How To Start A Blog And Make Money!

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When researching for ways to make money online one of the first things you may come across is blogging. Although blogging can be traced back to some of the earliest years of the internet, and the term ‘blog’ was coined in the late 1990s the kind of blogging we know today really didn’t begin until the early 2000s.

What is blogging?

Blogging is a form of online communication, usually centring around the thoughts, opinions, knowledge or views of a writer or small group of writers – in fact, you’re reading this post on a blog right now. Blogging has boomed in the past 20 years and the term is now so diverse that it has really come to mean any form of personal web-space. With a simple google search, you’ll be able to find a blog about virtually anything, from dogs to DIY, parenting to pilates, baking to business there’s a blog out there for every niche imaginable and the industry just keeps on growing to fill our consumer need for constant information.

How do you start a blog?

One of the reasons why blogging is so popular is because it is very easy to get into, literally anyone with an internet connection and half an hour to spare can start a blog if they follow the below five steps.

Choose a blog platform
Blogs can be hosted on a number of platforms with WordPress being the biggest and most popular. After WordPress, Blogger is a very popular blogging platform as is Tumblr and each has its own set of pros and cons. If you’re starting out and are new to blogging then WordPress or Blogger are probably the best two to try as they have the most users and therefore there are a lot of free resources available for you to use online.
Decide whether to host your blog or get a free one
With platforms such as WordPress and Blogger, you can create a completely free blog but this does have its downsides. For one with a free blog, you can’t choose your own domain name (www.yournamehere.com), you’ll also find that you are more limited with how you can design and customise your blog and you also don’t own your blog. The alternative to a free blog is to go self-hosted, but this does involve a few additional steps and a little financial investment. A self-hosted blog is like buying your own home instead of renting it, you can do what you like with it, choose its own name and you own it rather than borrowing it from someone else. If you are serious about making money from your blog then self-hosted is the way to go, so continue to steps 3 and 4.
Choose a web host and domain name
If you’ve decided to go down the self-hosted route, which is best in the long run, then the next thing to do is to find a web host and set up a domain name. A quick Google search will bring up a number of host providers and many of them will let you select your domain name as a part of the process. In general, you can look to spend about £5 a month on web hosting and domain names typically cost 99p for the first year and then a few pounds thereafter, depending on the domain.

Personalise your blog
With WordPress and Blogger, it’s super simple to customise your blog thanks to their own free set of blog themes and templates. Play around with colours, fonts and images but remember to keep it professional. If you don’t like any of the free themes then there are numerous sites that sell more bespoke themes for WordPress and Blogger starting at about £35. When personalising your blog keep in mind the niche you want to write for, your target readers and how easily they can navigate your site.
Learn about blogging
There you have it, now you have your own little piece of the internet, and that is a very valuable commodity. To make sure that your space doesn’t become lost in the sea of online content the next thing you want to do is to learn as much as you can about how to drive traffic to your blog and set up your online presence. There are so many free resources out there to help you build your blog and don’t feel disheartened if you’ve been blogging away for a few weeks with little engagement. Building a blog takes time but consistency is key, so keep at it and before you know it you will have a group of dedicated readers and an online presence that people will pay you for.

Image Credit: Pexels. Free to Use Licence.

How to make money blogging

So you’ve set up a blog and have been writing for your niche, what you’re really here for is to find out how to make some money! The good news is that making money from blogging can be pretty easy so long as you have built an online presence and have people visiting your site. So here are some of the top ways to bring in an income from your little piece of the internet.

Through affiliate networks
As a blogger, people read your content because they value your recommendations and opinions and this puts you in a position of influence. If you write favourably about a certain product you use or an item you’ve brought then your audience are more likely to check it out for themselves. Brands appreciate this kind of influence and reward bloggers through affiliate schemes which pay you, the blogger, a commission if a sale is made as a result of your recommendation. There are now thousands of affiliate schemes out there and affiliate networks put them in one place making it easier for bloggers to find them and start using them to make money.
Through advertising
Brands want to put adverts in front of their potential clients wherever they can and that includes the sites they spend time on when online. Advertisers may pay you to display an advert in your sidebar or on your home page for a certain amount of time, or they may pay you per click on the advert. Adverts are an easy way to make money but they can make a blog look cheap and cluttered so use them sparingly.
Through sponsored content
We’ve already established that a blog can give you influence and brands will want to harness this influence by paying you to promote certain content to your audience. This could be raising awareness about an issue such as injury claims, https://claim3000.co.uk/personal-injury/, promoting a specific product, or even simply embedding a link back to a brand to increase traffic to their own website. Sponsored content can earn you some big money depending on the size of your blog’s audience and its engagement but it’s often a source of income that grows over time and you may not start working with brands for a few years after your blog is formed.
Through sales
Blogs are very effective lead generators which means if you have something to sell, be it an e-book, merchandise, or services then you can use your blog to promote your own products, earning you money from the resulting sales. Blogging is such an effective way to make sales that it is even referred to as content marketing and is used by many businesses in their sales strategies as a way to generate inbound leads. So if you think you have something that people may want to buy then tell them about it and make it easy for them to purchase whatever it is through your site.
Through guest content
Guest content is very similar to sponsored content except that it is usually written by someone else and hosted on your site for your viewers to read. Guest content can be paid for by other bloggers or writers looking to get their names out or by brands who have a specific narrative they want to deliver to your readers. Guest content can be a great way to help you publish content consistently but it should always be relevant to your readers so as not to dilute your blog’s brand and reputation.

How long will it take to make money from blogging?

This question comes up a lot with budding bloggers but the answer can be hard to define. In general, making money from blogging starts with your statistics and comes down to having an engaged audience – 100 engaged people who click on your links and purchase your recommendations will make you more money than 10,000 unengaged followers who never click and so the size of your audience isn’t always the most important factor. It can take days to grown an audience if you produce a piece of viral content that takes off on social media, or it could take years of consistency. Blogging definitely shouldn’t be considered a quick moneymaker for everyone but it is a great side hobby that will bring you in some extra income over time.