Blog! It is a popular term you must have come across thousands of times. You can even find people around yourself who run their blog and work as a professional blogger. Do you also want to start a blog? Or looking to make money from Blogging? If yes, you have landed up at the right place.
Today, we will present a comprehensive guide on Blogging that will help you learn about everything from scratch. We will incorporate points that one should know while starting a blog and discuss how you can make money from Blogging.
#What Is a Blog?
In this era of the internet comes the trend for blogs. In simpler terms, a blog reflects the writer, a visible form of thoughts that can be easily shared and understood by those who like to read the same genre. The conditions of the blog keep evolving with time in terms of format, platforms, and content.
#Types of Blog
Blogs are of various types! While creating your blog, it is essential to choose the right kind of blog, as it will reflect the blog’s sole purpose. To help you, here are some of the trending types of blogs. It is quite challenging to decipher how many types of blogs are there in total, as it can be different depending on the blogger’s purpose! But worry not, as we have covered the essential ones. So scroll below about the popular types of blogs!
A. Personal Blog
Personal blogs are created to inform people on a particular topic. Bloggers write on their enthusiastic niche or subject and become successful bloggers when they find like-minded audiences and build a community around their shared values. People use this type of blog to write about their lives, relish a detailed view of the events in their life, or write on trending or specific topics.
B. Personal Brand Blog
Through this type of blog, the author aims to present herself/himself as a brand in society, and for that, she/he has to provide interesting pieces of information and services; eg-knowledge, guidance, e-books, etc., to the people.
C. Corporate Blog
The purpose of such a blog is to do business. A corporate blog is created to attract customers related to their respective businesses and to provide services to the people. Its main elements include the landing pages, contact us, email lists, particular contact forms, offers, about us, etc.
D. Fashion Blog
A fashion blog generally carries content about fashion, beauty, the latest trends, and so on. Not everyone has a good knowledge of style, so if you have it, don’t let it go waste! Start your fashion blog today and start earning from it.
E. Niche Blog
Unlike other blogs, a niche blog is made explicitly for a particular category. It is made to make money by connecting with people on one specific topic. One can create a blog by sharing their knowledge in any interesting niche, or by simply putting it between people like a blog and writing it on that topic. You can create a niche blog in the field of your expertise, such as Finance, Sports, Business, Food, Cars, Music, Books, Health, Current Events, Entertainment, Fashion, Lifestyle, News, etc.
F. Affiliate Blog
An affiliate Blog is a good source of earning, and here you need to work very little. Here, the expenses are also less, and the blogger has to focus on ‘Content products’ for such types of blog. Affiliate Blogs are usually a platform for reviewing products. Often people write about the product and earn money by using its affiliate link from the same company or the company selling it online.
G. Artist Blog
In an Artist’s Blog, you can write in detail on a subject to depict an art. Such art can include forms like painting, sculpture, music, photography, writing, etc.
Similarly, there can be many blog types such as travel blogs, fashion blogs, lifestyle blogs, etc. What kind of blog you have to make depends on your hobby, knowledge, and purpose.
#Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Start Blogging
Starting your blogging journey can be your best decision as there are numerous benefits of doing that. Blogging helps in refining your thought processes by translating vague ideas into concrete words. It helps you to connect with those who like your way of thinking. In this way, you build your community. But apart from that, there are many other benefits of doing it.
We have also listed five main benefits of Blogging that are –
- Helps in increasing your passion for writing – Blogging provides an open platform for capturing passionate writers. People who love writing get an opportunity to register as per their interest. Through Blogging, you can develop an inclination towards the passion for writing without any barrier.
- Helps in intensifying your existing writing skills – Another benefit of starting your blog is that you get an opportunity to improve your existing writing skills. Blogging needs a lot of research and good writing skills. In the long run, Blogging helps to improve your skills of writing and knowledge as well.
- Helps build Your Online Identity – Writing informative articles on your blog makes more people follow you. This further helps build your identity online. It also helps in connecting you with other bloggers and social media marketers. Hence Blogging helps in building your online identity.
- Establishes yourself as an expert – By starting your blog, you can establish yourself as an expert in a particular field of interest. Many successful doctors and other professionals left their full-time job and found themselves as experts in their areas.
- A great opportunity to make money – According to recent reports, some bloggers in India are earning around 20-30 thousand dollars a month. If you share useful information on your blog with people and people like your blog and start generating regular traffic, you can earn money from your blog.
Apart from these, there are many more benefits to starting your blog. Here we have told you just about the major ones. Now we will talk about how you can create your blog and what to consider while doing that?
#Top 5 Steps to Create a Blog?
When it comes to starting a blog, the first question that comes to mind is what it should be about. There is a massive influx of ideas that you like talking about or sharing your thoughts about. In this brainstorming process, we often get overwhelmed and give up on the idea altogether due to confusion. The aforementioned is the biggest challenge while beginning your blogging journey. Once you’re done choosing your niche and type of blog, you can proceed with further steps to build a successful blog. We have listed six major steps that would be enough to get your blogging journey started. Here they are-
- Decide a name for your blog – Deciding a name for your blog is a basic and important thing for your blog. So, now it is the time to think about your blog’s catchy name. Here you have to be a little mindful that the name is easy to remember and spell. Most importantly, it helps in getting views from the viewers you have targeted.
- Choose a blogging platform – The second important thing that comes in choosing a blogging platform. There are numerous platforms where one can start a blogging journey in 2021. We have listed the top four blogging platforms to start with and these are –
- WordPress.com
- WordPress.org
- Blogger
- Tumblr
- WIX
- Apart from these, there are also other platforms like Gator, Drupal, Weebly, Typepad, Ghost, Squarespace, etc, which you can use for your blogging.
- Get Domain Name and Hosting for your blog – The domain name is an important part of the site, as it tells about your site’s overall theme. For your information, let us tell you that the domain name can also be termed as site address or URL. Many people end up getting confused when it comes to choosing a suitable domain name. Well, there are tools like Wordoid, NameQL, Namewink, NameBounce, etc which makes it easier for you. This is because it provides you with several relevant domain names that you can use for your site.
After registering your domain name now it’s time for choosing the best hosting provider. Hosting providers give space to your website on a web server where all your data will be stored. Hosting is extremely necessary because every website you see today is hosted on servers. There are several hosting provider companies, like Siteground, Bluehost, Hostinger, Dreamhost, HostGator, A2 Hosting, GreenGeeks, and many others, to host your website. There are also a few things to take care of while buying a hosting service. Some such attributes to consider of the hosting services are–- Customer service
- Pricing
- Reliability
- Money-back guarantee
- SSL certification
- Decide the theme for your blog – When it comes to choosing a theme or idea for your blog, then this list is endless. So we insist on making broader themes. In this way, you would know where your interest lies. The next step is to think from other perspectives; by that, we meant to say that is what are those few things about which your friends and family members come to you for advice. This will further refine your list of broad themes that you have just made.
If you still cannot think of a name for your blog, maybe you could try a few fantastic tools like Wordoid or Panabee, etc. But again, make sure that the name you choose is available as a domain name on your blog hosting site. The only thing that you need to keep in mind is that good research is required.
- Add relevant plugins -Plugins are used to enhance the overall website functionality. It also helps in loading your website fast, which is a part of On-page SEO. Plugins help in keeping your website in a good structure. We have listed some of the best plugins that you should use-
#WPForm: A contact form is needed for every website as it helps you get in touch with your visitors. This plugin provides the best user-friendly contact form that makes it one of the popular plugins.
#MonsterInsights: It is a google analytics plugin. This plugin allows you to connect with your google analytic account and provide insights into your site. In simple words, by using this plugin, you do not need to go to google analytics to see how your site is performing. This plugin shows the performances in the WordPress dashboard if you make your website using WordPress.
#Yoast SEO: It is a must-have plugin that helps you customize your article’s title, meta description, and URL or permalink.
#UpdraftPlus: This plugin allows you to set up automatic backups and store them in a particular location. This plugin ensures the safety of your website’s data.
#WP rocket: Almost every WordPress user uses this plugin to be one of the market’s best plugins. This plugin helps in improving your site speed and performance. In addition to that, this plugin also provides a free image optimization service that automatically decreases your image size, and that adds up to overall site speed. This plugin is quite simple to use, or we can say that it is a beginner-friendly plugin. Investing in this plugin is worth it.
#Insert headers and footers: In WordPress, you sometimes need to code something or write a Meta description code. This plugin allows you to add any sort of code to your website. The best part is that it is a free plugin, so you can certainly try this out.
- Keeping some content ready to roll – It is recommended that you have some content or write-up ready to be published on your blog theme in advance. A simple word document saved on your PC or mobile will also work. It helps by the time your blog is ready to roll on the web, and you already have some content to share.
Now, the five most important parts of Blogging are in place, they are theme, name, a little bit of content, plugin, and hosting. It is always recommended to start blogging for free until you understand its dynamics and get seasoned enough to be a fantastic player with superior skills. Now we will dwell on the technicalities of Blogging, so read further.
#How to Start a Blog For Free
Many websites offer you blogging for free. Here is the list:
#Blogger
Google acquired this blogging platform in 2003. It is one of the most reliable and free blogging platforms. It is a blogging specific platform that is helping various people to start their blogging journey for free. The best part about bloggers is their simple user interface. Users just need to sign up and begin creating a blog. Blogger also provides many customization opportunities that help users get a good experience.
Despite this, the blogger also provides a good analytics report of your site so that users can see how their articles are performing. Some more positive points of blogger are –
- Large community: There are millions of people who use blogger, and the community is still growing.
- Monetization: Blogger lets the user make a passive income through running online advertisements. It is the main reason why people are taking bloggers seriously.
#Medium
It is an open-source blogging platform founded by the co-founder of Twitter. It was made to bring readers and writers in one place to share their thoughts with the world. In that way, it is much like Twitter with the freedom to write and express yourself beyond the rigidity and limitedness of the number of words or characters.
Medium garners more than 60 million monthly active users. So if you have the best story to share, it is a great platform to grab your audience’s attention. This is what differentiates Medium in that it comes with the audience. Not only that, Medium has become a medium for publishers to hang out. But it would be best if you remembered that Medium is not a marketing tool, and hence you should use it as a trial for your content refinement or add-on to grab a new target audience. It is more of a personal blogging platform than a professional one where you can sell your content through mailer lists or backlinks.
It has a predefined niche that is very professional in nature and business-oriented. The platform comes with around 200 million active users. The best part about Linkedin is the ease of use. You do not need a domain name, etc. All you need is a flair for writing that can hit the chord with your niche. A lot of bloggers drive traffic to their website or blog via Linkedin. You can write captivating excerpts from your latest blog post here and then attach your blog’s link. LinkedIn Pulse plays a crucial role here.
Many writers and editors pick a few articles as news and share them on the pulse, where the item receives a greater target audience. In this way, it helps you build your brand reputation for yourself and your blog.
Long format content grabs a lot of attention if it is bagged by proper research and appears credible and fresh. Comments on the article are a great source of gauging your readers’ perspectives apart from being a form of engagement. Sometimes you get new ideas for your next items directly from your readers. Moreover, you can even attach an engaging presentation or video format as content on your LinkedIn post.
#Wix
All you need to do is register on the platform, and then it gives you two options whether you want Wix to create your blog with pre-built templates or if you want to make your media, WordPress esign and templates for your blog from a vast sea of options.
Creating an enrapturing blog all by yourself over Wix is not just comfortable but an exciting process in itself. It is much like cooking where there are so many resources available to you for free, and all you need is to pour it down to make the meal delicious. Similarly, there are so many tools and templates available from which you can simply drag and drop to make a fantastic user interface for your blog. If you do not wish to go through the hassle of deciding upon your blog’s design and user interface, then Wix can make it for.
All you need to do is answer a few of its questions regarding what your blog posts would be like, and then accordingly; it will choose a template for you on which you can write down your content. Since the free version has limitations on Wix, you might have to go for paid formats once you get a blogging hang. Moreover, getting a domain for free would be a little tricky here in terms of availability. But the site is an excellent start to your journey of Blogging.
#WordPress
WordPress is one of the most famous and great platforms if you want to learn how to make a blog. But when it comes to WordPress, then you need to do everything right from scratch all by yourself. First, you need to find and register your domain name and then have a different hosting site to get the internet space.
To customize the user interface of your WordPress blog, then you need to download various plugins. Here you might need to pay for your domain name to a different platform and the hosting site. Bluehost is said to be one of the oldest and famous hosting service providers. Moreover, a WordPress blog gives you lots of authority.
You can make it as safe as you want, but you need to invest more time understanding the platform. It is a great tool to earn money as well in the long run. You can attach the plugins of analytical tools to inform how your posts are performing.
Developing an entire user interface for your blog initially could be a little time consuming, but it pays off once the content starts gaining attention. Many people began as a blogger on WordPress, which began selling brands and other products via their blogs upon getting famous. So a blog was successful in developing into a full flesh business by building a community around it.
#How to Earn Money from Blog
Have you just started blogging and don’t know how to earn money from this? Well! don’t worry. Below are two popular ways to make money from Blogging.
#Google Adsense
Google Adsense is an effective way to earn money from Blogging. This is an advertising placement service from Google. This ad service is mostly made for webmasters who can put these ads on their website/blog and earn money when a visitor clicks on these ads. It takes around two weeks to get the approval of Adsense as they go through your whole site and check according to their policies. So we suggest that you keep your site structure as per google AdSense policies.
#Affiliate Marketing
It is an easy way of money-making by selling third party products on your blog. Let’s understand this with a simple example. Suppose you have to buy a house. You contact a property dealer, and they see a lot of places. Now when you buy a home, that broker gets a commission, right?
Affiliate Marketing is also the same. In this, you act as the broker or a mediator between the seller and the buyer. You refer to a product online, and if someone buys that product through your website or blog, you get some commission.
#Sell Sponsored Blog posts.
In this method of monetization, the company pays you the money to promote their products. Suppose you want to get sponsored by a company, you need to make one page to show your website stats like your traffic, audience demographics, etc. This thing increases the chances of yours to get approached by companies.
#Can get paid for writing reviews
It is quite similar to writing a sponsored post. You can also write paid reviews on your site. In this method, you will be given some products by companies, and if it is similar to your site niche, you can write the review post and get paid as PayPerPost.
#Sell Your Products & Services Digitally
Here’s another effective way of earning from blogs and expanding your business. You can make a blog to sell your products and services. It helps connect with a larger audience at once. You can even create and sell your digital products such as e-books.
So these are the most popular ways to earn money online. There are many more ways to earn money online through blogs. For example, if your blog succeeds in generating high traffic, you can go for brand collaborations and other money-making forms.
#How Much Money Can You Make From Blogging?
One can make massive money with Blogging. The amount of money you can make from Blogging depends on the topic and niche of your blog. It would help if you did extensive research to know the most popular niche among the online audience and write well-researched and unique content. If your blog starts generating even 1000 visitors every day, you can easily earn in thousands.
Another factor that plays an integral part in your earning from a blog is where your traffic comes from. Suppose visitors to your blog are coming from foreign countries. Your earnings will automatically increase by 10 to 20 times than local visitors.
#How To Start A Blog Using Top Three CMS in 2023?
#Start A Blog With WordPress
Step- 1: Buy web hosting and domain name.
Two things are needed to make your blog accessible to people worldwide- I already discussed above about domain name and hosting. Now need to be buy, you can buy from any hosting and domain name provider company.
#Hosting: Every website has a host where your website is stored. E.g., Bluehost, Hostinger, Hostgator, Godaddy, any others
#Domain: This is like the permanent address of your blog—for example, www.XYZ.com.
You can easily buy hosting and domain together – so nothing to worry about. It is essential to choose a WordPress host before doing anything. Due to the popularity of this WordPress, a large number of WordPress hosts exist today.
I have so many account from different hosting provider company, there I have used GoDaddy account for start a blog.
Step- 2: Sign In your account and Install Free WordPress Software.
So are you ready to create a WordPress blog? If yes, then install the WordPress software first. Don’t worry; it’s too easy! We hope that you have already completed the signup process. So you must have received an email from your hosting provider, which contains details about logging into the customer area of your Host.
When you log in for the first time, you’ll get a wizard from your hosting provider that will help you in the installation process.
If you haven’t seen the setup wizard, you don’t need to worry; it won’t take much time. Just do the following:
- Go to my site area
- Click on the create site.
- Launch the wizard.
When you are done installing, you can access the dashboard of your new blog by visiting yourwebsite.com/wp-admin.
#If you want to start a blog with WordPress except wizard then follow below steps:
After buying the domain and hosting you have to go to the LogIn/Sign In of the hosting account.
After login your account, you will see Hosting or Web Hosting section in your GoDaddy account or any other provider account, then click on Web Hosting and you will see manage option, then click on manage.
#Sign In >> Web Hosting >> Manage
#After manage you have to go to the cPanel Admin of your GoDaddy account for start a blog.
#After enter cPanel Admin on GoDaddy, you will see many sections , you need to do go Domains section and click on Addon Domains.
#After click on Addon Domains open a Create an Addon Domain page. Write your domain name on New Domain Name field and click out side of the field.
#After click outside of the field you will see other two field has been automated fill up, then click on Addon Domain.
#After Addon Domain back to the cPanel and find “WEB APPLICATIONS“, there you will see many web applications like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc. Click on WordPress.
#After click WordPress you will see “install this application”, click on install this application.
After click on install this application , will be open a form, there no need to fill up every field, fill Domain field, there you will see multiple options, I do suggest “http://www.your-domain-name.com” or if you bought https then “https://www.your-domain-name.com” and fill Administrator Username and Password, after fill up click on Install button.
Step 3: Install WordPress Theme
After Install WordPress, you have to go your-domain-name.com/wp-admin and use your Administrator user name and password and Log In.
After Log In, you will enter your blog Dashboard. Now need to be install a “WordPress Theme”. WordPress gives you an option to choose from free and premium themes. Although both categories have great opportunities, the premium themes come with elaborated designs and features. For Install “WordPress theme” you have to go Appearance>>Themes.
The best place to find free themes is the official WordPress.org theme directory. These are free themes, which are a reliable alternative.
You can also buy premium themes as per your budget and requirement.
Step 4: Write your first blog post
When you have learned how to create a WordPress blog, we now feel that you are probably excited to start blogging!
This is how the WordPress dashboard appears when you log in for the first time.
Now hover the mouse on the Posts menu; you can start writing blogs by clicking add new on it. Write your first blog post.
#Posts>>Add New.
2. Blogger
As you know that blogger is a free platform, so several people are using it. The best part about this platform is it provides a simple user interface. To make a blog on blogger, there are a few simple steps.
- Signup from a google account
- Sign in to your blogger account
- Choose your profile
- Create a blog
- Choose blog title, address, and theme.
- Your blog is ready to launch.
3. Wix
Wix is one of the best CMS that is used by many people. Because of its functionality and the level of customization it provides, Wix provides a drag and drops feature that makes it easier for users to make a good website. To start a blog in Wix, there are few steps –
- Go to Wix and create an account.
- Then click on the Button – New Site.
- Select your site type
- Then you need to choose how you want to create your site.
- Answer the question as per your need
- Choose a home page design.
- Design your blog
- Now your blog is ready to publish.
Final Words
We hope you found this article beneficial. Also, we hope it sorts you out about starting your blogging journey. Some trusted digital marketing agencies, like us, at Leelija, can set up all the necessary things for you. Also, we give extremely important pieces of advice to help you in your blogging journey, that you might not know from your own. We claim to do this efficiently because of the experienced team working with us. You can hire us as well. So this is how you can start a blog and earn through it. Good Luck & Happy Blogging!
