Making money with blogging is one of the easiest ways you can do from home. You don’t need to leave your current job. You can work anytime and anywhere. If you have a computer with internet, you can start a free blog and make a good passive income regularly. You can do it with no investment.
What is a blog? A blog is an informational website run by an individual or a group of people. So, the niche of your personal blog can be anything you know, but helpful and exciting to other people. Any topic idea many people are looking for but not much discussed by many of other bloggers is a good niche. It will make you easier to make money.
Blogging is a powerful tool for personal expression, professional development, and community engagement in today’s digital landscape. Starting a free blog not only allows you to share your thoughts, expertise, and experiences online, but also builds a platform for cultivating your identity or brand.
The benefits are many: it enhances your writing and communication skills, develops creativity, and upgrades critical thinking. Blogging can lead to networking opportunities, as it creates connections with like-minded people. By sharing valuable insights, you, as a blogger, can establish yourself as a thought leader in the niche, attracting followers and opportunities for monetization. Ultimately, your free blog serves as a gateway to self-discovery, empowerment, and influence in the digital world.
Find a Free Hosting Provider
There are several popular free blog hosting platforms to start a blog. Each has its own pros and cons. Here are some platforms you can consider:
WordPress.com
It offers several features with themes and plugins. This platform is excellent for both beginners and experienced bloggers. However, it has some limitations on customization until you upgrade to a paid plan.
Blogger
Owned by Google, it’s easy to use and integrates well with other Google services. For example, you can insert Google AdSense ads in your blog where you can’t do with WordPress.com. Its another advantage is that you can buy a domain name for your blog from a registrar and transfer to it. But, as it is a free service, Blogger has some limited design and functionality.
Wix
Wix is a drag-and-drop website builder that allows for easy customization. It offers a free plan but with Wix branding and ads. This platform is great for those who want visually striking designs.
Weebly
Another user-friendly website builder that offers free hosting. It provides a simplified interface that is good for beginners. But it also comes with ads on the free plan.
Medium
Medium focuses on writing and storytelling. You can easily create your account and start writing blog posts immediately. It doesn’t offer a hosting service for your blog. However, if you want to write on a popular platform with a lot of traffic, Medium is a great place.
Ghost
The platform is designed for professional writers and publishers. You can upgrade to a self-hosted option, but it offers a free plan. It focuses on simplicity and speed.
Jimdo
Jimdo offers a website builder with free hosting options. This platform is good for small projects or personal blogs. It features a straightforward setup process.
Webflow
Webflow is good for users with some web design skills. You can use their free starter plan with web hosting. If you upgrade to their paid plan, you will enjoy their powerful design tools.
You can start your blog for free without any investment with any of the above blogging platforms.
Name Your Blog
Choose a memorable and relevant name for your blog. Doing so will help people remember and to find your blog easily. Here are some tips for naming your blog:
- The name should give potential readers a hint about your niche or topics you cover.
- Make it easy to spell, pronounce, and remember. Keep it short.
- You can use a related keyword for SEO benefits.
- Make it a unique name to stand out from others.
- The name should resonate with your target audience.
- Choose a name that can grow with you.
- Get suggestions from other people.
- Avoid hyphens in the name.
- Make it catchy and engaging.
- Check if it is available as a domain name.
Consider these things before deciding on a name for your blog.
Register a Domain
Suppose, you want to create you blog with Blogger with the name Healthy Diets. If so, your blog URL will be https://healthydiets.blogspot.com. If you look it unprofessional, you can register or buy a domain something like www.healthydiets.com, www.healthydiets.in, or www.healthydiets.info.
Follow these steps:
- Visit domain registration websites like GoDaddy, Namecheap, Bluehost, Hostinger, or Google Domains.
- Check if your domain name is available for any extensions like .com, .net, .org, etc. based on your niche.
- If available, follow the next step to create your account with the registrar.
- Make the payment for the number of years you choose and finalise the registration process.
- Now, connect your domain to your hosting provider by updating the DNS settings.
If connecting the domain to your hosting account is challenging to you, there are many helpful articles online. For example, if you want to connect it to a Blogger account, search in Google like this “how to set up Blogger with a custom domain”.
Choose the Right Theme and Design
Choosing the right theme and design for your blog can directly enhance user experience, engagement, and the effectiveness of your content. Follow these tips on customizing themes for any blogging platform:
- Understand the primary goal of your blog for the target audience and choose a theme that suits with the purpose.
- See if the theme supports navigation menus, social media integration, and comment sections for easy content discovery.
- Make sure the theme is responsive to different screen sizes, such as desktops, tablets, and mobile devices. This is vital for user experience and SEO.
- Choose a lightweight theme that loads quickly for visitors and improved search rankings.
- Select a theme that is flexible for customization. If so, you can change the design of your blog without coding skills.
- Ensure that it is optimized for search engines. Check if it features proper heading structures, schema markup, and fast loading.
Search in Google and read reviews of different themes. Don’t decide on a theme immediately recommended by someone before previewing it. Preview its features and designs to see how your content will look within the theme.
Decide the Niche of Your Blog
After you did those essential tasks to set up your blog, now it is time to decide on a niche. It is very important for establishing a successful online presence. Because, it enables you to target a specific audience, establish authority, and generate income.
When deciding on a niche of your blog, consider these things:
- Start with what you are interested in. So, your passion can resonate with your audience. Write a list of topics to choose the best one.
- Do you have a good background or expertise in that field? If yes, it can be a great niche.
- Will your niche attract an audience? If it is in high demand, it will be a great niche.
- Check the niche competition. Don’t work with a highly competitive niche you can’t overtake. Instead, look for a low competition niche.
How to Research and Select a Profitable Niche
Finding a profitable niche is crucial before you throw out your time and muscle on your blog. Because, if the blog is not successful, all your efforts will be in vain. So, I recommend to consult a niche research expert. See the recommended services and guides by the end of this page.
However, you can try finding a good niche for you. Check these tips and tools:
- Keyword Research: Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs to identify relevant keywords of your blog topic and assess their search volume and competition. Look for keywords of your genuine interest.
- Analyze Trends: Select some keywords of your interest from your keyword research. Use Google Trends or Exploding Topics to identify rising topics by searching with the keywords one by one. This can reveal profitable niche ideas.
- Examine Competitors: After getting some niche ideas, analyze other blogs within your potential niche. Look for their content gaps, unique angles to win over them, or weak areas you can overtake.
- Audience Engagement: Visit Reddit, Quora, and niche-specific forums to see what questions people are asking. Are there their pain points and interests you can solve better in the niche?
- Social Media Insights: Look at social media platforms to identify popular hashtags and content in your potential niche. Pay attention to their engagement levels.
- Monetization Options: See if there is any way to monetize your blog within your selected niche.
- Long-Term Viability: Look if the niche has the potential for growth and sustainability. Aim for an evergreen niche that will remain relevant over time.
If you niche meets the above criteria, decide on it. Now, you can start creating content for your blog.
Create Essential Pages
There are some essential pages to create for your blog. They serve not only to inform your visitors but also to enhance the credibility of your blog. Here’s a list of essential pages your blog needs to have:
- About Page: It Introduces who you are, what your blog is about, and what readers can expect. This page helps build a personal connection with your audience.
- Contact Page: This page helps to contact you with inquiries, feedback, or opportunities.
- Privacy Policy: Create the page to inform visitors about how you collect, use, and protect their personal data. This is particularly important for compliance with regulations such as GDPR.
- Terms and Conditions: In this page, define the rules and guidelines for using your website and services for user rights and responsibilities.
- Blog/Content Page: This is a page where visitors can easily access all your blog posts categorized or archived. Create this page for ease of navigation.
- Disclaimer: Create this page to notify visitors of any limitations regarding the advice or information provided, clarifying that your content doesn’t constitute professional advice.
- Resources/Recommended Tools: A page about tools, services, or products you recommend, often linked to affiliate programs for monetization.
Regardless of the blogging platform you choose, you need these pages to build confidence on your visitors. Update and maintain these pages as your blog evolves. If you struggle to write the pages, look at other sites and create your essential pages like them based on your blog theme.
Start Publishing Your Posts
After creating the essential pages, you can start publishing your blog posts. They can be text, images, videos, or a mix of them. Research valuable keywords within your niche to create content. But content quality is important for your visitors and search engines. Here are essential tips to create high quality content:
Tips for Writing High-Quality Content
- Know Your Audience: Write on their interests, problems, and preferences to meet their needs and expectations.
- Research Thoroughly: Research well before writing. Use credible sources and relevant data, statistics, or examples that support your story.
- Create Compelling Headlines: Write attention-grabbing headlines that accurately represent the content. This will attract them to read your posts.
- Write Engaging Introductions: Start with a hook and clearly say what they can expect from the post and why it’s worth their time.
- Use Subheadings and Bullet Points: This improves readability and helps them scan through the content easily.
- Incorporate Visuals: Use quality images, infographics, or videos to help readers understand your text better. Visuals clarify points and make more engaging.
- Write in Human Tone: Write as talking to a friend. A conversational tone makes more relatable and enjoyable to read.
- Edit and Proofread: Check for grammar mistakes, typos, and ensure the flow of your story is logical.
- Include Calls to Action (CTAs): Increase engagement on your blog post. Ask them to comment, share, or read other related articles on the blog.
- Be Authentic and Add Personal Touches: Share your personal experiences or unique story related to the topic in the content. This can build trust with your audience.
Importance of Consistency
Publish posts regularly on your blog. You should have a content plan. You should research keywords, identify topic ideas, write and publish your posts regularly. This consistency gives you many benefits, including:
- Consistency helps to build a loyal audience.
- Your consistent voice and style helps you stand out in a crowded blogging space.
- Your regular updates on your blog increase your chances of ranking higher in search results.
- Frequent posts help to increase engagement with your audience such as comments, shares, and interactions.
The Role of a Content Calendar
To be successful in your blogging journey, you should have a content calendar. It is nothing but keeping a series of content on schedule to publish regularly on your blog. So, create a content calendar. It gives you many benefits. It helps you:
- Organize your blog topics ahead of time.
- Maintain consistency and stick to a routine.
- Facilitate strategic content planning.
- Track your progress and performance and improve your strategies.
Start Earning from Your Blog
As you continue publishing on the blog and see increasing visitors, you can implement monetisation techniques. There are many ways to earn money from your blog. Some of the monetisation methods most bloggers do are:
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is promoting products or services of other companies. To make money with it, you join affiliate programs and write about their products inserting their affiliate links. You earn a commission for every sale made. To get started, read this article:
| How to make money with affiliate marketing
Display Advertising
Display ads are visual ads that appear on your blog. Advertisers pay you based on impressions (CPM) or clicks (CPC). Join ad networks such as Google AdSense or Mediavine. But before doing it, make sure your blog complies with their requirements by reading the terms and conditions of the programs.
Sponsored Posts
These posts are written by you or a brand about their product or service. You publish the sponsored posts on your blog and get some money agreed with the brands.
But you need a strong audience and authority to attract brands for this purpose. You can invite companies or sign up for platforms like SponsoredTweets, IZEA, or Upfluence for sponsored posts.
Selling Digital Products
Create digital products such as ebooks, online courses, printables, or templates and sell directly on your blog.
Identify a topic or product that would interest your audience. Integrate a store or create a landing page on your blog and connect with a payment handle like PayU to sell it.
Membership or Subscription Models
Offer premium content or exclusive benefits to paying subscribers. Build a subscription service on your blog to provide premium content and resources. You can earn money by encouraging your visitors to join the service.
There are many other ideas to make money. It is up to your research and knowledge. Research on other blogs and see how they generate revenues.
Tips for Maximizing Income
I see there are many bloggers who can’t earn much from their blogs. To earn more with blogging, it takes efforts and time. Here are some things you should understand to increase your earnings:
- Understand Your Audience: If you don’t know what they need and what types of products or services they are likely to purchase, you can’t create content that resonates them. Know what they want and implement your monetisation strategies.
- Diversify Monetisation Methods: Don’t rely on a single method. Combine methods (e.g., affiliate marketing, advertising, and selling products) to create multiple revenue streams.
- Create High-Quality Content: Publish valuable content that addresses your audience’s needs. High-quality content that solves their problems increases conversions.
- Optimize for SEO: Implement SEO best practices to drive more traffic from search engines. This increases exposure to your ads and affiliate links, leading to more earnings.
- Use Email Marketing: Build an email list to nurture relationships with your audience. You can effectively promote your products, affiliate links, or sponsored content directly to them.
- Promote Your Content: Use social media, guest blogging, and collaborations to promote your content. The greater your reach, the more potential customers you can attract.
- Test Different Strategies: Try various monetization methods and learn which one works best for you.
- Be Transparent: Disclose affiliate relationships and sponsored posts to readers. It builds trust and engage with your recommendations.
The blogging landscape is always evolving, so learn new skills and technology to stay ahead of your competitors.
Resources for further learning
You have learnt essential tips to start a free blog and generate a passive income online. But if you are serious about earning money and making a living with your blog, these tips are too basic.
Why do some bloggers make a lot of money per month while most others can’t make Rs. 1,000?
This signifies the difference of skill level among bloggers. So, learning is the best solution if you are serious about your earning goal. Read some books to learn the blogging best practices, enrol in a training course for up-to-date skills, and use software tools to facilitate your researches.
Recommended Books & Courses
| Popular blogging books on Amazon
| Popular blogging courses on Udemy
If you are looking for an expert in niche and keyword research, Click Here.
Disclosure: This article is based on our research and experience. This article contains some affiliate links. If you click on a link and buy a product, we may earn a tiny commission without increasing the price. We urge you to make a purchase as a way of supporting our work. If you already did this, thank you for the support.
Ibochouba Singh is a content writer and reviewer with a passion for writing about digital marketing and tech gadgets, including software tools and new tech gadgets. He has over 15 years of experience writing for several consumers and clients, including tech startups, marketing agencies, and software companies. He is writing many articles and reviews for many websites, including nigcworld.com, buywin.in, medium.com, and quora.com.