networks and partnering with a bigger product.
There are networks like Clickbank, ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, and so many more. These networks are going to give you a much higher price commission than something like Amazon. But keep in mind they’re going to be much more difficult to sell because they’re not checking out using Amazon’s platform.
You have to learn how to build a lot of trust with your readers and that’s why I said at the beginning you start an email list. That’s the best place to start selling higher-priced affiliate courses, products, and other things.
Now you’ve got some money rolling in from affiliate marketing, starting to get down the sales process, learn about how to sell through your blog, and how to build trust with your readers. It’s time to move on to the next step.
Step 9 – Create Your Own Products and Services
The power of creating your own products and services: you control the margin, the prices, the sales page, and you control the entire system and the entire flow of selling your own product.
That’s why all the biggest bloggers you know, all the ones that are making the most money, sell their own stuff. This does not have to be digital products either, this can be physical products as well.
The key here is to do something better than what is before you. So you don’t want to just go around and replace your affiliate links with your own crappy products and not a good version of it, only replace products that you can truly replace and do it better.
The goal here is to make a better experience for your audience. If you make a worse experience for them, the results are not going to be what you want.
As well as there’s always gonna be products that are better suited as an affiliate product versus you creating your own. Just something to keep in mind something like hosting. I’m not gonna create a hosting company, so I’m gonna partner with somebody like Bluehost who is a hosting company where I can sell hosting packages.
Also as said before, you can sell your services. Whether you’re a public speaker, a virtual assistant, or a freelance writer, you can sell all of these products and services on your blog.
Selling your own products is the only true way to scale your blog. This is how you take something from a thousand dollars a month to ten thousand dollars a month and do so passively without actively constantly having to work and trade hours for dollars.
Let’s summarize it
At this stage, you’ve come a long way: started your blog, you designed it well, you created awesome content, you drove traffic to the blog, you collected email subscribers, and you’ve been monetizing in a variety of different ways. And now you’ve got kind of your blog set up: you’ve made your own courses and your own products, you’ve found your audience, found your voice, etc.
The next part is actually a very fun part of blogging.
Step 10 – Scale and Optimize
This is the really fun part because really you’ve done a lot of the hard work, now your job is to just scale what you do. Again this is what makes blogging such a different thing than going and working for somebody.
When you’re blogging and creating your own products and services, just a few tweaks getting a blog post to go viral, or are creating some new content immediately raises up your income.
This is kind of a two-part process:
1. Sales = traffic x conversion rate
I want to show you how,
Your conversion rate on your sales page is 1%, so for every thousand visitors on your sales page, you make 10 sales. Now let’s say you add a few testimonials to your sales page and include a couple more and your email sales funnel. That bumps your conversion rate to 2%, which means that you have just doubled your sales and your income.
Now let’s say you start working on Google SEO as an additional traffic source and are able to get an extra thousand customers to your sales page. That doubles your sales page again. You’ve just quadrupled your income. That is the big difference between blogging and going out and making 50 grand a year working customer service.
2. Scale
The final piece on how to make money blogging is to scale and to raise up those conversion rates.
Here are some of the main ways that you can do this: You can add in testimonials, prove your page speed, make changes to your sales page, make changes to your sales funnel, and a few other marketing changes but those are the main ones.
This part of making money blogging is really fun because you can often see the changes right in front of your eyes and it’s very cool to watch.
Let’s summarize it
- Establish our blog the right way
- Design our blog and make it sexy
- Create the content people need
- Drive traffic to our blog by focusing on one to two traffic sources
- Build an email list
- Learn the types of ways to monetize
- Monetize with ads and sponsored posts
- Master affiliate marketing
- Make our own products and services
- Scale and optimize
And that, ladies and gentlemen, are the 10 step process for how to make money blogging! 🙂
