If you’ve landed on this post, chances are, you’re interested in learning how start a blog and contemplating creating one of your own.
Maybe you’re an avid traveler looking to chronicle your journeys and support future trips while working remotely.
Maybe you’re a mama wanting to share your passions while earning money from home with your family. Or, hopefully, you’re an excited creative who has decided that today is the day to start something new and turn your great ideas into reality! Let me tell you this:
- If you’re on the fence about getting into the business of blogging, this guide is for you.
- If you’re searching for more quality info about the process before diving head first into content creation, this guide is for you.
- If you feel you know what to do but are scattered and unsure of where to begin, this guide is for you.
Whatever your reason for landing on this guide, I’m glad you’re here! I know from experience that getting started is the hardest part. Much like finding the motivation to get to the gym is often the hardest part of working out, the intimidation of starting a new project from scratch is often the hardest part of creating something new.
I’m here to make the process less intimidating, and give you everything you need step-by-step in order to start a successful and profitable blog.
Before we get going, for those of you who are still feeling iffy about the idea of blogging, wondering if it’s for you and whether should you start a blog in 2020, the answer is yes. Yes, yes and yes! There are so many positives that come from blogging, from finding your voice and flourishing creatively to potentially becoming an entrepreneur and mastering new skills that will benefit you in the workplace.
If you still aren’t convinced, check out these 6 reasons to start a blog in 2020 and meet me back here when you’re ready to continue.
Ok, so now that you are TOTALLY committed, it’s time to shake off the self doubt and just get started. Don’t let your ideas stay scribbles in a notebook, turn them into reality. Don’t put the process off until tomorrow, and don’t expect there to be a “better time” to get going. The time is NOW.
From the technical setup and design to a marketing plan overview and monetization, I’m here to give you hand every step of the way. Here’s a breakdown of what we’ll cover in this guide, feel free to skip ahead and jump around depending on what stage you are at!
IMPORTANT NOTE: This guide is crafted for bloggers who choose to build their site on WordPress. There are many CMS and web building/hosting platforms available, but for bloggers I believe that WP is the way to go (more on that later). If you wish to build your site on another platform, by all means! You can still follow this guide where you see fit, especially when it comes to the sections regarding marketing and monetization!
Table of Contents
jump around!
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How I Started: My Background in Blogging
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How to Start a Blog: The Initial Setup
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Blog Design & Content Creation
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Marketing
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Monetization
This guide contains affiliate links to the tried and true products and services that I currently use on my own blog. I only recommend the best of the best, and since transparency is the best policy, you can rest assured that these recommendations are genuine and come from years of experience with everything mentioned from here on out.
My background in blogging
I started my blog 8 years ago, somewhere between the beaches of Nicaragua and the Amazon rainforest.
I didn’t know anything about coding and graphic design was just as foreign of a concept to me as CTAs, CTRs, ROI, and SEO. Blogging itself was an emerging platform for content creation (which wasn’t a term thrown around by influencers because none of that existed). Social media was in it’s infancy and I wasn’t active on many platforms until years later.
The only people who read my blog were family members. I didn’t know how to market myself. I didn’t know where to find an audience.
But I persisted.
I continued to share my travel stories and photographs because it was fun.
Now, it is profitable. Now blogging is part of lucrative industry where anyone can make a living working from home (or abroad), and make a substantial income just by sharing what you are passionate about. Now I get paid to pursue my passions and travel the world sharing my experiences along the way!
When I started blogging, there were very, very limited resources available to help get me going. I created my first version of The Bohemian Diaries over on blogspot in 2010 and didn’t purchase my official self-hosted domain until 2012 when I made the very daunting move over to WordPress. It was the most nerve-wracking process.
Today is a totally different ball game. There are infinite tools available support beginners as they start a blog, and many resources to help seasoned bloggers continue growing. Everything is faster and more automated.
Whereas before I needed to become a designer learning Illustrator and Photoshop to create graphics, you can now access thousands of free templates to create the same thing (but better) in a matter of seconds. Whereas before I needed to spend hours upon hours searching for html short codes and css formatting, you can now use drag and drop web builders to build a site in a day!
All this to say, you don’t need any special skills to start a blog. You just need commitment and persistence to create a successful and profitable blog.
It took me years to get to where you can be in a day or two. Consider this: what you do with your spare time today can potentially set you up for a financially freer future. I’m excited for you!
I can’t go back and make the process easier for myself, but I can take what I’ve learned in 8 years and share with you the process, the tips and tricks, and the tools for you to become a successful blogger.
Alright already, here’s the blueprint to start a blog from zero and earn an income from home. I’m cheering you on!
How to start a blog: A blueprint for success and profitability
Choosing a Self-Hosted Domain
First things first, you’ll need a domain. Your domain should naturally reflect the title of your blog, which should naturally make sense for your niche.
Deciding on a niche and having a target audience in mind before you start a blog is one of the most important things you can do to set your blog up for success in the long run.
When you know what you want to write about and who you want to read your work, choosing a blog name and matching domain that reflects your niche will make your brand (the blog) much more cohesive and put together. (Bonus: It also will greatly improve SEO!)
If you are hoping to monetize your blog, you should also make sure there is a profitable need within in your niche.
What do people most relate to within your niche? What topics within your niche can you write about that will attract more visitors? Choosing a name that aligns with your profitable topics will improve traffic and ultimately, improve profits.
Here are a few more tips to (seriously) consider when choosing a name for your blog:
Is the domain unique and memorable?
Is the title short and sweet?
Does it speak to your niche? Does it speak to you?
Is it a name that can grow with you, the blog and the brand over the years?Are the exact matching social handles available on all of the platforms you will be active on?
Ready with your name? Great! Use the domain checker below to verify that your domain is indeed available and then you’ll be set to start a blog!
All good to go? Fabulous! Now head over to Bluehost who will set you up with a FREE domain as part of your hosting plan, which we will get to next.
Web Hosting & Server Setup
I’m sending you to Bluehost for your domain for two main reasons:
1. If you want to run a monetized blog, you will absolutely need a self-hosted domain.
Self hosting isn’t as expensive or complicated as it sounds, it simply means that you are in control of all of your website files and the servers where those files are stored (that is, where they are hosted). With self-hosting, you own those web files and have the freedom to change them. You get to decide exactly how your site is built, from the ground up.
Additionally, most of the free blogging platforms do not allow monetization on the websites that are bundled with their free domains and that come with an extension like .blogspot.com or .wordpress.com in the URL. With free hosting, you cannot make money through advertising as the company that hosts your site has control over your advertising revenues.
Furthermore, if you are not self-hosted you are essentially leasing server space and operating your site on a domain that you don’t own and that could potentially be taken down at any given moment. You lose control over the security of your blog.
When it comes to choosing a web hosting provider, Bluehost is hands down the best choice for safeguarding the security of your self-hosted domain.
2. Since starting my blog in 2012, I’ve always had exceptional customer service with Bluehost, even while traveling internationally for 8 years and contacting them from abroad. Their prices are unbeatable, and I’ve never experienced an issue with downtime or server overload interfering with my website’s performance.
You can’t beat a hosting provider that costs as little as a single cup of coffee once a month!
It’s time to choose a hosting plan that works for you so that we can get your domain live and install WordPress on your server. Head here and click “get started” to compare the different hosting packages available and choose the one that best fits your needs.
Important things to consider when choosing a hosting package:
Will you be uploading a lot of large media files, including photos and videos? If so, make sure you have lots of (or unlimited) SSD storage. For my travel blog, I need unlimited storage available on my server to accommodate the large amount of photo files I upload.
Will you eventually want to sell items on your blog or website? If so, make sure you have an SSL certificate included in the package.
I personally use the “choice plus” package as it covers domain privacy and protection (a service that hides all your contact information from the public on WHOIS listing) and comes with SiteBackup Pro which automatically backs up my site. You most likely will be just fine with one of their first two options (basic or plus) to start a blog.
Once you’ve decide on a plan, click “select” and you will be taken to a new page where you can enter your domain name and proceed to the account and payment information. Watch out for any preselected add-ons while reviewing your package information! If you don’t want the extras, just uncheck the boxes. Skip any additional domain names if you don’t need them (you probably don’t) and create an account password. After you have paid and registered, you will see this page:
Go ahead and log in with your domain name and password that you just created. We’re ready to get started with WordPress!
Install WordPress
Years ago, installing WordPress was a b*$@!, involving manual uploads to your server via FTP. Now WP is automatically installed through your control panel in a matter of clicks with Bluehost.
After you’ve logged in with your domain name and password that you created a minute ago, you will be asked to choose a theme which means that WordPress has effectively been installed. You can choose one of the basic themes or skip this step as it will most likely change later once you begin customization.
Follow any additional steps on screen until you are prompted with a “Start Building” option that looks like this:
From here you will be taken to the WordPress dashboard where we will finish setting up your blog!
Blog Design & Content Creation
And now on to the fun part—design!!
Your blog is your corner of the internet, your home on the web—make it comfy, cozy, and inviting for your readers to stop by and stay a while.
When it comes to designing your blog, remember that it should be simple enough for the visitor to engage with your content, information should be easy to read, and generally, less is more.
And while a successful blog is one that generates a devoted following, a profitable blog is one that pulls in high page views and user sessions. Essentially, to increase profits you need to increase page views. More views = more money.
You don’t need to create new content every day, you just need to keep visitors clicking around.
3 design practices to keep visitors clicking around your blog, staying longer and reading more:
1. Add links to other stories and useful articles within your posts by utilizing call-outs and special boxes that draw attention to those links.
2. Customize your menus and headers to direct readers to other pages and posts on your blog.
3. Include both a related posts section and a latest posts feed at the bottom of your posts to double the amount of clickable content available to the visitor for further reading.
DIY WEB DESIGN
You don’t have to be a professional designer to build a beautiful blog, nor do you need to hire a professional to design your site as you start a blog.
Designing a beautiful blog on WordPress is now easier than it ever has been before, and it is incredibly convenient given the plenitude of themes and plugins available to personalize your blog in a matter of minutes.
While you may have chosen a basic WordPress theme when configuring your site with Bluehost in the previous steps, I highly suggest you find a premium theme that allows for more customization. Better yet, the best tools for DIY web design are drag-and-drop web builders for WordPress like Divi and Elementor that allow you to fine tune every little detail throughout your entire site.
Here’s a preview as to what is possible when creating with the Divi theme for WordPress. Once the theme is installed, this drag and drop builder becomes accessible directly from within each post or page, allowing you to create endless possibilities with your blog designs!
I wrote at length as to why I chose Divi to build my website and blog in this post here. It’s full of additional free templates and a discount coupon so go and check it out!
Want to diy a stunning blog design?
CONTENT CREATION
A successful blog has two things going for it: consistency and a plan of action.
You don’t need to post everyday to build a better blog, you just need to focus on quality over quantity.
Populate your blog with content that is searchable and shareable. Follow SEO best practices to optimize your content so that when people are searching for information within your niche, they stumble upon your posts first.
Set a high standard for quality and people will be more willing to share your content if it solves a problem they are searching for.Set up goals and develop a sustainable workflow that allows you to repeat the process efficiently.
Post on a regular schedule and stay consistent! If you want to be your own boss, you have to act like a boss!
When it comes to determining the success of your blog, it all depends on your willingness to show up every day and put the work in!
Marketing
We’ve already established that when it comes to profitability, more page views = more money. Traffic is the lifeline of your blog and without steady traffic, you will not enjoy a steady income.
This, of course, doesn’t just go for blogging. Across all industries you can apply the same principal: the more eyes on a product or service, the higher the chances for client acquisition and sales.
As nice as it would be to put something out in the world and achieve instant success and desired results, it’s just not the way business works.
Build it and they will come? No. Build it and hustle to get people interested and engaged.
Many businesses and companies use blogging as a part of their marketing strategy, a way to establish expertise, find new customers and connect with their target audience on a deeper level. Since we are in the business of blogging, we need to focus on other marketing techniques to expand our reach and generate a loyal fanbase.
Your blog is online so the majority of your marketing efforts to gain new blog visitors should be, too. While digital marketing includes social media, email marketing, SEO and other practices to market your brand on the web, the most effective way for new bloggers to gain exposure is through social media.
The number one piece of advice I can give when it comes to promoting your blog and your work on social media is don’t spread yourself thin.
You don’t need to post all day everyday on all the social channels — it’s just not practical and aside from being overwhelming for you as a content creator, it can overwhelm your audience.
To start, pick two social media channels that fit your blog best when it comes to disseminating content and connecting with your audience.
For example, if you blog about photography or the outdoors, concentrate your social media strategy on Instagram where you can focus on connecting with your audience by sharing images from your visually rich niche. If you blog about finance, twitter may be a better platform for connecting with your audience where the platform focuses on dialogue and current events.
The second most important piece of advice I can give you regarding marketing and social media strategy is to automate, automate, automate.
SCHEDULE SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT
As soon as you hit publish on a new blog post, spend the next hour creating and scheduling social media content that will continue to promote your post for months to come.
Most social media has a life-span of 24 hours, so it’s not enough to share a link to your blog post one time on each platform and sit back waiting for traffic to pour in days, weeks or months from the time you publish.
On Facebook, you can schedule posts on a business page for up to six months in advance, for free! This is a great way to recycle content from your blog and keep pushing traffic to your newest post for up to half a year!
Other platforms, such as Instagram and Pinterest, do not allow scheduling within their apps, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible.
The solution? Third-party social media schedulers and apps (like Buffer, Hootsuite and Tailwind) that can help you schedule content, publish automatically, monitor engagement and report stats. These platforms simplify your marketing workflow and make it easier for you to understand what content you publish has the highest engagement and the highest return on your marketing efforts.
I personally use Tailwind for Pinterest and Instagram as those are the platforms I focus my efforts on, and because of the amazing tools and trainings Tailwind offers to help you grow your audience and reach as you start a blog.
Remember: If you want social media to pay off in terms of strategy for growing your blog, you can’t just show up on the platforms and share your posts, you need to be just as active and engaged as you hope your followers will be.
Think of it as the golden rule for social media: Interact with others the way you expect them to interact wth you.
After your scheduled posts go live, head over to that platform and engage with followers who are taking the time to engage with you and be present.
With all that being said, the absolute number one way to increase page views and earn money blogging is by driving traffic to your blog via Pinterest.
HOW TO INCREASE PAGE VIEWS WITH PINTEREST
Pinterest is my number one traffic referrer, and is the only social media platform where content is evergreen, meaning it lasts longer and is refueled and repeated by the platform itself.
That is huge! HUGE!
Not only does your content last longer on Pinterest, there are more active users on the platform searching for content than on any of the other social sites—85% of women on Pinterest use it for planning compared to 44% for Instagram and 53% for Facebook.
In fact, the overwhelming majority of people active on Pinterest make up 80% of the buying decisions in the U.S. and, according to SproutSocial “are harnessing the power of Pinterest to visualize their future, strategize about their goals and assist them on their purchasing journey.”
To me, this means Pinterest is less of a social tool and more of a search engine where I can drive traffic and leverage results when it comes to my content.
The best part? You can automate your strategy to spend less than one hour per week on Pinterest and achieve massive results as I do now.
I currently pull in 1.9 million monthly views on Pinterest (Feb 2020) by scheduling an entire’s month worth of content to automatically publish via Tailwind in less than an hour of work per week!
How is this possible? I pin with purpose.
Using Pinterest’s free trend tracker tool, I pin and share what people are searching for. I then tailor my blog content for the week/month to align with the current trends when they fit my niche.
I am extremely active in group boards.
I use Tailwind’s hashtag generator to optimize my pins for higher rankings in search results.
6 things you need to do to set yourself up for success on Pinterest:
1. Create a business account and enable rich pins
2. Claim your website and connect your other social media platforms
3. Create individual Pinterest boards that cover all of your blog’s various topics
4. Join group boards
5. Create click-worthy pins using Canva
6. Automate your pinning using Tailwind
Creating beautiful, click-worthy rich pins is critical to Pinterest success. With over 14 million articles pinned daily, you need to make sure your content stands out and gets noticed!
I am an Adobe fanatic through and through, but in order to pump out high volume of clickable content for Pinterest in the most efficient way, I turn to Canva.
The platform is free to use, and comes with a lot of great templates and photos to get you started. The pro plan, however, is BOMB. It comes with all of the fonts, free stock images and free templates you could ever want. It is a dream.
Try Canva Pro for free and see how it is to make social media content that converts to real blog traffic!
Monetization
It’s been said again and again, but traffic is the driving force behind your blog’s ability to generate profits and provide an income.
More traffic increases your ad earnings from display ads. It can increase your affiliate earnings and potentially increase sponsored post opportunities and ambassadorships with brands.
To successfully monetize your site when you start a blog, you need to stay active to drive those page views and unique users up and up. The best way to track your growth is to set up Google Analytics and monitor your progress month to month.
While there are many, many ways to make money from your blog (selling products, creating an e-book, offering courses, starting a podcast, etc.), I am going to focus on three of the easiest ways to get started with monetization: sponsored content, affiliate marketing, and display ads.
SPONSORED CONTENT
In my opinion, sponsored content is the most desirable way to monetize your blog and make money blogging. Sponsored post opportunities allow for you to get paid for publishing content that aligns with your niche, which as a blogger you will be doing as a regular part of content creation for your readers regardless.
This was the first (and only) way in which I monetized my site years ago before I began with affiliate marketing and playing around with display ads. At the beginning, I was earning $150-200 for a 500-word post, and now due to my experience and proven traffic (high page views) charge $500-$1,000+ per post.
For sponsored posts, you are in charge of creating content and blog posts for a brand that follows their guidelines. Some companies pay based on your CTR (the amount of clicks to the brand’s website you are able to drive), some pay per page view, and others pay a flat rate.
Here are a few platforms that connect companies with bloggers and offer sponsored post opportunities:
AFFILIATE MARKETING
Affiliate marketing has completely exploded in the last couple of years and has formed a large part of the social content that we consume daily from influencers, bloggers, and even friends!
When someone you follow on Instagram recommends a product they love and “obsess over,” encouraging you to “swipe up” to check it out, chances are they are pushing an affiliate link where they will earn a commission from the sales they make.
And those coupon codes? Affiliate marketing.
So what exactly is affiliate marketing?
Online marketing guru Neil Patel sums it pretty nicely, stating:
“Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.”
It sounds easy, but it requires quite a bit of effort. This type of marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards an affiliate for each customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.
Affiliate marketing can be the biggest driver of income to your blog, if done well. It requires a lot of upfront energy before it can take a more passive role on your blog. However, the more active you are with affiliate marketing, the more money you will make.
Here are a few affiliate networks that connect brands with connect creators and provide products or services that you can promote to earn a commission.
DISPLAY ADS
Ohh display ads. As a consumer, you love to hate ‘em. But as a content creator… you learn to (somewhat) love ‘em.
This is the most passive way to earn an income on your blog, as display ads are pretty hands off when it comes to the work involved.
The bottom line is: the more traffic you drive to your blog, the higher your returns and profits will be from display advertising.
Should you immediately monetize your blog as you are just beginning? That is up to you of course, but since it will take some time to boost your traffic, you cannot expect to earn a lot from the get go.
Many beginners apply with Google Adsense as soon as the traffic starts trickling in. I personally chose to hold off when I first started monetizing my blog as the payout that my traffic was supporting was not enough for me to compromise the ad-free space on my site and allow for ads to impede on my site’s design aesthetic.
However, display ads are everywhere these days and we are all pretty used to seeing them pop up left and right, on every scroll, and spliced into videos that I don’t think they will deter visitors from staying on your page (as was the case when they were just becoming available to bloggers).
If you are looking to monetize your blog straight out of the gate, go with Google Adsense and as soon as you are pulling more than 25,000 unique monthly sessions, apply to other advertising publishers such as Mediavine and continue to research the best paying networks as your blog continues to grow.
And that’s how you start a blog and make money online in 2020! Once your new blog is live and running, please share it with me! I would love to check it out!
Have any questions on how to start a blog? Let me know in the comments below!
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