In this post, you will learn how to start a blog and how to monetize it for passive income. From choosing your blog name (domain name) to monetizing, we will cover everything in between.
Ensure you select your niche carefully. A niche refers to the topic that you love to write about & people also like to read about. Pretty straightforward.
To give you a clear idea, we want to point out one important thing first: your blog needs at least six months to start earning.
Table of Contents
How to Start a Blog?
Choose a domain name for your blog
A domain name is the URL of your blog. Stick with “COM” and try to maintain all the best practices as much as possible. And make sure it’s aligned with your niche.
For inspiration, you can use lean domain search. It’s a free domain name generator tool. And it will suggest a lot of available & random domains based on your search query.
It will require brainstorming, but once you have an idea, go to any domain register company and buy it for your blog.
However, we highly suggest you buy a domain & hosting from two separate companies. Because it might cause issues if you want to transfer the domain in the future. Just keep them separate to avoid the hassle. To clarify more, do not buy a domain name and hosting from the same company.
Namecheap, GoDaddy, and Domain.com are some of the big names in the domain name registration industry. You can choose any one of them to register your domain.
The cost of a domain with a “COM” extension will cost $10 to $12.
Sign up for a hosting account
You already have a URL/Domain for your blog. Now you need a hosting account to store all of your website files & folders.
Security, speed, SSL & customer support are the most important aspects of a good hosting company.
Hosting may cost you $70 to $150 per year. You can choose from Bluehost, DreamHost, HostGator, etc.
If you want to explore all the hosting costs at a glance and compare the prices, see another post for the price comparison.
But suggest Bluehost because it’s also recommended by WordPress itself, and we found it affordable, high performing & secure. Their customer support is available 24/7.
Once you have bought your hosting, go back to your domain company and update the nameservers. To clarify, you have to replace the default nameservers with your Bluehost Nameservers or whatever hosting you have signed up for. It will make a connection between your domain & hosting.
Install WordPress on your host
Your domain & hosting have already connected, and now you have to install WordPress on your host.
WordPress is a CMS (content management system). It will make your blogging experience much simpler.
The process of installing WordPress is very simple, and you can install it with a few clicks.
Every hosting UI is different, and you will find an option to install WordPress once you are logged in to your host. But if you found it difficult, ask your hosting support to do it on your behalf.
However, once you have installed WordPress, you will be able to log in to your website by following www.your_website.com/wp-admin
Activate the required theme & plugins
Once you log in to your Dashboard (your-website.com/wp-admin), navigate to Appearance => Themes. You will see that the Twenty Twenty-One theme is already activated by default.
Now you can either use the default theme or you can also change it based on your choice.
A theme actually creates the look & feel of a website/blog. You can also use Page Builders to create the look & feel of your site.
On the other hand, the plugin adds some extra features to your website. A website can run without a single plugin, but generally, a site may need 6/10 plugins. See our plugin recommendation.
Google may take some time to find your website, but spammers will keep track of your blog from the very first day of blogging. So make sure you took the necessary steps to prevent spammers from commenting. Otherwise, they will comment everywhere, including on your “Hello World” post, and it will hurt your site from an SEO perspective.
However, we are creating a blog for passive income. And that is why we don’t want to expend too much time on the subsidiary part.
To clarify, we need to put our highest effort into content, SEO & traffic. Let’s move forward.
Get your Logo, Favicon & image for Open Graph meta tags
Your blog needs a visual identity so people can recognize it. This is why logos & Favicon are important.
You also need an image that will be used for social sharing. We recommend 2000 x 1045 Pixels for the image.
You will find the option to upload the image to your website using any SEO plugin, such as Yoast, Rank Math, etc.
For the posts & pages, you need a lot of images, SVG, icons & other graphics. Make sure you have the proper rights to use them on your website.
Few websites provide copyright-free images, icons, etc. Here is the list of the sites:
Create 3 MUST-HAVE pages: About Us, Contact Us, Privacy Policy
Not only for interacting with your visitors, but you also need these three pages to be eligible to apply for Google AdSense. It doesn’t mean that we are only creating the blog for AdSense Monetization. To clarify, you will be able to monetize your blog for other purposes such as Amazon & other Affiliate Programs, etc.
So, create these three pages and write some relevant information.
Write Blog posts in your niche
This was the moment we had been waiting for.
Your blog posts are the core of your passive income. So you have to spend most of your time on content writing. Alternatively, you can hire experts to write on your blog.
You really need to post at least 30 articles on your blog. It will give a reason for your readers to come to your blog. A large amount of content creates a higher level of credibility & trust. It is also helpful for SEO reasons and internal linking.
Try to write in detail as much as possible and cover a topic completely within your post. Generally, a standard post contains approximately 1500+ words.
Once you have completed writing a post, make sure it’s not plagiarized. You can use this free online tool to check duplicate content.
SEO, Analytics & Search Console setup
There are some useful SEO plugins that can do the heavy lifting for you. Yoast, Rank Math, All in one SEO are some good options you can choose from.
We recommend Yoast.
Connect your website with Google Analytics. It will help you to monitor your website traffic, including real-time visitors and their demographics.
Search Console allows you to submit sitemaps & see your website’s performance. It will also tell you which keywords you are ranking for and their position, impression, total clicks, etc.
Monetize your blog for passive income
We said that our purpose is to create a blog for generating passive income. So we have to monetize your blog somehow.
You can monetize your blog in various ways. Here are two popular ways to do it: 1. AdSense & 2. Affiliate Program.
A blog does not get huge traffic overnight. It requires hard work (especially for content writing) and patience.
A quick overview and expectation: Your blog will start receiving organic traffic after 6 months, and it will increase gradually. But you have to keep posting on your blog.
In most cases, we found that many bloggers lost their patience after 15 days to 1 month.
But we believe you will be able to make it because you have already read a quite long post. So we can say that you have a high level of desire. Just convert your desire into power & be patient.
