How to Make Money Blogging (5 Easy Steps) 2024

If you are looking to make money blogging, you came to the right place. Starting a blog can be one of the best investments you make in your life. Sure, there will be ups and downs. But overall, it’s one of the best ways to make money online in a legit way.

Quite literally, anyone can make money blogging. It is entirely possible to start out with zero knowledge, and within just a few months, make thousands of dollars of consistent income.

However, it’s important to know how to start a blog the right way. Many beginners fail because they do not understand how to actually become a successful blogger.

Blogging can be completely life-changing. No more 9 to 5, get the freedom to work when and where you want. Even things such as spending more time with family, or working on hobbies that you would have not had time for with a regular job.

Knowing what works and what does not is important when it comes to blogging. Over the years, many have started a blog and eventually sold it for hundreds of thousands, sometimes even millions.

On the other hand, many have also started a blog and failed either by quitting too early or not going about it the right way. But what works and what does not? That is what we will go over in this article. Below is a step-by-step guide on how to start a profitable niche blog.

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Most Important Tip When Starting a Blog

Here is the most important tip for those looking to make money starting a profitable blog:

As a blogger, write about what people want. Research each blog post you create and see if writing about the topic will benefit your blog and actually, bring in traffic.

It all comes down to how much research you do. Find keywords that are easy to rank on search engines and write blog posts around those topics.

Why Do Bloggers Fail and Not Make Money From Their Blog?

Most blogs fail because bloggers do not know what to do. People hear that you can make hundreds, or even thousands of dollars easily. Then they try blogging without doing any research.

They then proceed to fail at growing a successful blog and say that blogging as a whole is a scam.

Do not be like those people. Do your research and put time and effort into your blog. It is actually not all that difficult, you just have to be willing to put in the work.

Starting a blog is extremely affordable and one of the cheapest businesses or side hustles to start because of its low start-up costs.

Really the only initial start-up cost is web hosting and even that costs less than a cup of coffee each month

What Not To Do When Starting a Blog

Don’t start a blog based on your interests or what you find “cool” at the time. I wasted so much of my time blogging because I made a blog about my interests that no one cared about. I had no traffic and was making no money during that period. Because of this mistake, I wasted months of time that could have been avoided if I followed the steps talked about in this article.

Do your research on different niches to find what people are looking for. Do not just randomly pick a niche because you like it. Research what others are looking for and make a blog about that.

It sounds simple but many fail doing this key step. Proper research can be the difference between making $100 a day and $100 a year.

5 Best Steps To Starting a Blog and Making Money

Here are 5 simple steps that will take you from 0 to making 6 figures:

1. Pick a Profitable Niche

Do your research and find what people are searching for online. Write about what people want, not what you want, because you want others to read your content as you grow your blog.

If you cant decide on a niche simply find out what people are searching for on search engines such as Google.

What are people searching for online and actually interested in? If you find that out, you can make valuable, high-quality content.

2. Set Up Your Blog

Bloggers usually spend way too much time setting up their blog. In reality, the color, branding, and tagline are not all that important for blogs. It’s the information and content that people want, not the brand.

If you get stuck don’t worry! You will find that YouTube and Google will be your best friend. Most of the questions that you will have are already answered with a quick Google search. If Google does not answer your question, asking tech support for help is always an option.

1. Pick a Domain Name

The domain name of your blog is basically just your blog’s name. Choose a name that is short, easy to spell, and related to your topic.

2. Web Hosting

A web host is just a platform where your blog will live. Some platforms are by far one of the best web hosting companies for a couple of reasons. Their pricing plan discounts are some of the best on the market. Some platforms always have crazy low discounts so you know you will get the best bang for your buck.

Website speed is also a factor to consider when choosing a web host. Some platforms allow your website to load fast which will, in turn, make your website rank higher with Google. Google likes to rank websites with fast speeds for a better user experience.

3. Pick a WordPress Theme

WordPress is the tool that you will use to create your blog. Think of a theme like a blog template that is completely customizable with a variety of options available. There are many themes to choose from to make your site unique and stand out.

Doing additional work such as cleaning up the blog, improving branding, and promoting it on social media is all very important.

However, the most important thing is creating good content that people look for. Everything else is added value that people may or may not pay attention to.

3. SEO Optimize For Traffic

Writing high-quality posts after doing proper research about your topic is one of the most important steps in creating a successful blog.

You will need at least 30 posts. This number can change slightly, some say 40-50 is a better estimate, but 30 is a good goal to start with. Creating all these posts is a lot of work, but it is most definitely worth it.

Remember to do your research before each post. You can make 30 posts about anything, but no one will want to read them. Find what people need and create content around it.

If you are wondering how exactly you do proper research there are a couple of key things that you could do.

Doing keyword research is something you will have to familiarize yourself with. The goal is to find keywords with high search traffic and low competition.

There are both free and paid keyword research tools. Ubersuggest is by far the best free keyword research tool available. The data might not be as accurate as premium paid keyword research tools. However, if you are on a tight budget or don’t want to spend any additional money this is a great option.

4. Promote on Pinterest

Pinterest is by far the best social media platform to advertise your website on because of the ability to put links on all your posts. I currently use it for all of my websites and it has proven to be an excellent way to increase traffic time and time again.

Most bloggers’ main source of traffic comes from SEO ranking. This does not mean that diversifying and advertising on social media is not a good idea. In fact, you might have more success on Pinterest than you do with SEO ranking because of the chance to post viral content.

Post engaging content consistently on Pinterest and you will see growth. When I say consistently, I mean post about five to ten times a day to allow for proper growth on the site. Feel free to post more or less depending upon what type of content you are producing.

I use Tailwind to help schedule my pins out. It is a huge time saver and can result in a lot more traffic to your blog if used correctly.

Related: Tailwind Review and Tutorial

5. Start Monetizing Your Blog

Monetization is probably one of the most fun parts of starting a blog. Below are the best ways to monetize your blog in the easiest way possible.

Affiliate Marketing

With affiliate marketing, you make money by taking a commission while promoting services or goods that are not your own. This is by far one of the easiest ways to make money blogging.

Display Ads

Putting paid advertisements on your blog is a great way to monetize your blog. However, this can only be done when you have consistent traffic.

Sell a Product or Service

You can sell your own products on your blog and it can be a massive chunk of the money you make from blogging. This works especially well if you sell a digital product.

An example of this would be selling an e-book or a course. You can also sell real products or services as well.

Best Blogging Resources To Get Started

Here are the best blogging resources you need to start a profitable blog.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is what you will use to track the number of visitors, page views, and other metrics on your website. In the beginning, the most important piece of information is the number of visitors to your website.

Setting up Google Analytics is actually very easy. Here are the steps to getting started tracking the visitors to your blog.

Blogging Checklist

Here is a checklist of all your objectives for those looking to make money blogging as a beginner

Pick a Profitable Niche
Set Up Your Blog
Write Your First 30 Blog Posts
Add Affiliate Links
SEO Optimize For Traffic
Promote on Pinterest
Add Display Ads If Necessary
Create an Info Product

Put this list somewhere to remind you exactly what you need to do to start making money blogging.

What To Do Your First Year Of Blogging

If you follow this plan, you will be well on your way to replacing your 9 to 5 and making a full-time income online from your blog.

Week 1

Pick a niche that is profitable and you can make money blogging in.

Week 2 to 5

Find out what content people want in your selected niche.

Make sure to not skip this step. Doing proper research is so valuable when first starting out and your future self will thank you for it. It makes it so much easier to start making a significant amount of money from blogging.

Week 6

Create a plan for your posts. Figure out when you will put out content to get up to that 30 post goal.

Week 7

This is where you should start to set up your blog. Do not spend a lot of time on small details like the logo or site colors. Focus on the content that you put out.

Week 7 to 52

Create and post your first 30 posts, the quicker that you put out posts, the faster they will rank and get traffic to your blog.

Stay Consistent When Blogging

Write at least 10 posts for the first couple of months so Google can index your site and understand what content you are putting out. This takes a few months so just keep on consistently putting out SEO optimized content and the traffic will come.

After you reach 30 posts you can either continue putting out new content or optimize the content you already put out. I suggest doing both for the best results. It will take anywhere from 6-12 months for Google to start ranking your page at the top of the search results.

If there is no money coming in, identify the problem, and make changes based on your research. If you stay consistent and do not give up, eventually you will see results. Trust the process.

Just to recap, if you put out 30+ posts, wait 6 months and if your traffic is low (under 300 visitors per day), then start researching again, identify and fix any problems.

However, this definitely should not happen if you follow the blogging checklist and timeline above. If the checklist is followed you will be in a great place to make money blogging.

Conclusion

Blogging is a great way to make money online either full-time or for some additional income as a side hustle. It is completely up to you. If you put in the work, you will see results. The way I like to look at it is you only can take out as much as you put in. If you put in a ton of time at the start, when you are done, it will be a great source of passive income!

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