Considering starting your blog lately? But confused about where to start with? Well, in this post I’ll explain to you, step by step how to start a blog website the right way.
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase through those links (without any additional cost to you). And if you happen to buy through those links, thank you for your support!
Blogging over the years: An Overview
Over the years, blogging has become a lucrative way of making money online. Especially these days making a website has become easier with lots of platforms and hosting providers offering easy-to-make drag-and-drop website builders.
However, some say blogging has become tough and over-competitive, all due to the over-saturation of bloggers and content creators around the world covering almost every topic.
And the other argument is, that most people prefer YouTube and other video platforms for their queries. This is somewhat true.
But what I say is, that blogging still has endless possibilities, and there are thousands of niches that are still uncovered and you can still earn some decent money from it.
How to start a blog website the right way
Let’s have a look at the step by step method of how you can start a blog website the right way.
- The first step would be to select a niche.
- Choose a domain name.
- Go for the right blogging platform.
- Start publishing content.
- Attract traffic.
- Finally, start monetizing your blog.
Now, let’s get deeper into the list.
Selecting a niche
Selecting a specific niche with less competition is the first important step toward starting a successful blog.
But before you go on, it’s advised that you do your research as there might be some downfall in selecting niches with very little interest.
Here are some basic things to consider before you choose a niche are:
- Firstly, Choose a topic that you know about, or a thing you want to learn, and are passionate about. This will be beneficial for you in the long run.
- Make sure that the topic you choose has a vast interest base and is also scalable. And by scalable I mean, a topic that can be interlinked and also can be transformed from a sub-niche to the main niche later.
In my case, I choose topics related to affiliate marketing, which can be interlinked and scaled towards most of the aspects of digital marketing and online business.
- The lower the competition, the better it will be to rank your blog website. But make sure that the topic you choose relates to other people and has the potential of being searched by them.
- It would be best if you find a niche that has got the potential to get monetized. For example, If you write about health and fitness, it would be easier for you to promote health supplements.
It will also make it easy for the advertisers to understand what you write about and help them display the right ads on your website.
After you are done researching and finding your niche, the next step would be to find a domain name and create your website.
Note: Here’s a post that I shared about finding sustainable yet profitable blog niche ideas.
Choosing a perfect domain name
When it comes to choosing a domain name, the best would be if you could find a domain name that represents your niche.
For example, someone with a travel blog might choose traveldiaries.com or travellerslife.com or something like that.
You can also go to domainwheel.com, this site helps in recommending domain names that match any niche.
Now, to find the best deals and custom domain names for your website Namecheap would be the perfect place to get one from.
Then comes the website creation part.
Choosing a blogging platform.
There are lots of platforms that provide easy to make website builders and hosting with various monetization options.
Some of them are Wix, Squarespace, Blogger, wordpress.com etc. They are great for blogging, but they come with some limitations and also repercussions if found violating their policies.
That’s why, I recommend WordPress.org when it comes to blogging, or even a business or an eCommerce website over any other platform.
Note: Don’t get confused with WordPress.com for WordPress.org. WordPress.com comes with a lot of limitations whereas WordPress.org is much more flexible, and most internet marketers prefer WordPress.org.
And when I’m referring to WordPress down below, I’m referring to WordPress.org
With WordPress, you have the freedom to use your website as you wish and tweak it in any way that you want and whenever you want.
To get your WordPress website running and available on the world wide web you will need a hosting provider and also a domain name.
The hosting that WordPress recommend is Bluehost, which is also where most of my websites are hosted including this one.
Bluehost comes with one of the cheapest pricing available in the market with the lowest hosting price starting at $2.79/month. You also get a free domain name for the first year in all the plans.
Note: I host three of my website on Bluehost with a shared hosting plan and still get a decent performance from my websites. Check out my full review here.
And if you want a managed WordPress where you don’t have to deal with your server maintenance and other technical stuff, WPEngine has the best in class service with a bit higher pricing. The base price starts at $25 a month.
However, if you want to extend your search for cheap but reliable hosting providers, here’s a post I wrote about it.
Checklist before you publish your blog website
Now you just have to install WordPress in your hosting and make some customizations to your website before making your website live.
- The first step would be to install all the necessary plugins for the smooth functioning of your website.
- Then publish all the essential pages necessary for a website to comply with the google webmaster guidelines and other legal obligations.
- Create an easy to use navigational menu for your site visitors that guide them to all the essential pages in the header as well as the footer of your website.
- Connect Google Analytics and verify your website with the Google search console to get your website’s insights, connecting it to Bing webmaster as well will be beneficial. And,
- Connecting your social media profiles to your website will also be beneficial for your website’s authority and it’ll tell your visitors that you’re trustworthy.
Note: If you have trouble starting to write your first content, here’s a post I’ve shared about some tips to write killer blog content. Go Check it out!
How to increase your website traffic
Gaining traffic and increasing it over time is essential for your blog, without it monetizing your blog will be difficult and won’t serve the purpose of your blog in the first place.
And the best way to do that is by creating SEO (search engine optimization) optimized content so that your content gets indexed, ranked and appears in the Google search results.
Generally, there are three kinds of SEO that you can work on.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO is the optimization of your website and blog for search engines inside your website.
Mostly targeting the specific keywords in your content, writing good and helpful content for your readers and linking different articles to each other inside your website.
Using an SEO plugin like Rankmath can be of great help in optimizing your on-page SEO as well as your content.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO on the other hand covers all other SEO tactics used outside of your website to increase your domain and website’s authority.
It can be backlinks from other websites, even links from social media channels like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn etc.
The backlinks from authority sites can make a bigger impact on your website’s SEO.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO deals with the technical stuff of your website. It is not in any way related to your links and the content but it is about optimizing the technical side of your website.
It’s about optimizing your website’s speed, server response time etc.
If done in the correct way, SEO can work like wonder for your blog and it will be the main reason behind your blog’s increased earnings.
Best ways to monetise your blog
Now that your website is all set up, it’s time you start writing your content and start publishing. And the most exciting part, monetizing it.
But before you try monetizing your blog, it’s important that you have published a decent amount of content on your website.
It would be best if you publish at least twenty-five to thirty blog posts before trying monetizing your blog.
Now let’s look at the various ways that you can use to monetize your blog :
Display ads
The first way would be by partnering up with an ad network so that you can display ads on your website. The most preferred one for new websites is Google AdSense.
For that, you will have to sign-up for Google AdSense. Just head over to Google AdSense and create an account through your e-mail and apply for a partnership.
It will take Google around fifteen to thirty days to review your website, if qualified, you can start displaying Google ads on your website and start earning.
As your traffic starts to grow you can opt for other ad networks like Ezoic, Mediavine or AdThrive for better earnings.
Affiliate Marketing
Secondly, you can start making earnings through affiliate marketing, where you put your affiliate links for various products inside your blog.
The right way to do it will be to apply for affiliate programs with the brands that are related to your niche and promote those products in your blog.
To make it easier for you to find the right affiliate programs for your blog, just sign up for some affiliate networks where you will find it easy to search for affiliate programs related to your topics.
Note: If you’re finding it difficult to get started with which affiliate programs to join, here’s a list of some of the best affiliate programs I curated. And if you want to get started with some affiliate networks. Check out this list.
Selling Products
The third option will be by selling your own products, the easiest one would be selling digital products like eBooks, a course or even selling merch related to your niche.
Canva is a great platform where you can easily create different types of digital products. You can edit and also create books there, design social media posts, create YouTube thumbnails, even create T-shirt designs and much much more.
Selling Services
Finally, you can start offering your services as per your expertise, for example, if you are a graphic designer, you can offer services related to designing.
The best way to start monetizing will be affiliate marketing combined with your products and services if possible.
Finally, just keep on publishing content, as the more content you publish, the more you have the chance to rank in Google in your blogs.
The other benefit of having more content is that it helps increase the traffic to your website.
The right way to approach
Most people start blogging with the wrong mindset, and ultimately they just give up on blogging as they don’t have the patience and have started with the wrong approach. They just publish their website, write content and start expecting results instantly.
Of course, blogging can generate passive income in the long run, but not until you’ve put enough work into it.
And usually, it takes around six months to a year to start seeing results from a blog, and most blogs and websites reach their full potential after a year or two, speaking on average.
But, the best thing about blogging is you can do it as a side hustle, you only have to give a few hours a day into it.
And in a year or two, you will start reaping the fruits of your labour and I guarantee, you will be grateful that you started it two or a year ago.
