Click here to see the free, easy guide to starting your blog in about 20 minutes.
How to start a blog and make money
1. Building Your Readership
There are lots of ways to monetize your blog once you have a good number of visitors. But when you are just starting out you won’t have many readers, so it’s important to make the most of each one.That means that you need to make sure first-time readers of your blog will come back. Only by having returning readers will you ever build a sizable audience that you can profit from.
So how can you stay in touch with your readers?
The easiest and best way is to ask them for an email address where you can contact them with updates. By collecting your readers’ email addresses from the very beginning of your blog you will build the biggest mailing list possible.
Ever wonder why just about every website you go to asks for you to sign up with your email address?
In marketing there is a saying that “the money is in the mailing list”. This is because a mailing list allows you to contact people over and over again.
Every time you send an email to your list you can offer them products/services or just get them to your visit your blog again where you can make money from ads (discussed below). This is exactly what big companies like Groupon do with their mailing lists. They send out offers on a daily or weekly basis
You will need an email marketing service to get started. By far the easiest and most reliable that I have found is Constant Contact, which offers a free trial of their services for new bloggers. I have put together a complete step-by-step tutorial on how to use Constant Contact with your blog.
2. Monetizing Your Blog
Once you have built a decent readership base you can turn your attention to making money from your blog. There a variety of way to do this, but one of the most lucrative ways also happens to be the easiest- advertising.Having a large number of visitors to your blog means that advertisers will pay to have their ads shown to your readers. The easiest way to blog for money is to get paid for showing advertisements on your blog by joining Google’s AdSense program at http://www.google.com/adsense
Once you setup your account on AdSense you will be given a code to add to your blog. This code will automatically display advertisements on your blog from companies who are part of Google’s advertising network. You may see ads from small companies related to your topic, or you may see ads from large companies that are completely unrelated to your topic.
The nice thing about AdSense is that you have thousands of advertisers bidding to advertise on your blog, and all you have to do is add the simple code to your blog. Once you do that the process is completely hands off.
Every time one of your visitors clicks on an ad, you get paid. Google collects the money from the advertisers and then cuts you a check (usually every month).
This arrangement is nice not only because it is hands-off, but because you are dealing with a reputable company that you know will actually pay you on time.
How much can you make?
The amount that you can make from AdSense depends on three factors:1. The number of visitors to your blog
This one is pretty obvious. More people visiting your blog means more clicks on advertisements, which means more money for you.2. The visibility of the ads
When you put the AdSense code on your blog you have a choice of the style of advertisements (large images, small images, text, etc.) and also where they are placed. The more prominently the ads are displayed the more likely they are to be clicked.However, you have to balance placing the ads prominently with the prospect of possibly annoying your readers. We have all visited blogs where it’s difficult to see the content due to the number and size of the ads. This is a delicate balance to achieve and it’s something you will have to experiment with to get the most out of your blog.
3. The topic you are blogging about
The final factor that affects your AdSense income is the topic you are blogging about. This is because advertisers will pay more to be on certain blogs than they will for others.For example, if your site is about golf, your readers are likely to have a healthy income. Because of this, there are a good number of advertisers that want to get their ads in front of your readers, and they are likely to pay a good amount per click to do this.
Contrast this with a blog about Justin Bieber. The readers of this blog are likely to be teenage girls, who usually don’t have very much purchasing power. Because of this advertisers will likely pay less for each click.
These three factors will determine the amount of money you make. Estimating exactly what you will make is pretty difficult, but a high traffic blog on the right topic has the potential to bring in several thousand dollars every month. Of course, many people earn less than this, and some earn even more. In fact, it has been estimated that some top AdSense publishers earn nearly $2 million per year just from AdSense.
Keep in mind that making money from your blog takes time. After all, there is a reason that learning how to make money from a blog is the last step in my guide. You need to make sure you have followed all the previous steps perfectly in order to give yourself the best chance of earning a substantial income from blogging. This will not happen overnight, but most bloggers find that the work itself is rewarding enough to continue on the journey.
Once you have your blog up and running, make sure to check out my step-by-step tutorial on how to install AdSense on your blog.
What next?
Learning how to make money with a blog is the final step in my tutorial on how to start a blog. I hope that you not only read this complete guide, but also took action on it. Blogging is a long, on-going journey, but only by taking the first step will you ever get to see where this road can take you.Still haven’t started your blog? Click here to get started with Step #1 of the guide
Of course, there is still much more to learn about blogging once you have followed this guide. You can continue to read more tips and tricks on my blog or check out some of my other tutorials including my guide on how to create a website and my review of website builders.
If you have any questions at all about blogging please do not hesitate to contact me!
- Make money from home. Blogging can be quite lucrative if done correctly. The top bloggers in the world obviously earn quite a bit, but even a part-time blogger can expect to make a nice profit if things are done correctly. The best part about it is that blogging is a form of passive income, since you can spend just a few hours a week writing a blog post and then continue to make money from it long after the blog post is written. I go into much more detail on how to blog for money later in this guide.
- Share your story. A blog allows you to have a voice and be heard. You can share your story with the entire world if you so choose. One of the most common ways blogs are used are as a diary where the blogger writes about their daily experiences so that friends, family, and others can all be a part of their lives.
- Recognition for yourself or your business. No, you probably won’t have paparazzi following you around because of your latest blog post. But a successful blog can gain you a ton of recognition in your respective field. Many bloggers are known as experts just because of their blogs, and some have even gotten book and movie deals based on their blogs.
- Find a community. Blogging at its heart is interactive. You write a blog post and people comment on it. This is a great way to connect with people who are interested in the same things as you are. Blogging allows you to teach these people based on your experience, and it gives you the opportunity to learn from your readers as well.
So, just how do you start a blog?
How to Start a Blog in 6 Steps
Learn how to create a blog in about 20 minutes following these steps:- Pick a blog name. Choose something descriptive.
- Get your blog online. Register your blog and get hosting.
- Customize your blog. Choose a free template and tweak it.
- Write & publish your first post. The fun part!
- Promote your blog. Get more people to read your blog.
- Make money blogging. Choose from several options to monetize your blog.
Step 1: Pick a blog name
The first step to finding a good blog name is choosing your topic.If you’re not sure what to blog about, there are a few ways to find a good blog topic:
- Hobbies & passions. Hobbies or other interests you are passionate about are a great place to start. Cooking, travel, fashion, sports, and cars are all classic examples. But even blogs about more obscure hobbies can be successful, since the your audience is literally anyone in the world with the internet.
- Life experiences. Everyone has lessons they have learned through life experience. Sharing this knowledge can be incredibly helpful to others in similar situations. For example, I recently helped a woman start her blog about being a fireman’s wife. She has a lot of experience and knowledge to share with others about this topic, and it has helped her connect with others in similar situations.Think about the things you have experienced in life. This could be related to your family (example: a blog about being a stay at home mom), work (a blog about experiences dealing with clients), or other life experiences (a blog about dealing with a troubling time such as a disease or divorce, or about a happy time such as preparing for a wedding or a birth of a child).
- A personal blog. A personal blog is a blog all about you. This will include a variety of topics, from things you do on a daily basis, to random thoughts and musings. This is a great way to share you thoughts with the world without having to stick to just one topic.
A good blog name should be descriptive so that potential readers can instantly tell what your blog is about just from the name.
If you are blogging about one specific topic then you will definitely want to include that in some way in your blog name. Try not to get hung-up on just one word though. For example, a cooking blog doesn’t necessarily have to have the word “cooking” in it. The words “food”, “recipes”, and “meals” would also let people know that your blog is about cooking.
If you are planning to create a personal blog where you discuss a variety of topics then I recommend using your name, or some variation of it, since your blog is all about you. For example, I own the blog scottchow.com. You can also add your middle name or middle initial if you find your name is already taken. Or you could use a variation like “Scott Chow Blog” or “Blogging with Scott”.
Once you have some blog name ideas you will need to choose a domain extension.
A .com domain extension is the most preferred, but .net or .org work as well. It is also important to note that for the purposes of a blog domain you cannot have any spaces between words. So “Blogging with Scott” becomes bloggingwithscott.com
Now that you’ve got your name and have picked an extension it’s time to make sure that no one else has already registered the same name:
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