How to start a blog is one of the main questions ever asked by most internet users and individuals who aspire to dive into the online blogging business. There are many stories about how this is done but no one wants to speak the truth.
Maybe to point out a few, many authors say that blogging is a hobby, whereby one writes what they like and eventually they will start earning from search or readers’ traffics.
Now, imagine writing about the topic “soil” and now you want to earn revenue from it, do you think this topic which is your “Hobby” will give you earnings?, what will really make someone visit and read more about soil anyway!..
Key steps to start your blog.
1. Choose your niche.
The first thing you need to know is your niche. This is the topic you want to write about and it should be a broad topic. Do not identify a niche with narrow coverage. For example, if you choose a niche like “Glass” how many topics you will write regarding “Glass”? This will be very little content.
Choose a topic like e-commerce, marketing, and technology among others. These are topics that have broad content. Remember the key here is to write topics that will enable readers to click an advert that is related to your content.
If you write about software, definitely the reader will click a software advert and this will earn you money. Also, choose topics that will enable you to sell some products through affiliate links via affiliate platforms.
Since we still don’t have our product, we can sell other people’s products to earn a commission. Do you know affiliate marketing can earn you more money than ad companies such as AdSense? Now you know.
2. Invest in an SEO tool.
In simple terms, blogging is not a hobby or if it is a hobby, make sure it is a hobby that can is dynamic and can help readers purchase a link from your article. Blogging is a business, in fact, a very serious business that one needs to invest a huge amount or the little you have.
This is because it takes more investment to rank on google first page. Let’s say you want to rank, first you need the best SEO tool that will help you perform keyword research. Most of the SEO tools are paid for in a month or yearly.
This requires you to subscribe to one of them for better results. The SEO tool not only helps you in keyword research but also helps to identify the best topics to write about, the search volume of these words along with much you need to rank your page on google.
3. Content writers/writing.
The third investment is content writing. Most bloggers fail because they want to make money as fast as possible. This wrong mentality, blogging is a long-term investment but it pays in long run. You have to wait even for 1 to 2 years before you start earning in blogging. This is not a get-reach-quick business.
Also, many bloggers fail in this industry because they want to publish as many articles as possible to get more traffic, do you know you can get 1000 traffics per day with just one blog post? It all depends on the quality, not quantity.
A quality article is well structured and has adequate information that helps the readers. You need quality articles and this needs you to invest in software such as Grammarly and Turnitin if English is not your native language.
Since it is an investment, you need to cater to, the best idea is to hire writers to escalate things for you. These must be professional writers and this is not hard to find.
They are many in Upwork or even Fiverr. Your writers should be trustworthy and not those who spin content using spinners or using AI to write articles.
Google does not recognize articles written by Artificial intelligence software and believe me when I say AI articles can be easily detected by Google. For a smooth journey, start by publishing at least 2 to 3 quality articles per week.
Remember, these articles should be plagiarism free because am sure you are not going to copy other website contents and paste them into your working space. You should write an original article and Turnitin will help you identify plagiarized content in your article. Original articles rank easily on google.
4. Web building.
Now that you the topic, the articles what next? A website/blog. Do you know to create a website and what does it take for you to have a website? Well, this is a very simple question because technology has made it easier for you to build your website just by drag and drop using advanced website builders.
Some such as WordPress are free and user-friendly though need some web design and development knowledge. Other web builders charge but can really help you optimise your content and offer full support.
Your website should be easy to access and navigate and that is why you need a website developer to help structure your website to meet your content structure.
In web building, you should consider creating pages such as home, contact us, about us, privacy policy, and Disclaimer. These pages describe more about you and your content and also allow readers to reach you via the contact us page.
5. Link building.
So, it’s good you are almost done with blog-building procedures. Now that you have a working website full of content. Let’s say you have published 300 quality articles; it is time to connect with another related website that points to your website.
This idea was discovered by thorough research done on google ranking techniques and one of them was backlinks. It was discovered that google rank website with a high number of quality backlinks.
In this case, it was noted that link building is a key factor for ranking and that is why I had to mention it in the process of blog building.
Link building strategies.
Link building also known as backlinks in simple terms is creating links from other websites that point to your website. This implies that when one clicks a link from another website, the link will redirect them to your website.
Now imagine you have 500 websites pointing to your website, this is any website gold, and getting it might not be easy. Google develops trust with your content when its algorithm discovers other websites are pointing to you.
Link building is one major factor that will help you increase your domain authority. Do you want to know how to check your domain authority? Click here
a).Guest posting: This is writing articles to other websites in exchange for a link that points to your website. This is not just any website but a relevant and high domain authority website.
b).Social media: The other way to get a backlink is by posting content to any social media platform. There are many social media platforms with high traffics and some of them include Facebook, Quora, Reddit, and Twitter among others.
c).Partnership: Many related websites publish almost the same content you have and having a good relationship with website owners will help you link with each other.
Since link building is overwhelming, do not invest in the Blackhat technique of link building because it will not help you rank on google first page. You can hire an expert in this though they are quite expensive, it will pay you off in the long run.
6. On-page and off-page SEO.
In this blogging, SEO is very important and it is the key to any website build there. You can use Yoast, Rankmath, and All in one SEO among other software to optimize your on-page SEO.
This simply means that your articles are well written, Focus on key phrases, Readability, and SEO titles among other important elements in writing your article.
The off-page SEO is marketing outside your website and this includes digital marketing, guest posts, backlinks, and social media marketing among others.
Final Thoughts
It is now time to sit down and decide if you will be in a position to perform every aspect of the blogging business. Remember this is a long-term project that needs more sacrifice and determination but it comes with its benefits.
We all know nothing comes easy and that is why it takes the above 6 steps for you completely dive into the blogging business. I can say is to wish you all the best in your project and let’s hope one day you will send me an email that you followed my steps and succeeded.
Now, what next?
Congratulation you are now able to carry your “How to start a blog” project and the next thing is How to make money from your blog.
