Although starters doubt their potential, starting a WordPress blog is one of the best ways to share your passion, expertise, and ideas while also creating opportunities to make money.
Some people believe blogging requires complex knowledge of coding and web design. But, this is not right, thanks to the WordPress CMS that makes it straight forward for any one to run have an online presence without touching any line of code.
Whether you’re looking to start a blog as a creative outlet, a personal brand, or a potential income stream, the process is more straightforward than it may seem. In this step-by-step guide, we’ll walk you through everything from how to create a WordPress blog and build a blog website, to tips for making money with a blog.
If you’re new to blogging for beginners or want to start blogging as a way to earn, this guide covers it all. By the end, you’ll be equipped to make a blog that stands out, attracts readers, and turns blogging for money into a reality. So, let’s dive into starting a blog to make money today.
Domain Name and Hosting
To start your journey, you will begin by purchasing a domain name. This is the identity and address of your website online. For example nekius.com is our domain name.
Remember to choose a domain name that matches your blog niche. A blog niche is the type of topics you cover in articles posted on your blog for example; travel, gaming, entertainment among others.
But wait, it is better to purchase a domain name from the same platform hosting your website. Let’s continue.
Hosting refers to the platform where all your website files are stored much like the home that houses your property. The web hosting services enable your blog to stay online even if you are away so that users can access it any time provided your hosting plan is active.
Now, let us purchase what we need. You can purchase a domain name separately mostly if you plan to purchase monthly web hosting plans for your blog.
A separate domain name could start at $15 per year and web hosting at $10 per month.
This will cost you more and that is why we do not recommend it. When you purchase annual/yearly hosting plans, most hosting services will provide you with a free domain valid for one year and the pricing plans will be lower compared to monthly plans.
Most starter web hosting will start at $1.5 per month. Some of web hosting companies include Namecheap, Bluehost, Hostinger, among others.
But selecting the best hosting service can be challenging , that’s why we suggest that you check out “The best web hosting services for your website“.
WordPress CMS Installation
After having a domain name and hosting service in place, It is time to install WordPress to start customizing and building your blog. We recommend WordPress because: it’s free, it is highly customizable and it is easy to learn and use. That’s no surprise because WordPress powers more than 45% of websites online.
Most web hosting services will automatically install WordPress for you. If not, The hosting platform will provide detailed and simplified guides about installing WordPress on your blog, if you land into any trouble, Do not hesitate to contact the Web Hosting Company customer care to help you out.
Theme Selection and Installation
Blog themes are very important because they control the appearance of your blog. You have to be very careful here because unresponsive themes can affect your blog performance.
By default a WordPress theme will be installed . You can use it if it fits your design and needs .You can change and install another theme that matches your blog niche by following this guide: How to install, update or delete a theme. You can browse from over 10000 free and premium WordPress themes and select one.
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Installing Plugins
The next step is installing plugins to add more functionality to your blog. Plugins are very helpful in maintaining the security, speed and adding more customization to your blog. You can check out “Top Must-Have Plugins for Every WordPress Website to Function Well” in order to make the right choice.
Posting Your Articles
After fully setting up your blog website, it’s time to start posting articles which your blog visitors will read when they visit your blog.
To start posting, just login to your WordPress admin dashboard of your blog, click on posts, then click add new and follow the prompts. You can check “The Detailed Guide for Creating WordPress Blog Posts and Pages (step by step)“.
Indexing the Blog by Search Engines
It’s time to inform Google, Bing, Yandex, Baidu and other search engines that you have created a new blog with great content. Thanks to the SEO plugins that make te entire process as simple as it should be.
The indexing process involves changing and saving some settings in the SEO plugins, generating sitemaps, submitting your blog to search engines and confirming ownership of the blog website.
The entire process is simple and straight forward with SEO plugins guides in place to guide you through all steps. All SEO plugins offer free and premium plans. The free plans are enough for small blogs but you’ll need a premium plan as your blog grows or if you want to start a big blog website.
Having your blog stand out of the crowd can be difficult if you use free SEO plugins, that’s why we recommend using these cheap premium plugins: Yoast SEO plugin which is the best at the moment, AIOSEO plugin or SEOPress which are all other great plugins.
If you decide to go free, here are some of the free SEO plugins: Yoast SEO plugin, AIOSEO plugin, SEOPress plugin among others.
Promoting Your Blog
It’s time to increase traffic of your blog by letting more people know about it. You can get reasonable traffic from your social media channels by sharing your blog posts links in your social channels posts, groups and communities.
Monetizing Your Blog
Alright, you have finished setting up your blog, but you need to earn from your hard work. You can monetize your blog traffic through many ways .
Displaying ads on your blog and earn whenever a visitor views or clicks on an advertisement on your website. You can check out “The Best Ads Networks For Monetizing a Website“
Affiliate links. You can earn some income by inserting affiliate links into your blog content or displaying affiliate banners on your blog pages. You earn every time when a user clicks on the link and makes a payment such as buying products or services among others.
Other means include selling digital products such as e-books, courses, photos, podcasts among other. Charging subscription fees from blog user among other means
Starting a WordPress blog is an excellent way to share your passion, build a blog website, and even make money blogging. Whether you’re blogging as a beginners or aiming to make money with a blog, these steps will help you successfully create a blog and start blogging today.
