Blogging sounds very easy to accomplish – just type in a few words, publish it, and boom! You’re done. Sadly, there are many things to consider if you want to take blogging seriously. Here, we’re going to focus on how you can build a blog to bring value to your life. So if you want to find out how you can build a blog for free and earn money with it, read on!
How To Create a Blog in 9 Steps
- Pick a niche – find your passion and write about what you know
- Decide on a blog name – think about your blog niche and target audience
- Get hosting for your site – a good hosting site will make sure your blog loads quickly and is secure
- Sign up for a free WordPress account
- Pick a theme and customize your blog
- Create social pages for promoting your blog
- Research compelling content and valuable topics to write about
- Decide on a posting schedule
- Write your content and post it
Why Create a Blog?
What’s the point of a blog if you don’t have a goal in mind? By that, I mean how will you benefit from blogging? Blogs are easy to set up, but that doesn’t guarantee it’s going to be easy for you. The purpose of blogging is to share useful content with your readers so they can learn something new or get inspired. Beyond that, there are several reasons why you should run a blog:
Earning Money on the Side
Whether you plan to create a blog for your own eCommerce business or to promote other people’s products as an affiliate, blogging can be a decent source of passive income. On average, bloggers earn around $37k per year. This is a very respectable amount and can save you a lot of money, even if you don’t plan to rely on your blog income alone.
Keep in mind though that this will ultimately depend on how you handle your blog. And that includes everything you do from the moment of creation. Don’t worry though, this blog will cover everything there is to know about setting your blog up for success.
Improving Your Writing Skills
As a writer, it’s important to always practice your craft. There’s no such thing as reaching a threshold of your potential – because as long as you keep on learning, there’s always room to grow. Blogging can be the perfect place to practice because you get plenty of feedback with comments, emails and social media shares.
Writing a blog is similar to writing an essay – so you will still need to organize your thoughts, create content and be able to write well. It’s a valuable skill that you can use for your CV, portfolio or email applications.
Knowledge Sharing & Getting Feedback
Blogging is about sharing knowledge, experience and thoughts with others in order for them to benefit from it. If you have a niche, you’ll know what people are looking for and how to help them. Depending on your goal, you can always share information about relevant topics, or even offer self-help advice.
As a blogger, you’ll get tons of comments and emails from your readers asking for more information on the subject you’re writing about. Furthermore, people will freely share their thoughts and opinions about what you’ve been writing about in order to get a better understanding of the topic.
Strengthening Your Brand
Whatever line of business you’re in and whatever it is you do, running a blog for your brand is something that will only benefit you in the long run. You can use your blog to showcase your expertise, products and services to the world. Even if you’re not part of a big company, you still have a brand.
If you run a blog that brings value to people’s lives, they will begin talking about your blog and sharing it with their friends. That gives you exposure which brings brand awareness, trust and loyalty. This growth can really help you build your brand.
Benefiting From Community
The community that exists online is huge and far-reaching. Whether you’re a writer, photographer, web designer, blogger or not – all of these people are reading your blog posts and following your social media accounts. They’re listening to what you have to say and sharing their own thoughts on the subject.
If you want to benefit from this community of fellow bloggers, you’ll need to make yourself approachable too so they can connect with you easily. This is where social media comes into play. You’ll need to create an engaging and interesting personality for your blog so people can find what they’re looking for in you.
Connecting With People
If you’ve been searching for a platform where people from all over the world can come together and share their thoughts, concerns, pain points and habits, then blogging is the way to go. From business owners to moms, there are many different types of people that are waiting to connect with you on your blog. All they want is to become a part of your community.
You’ll benefit from the feedback and support you receive from the people that follow you. If you’re just starting out, this will help you grow your blog and refine your writing skills by getting in touch with real people and their opinions.
What Do You Need To Create a Blog?
If you’re wondering what tools you need to create a blog, you’ll be glad to know that it’s not a lot. I know successful bloggers who started from absolutely nothing with the barest of necessities. The basic principle is that you need access to the internet, something you can use to write your content on and publish it.
That’s really all there is to it. In fact, with the latest advances in today’s software, you can even create, run, and earn money from a blog all from your phone. I’d be willing to bet that in your hands you already have everything you need.
Access to Internet
Access to the internet is your number one requirement. You’ll want a fast connection so you can run editing software and publishing software without it being slow, laggy or frustrating. This is crucial because the more you run your blog and the more you publish new content, the faster your server will get bogged down and it’s going to become harder for visitors to read through all of your content.
If you don’t have an internet connection, you can always hire a hosting company and get one through them.
Software to Edit and Your Blog Posts
You can use a number of different software to edit your blog posts including most decent word processing software like Microsoft Word or Google Docs. These are free, easy-to-use and great for getting your content into perfect shape before publishing it to the world.
If you’re more of a one and done kind of person, you can even write your blog content directly on your blog hosting tool such as WordPress or Wix – which are completely free by the way.
Software to Publish Your Blog Posts
Once your blog post is in the perfect shape, you’ll want to publish it for everyone to read. Again, you can use most decent word processing software for this but it’s likely that you’re going to want something specifically geared towards running a blog because there are some features that you just can’t get from the standard packages.
With blogging software, you can schedule your posts in advance so they can be automatically sent out at a specific time and day. You can add in headers, footers, graphics and social media links. Of course, this only applies if you write your blogs outside of WordPress, Wix, or whatever platform you’re using for your blog.
Time and Commitment
If you’ve never blogged in the past and are thinking about starting now, you need to be prepared for a lot more than just writing a blog post. If you’re using social media to promote your content and get traffic to your site, that’s going to take time. It might be best if you start out with a hobby blog where you’re not making money or trying to get fans.
There’s no way around it; blogging takes time and commitment. It’s not a business that you can dive in and out of whenever you want to. You’ll have to commit yourself to running your blog on a consistent schedule, posting new content and interacting with your readers. It’s something that will require you to be there for it.
How To Create a Blog for Free : Tutorial
Now that we’ve covered all the basics, it’s time to finally get started on creating your blog! Here’s how you can do it:
Step 1: Pick a Niche
The first thing you need to do when setting up your blog is to pick a niche. This is something you’ll want to research before you begin on so that you don’t accidentally create a blog about something that you find boring or uninteresting.
One of the most popular niches to start out with is fashion, especially if it’s the current style for women or men. It’s also a really good idea to look at other popular topics like housekeeping, traveling, home organization, and life hacking. There are some people who stick to niches that they know they’re passionate about and they tend to do really well with them. If you have a blog that’s devoted to LEGO toys and share photos of your favorite creations, those will probably resonate really well with your audience.
Another option is to create a blog on something completely random like strange facts or weird news stories.
The main reason why you need to pick a niche is so you can focus on providing value for that specific audience. Many would-be bloggers make the mistake of thinking that they’ll start out with a topic that speaks to everyone and then when the blog gets popular, they’ll have time to cover the more narrow topics. The sad reality is that you won’t be able to survive if you’re not offering something of value for your readers.
That said, here are a few things you should consider when choosing a niche for your blog:
Is This Topic Widely Accessible?
It’s important that you pick a niche that’s easy for people to find because if it isn’t, then no one will visit your blog and you’ll be left with nothing. You want to make sure that your niche is something that can be found on Google and other search engines. If you can’t find what you’re looking for on Google, then most likely neither will anyone else. Your niche should also be something that can be found on free or paid websites.
Does This Niche Offer a Business Opportunity?
It’s not uncommon for bloggers to have the mindset of “if no one ever reads my blog, then what’s the point?” It doesn’t have to be this way. If you pick a niche that does offer a business opportunity, you’ll create content that speaks to an audience who would actually benefit from reading about it.
Relationship Building With the Niche
It’s also important that you pick a niche that you have a relationship with. It’s not uncommon for bloggers to go after a niche they don’t personally care about because they think will help them get traffic from search engines. If you create content focusing on a topic that’s not interesting to you and is used for SEO purposes, what’s the point? It would be like someone creating a blog about how to make money in traffic rather than how to make money through affiliate marketing or through selling products online.
As a rule of thumb, if you don’t find your niche interesting then neither will your audience. Most won’t be able to relate or find value in what you’re offering and you’ll lose their interest completely.
Step 2: Decide on a Blog Name
This is the part that most people seem to get hung up on. You’ll probably want to pick a name that’s relevant but still has a bit of personality. You don’t have to have a catch phrase or anything like this but you should pick something that’s indicative of your style.
A common trend for new bloggers is to go after ideas related to their life or experiences. If you already own a business and want to create a blog for it, then this step may be much easier for you.
However, if you’re starting from scratch, then you’ll have to think about what the blog will be like. If it’s going to be an educational blog, then it could have a name like something related to education or something that relates to the subject.
Here are a few tips for choosing a name for your blog:
State the obvious
Think about what the blog will be about and come up with something that any person could guess what it’s about. Try to make the name something that’s easy to remember. You want readers to be able to find your site quickly so that they can get the info they need.
A good example of this would be to look at the website Copyblogger. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a blog that offers tips on copywriting and marketing. The name itself is pretty descriptive but it also tells potential readers that they’ll find valuable information in their blog.
Keep it simple
If you’re going to be creating a site for your business or organization, then keep the name short and direct. You don’t have to have the corporate sounding name like “Our Awesome Company”. Leave that kind of stuff for big companies. You’ll want to pick something that speaks to the audience you’re trying to attract.
One name I really like is HubSpot because it’s descriptive and it gets right to the point. The blog itself is about internet marketing and it’s more focused on inbound marketing. A lot of people will tell you that inbound marketing is better than outbound and HubSpot provides tons of tips on how to do this.
Use Punny Names
If you’ve wondered why so many people have a blog with a name like “The Manly Man”, then you might be interested to hear that there’s actually a method to this madness. Some people think the more masculine sounding blogs do better in terms of getting traffic. This is because guys tend to brag about how manly they are and when their friends read it, they’ll want to check out that kind of blog.
The funny thing is that this isn’t something I can personally stand behind. It’s hard to believe something like that would even matter but if we take a look at the data, we’ll see that there’s actually some validity to this method.
Make It Memorable
If you’re having trouble coming up with something, then try thinking of a catchy phrase that relates to what your blog is going to be about. It can be anything really but just make sure that it’s memorable and easy for someone to say. The best option is something short and relatively easy for people to say or spell.
The name shouldn’t be something super long or have lots of special characters in them. You want it to be easy for people to remember and as a result, share.
Use Your Name
If you’re trying to build your professional brand, then you might want to consider using your name as the blog name. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be the exact same name. You could pick something like “The Chris Keagle Blog”. I can find out who Chris Keagle is on YouTube and figure out that she’s a blogger by her name alone.
If you’re trying to build a brand for other purposes, then you could go with something like “My Blog” or something to that effect. You don’t have to use your own name or anything but you should have a little bit of personality.
Before we move on, it’s important to remember that you should check if the blog name you choose is still available as a domain. Otherwise, you may want to make some adjustments.
Step 3: Get Hosting for Your Site
If you’re serious about building a blog, then you’ll want to make sure you have it hosted properly. This is something that most people don’t think about until it’s too late. After all, who wants to spend money when they could be using that money to promote their own site?
I won’t go into the nitty gritty details of hosting because there are lots of articles on the internet that do this. Even if I did have time in this guide, I would probably just link to another article on the topic.
For the purposes of this guide, I’m going to assume that you have a budget you’re willing to spend and that you’re trying to build a blog with a decent amount of traffic. This is not something that can be done overnight but it’s something that starts with a solid foundation.
To start things off properly, I recommend hosting your content on WordPress. It’s powerful and highly popular. Not to mention, it costs less than $20 a month.
If you’ve never used WordPress before, then the first thing you’ll want to do is head over to their website.
Step 4: Sign Up for a Free WordPress Account
As I mentioned, it’s important to start off on the right foot so you’ll be able to properly set up your blog. That means creating a free WordPress account.
The first thing you want to do is click over to the sign up page and fill out all of the information that they ask for. This includes your email address so make sure it’s something that you’d be willing to use for the rest of this guide. Once you’ve done that, select one of the plans they offer and click next.
It’s completely fine to choose the free plan by the way! In fact, that’s a great idea if you’re just getting started on your blog. The paid plans cost about $4.95 a month and there’s really nothing wrong with the free plan. That’s how most people start out anyways!
Once you’ve selected the free plan, then you’ll need to verify your email address. Go ahead and click on the link they provide you with so that they can send you your password. Once you’ve done that, go ahead and click on “Log In” so that we can continue this process.
Step 5: Pick a Theme and Customize Your Blog
There are tons of customizable themes to choose from on WordPress and Wix . The only thing you really need to know is that you can create custom menus and links. It’s easy to do and not something that takes up a lot of your time.
You’ll want to choose a free theme from WordPress. I know it’s tempting because you’ve probably heard that there are lots of themes that cost money but I would recommend choosing one with a layout that highlights exactly how you want your audience to feel when they come across your blog.
There are plenty of themes that do this, but I personally like to go for the “blank canvas” option. This way, you can design your blog to suit what you’re trying to do.
The whole idea with choosing a free theme is that it’s easier to build on something that’s already there. You can change things around as much as you want but you won’t have to worry about spending any money or learning how to code your own website.
Step 6: Create Social Pages for Promoting Your Blog
Social media is a big deal and you’re not going to get very far as a blogger if you don’t have a social presence. The goal here is to make it easy for people to find your blog, follow you on other websites, and share your content with the world.
Head over to Google+ and create an account for yourself. This will give you the opportunity to share links on that website in the future so that’s important.
After that, go ahead and set up your Twitter account. There are plenty of ways to get more followers in the future but this is a good starting point.
Now, head over to Facebook and create an account (if you haven’t already). You’ll want to do the same thing with Facebook as you did on Google+ . While you’re setting up your Facebook page, it’s also a good idea to connect it up with your other social media accounts so that people can find you easily.
Step 7: Research Compelling Content and Valuable Topics To Write About
This is a crucial step if you’re going to get any meaningful traffic from your blog. Once you’ve got your blog setup and social media pages all set up, go ahead and start looking at trending content online. Keep an eye out for blog posts that are being shared around the internet. Most importantly, make sure that you’re sharing great content to your followers.
Quality over quantity is a pretty important point to remember when you’re trying to build an audience. If people start wondering why your articles aren’t getting any views from Google, then people will start losing interest in what you’re doing.
Step 8: Decide on a Posting Schedule
Of course, you’re not going to be able to post every day. You’ll need some time to put together quality content on your own and you won’t always have the opportunity to post new articles or podcasts. That’s why it’s important to decide on a posting schedule before you get started.
Make sure that this schedule matches up with the amount of time you’ll need for creating content. If you’re going to be spending 30 minutes a day writing, then try to space these out. The last thing you want is for people to see your latest blog post from December 30th!
Some bloggers like to write up their articles and schedule them in advance so that they can promote them on social media later on. This is a great idea if you want people to become familiar with what you’re doing but it’s also okay if you don’t have the time for this step.
Step 9: Write Your Content and Post It
Now that you’ve got your schedule set up, it’s finally time to start writing your content! Go ahead and get started with a blog post.
As far as actually writing a blog post goes, it’s important to remember that you are speaking to an audience. If you are having trouble thinking of something to write about in the first place, then try brainstorming for 10-15 minutes and jotting down some ideas on paper. You can even do this for later blog posts if you find that writing something great takes too much time, or if you have some other important content that’s going to take your audience by surprise.
Once you’ve got an idea in mind, it’s finally time to get your video camera and start filming!
How To Create a Blog for Free and Make Money
If you’re just starting out, it’s important to keep your blogging costs as low as possible. You don’t need to spend a lot of money on this part of the process and I’ll show you exactly how you can make money from a blog you created for free!
1. Running Ads
Google is going to be your friend for the most part when it comes to making some extra cash on a blog. In fact, you may already have an AdSense account. If not, then you should definitely sign up for one and start making some money from ads.
Google is going to let you put ads on your site and they’ll pay you from their advertising accounts based on how many people click on those links.
2. Sharing Affiliate Links
Another way to make money from your blog is to share affiliate links. You can actually do this with just about any link but it’s a little more complicated than it seems.
A good example of how this works in practice is the Amazon Associates program. Amazon allows you to put special links on your website that help people find the products they want and get them shipped right to their house. The great thing about this program is that you’ll make a set percentage of money on each item that someone buys.
3. Selling Products
People want to buy stuff and they’re going to come to your blog to do it. You can make money just by selling products directly on your blog. The two most popular ones are affiliate links and links that lead people to products you actually manage.
4. Writing and Publishing Books
You can actually sell e-books and print books directly on your blog. And this works especially well if you have a large following! Even if you’re just starting out, e-book sales are a great way to make some money.
5. Selling Digital Products
If you want to get people’s attention, then you might want to create a unique digital product that they can actually use and enjoy. Digital products like digital music, digital pictures, digital artwork.
6. Sell Your Own Products/Services
This is a great way to make money if you’re trying to promote your own products or services. You’ll be able to reuse a lot of the content that your audience is already used to and you’ll have the chance to sell directly from your blog.
7. Promoting Businesses
If you get some honest traffic from your blog, then you can start looking for companies that want to pay you to promote their products.
This is actually how I make some of my extra cash, and it’s a great way to help people come across and promote a business or product.
8. Find Sponsors
If you want to get really ambitious and plan out a year of blogging, then the best thing that you can do is find sponsors for your blog. You could sign a contract with them promising to create great content on a regular basis in exchange for the money that they are willing to pay you. And now you can make money from your blog!
9. Create a Membership Blog
One way you can make money as a blogger is by setting up an exclusive-access site. This way, viewers will need to pay for your blog content or subscribe to it before they can view it.
10. Promote Your Services
If you really know what you’re doing, then you might even be able to make money from your blog by promoting your business or service. People will be able to contact you for specific results and your services will be able to make money for you, too.
Conclusion: How to Create a Blog Easily?
I hope that this guide helped you understand how to start your own blog and how to make money from it. I also hope that these tips were useful and that you’ll use them when starting out. If you found this post helpful, then please share it on social media with your friends! And if you want advice on creating a blog and making money from it, then please leave a comment below.
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