Do you want to know how to start a successful blog and make money? You’ve come to the right place..
The trick is getting quality engaging traffic. You can have all the visitors in the world but if they don’t do anything like sharing your articles then it’s going to make things harder.
I use The same 4 steps whenever I get ready to launch my site or blog.
It’s pretty straightforward and I work off these steps when starting out. DO NOT use free hosting, always get your own Domain & Hosting
- A good domain & hosting
- Create your site and customize it
- Fill it with Massive amounts of content ( Aim for 50 blog posts)
- Promote
Starting Your Blog With Bluehost
I highly recommend using Bluehost if for hosting upon signing up they will also give you a free domain. It is also extremely cheap. You can get your site up and hosted for less than a cup of coffee. They offer hosting services for only $2.95 A month!
Choosing Your Plan And Domain
If your only planning on making one site or blog I would recommend going with the $2.95 plan because it is the most affordable plan online! But if you want to make more than one website or blog you can always upgrade to the $5.45 option which allows you to host as many websites you want from a single Bluehost portal.
Choosing your domain name can be challenging because once you chose it you can’t change it.
If your doing a blog or are trying to build a brand remember that it doesn’t have to be a domain with your exact business name. You would be better off having A catchy domain name, something catchy preferably easy to pronounce and something that people will remember.
An example of this is the Blog/website. My website is Nightimenickels.com but My registered business is actually named Adsvantageous.
A cool free tool that will generate domain Ideas is Flame Domain, which is actually where I got the idea for this website’s name!
After you chose your plan on Bluehost they will take you to the domain section, If you already have A domain they can also transfer it for you seamlessly.
They will also give you domain ideas as well if the one you’ve thought of isn’t available.
Once you’ve done all that you’ll be asked to enter your information and payment details.
They will also try to upsell you on some additional services that aren’t really needed. The only one I would recommend having is domain privacy protection which is an $0.99 A month but will give you the security of not having to worry about people being able to find out your personal information from your website!
I don’t want to complicate A process that is quite easy, but I see a lot of people get overwhelmed with it. It is actually very easy and beginner-friendly and cheap! Blue Host is A great tool whether you’re on a budget or not!
Installing WordPress And Picking A Theme
One of the best parts about using Bluehost is they will install WordPress for you with the click of a button and if you’ve ever tried to do anything one WordPress I bet you’ve encountered some issues because it’s not very user friendly unless you’re familiar with coding.
Picking A theme is very easy within your back end and it can be changed at any time. Whether you don’t have any posts or you have hundreds you can change themes seamlessly and it will update everything at once which is AMAZING!
If you can afford it I would highly recommend getting A premium theme websites like Mythemeshop to offer Cheap themes (Around $20) that come optimized for various types of websites or blogs that can be installed into your website with A click of a button.
Now that you’ve installed your theme you will be taken to screen that says “Start Building” Click the button and you will end up here:
Now you just need to launch your site! After clicking the button above you will be taken to a page that will have you name your blog/site. Which can be changed at a later time if you decide.
That’s it! You’ve just created an amazing website and you can start blogging!
Making Money From Your Blog
Now the fun begins!
A question I get asked all of the time is how you do make money from blogging. There is a ton of ways but my favorite and in my opinion, the best option is Affiliate Marketing.
WHAT IS AFFILIATE MARKETING?
Affiliate marketing is a modern interpretation of a very old business model. Getting A commission on the sale of a product. A good example of this that a lot of people can understand in a real-life context would be a real estate agent. They introduce you to a home that their brokerage has a listing to and once they sell that home they will receive a percentage of the total cost. A multi-billion-dollar industry that their entire business model is based around affiliate marketing would be travel companies. Such as Booking.com, Kayak, Trip Advisor, or Trivago are all real-world businesses that you’ve heard of, most likely seen commercials for or a random advertisement on social media and their entire business model is affiliate marketing. They promote products that they don’t have or own, they don’t keep an inventory they merely act as a middle man and receive a commission for booking services to pre-existing businesses..Before I talk about my favorite methods of affiliate marketing I want to touch on some affiliate networks by companies that I know you’ve heard of….
1. Amazon Associates
2. Target Affiliates
3. Walmart Affiliate Program
4. Best Buy Affiliate
If you haven’t heard of at least one of these businesses then you’ve probably been living under a rock for the last decade. But why are these massive companies relevant to you?
Every single one of these businesses offers an affiliate program that will pay you a commission if you can get someone to purchase something from them through your affiliate link. This means you can create blog posts or articles doing product reviews or comparisons with your affiliate links throughout your post!
The sad part about physical products is that the commissions usually cap out at around 15% so you would have to make hundreds of sales to make a substantial amount of money. If you do chose to go that route though I would recommend doing Amazon.
They are amazing at upselling people on products that go hand in hand with what they are purchasing/have in their cart and Amazon will pay you for A percentage of everything within their cart which is a great perk!
It also doesn’t hurt that they are the leader in e-commerce and 62% of the population regularly shops on Amazon!
How To Start A Successful Blog And Make Money
I’m going to wrap it up here for this post. There are definitely more ways you can monetize from your blog or on your website but I just wanted to show you some of the big brand names that I know you’ve heard of!
Content is king, you just need to go out there and make posts of relevant things that you’re trying to promote!
See you next time!