How to start a Blog in 2024
Ready to launch or elevate your blog? In this guide, I’ll walk you through the 5 easy steps to start a profitable blog without any advanced computer skills.
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Learn more. Here, you will find my top recommendations, including hosting with Bluehost and other essential resources that I have personally tested and use regularly.
Welcome to my blogging guide!
This beginner’s guide is going to cover every aspect of starting a profitable blog.
This includes everything from choosing your niche and keyword research, to launching your website, creating content, and monetizing your blog.
After completing this guide, you will have a fully finished blog, a keyword strategy, and monetization plan ready to go.
I love blogging because I get to share my writing and ideas with the world, but also because it’s one of the best ways to make money online in 2024.
So this guide will cover both how to set up your website, and also a long term plan to make you money.
Let’s get into it!
The 5 Steps to Start a Profitable Blog:
- Get your blog online
- Your Niche and Keyword Strategy
- Design and Launch your Blog
- Create your Blog Content
- Monetize Your Blog
Step 1: Get Your Blog Online.
The first step to starting a blog is to choose your domain name and get your website up and running.
This important decision of what your website name should be is actually a lot easier than you might think.
I always recommend that you create a personal brand website at yourname.com.
Why would you do that?
Instead of trying to create the perfect “niche” domain name (that might not work), you should build a personal brand website.
Here’s why you should choose a broad domain name based on your name:
- It’s the most pivot able. Your interests will change over time, so you should have a broad domain name where if one content strategy doesn’t work, you can change it. You need the freedom to pivot if your content strategy isn’t working.
- It’s the most scalable.
- No blogging effort goes to waste. YOU are the only niche that you won’t quit.
- People trust and buy from people. Niche sites are dying – base it on YOU.
Or if you have a brilliant idea for a domain name, you can go with that too. I just think it’s important to secure your own name dot com or the best variation of your name today.
So don’t overthink it, just take action!
First, to get your blog started, you need web hosting.
It’s a super easy setup and you can put in your website name (domain name) and checkout, then start editing your website immediately.
The best platform by FAR to build your blog on is WordPress, and the best host you need to get started is Bluehost.
They have an insane promotion going on and you can get started for just $ 1.99/Month
I personally use Bluehost and recommend them for new bloggers because:
- They are the most affordable option.
- They have a 30-day money back guarantee.
- They’ve been in the space since 2005 and host over 2 million blogs (they know what they’re doing).
- They have 24/7 support.
Make sure to use any Bluehost Link in this guide and you will get the $1.99 fall sale price.
Note: To get the 75% off, you HAVE TO click a link in this guide that Bluehost gave me or else you’ll get the standard $7.99/month pricing. So make sure to jump on this deal!
Bluehost signup rates are as low as $1.99/m
Other than the low signup cost, other benefits include;
- Free domain registration for the first year
- Ease of Use – Reliability
- Technology, best in the industry
- Free Site Builder
- 24/7, Technical Support available via Phone, Chat, or Ticket.
- Dedicated Hosting
- VPS Hosting
Step 2: Your Niche and Keyword Strategy
Congratulations! You’ve taken the first step in starting your blog.
Now that that’s taken care of, the next step is to figure out what the heck you’re actually gonna blog about.
Picking a niche is the #1 most common question I get from new bloggers.
There are so many different things you can blog about: finance, travel, crypto, food, underwater basket weaving – the list is endless lol.
So here’s how to narrow it down…
- You need to go after blog niches that you can see yourself writing about for a long period of time – think 1-2 years.
- You need to think like a teacher – bloggers teach people in different niches, which opens up lots of monetization opportunities.
- You need to have a keyword strategy.
First, every blog post should target a keyword that people search for on Google.
That way you can get a lot of traffic to your blog.
And as a blogger, the good news is that there are only two types of keywords you’ll ever need to target:
Informational and transactional.
Informational keywords are people searching for how to do things: how to start a blog (like you may have done here), how to build a shed, how to play the guitar, how to knit, how to fish, etc.
This is the bulk of what blogs are – helpful informational articles.
Second is transactional keywords.
These signify “buyer intent” and are for people looking for products to buy so that you as the blogger can compare them.
For example: best travel credit cards, best fishing kayaks, best AI writing software, best gaming laptops under $1,000, etc.
These are the articles that will make you the most money from affiliate revenue
Taking a step back, you need to remember that you can monetize your blog in one of 5 main ways:
- Affiliate marketing: linking to products that you recommend and making commissions on every sale.
- Ads: you can add banner ads to your blog to make money.
- Sponsors: over time, brands will pay you for sponsored content.
- Services (the fast track): get a few consulting clients and offer your own services for thousands a month (this is how I first started).
- Selling your own product (the long game): This is typically the most lucrative, as you get to sell your own informational product, like a course. This requires you build your email list up over time with a free lead magnet, and then eventually sell a course or community.
We’ll get to all of these, but it’s important to understand this first before we start your content strategy.
So how do we actually choose the perfect niche and keyword strategy?
Step 3: Designing and Launching your Blog
When I started my blog, I used a random theme that I picked and it looked horrible.
As a perfectionist, I’ve learned one big thing about blogging: don’t be a perfectionist on your blog’s design.
Remember, a blog is a living, breathing asset and can always be updated and made to look nicer in the future.
Oftentimes, we worry that we will be judged for what our blogs look like, and I promise you, no one cares.
And today it’s actually easier than ever with AI.
So here’s what you need to do…
Go into your WordPress dashboard and click on Appearance – Themes. Choose Astra to use for your appearance and activate it. I personally use Astra and the outcome is great.
That’s literally it. Your site is now designed and it’s time to push it live.
Here’s how to get your blog live:
- Go to Pages and edit your Home Page text and About Page text.
- Go to Settings – Reading and uncheck “Discourage search engines from indexing this site.
- Install Google Analytics with a simple plugin.
- Set up Google Search Console to tell Google that your blog exists.
Congrats, you now have a fully-functioning website and a keyword strategy!
Speaking of which, let’s get to how to actually write your blog content…
Step 4: Creating Your Blog Content
Here’s how to write and edit profitable blog content:
- Fill in the main headings with content.
- Add personal stories and your own experience into the content.
- Optimize for your target keyword: add it into the URL, the title, and one H2 heading, and a few times throughout the content. Don’t overdo it or overthink it.
- Add some relevant internal links to other articles of yours (once you have more).
- Click publish.
Blogging today is more about assembling monetizable content and adding our own personal touches.
It’s not about writing every single word and spending 2 weeks on a single article.
With the rise of AI, we can publish more, and make money faster.
Speaking of which, let’s get to the fun part: monetizing your blog.
Step 5: Monetizing Your Blog
As discussed earlier, there are 5 main ways to monetize your blog:
- Affiliate marketing
- Ads
- Sponsors
- Selling services
- Selling your own products
So what do we do when we’re first starting out?
Well, there’s an order you should go in, and it starts with affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is the first revenue stream to go after because it can dictate some of your initial content strategy and it makes a lot more money than ads do alone.
Within your keyword strategy, make sure that about 20% of the articles you write are the transactional ones in your niche – “best” + products.
So, you start with affiliate marketing and ads first, then build up your email list and sell your own product over the course of time.
Make sure you keep your blog’s content in one main niche and that every article is helpful to that audience.
For example, if you want to blog about golf, you’ll have two types of articles: how to’s (how to swing, how to chip, how to putt, etc.) and “best” product articles (best drivers, irons, putters, rangefinders, etc.)
Or if you want to blog about fishing it’s the same thing. How-to articles and the best products like rods, reels, rod and reel combos, etc.
It’s really that simple.
Overall, blog monetization comes down to two simple things: creating consistent content and not quitting.
Summing It All Up.
I hope you enjoyed this free guide on how to start a blog for beginners.
It’s really just about taking action and getting started. Again, using your personal brand as a domain name is the best way to start. So make sure to secure your name or the best variation of your name today.
If you’re interested in starting your own blog in 2024, the first step is to get this great offer of Bluehost for $1.99/Month.
Great post!