Did you ever wonder how to start writing a blog for money? When I heard how others were making a lot of easy money by using a simple blog I have to admit I became interested. So I set out to find as much information as I could about it.
To be honest my research didn’t take long before it quickly led me to get started on my own blog and I have been blogging ever since with absolutely no regrets.
The funny thing was, I was a tech in the military, even I thought it was challenging to build a web page let alone a blogging website.
Well, that quickly changed when I stopped guessing and found out the facts.
Today, I know why so many do it and wonder why there are not more.
Let’s face it if people didn’t make money blogging they wouldn’t be doing it right?
Some do it for the fun because it’s a great way to explore your own creativity and meet interesting people from all over the world.
But even for fun, they will eventually stop if they are not making money at it because after all, we all have to pay the bills.
Many bloggers end up developing a passive income on the side which eventually ends up replacing their day job.
Let’s be clear, making money blogging does take time and work and it does not happen overnight, the money part that is.
It kinda goes like this:
- you do your training and build a website
- then you research for some keywords
- and write your content
- rinse and repeat
- three months later you will start to see some action on your website
- within 3 to 6 months you will start bringing in a little money at first but then keep growing after that.
And that is it…
As you get better at writing content it will take less time to pump out an article or two a week. Yeah, just an article or two a week is all you need.
The biggest thing I love about blogging is not so much the money…
…I love the fact that I have control over my future. My results will be directly dependent upon the effort I put forth, and that’s it.
Nobody else will EVER decide my worth again. To me, that is huge because I spent most of my life having someone else pay me what they thought I was worth.
The bonus is when I get the urge to travel (which happens a LOT) I can easily take my laptop with me and blog where ever I happen to be – I get to stay as long as I want to.
It doesn’t take long to type out an article and then the rest of the day is mine to do as I please.
I will go through the simple steps so you can have a clearer understanding to help determine if blogging is something you would like to do.
Let’s start with the…
Table of Contents
Training Program
The easiest and most effective way I know of to get started online is to find a great training program. Please, don’t try to figure it out on your own, it will take you too long to see any results.
Find one that has a full training package that walks you through the process step-by-step. This part is important because you don’t want to waste your time learning the wrong procedures that only:
- wastes your time and money
- takes longer to make money
- makes you very frustrated and want to quit
The owners of the training program should be easily available when you get stuck and need questions answered.
And the community should also be actively involved in helping each other and sharing ideas.
By the end of those lessons, you will have a site up and running which is cool.
OK, that sounds good but let’s cover what you write about…
Choose Your Niche
For a lot of beginners, this seems to be a difficult task. When I first started I didn’t really understand what a niche was. According to Wikipedia, a niche market is a focused, targetable portion of a market sector on which a specific product is focused.
If that sounds complicated that’s OK because it didn’t help me either…
To me, it’s more like this…
Take some time to decide what you:
- LOVE to do,
- Love to talk about
- or even something you wish to learn about
This is really important because you will be spending a LOT of time researching, learning and writing about whatever niche you choose. And if you’re not interested in your topic then you will stop writing about it.
I am always available to help in deciding on your niche in fact I spend lots of time helping newbies to decide on a niche for them. Nobody else can decide a niche for you so it’s important to put some thought into it.
I would even ask within the community of the program if they think it would be a good niche and they will respond within minutes with some advice for you.
Be specific. Don’t just decide you love decorating, be more specific.
What kind of decorating:
- interior decorating
- cake decorating
Get even more specific than that. Let’s use cake decorating. Well, that is even pretty broad.
Let’s see if we can break that down even further:
- wedding cake decorating
- children’s birthday cake decorating
- Harry Potter-themed decorating
Do you see how a broad niche can be sub-divided into more specific sub-niches? This will help you establish yourself as an expert in your niche.
Create a Website
The first thing you will do is purchase a Domain Name. This is what your website will be called so try to find a name that is short, catchy, relevant to your niche, descriptive of your intended topic and keyword rich if possible.
Once you have purchased your domain name you will need to find a good web hosting platform. Since you are planning on a blog-based website you will want a WordPress platform suitable to your budget.
I know this all sounds daunting but any good training program walks you step-by-step through the process. I found it was pretty easy to follow along.
Write Useful/Helpful Content
Before you start writing you will want to spend some time on keyword research. That means you want to find out what terms or phrases people are actually typing into search engines related to your topic.
There are several programs to help with that. I personally use Jaaxy. It gives me information on the number of monthly searches, approximately how much competition for that keyword as well as other helpful information.
I did a review of Jaaxy which you can read here. Once you know what keywords you will be using it is time to research your topic. You want to gather enough information that you can easily write between 1000 – 1500 words on your topic. You don’t have to be a great writer, try to keep it conversational rather than textbook style. It is much more interesting to read that way.
You can add pictures, graphs, different colors of the print and whatever else you may think of to make it visually appealing, interesting and to help break up the text so it is easier on the eyes.
Get Social
You can easily learn to use social media to market your blog. You could write a quick post on Facebook linking people to your blog.
Another popular way of driving traffic is by creating a Pinterest Pin linking to your blog.
You could also make a short YouTube video linking to your site.
This helps drive traffic to your site. Once people start seeing your content they can share it which starts driving organic traffic.
The search engines like organic traffic and may reward you by sending you even more traffic.
Monetize Your Site
There are plenty of ways to monetize your site which may include:
- affiliate marketing
- shopping sites
- ads
- creating and selling your own e-books or courses
- freelancing
- coaching
- and many others
You can use any number of these options just ensure that whatever you offer remains relevant to the main topic of your blog or website.
You won’t get rich overnight but in time you may create a nice little passive income and you’ll have a lot of fun in the process.
How to Started Blogging
Blogging is not difficult if you get started with the proper training program.
From all the reviews I have completed in my opinion The best training program I found was Wealthy Affiliate because they:
- have their own hosting platform
- they host WordPress and security
- provide an excellent step-by-step training program with video and written content
- they have their own research tool
- the owners are always available to help
- the community is excellent in helping each other
- they also provide a weekly live training webinar
They also offer an opportunity to join up for free, yes it’s really for free, no gimmicks or tricks… FREE
Nope, No credit card required either…
As a free member you get:
- a free domain name
- 10 free lessons which will get your website up and running
- use of their research tool
- help from the owners
- full community support
- and access to all the extra training programs
These guys are truly out to help others get started online.
Keep in mind most of the other programs out there do not supply even half of what Wealthy Affiliate does and you are forced to buy programs at a huge cost to you, sometimes forcing you to pay easily $300 to $400 a month extra.
The free training lets you get a good idea of what blogging is about so you can decide if it’s for you without costing a dime.
Getting started with Wealthy Affiliate was literally the best decision I could have made for myself.
They walk you through the process step by step and any questions I had were answered within the hour.
The owner’s Kyle and Carson are there to answer any questions as well as a whole community of fellow entrepreneurs who will offer advice and encouragement.
Because the success rate is so high with this program you have better quality fellow entrepreneurs available to help you which also increases the response time for a reply.
Hey, don’t take my word for it go sign up for free and check it out for yourself.
Oh, there is one other thing…
… if you use the link above you will also get the first month at a HUGE discount of 59% off if you do decide to buy later.
To be honest with you I have been making money online for a few years now and I have to tell you…
… I have not come across a better program or such a positive environment anywhere else.
This is the real deal here.
– I am having fun writing simple content for my sites and am no longer tied to a 9 to 5 job.
– I now get to work when I want and where I want which is priceless to me.
I hope I have been able to help you see that it really isn’t difficult to start writing a blog for money.
The only regret I have is not starting earlier…
Thanks for dropping by, please leave your comments and questions below I will be glad to answer them for you.
Click here to learn more about the program that got me started.
All the best
Hello,
Well done on such an informative and in-depth article. It’s great that you summarise everything in the bottom too, it makes it easier for me to come to a understanding of the article when it’s articulated again at the end.
The niche selection is a particularly important section, people can easily be too broad/narrow with their niche and that can lead to trouble down the road.
Keep up the good work!
Sharon
Thank you for your warm comments Sharon I appreciate it. Yes, I thought that if I just summarise it so it’s a little clearer would help to understand the main points. It helps when I get feedback from my readers so I know know what works and don’t.
Thanks for dropping by Sharon, have yourself a great day,
Rick