If you are a beginner or learning how to start a successful blog and make money then this guide will be your ultimate source of guidance. I have been blogging for more than 2 years and understand the needs of a beginner and that’s what I have listed in this powerful all-in-one guide that covers the basics such as what does a blog mean?
The biggest problem of every blogger is that they are willing to start a successful blog but how and in what way it is not clear for every beginner. That is why in this ultimate guide, I will be teaching you every simple and easy step that you need to follow while starting your blogging journey.
Starting a blog 10 years back was easy enough but now these things have become more competitive. It is advised to make your own road map and start your journey otherwise you will leave your journey before your destination.
If you are confused with any other word for a blog, people also call it an article or blog post, and this process of writing content is known as blogging. Before learning everything about how to start a blog, let me start with the basics, what is a blog, and what does a blog mean?
How to Start a Successful Blog and Make Money
Every step is important and is described in detail, so be sure to follow the same process to get your blog successful. This guide has everything a beginner or an experienced blogger needs to learn the best tips to improve or start a blog business.
Let’s start your journey and I hope you get all the answers to all the questions on how to start a successful blog and make money.
What is a Blog?
Whenever you do some search on Google, whatever result comes there, it is a blog.
If you have any kind of information and whether it is information in any field and you share your experience with people through your website and keep writing posts continuously, then it is called blogging.
In simple words, a blog is a kind of website. You can write down your knowledge and share that knowledge with people on the online platform, it is called blogging.
At the same time, you can share all your things, and information on the blog, and write down everything you want to tell people.
Social media is also a good platform to share your views today, but there is a kind of restriction on these platforms, if you create a blog of yours, it is completely under your control, you are the owner of it, and because of this, you can open up your opinion.
Another advantage of creating a blog is that anyone who reads whatever you share can react by writing a comment. In which a kind of relationship is formed between the reader and you.
Another thing is that when you create a blog post, the latest post is first visible to the user in all your posts.
This means that the first post that will be written at the last as if you have written a post today will be seen by the user first on your blog website and the rest of the old post will be seen after that.
Who can do blogging?
Blogging can be done by a person who is fond of writing and who knows how to be patient because you do not get instant success in blogging, but if you do good work then you definitely get success.
You have to do a little good work on the blog and work smartly and in blogging, you have to work regularly so that Google thinks that this person is updated daily, and keeping that in mind his article is slow. Gradually it starts ranking on Google and good traffic starts coming from there.
What should the blog contain?
The blog should have your own written unique content along with a copyright-free image related to your post, which I think you can create yourself.
It has a good effect on the user if you use your own language in your post. Because when you write a post in your language, you can easily share your information with the user. At the same time, there must be an option to comment at the bottom of the post after the post so that a user can write if he or she has to ask something or take some advice.
Step1: Finding a Niche and Blog Ideas
The important point to decide is what type of blog should I start and what are the most popular blog ideas. Because this is important for successful blogging.
My advice is never to jump blindly, otherwise, you will have to regret it later and the first chapter will start with the selection of a niche.
But do you know what Niche is and why it is needed for the blog? Let me explain to you.
What is a Niche and how to find Niche Ideas?
A niche is a category or a specific field.
Let’s say you want to write about machines, the internet, and social media, digital marketing, online business all of which are a part of technology fields, then your niche would be technology.
If you want to write about yoga and meditation then it is related to health then this is the Health niche. So in this way, think about which category you are interested in, and which field you like most.
Write down all your interests now, and after that, I’ll help you find the best Niche ideas.
What is a Niche Blog?
The meaning of Niche is that your area of writing is targeted at a specific audience for a specific field.
In the field of health, your blog focuses only on writing on health topics such as:
- Tips on nutrition and fitness?
- How do meditate and its types?
- How to manage your mental stress?
- What is the meaning of a healthy life? Etc.
All the above topics are part of health, so your readers will focus only on the health section and you can convert them into your daily visitors also.
Commit yourself to writing about selected topics where you can’t but add a fun topic to technical information. But there can be many topics to write about in choosing health as your niche, so why not explore any sub-category and call it a micro niche or sub-niche?
Micro niche blogs write specifically about mental health or physical health which will further reduce your audience and you can make your site high authority. Such sites are centered on larger categories to some specific smaller categories which are known as micro niche blogs.
I hope you got the basics behind choosing a profitable niche. The right selection of a niche is the crucial step for how to start a successful blog.
What is a Multi-Niche Blog?
It is such a thing, where you write down everything that comes to your mind which also has its advantages and disadvantages.
In terms of advantages, you will never face any problem in finding blog post topic ideas, but the disadvantage is that the conversion of readers into potential customers will be very low.
Also, you can generate high traffic from different sources, but writing for each category will require research time and you will never end up with article ideas.
I would advise you to find your niche first and focus on that. So, choose the best among niche or multi-niche blogs, where I recommend choosing only niche websites.
Decide what you like the most, be it fashion, fitness, entertainment, food, travel, or technology.
Now check out other blogs and find out which one is competitive and what quality information they are providing. Because many times people jump into those categories which others find attractive and after some time they get bored and leave their blogging journey.
So now I am going to put you in a section where you will start your real money-earning blog. What you’ve done so far is the most complicated thing I have ever seen and needs the most important answer to starting a successful blog.
Step2: Blogging Platform – Blogger vs WordPress
Blogger and WordPress are both content management tools, a place where you would start writing your blog.
There are two ways to do bogging, one is blogger, which is a free blogging platform, using which you can start a free blog. And second is WordPress which is a paid platform for which you have to pay for hosting.
Let us find out what both are and which is the cheapest way to start blogging.
Blogger – Cheapest Way to Start Blogging
If you are a beginner in the field of blogging and you just want to share your thoughts and experience, or you want to start a blog without losing a single penny, then this platform is for you.
Blogger is one of Google’s products, which provides you with a free domain and hosting where you can store a lot of your data.
Pros of Blogger:
- Here you will get a free domain name with a Blogspot.com extension.
- Free hosting for unlimited bandwidth, where you can store data.
- Security and performance will be fully handled by Google.
Cons of Blogger:
- You cannot optimize your blog for the best user experience.
- Blogger will not support plugins to automate the process.
- Having a custom domain like .com is an industry necessity, which is not freely available in Blogger.
I suggest using Blogger as a platform to learn blogging where you can learn to blog, but in the end, if your goal is to make a business blog from which you can earn money then you can go for the WordPress platform.
If you are looking at how to start a blog for free? Then Blogger is a good platform for you.
I also started with Blogger and was given about 3 months to learn to blog and then moved to WordPress.
So let’s first discuss what WordPress is.
WordPress – Self-Hosted Blogging Platform
WordPress is a self-hosted platform that supports multiple plugins and takes your blogging experience to the next level. It was started in 2003 as a content creator tool.
Blogger has the advantage of a free domain and free hosting, but the domain name provided by the blogger is useless as it has the extension “blogspot.com”, and people will not like to read such blogs. But WordPress doesn’t do that.
So the next big decision in WordPress will be to buy web hosting and a domain name for your website. So, I will tell you later about how to buy domain names and hosting from the best service provider company.
Here, we will focus only on WordPress as I recommend starting your blogging journey.
Must Read: Blogger vs WordPress: Which is the Best for You.
By now I hope that we are understanding well how to start a successful blog.
Step3: Choose the Best Hosting and Domain Name.
WordPress is a content management tool but it needs to store the data somewhere on the web hosting. Then whatever post or article you write in WordPress will be visible on the Internet, but how can you do this?
In short, you need hosting and a domain but why a requirement for web hosting? Web hosting is a way that gives you the bandwidth to get your space on the internet which is a basic requirement to live on the internet
In this internet world, you need a place where you can build your content and store all your data through your website. So the second question is why the domain is needed.
If someone wants to access your website, they may actually need a physical address, which we call a domain name. So in this internet world, the domain name will be the address of your website, if someone wants to read your article then that address will be required.
Many of you are confused about which web hosting to buy and I too and finally came to this point.
Before buying any hosting, make sure that how many domains you can host on one hosting account. How will the hosting account perform, How is the customer service of the hosting company, What is the maximum traffic handling capacity?
I have been doing various research on different hosting provider companies like Hostinger, Bluehost, or Site Ground. When you are a new blogger, you are not sure how much traffic you will generate or you may start another site and need unlimited bandwidth.
But I found one as my best choice as it meets all the parameters that all are looking for.
In this competitive field where everyone wants to rank on Google, therefore, website speed and performance are very necessary for every blogger. This is your technical decision and most importantly.
If you choose a cheap hosting service then it looks great from the front but as your traffic increases you will start having a lot of loading problems and your website performance will work slowly. This will affect your user experience. It will also slow down the ranking of your website.
I have looked at various review sites and watched youtube videos and checked the performance of some websites. In the end, I liked the most famous and reliable hosting which is Hostinger
This post you are reading is hosted on the Shared plan of Hostinger for more than 2 years and never faced any performance or support issues. The most recommended plan is Premium Plan which offers around 100 website hosting.
You can get around 70% off on your hosting purchase with Hostinger Hosting by using this special link. I recommend you to shop for at least 12-24 months as this 70% discount is only on your first-time purchase and renewal prices will be higher.
Must Read – How To Open a Hosting Account With Hostinger
If you are done with the purchase of a hosting account then I am sure you have WordPress installed as well. Hostinger Hosting provides you with an h-panel through which you can manage all your hosting services and WordPress as well.
Hostinger Hosting offers a free domain name if you are buying hosting for the first time. But if you have already one website, which you started on Blogger, and your domain is hosted on another domain provider company like Namecheap.
Then, locate the domain name server with Hostinger hosting account and replace GoDaddy’s DNS with your Hostinger DNS and in 24 hours your domain will be linked to the new hosting account.
It’s very easy, and if you find a single issue to join Hostinger Hosting’s 24*7 online chat service, they will solve your problem in a minute.
We just clarified with step 3 how to start a successful blog and make money. Now it’s time to get into the field, you are correct I am talking about WordPress.
Step4: Installation of WordPress Theme and Plugins
When you buy hosting with Hostinger or any other, it has a built-in feature to install WordPress in one click. So once you log in just click to log in to WordPress it will auto-set everything up for you.
I assume that WordPress has been installed successfully and you are able to access the admin panel of WordPress. So let’s go ahead and find a theme for WordPress.
Best Free and Paid Themes for WordPress
The theme is the main face of your website, it should be attractive and reader-friendly, and most importantly well optimized for mobile and desktop versions.
While selecting any theme, make sure that the theme is mobile-friendly and easy to customize. Don’t jump into the shiny stylish theme to show off more. Readers come there to get ideas and not just to see what fancy stylish look you’ve given.
WordPress has a collection of many free and paid themes and in that list, as a beginner, I would recommend going for Blocky.
If you are running out of money and you have just started then you can opt for Blocky without wasting any money. I am using the Blocky theme, which fits perfectly for all types of blogging and better reading experiences. It’s free and it’s easy to set up the home page for an engaging overview.
But if you are more inclined to opt for premium themes then listed below are three of my best picks:
Astra – Best Choice for any blogger with a slightly higher pricing plan
Ocean WP – This is one of the best themes if your aim is to create an e-shopping site.
If you have decided on one then I can assume that you are done with setting up and customizing your best WordPress theme.
Let us discuss which plugin should you use as a beginner on a WordPress site.
Best Free Plugins for WordPress Websites
The reason why we use WordPress is simple, using plugins we can automate most of our processes and create an enhanced user experience.
Plugins make your blogging experience better, there you can easily customize your content and improve security against cyber-attacks. Here is a list of 8 Popular WordPress Plugins, which I think every new blogger should use in their WordPress blog.
All are free and easy to set up, they also offer a premium plan for better service but I don’t recommend spending the money initially.
Akismet Anti-Spam – To Improve Security
This plugin should be used by every new blogger. What does this plugin do, when we have a new website, you start getting a lot of comments, they are not manual comments, they are boat comments that come automatically. There are many websites that comment on and release their backlink from the boat. Akismet Anti-Spam This plugin prevents spam attacks on your site. It blocks all those who are Spam comments or messages.
Updraft – For Free Backup
With this plugin, you can take the backup of your entire website like your entire database, Themes, plugins, and templates. In the free plan, you have to take manual backup, if you get With the premium plan, you can also back up your entire data automatically.
I think; that when you are getting back up in a free plan, why buy a premium plan? It may take at least 5 to 10 minutes to manually backup, so giving 5-10 minutes time for backup is not a big deal for you. So, Install this plugin today and back up your daily or weekly database with a single click with its free plan.
Smush – For Image Optimization
Images are a great reason to be slow-speed on our website and so you use this Smush Image optimizer plugin that optimizes all your images and Media files and converts the larger size of images to a lower size. This increases the speed of your website and does not make any difference to the quality of your website images.
Broken Link Checker – To fix 404 Error
When you create a post, and that post is the index in Google search, then if you delete or change the permalink of that post from your site, and someone user Clicks that link the user will have to show an error page of 404. Such a link is called Broken Link. Broken Link Checker This plugin shows you the broken link of your website if it detects any link to your website that you have to delete posts.
So that you can delete that link, or replace it with another new link of your post. If a user clicks on your broken link, it redirects to your Homepage or the new link you have given. At the same time, using it makes your site user experience good and has a good impression on Google. Most Popular WordPress Plugins
W3 Total Cache – For Caching Plugin
If you want a good, free caching Plugin, W3 Total Cache is the best option for you, which you can integrate with the Content delivery network (CDN). Which makes your blog website cashing free.
Rank Math SEO Plugin – For SEO
SEO is a major requirement for every blogger, it is very important to optimize your entire content well, focus your specific keyword, and Google rank your website, Rank Math this plugin is the best plugin to help you in every way for all your SEO settings. This plugin provides you with a lot of settings for free, in the plugin, you will get a lot of advanced features that you get in the premium SEO plugin.
Tinymce Advanced – For Post Editing
In WordPress, you get a pre-default editor, such as Gutenberg editor, it keeps your content data and its font style limited. If you need a good editor experience, more font style, and more advanced options and you have to best modify your post then the TinyMCE Advanced plugin is the best option for you. You will find a lot of options in this Plugin so that you can improve your post.
Google Site Kit
This will help you keep your Google Console, Google Page Speed Checker, Google Analytics, and Google AdSense all connected to your website. This will make it easier for Google to read your website and make your advertisement placement easier.
The plugins listed above, I suggest everyone should have on their new blog, and do not recommend installing unnecessary plugins. Unnecessary installation of plugins can cause performance issues with the website. To know more about different plugins I recommend you check the detailed guide
Must Read: Top 8 Most Popular WordPress Plugins
Step5: How to do Keyword Research for a Blog?
Setting up a forum and writing an article is an easy task but finding the right keywords to target in a blog is quite a complicated task. I know each individual trick to find the target keyword in a few minutes which obviously I can’t elaborate on here.
Many blogger posts are published every day but very few get relevant traffic, why? Because of targeting simple, irrelevant topics. Before keyword research, I would suggest that you have an account with the two major tools which are Google Docs and Google Sheets.
If you have an account with Google Sheets and Docs you can access them from anywhere and help you organize all the data from a single point.
How do Keyword research for Blog posts?
Finding a keyword is possible in two ways: one is by using free tools and the other is by paid ones. As a beginner, you cannot buy a paid tool that costs you more than $100 per month.
Listed below are two of the most useful tools available in the market, which will help you to search for a keyword one is Ahref and the other is SEMrush.
But what if you are willing to do keyword research using free SEO tools? Then you are the best place as I have already explained some of the hurdles of the keyword research process.
This starts with Google Keyword Planner first, this is the best of all free tools that I use every day to find the best keyword ideas for free. Google Keyword Planner is a keyword research tool and combining it with free SEO tools as Uber suggests will solve all your keyword research-related queries.
Must read: How to do keyword research using Free SEO Tools
If you will go through keyword research using two detailed guides, especially free SEO tools, you will become a master of finding less competitive keywords for free. Now you have a list of keywords, so it’s time to find the topic ideas you need to write around that keyword.
How to find the Best blog post ideas?
There are many ways to find the best blog post ideas but below are two very well-known and tested platforms with many opportunities.
Get article ideas from Quora
I thought Quora was the best platform to find article ideas. It’s a Q&A website with billions of page views per day. Go to Quora and type your root keyword in the search box. This will pop up automatic notifications for topics in Quora with your root keywords, go to one of them. Once you study the subject in-depth, you will find something for which he has already written multiple answers.
Get article ideas from Google
Go to the Google search and type your root keyword, now check the suggestions displayed in the search section and at the bottom of the page, start typing about it.
Let’s say your keyword is “Cryptocurrency”.
Google will automatically suggest multiple ideas if you find them relevant, just make a note of it otherwise hit enter and scroll down the page.
Here you go with a few more couple ideas and so on you can do a further search and exact strategy which we have already mentioned in the suggested free keyword research guide.
Must Read: Beginner’s Guide to Keyword Research for Blog Posts
If you follow the same process then you will get many ideas on what to write for the target keyword. Here’s an end to how to do keyword research on how to start a successful blog. So let me tell you how to write an article or post in WordPress.
Step6: How to write the first blog post with 100% SEO?
It is time to turn all your research, facts, and figures into reality. Make sure your SEO plugin is up and running which helps us to put an end to On-Page SEO.
Go to WordPress and follow the steps below. Here in this guide, I will briefly explain to you what is important.
- Click on Post Section – Add New and you will be taken to the new edit box section.
- Make sure the TinyMCE plug-in is installed and activated so that your WordPress editor will look like this.
- When you start writing a blog post, you have to imagine what your post should look like to the user. Below you can see how we categorize posts.
- First, enter your title in the top bar.
- Next, your headline will be H1 (Header Tag), so make it more engaging and emotional which helps you to increase the Click-through Rate (CTR).
- Next, write an interactive 3-4 paragraphs including your target keywords to give readers an idea of what they will find after reading your entire post.
- Note – Your paragraph should neither be too long nor should it be difficult to read.
- Then provide all the subtopics as H2 or H3 or consecutive tags and write or fill each subsection with the content you want to write.
- Interlink your post with your other posts and don’t forget to link to external source links as well.
- There should be a conclusion point at the end of the post where you summarize the overall blog post and your opinion about it.
- After that on the right-hand side, select your post category and tags, and add a featured image which is the Thumbnail of your post.
Must Read: How to write my very first Blog Post?
The only writing format is not enough for ranking, the important thing is search engine optimization.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the main point to get more organic traffic for your blog post, do you know what exactly SEO is and how to use it for your article?
Must Read: What is Seo and How to do Seo?
Most importantly, focus on on-page SEO which is the key factor for any article, and decide what should be the keyword density and how to establish your target keywords in the article.
Make sure your webpage URL contains your target keyword and does not exceed 50-52 characters. Do not include the date and category in the URL, as this will unnecessarily increase the length of the URL. If you have read the SEO post, then I think you have made all the necessary changes in the post.
Once you have finished writing and on-page SEO, I think you are ready to set up and publish your blog.
Step7: How to publish and Promote your post?
We have completed quality post writing and on-page search engine optimization. Now we have to publish it, so now press the publish button.
It all comes down to off-page SEO. If you have seen the guide to types of SEO, then you already know what is on-page and off-page SEO.
As part of Off-Page Seo, you should submit your website to various search engine sites such as:
- Google Webmaster
- Bing Webmaster
- FreeWebSubmission
Go and create an account in this engine and submit your blog sitemap using your website URL.
Now you have done your primary task of publishing your post and I assume that you have submitted it to various search engines and directories.
Now getting backlinks is the main factor to rank on Google, do you know what backlinks are? There are best guides on what backlinks are and how to get quality backlinks from highly authoritative sites.
So create maximum quality backlinks and you will see that the domain authority of your page will increase. Now tell me, have I answered all your questions about how to start a successful blog?
If you do this right, your page will be among Google’s top-ranking pages in a month.
How to promote a blog post?
- Tumblr
Sharing on social media can help you get more traffic as users will start liking your content, but quality articles are key.
Congratulations!! You have completed your blogging journey by learning and I hope you have published one.
So that’s the end of step 8, the final step on how to start a successful blog journey.
Now, why did you give all your effort? To make money, so how can I miss that most charming part to help you?
Let’s see how you can make money using a blog.
Step8: How to Make Money Using Blog Websites?
If you want to make money using a blog, there are many ways to do so and some of them are highlighted below.
I won’t stop this guide on how to start a successful blog until I tell you how to make money, so let’s start the process of making money.
Make money by Advertising
Advertising is considered the primary way to earn money from blog websites and placing ads on Google AdSense is the first choice of every blogger.
I would also advise you to apply for Google AdSense instead of other advertising providers if you meet the following criteria.
Make sure your website follows the AdSense guidelines as detailed below.
- Must be the latest topic, choose the trending topic to increase the chance to get approval.
- There should be at least 20 posts with 1500-2000 words.
- There are social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, etc.
- Create mandatory about us pages, such as Contact Us, and Privacy Policy.
- Website loading speed should be between 3-5 seconds.
If you are interested in my top 6 tips to get instant approval from AdSense, I suggest you check out the post below.
Must Read: Top 6 Adsense Approval Tricks
If a user clicks on those ads while reading your post then you will get revenue from those ads. Do you know how much AdSense pays? If not, check out our detailed guide.
Make Money through Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a way to promote your blog post by reviewing any other company’s products or services, and the following are two very popular ones:
- Amazon Associate Partner Program
- CJ attached
Join Amazon or CJ Affiliate’s Affiliate Partner Program and review their products on your blog as an honest opinion. Provide a link to your affiliate partner program in the blog, if a reader likes your idea and wants to buy through that link, you will get a commission for it.
If you want to make money from affiliate marketing then I recommend you start a micro-niche blog.
Must Read: Affiliate Marketing Guide for Beginners
Summary
It is always challenging to find the right place and keywords to start a blog post. But the method I have mentioned will help you answer all your questions about how to start a successful blog.
The second challenge is finding the right hosting platform, which can help you get relevant web speed and better service. On my list for beginners, Hostinger is the right choice.
If your goal is to make money or get a better user experience, make sure you start with WordPress. Share your experiences with what you learned about how to start a successful blog and make money.
If you have any queries or advice regarding this post, feel free to write in the comment box, we respect your every comment and are committed to answering your asked questions. If you think this knowledge should be shared with someone else, share it in all your groups, thank you.