In this article, we will be sharing some of the tactics of how to set up a blog and earn money, I mean, big money! Blog is an informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts).
Starting a blog can be both a rewarding and lucrative venture that opens exciting opportunities. Through blogging, you can establish yourself as a credible expert in your field, earn a part-time or full-time income and connect with like-minded people who share your interests and passions.
Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page. Many blogs provide commentary on a particular subject or topic, ranging from philosophy, religion, and arts to science, politics, and sports.
Others function as more personal online diaries or online brand advertising of a particular individual or company. A typical blog combines text, digital images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic.
How to Set Up a Blog and Earn Money
Today there are many ways about how to set up a blog and earn money, at least passive income that will be sufficient. You can earn commissions by displaying ads and partnering with brands to do affiliate marketing or write sponsored content.
You can also sell products or create paid membership plans. The key is to build a strong social media presence and create high-quality content that users find relevant and helpful.
Strategy to Create the Blog of Your Dream
Below are the ways on how to set up a blog an earn money subsequently:
- Define Your Topic or Niche
Finding a niche can be tough or feel limiting, but will help you build stronger credibility in the long term. You can certainly talk about more than one subject, but make sure your main focus is consistent and specific enough to draw readers in and encourage them to keep reading your work.
- Do Competitor Research
After deciding what you want to write about, do some initial research to understand who the other key players are in your space. Is your niche already fairly crowded? Or are very few people writing about your intended topic?
No matter the case, doing your research beforehand will help you understand how you can create content that’s better than or different from what’s already out there.
- Define Your Audience
In addition to nailing down your niche, you should also consider your audience. Who are you going to be blogging for?
Having the answer to this question will help you write articles that are valuable and relevant to your readers. Try to determine the following information about your ideal reader before diving right into writing:
- How old are they?
- Where do they live?
- What do they do for work?
- What other forms of media do they already consume?
- Do they read any other blogs?
- What do they do in their free time?
- What issues or problems do they face on a regular basis?
- What do they wish they were more of an expert in?
- Plan Your First Blog Post
Once you’ve nailed down your niche and desired audience, you can start planning your first blog article. Again, this may require some research to ensure you’re creating something that your audience will want to read.
As a starting point, type your desired topic idea into a search engine to see what kinds of articles appear in the results. If you find that the existing results don’t accurately or aptly explain the topic, that’s a great indicator that you’ll be able to write something better.
- Name Your Blog
Every blog needs a name. You’ll want to ensure that your blog’s name makes sense given your niche or brand, is memorable/catchy, and is easy and quick enough to type.
If you have a name in mind, scour the web and social media to make sure that no one else is already using that name. If your desired name is already taken, you can either create a new one or contact the website owner to see if they are still actively using the name that you want. If you really want to protect your assets, you can even trademark your business name.
- Create Branding Elements for Your Blog
In addition to a name, you’ll need to select a font and color palette for your blog that you’ll incorporate once you’ve built your website. You can do this yourself or outsource it to a graphic designer.
If you want a custom logo for your blog, you can design one with a free platform such as Canva, or work with a designer.
- Claim a Domain Name
After settling on a name for your blog, you’re ready to select a domain name. You can check to see if a domain is available by typing in your desired domain name in your browser and see if a live website appears. Most domain registrars will also have a tool to help you find available domains.
When you’ve chosen a domain that’s available, you’ll need to pay for the rights to use it through a domain registrar. Owning and setting up a domain is a separate process from selecting a hosting site and web builder, which you’ll do next.
- Choose a Hosting Site
Choosing a web host is an essential step in creating your blog. Without a host, you won’t be able to build a website; a host is what lets you effectively “rent” a presence on the internet.
Some platforms will host your blog for free, but in exchange, they’ll tack on their brand name to your web domain, e.g., thefancyblog.squarespace.com or thefancyblog.wordpress.com. In these examples, to remove the “.squarespace” or “.wordpress” from the URL, you would need to pay for web hosting in addition to buying the domain name thefancyblog.com.
Web hosting can cost anywhere from 50 cents to $10 per month depending on how much speed and storage you want to purchase. There are dozens of different hosting options out there, but we recommend selecting one of the best web host services that fits your budget and needs.
- Build Your Website
You can build your website from scratch or by using a template or theme—it all depends on your budget and desires. A no-code web builder, such as Blogger or WordPress, will allow you to design and build a beautiful website even if you have no prior web development experience. Some templates or themes are free, but others may run you anywhere from $10 to $200.
Certain web builders allow for more customization and flexibility than others. Be sure to read the specs of each website builder you’re interested in to understand what’s possible when designing your blog.
- Upload and Publish Your First Article
After you’ve built your website and are satisfied with its look and feel, it’s time to upload your first article. You can type and edit your content right from the back end of your website, however, it’s wiser to create all your content in a separate, cloud-based editor such as Google Docs.
That way, you’ll have a secure backup of your blog content in case your site experiences any technical issues.
Before you hit publish, it’s a good idea to preview your blog post to see if it displays exactly how you want it to. You can always go back and edit it later, though, if you want to change or update anything.
Read Also: Steps to Starting a Successful Blogging Career
- Promote Your Blog
Once you’ve published content to your blog, you can share your links. Social media is a popular and effective way to distribute your blog content. You can share links on your existing social channels, or create new accounts to complement your blog.
- Track Your Analytics
After you’ve published and publicized your blog, it’s important to track metrics such as views, visitors and clicks. Your hosting platform may have a default analytics dashboard built in, but we strongly recommend connecting your blog to Google Analytics.
Google Analytics is a free tool that will allow you to track your traffic as well as important demographic and conversion details.
The System of Making Money via Blogging
Gaining and growing an audience may take a lot of time and effort, as does earning credibility and generating traffic. You’ll have to be patient on your way to profiting from your blog, which is largely dependent on traffic.
It’s important to create content consistently and establish a social media presence — once you do so, there are quite a few ways to start making money from your blog.
- Engage AdSense
A simple way to start earning some revenue is to sell ad space. Letting brands advertise on your page has many advantages, especially since it doesn’t require a big time investment from you. There are two ways to generate income selling ad real estate:
Cost per click (CPC): Also known as pay per click (PPC), this means you get paid each time users click on an ad shown on your website.
Cost per thousands (CPM): Also known as cost per mile, this lets you negotiate a set price for every 1,000 impressions (or views) the ad gets.
To get started, you’ll need to create an account with an advertising network, such as Google AdSense, Mediavine, BuySellAds, PropellerAds or other similar platforms.
Tip: Use ads judiciously. Filling up your site with tons of ads can affect its ranking, credibility, load time and, ultimately, the user’s experience.
- Be a Part of the Affiliate Networks
Many bloggers sample products or services and review them on their site using affiliate links (or tracking links) that redirect readers to the sellers’ website.
This process is known as affiliate marketing and it lets you earn a commission for every sale, click, lead or transaction your content generates to a seller or company. There are several affiliate programs and networks you can join, including some from popular stores and e-commerce sites. These include:
- Amazon Associates
- Apple
- WalMart
- Commision Junction
- ShareASale
- eBay Partner Network
Joining an affiliate program will let you find a list of products to review and tools that let you keep track of links’ performance and increase conversion rate — that is, the number of users that complete a desired action or transaction in your site.
Tip: Set up news alerts to find hot new products your readers might be interested in.
- Run a Lot of Marketing
Selling your own products or services is another good monetization method for a blog. Make time to create products that add value to your readers and visitors, preferably things that tie in with your blog. These can be physical products like books or prints, or digital products like PDFs or audio files that your readers can download.
Most web hosting providers and blogging platforms have widgets and other features that you can add to create an online store. These are typically known as plugins, which are a bit of code that give your website added functionality. Plugins give you the ability to add secure contact forms, optimize your images or create online stores.
There are also many popular WordPress plugins and eCommerce platforms like WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Ecwid and Shopify you can use to get started.
Tip: Don’t have your blog revolve around your products even if you add an online store. Instead, keep creating the high-quality content that attracted readers in the first place.
- Publish Sponsored Contents a Lot
Many popular bloggers seek out sponsorships, which entails a company paying them to write sponsored posts that promote or talk about its products.
Let’s say you occasionally upload tutorial videos to your photography blog showing how you edit photos in a particular app or software. You could then approach the app manufacturer and ask whether they’d be interested in sponsoring that particular post.
To get a sponsorship, you usually have to reach out to a brand and make a pitch. Your pitch should include a brief explanation of who you are and what you do, along with details on your blog’s performance, such as audience demographics and traffic statistics.
Alternatively, you can try writing paid reviews. This option is like a sponsorship with one main difference: you’re sent a product for free or given early access to an app or software, so that you can test it and write a review about it.
Tip: Think of your readers when you seek out sponsorships. Make sure to review products or partner with companies that are relevant to your blog’s content and that your audience will find helpful.
- Allow Access to Membership
Some readers may be willing to pay for a membership plan to get access to exclusive content, such as downloadable PDFs, in-depth articles, forums, podcasts, online courses or subscription boxes.
Subscriptions can be set up using membership-builder plugins. There are many popular options you can install easily, such as:
- WooCommerce Memberships
- LearnDash
- MemberPress
- Restrict Content Pro
Most membership plugins offer guides and tools to regulate content access, create membership levels and integrate payment options.
Tip: Look for a membership plugin that can handle a growing audience, and that offers flexible membership options and pricing.
- Create a Newsletter
With the right email marketing strategy and a large enough email list, you could also create a profitable newsletter.
Creating a profitable newsletter involves some of the same strategies that monetizing your blog entails. For example, you could reach out to a brand your readers would be interested in and offer advertising space in your newsletter.
You could also do affiliate marketing: mention or recommend a particular product within the newsletter and add its tracking or affiliate links. This way you can receive a commission for every transaction your subscribers complete.
Tip: Add a newsletter signup to your blog to get readers’ email and consider using email marketing software, such as Constant Contact and Mailchimp, to manage and automate your newsletter. Just make sure you’re not spamming your readers by sending out too much email marketing.
