How To Start A Blog That Makes Money In 6 Easy Steps

It is true that millions of blogs are started every year. In fact, most people have been lured into blogging as a way of making some quick cash online. However, if that were true, then posts like this would be irrelevant; blogging is as demanding as any other carrier is. In other words, you are poised to fail if you joined blogging with a wrong notion.

As mentioned before, millions of blogs are launched only to disappear into thin air after a few months. To give your blog a life, therefore, you need to follow some cardinal blogging rules. The said rules define a successful blogger.

I intend to share the five (5) important practices every successful blogger abides by. While there is bound to be differences as to who a ‘successful blogger’ is, majority agree that all successful bloggers have met their goals. For instance, if you started a blog to earn income then you must be earning to be considered successful. On the other hand, if your goal was simply to inform the masses, then you must have hundreds of loyal readers and subscribers to qualify as a successful blogger.

The following is a list of five (5) cardinal blogging tips that will prove helpful to you:

First things first, find a domain name that captures your contents. This is the first cardinal blogging rule. A misleading domain name will send your page visitors away. What do you think will happen if chose foodstuff.com as a domain name for a blog that reviews smartphones? You will certainly look irresponsible or confused before your readers. Therefore, take your time and think about a domain name that will allude to your niche or topics.

When I talk about domain, I mean a TLD (Top Level Domain) e.g. .com, .net or .org  not a subdomain like example.webs.com, example.wordpress.com or example.blogspot.com. I’m in no way condemning your blog simply because it is hosted on a subdomain, all I’m saying is that a TLD makes your blog look serious. Most readers don’t trust subdomains. So, get yourself a catchy blog domain from Namecheap at some of the cheapest prices in the market. TLD domains are selling as low as $3/year, you have no reason to keep your .wordpress.com or .blogspot.com free domains.

Resource:

1. How To Pick A Good Domain Name

3. Pick Quality Template

Resources:

1. Qualities of a good blog template
2. Get the best free Blogger templates
3. Where to download quality WordPress templates free

4. Always Write Unique Posts

If you thought blogging is simply a copy and pasting process then you are very wrong. It is about hard work, research and creativity to give highly unique contents to your readers. While I am not suggesting you take a trip to Mars to get new topics, it pays to give a different perspective of the common topics. Learn how to write quality posts and the different approaches to use when writing about a popular topic by visiting these links:

1. What constitutes a quality blog post
2. Different approaches to a popular topic

Writing a unique and informative post after a century will see you fail in this business. Instead, provide your audience with fresh content as regular as possible. I’d suggest a well researched and relevant piece every week or a fortnight.

Information is changing and what was true yesterday may be outdated today. So, go through your posts whenever you can and update them when necessary. Now, updating may involve adding new information to the existing one or removing a certain section of your post and replacing it with new data. Whichever is easier, please update your posts.

Constantly updating your blog is the best way to improve your SERP. Search engine bots and crawlers love sites with newer contents as opposed to those with outdated ones. Such simple trick will help you create a loyal audience as well as enhance the crawling and indexing your posts by major search engines.

Resource:

1. How to attract and maintain loyal readers to your blog

5. Practice Responsible On Page and Off Page SEO

As a new blogger, you may be consumed with the need to rank better. I mean, Google Pagerank and Alexa ranking are things bloggers can kill for. I too got sucked into it to the extent that I downloaded a link building and traffic generation software. Both backfired and only served to hurt my blog.

So, I wouldn’t want you to go through the same. Yes, good Alexa ranking and the Google PageRank are important. However, they aren’t so important that they can replace your audience. Your readers need new tips and if you are not going to provide that they will leave and never to return to your blog.

Instead of hurting your readers, simply learn how to improve your Ranking and Link building techniques that work. Here are the links:

1. How to improve your Alexa ranking the easy way
2. Effective Link Building Technique 

 

As yourself this simple question, why am I starting a blog? Answer this honestly and your are on your way to a promising blogging career. Are you interested in republishing alarmist news or you really have some unique knowledge you’d love to share? In my opinion, starting what we call SHOCKER blogs ( blogs that have very outrageous titles with no substance in the body) isn’t the way to go. While many are running such blogs because they attract social media traffic, you should stop and ask what’s the value of such traffic and how long can you maintain your readership based purely on hype.

Your goal should be to providing your audience with relevant and factual posts all the time. Again, ask yourself what it is that you want to achieve within a given time period. For instance, set a goal to publish at least 2 high quality and unique posts weekly.

Whom are you writing for or who is your article targeting. Is there a specific age group, social class or academic demography that your articles are directed to?  Knowing your audience is the best way to get more targeted readers and clicks (if you have ads on you blog). Your niche dictates your audience.

Simply promote your blog on the social media and effectively use webmaster tools from Google, Bing and Yandex.

Apart from writing wonderful titles and choosing a keyword-rich domain, invite people to your blog. You can start with your close friends by asking them to
visit your blogs then creating giveaways or e-books which readers can download for free.

To promote originality, don’t try to copy other bloggers. I know when it comes to how to start a blog, some thing it’s all about copying from other sites or re-posting trending articles as if they were your own. I suggest against such a move. While it’s okay cite other authority websites, making their posts yours doesn’t make you any unique. Come to think of it, why should your anyone skip the original site to read a copy on you blog?Bottom line, the more you copy contents from others the more influential they become and the least significant you get. The web is a market where everyone is trying to create a brand and no one ever creates a brand by copying another brand. Once people see your ‘copied style’ you will not like the results.

As you continue with your blogging journey, there are lots of temptations to re-brand, run to other niches or even change the name of your blog. My advice is don’t; not only will you appear less serious but also face a reduction in blog traffic. Just move on with the unique theme and style and you will reap the rewards for consistency.

Like I said before, this is a market and it has fluctuations. Some are very biting but only the persistent will survive. Don’t give up because a few people gave you poor rating or because only 200 people are reading you posts per day. Better 200 consistent readers than nothing. And getting such a loyal readership is a milestone worth celebrating.

There comes a time when blog promotion becomes a necessity. Well, always be ready to spend time and money on blog promotion. Be it Google Adword or
Boosting Posts on Facebook, there is always return on investment. Sadly, you will never find out if you don’t risk.Yes, you may want to leave that sub-domain, buy a Top Level Domain name (e.g. example.com), host it on WordPress, build quality backlinks and advertise your blog if you have the means. Every business must take risk and blogging is no different.Resource:

1. How To Create Search-Engine-Friendly Backlinks

Even the best bloggers are still looking for new information, what about you? Don’t  be shy to ask for help from other bloggers. You might just be lucky to find a honest one (like me 🙂 ) to help you with your site customization or help SEO. I repeat, never refrain from asking for help.

It doesn’t matter if you have been blogging since the internet was discovered or you still searching ‘how to start a blog’,  learning is continuous. You surely know that there are several things that are being invented and reinvented daily, just position yourself to learn on a daily basis.