Whenever I look back I find one of the best things I have ever done in my carrier is to quit my 9 to 5 job to learn HOW TO START A BLOG. Writing was my hobby and making an online presence was my passion.
Well, blogging has given me both. I was not sure about earning with my blog, but soon my websites gave me endless opportunities to start generating revenues from them. Revenues are such that I don’t need any desk job for my living.
At Bloggersutra.com I am penning down all my blogging experiences and the various methods which I have followed to generate online income.
But before I start further with the simple tutorial to create your own blog let me tell you hard work is not enough to reach your goal, “Success Has a Cost“.
Well, I am not asking you to pay me for this tutorial. This beginner’s guide on how to start a blog is absolutely free. If you follow our complete guide you will definitely save lots of money.
Not many people choose to blog as their carrier, but I must say this is the best thing to be done to be your own boss. If you don’t want to be a full-time blogger then you can blog in your free time to generate some additional income. Let me tell you some time your blogging income will be much more than your regular one.
Success doesn’t come so easily, it requires dedication and clear thoughts. I created this blog with the sole aim to help beginners in starting their own money-making blog from scratch and avoid the mistake I had done while learning.
I never started blogging to make money. But now that you know that your website can get you some extra penny then why not divert your extra efforts towards it. However, should have a clear goal of helping your readers and in return, your readers will pay you for your efforts.
So, if you’re ready to take a leap and learn how to start a blog, let’s get into this simple, step-by-step beginner guide.
But before we proceed further let’s first understand what is actually a blog is and why should you start it?
After doing a lot of research I finally hooked on WordPress as the best platform for starting my own blog. Almost 30% of the websites hosted over the internet are on WordPress.
The popular blogging platforms are Joomla, Drupal, Wix, and Blogger. Check out the complete list.
WordPress is a free, easy-to-manage content management system. The best thing is the availability of support and tutorials. You will find lots of freelancers and tutorials for everything that you want to start on WordPress.
I personally recommend my readers start their blogs on WordPress. If your blog is running on Blogger then you can easily migrate from Blogger to WordPress for free.
This WordPress blog tutorial is specially designed for beginners to tell them the step-by-step procedure to how to start a blog over WordPress.
If you don’t have an idea about creating your own blog then you tend to hire a WordPress designer or pay more for your WordPress hosting, themes, and plugins.
This tutorial will not only help you to start your blog but will also guide you to select the best hosting, plugins, and themes for your blog.
Most people start their blog and close it. We have pinned down the most basic and important reasons for their blog failure. So just follow the guide and avoid being part of the failed bloggers.
Getting more organic traffic and earning more revenue is not the motive. The most important is to get your readers retained on your blog and maintain their faith in you by not misguiding them.
We will also cover in detail how you should monetize your blog and generate revenue from it.
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links and at no additional cost to you, I may earn a commission. This is the best way which helps in making this ultimate guide free of charge to you. All the products and services recommended on my blog are personally used by me and I stand behind them. If you face any issues then feel free to contact and I will be happy to help you.
Before we go ahead with the tutorial, let’s understand a few important things.
What is a Blog?
A blog (shortening of “weblog”) is an online informational website where the writer or group of writers share their views on the individual subject. The blog can be dedicated to one topic or multiple topics depending on the author.
Bloggers often share or write their own experiences to get directly connected to their readers. Writing an article with own experience generally gives an upper hand to the bloggers.
Another important aspect of bloggers is the comment section of each of the articles they write. The comment section helps readers to directly get connected to the blogger and share their views. Interacting with readers through the comment section helps to create a better writer and reader relationship.
Having the trust and loyalty of your readers also opens up the door to making money from your blog, which is something I discuss later in this guide.
Why Should You Start a Blog?
Do you feel you should be a good content writer to be a good blogger? Well, it’s a big NO. You don’t have to be a great writer.
People read blog sites to get the personal experience of the writer on a particular topic. The challenges he had faced and the recommendations to achieve the same simply.
For example, if you are writing a blog on cooking then your readers will be interested in the overall experience, mistakes, and tricks to improve the dish or the varieties that can be achieved in the same dish.
To become a successful blogger all you need is passion.
You can choose to write on multiple topics as long as your ideas are original and you are genuinely interested in those topics. Reading over the internet and rewriting it in your own words will not suffice your purpose.
So what are the facts that will make blogging more interesting for you?
- Easy money from home: Whether you make blogging a hobby or a business, as long as your original ideas can attract readers and generate faith, you can earn a healthy amount from your blog. Even part-time bloggers also earn well. You just need to work a few hours a week to pen down your thoughts and generate revenue. The best thing is that a good article will keep on attracting visitors and generate revenue for you.
- Recognize yourself to the World: A blog gives you a voice that will be heard by others. You can easily share your thoughts and share them with the world. It will help you gain popularity and people will recognize you for your work.
- Improving your knowledge: When you choose to write on technical topics you always require research online or offline to give the actual facts. The more you get into the topics you will end up gaining more and more knowledge about the area of your interest.
- Create a community: Blogging is interactive. All your readers who are interested in similar topics will comment on your articles and with your regular replies to them, you actually create a community of people with similar interests. The more you work the more you will increase your community size.
In short, if you are thinking about starting a blog then there is no better time than right now.
So, How do you start a blog in simple steps and make money?
How to Start a Blog?
So, let’s learn how to start a blog in 10 min with the following simple steps.
Step 1: Selection of Blogging Platform
There are lots of blogging platforms to start your own blog. But it is always difficult to select the best one for your website.
You have to consider a few factors before selecting the right platform for your website. But before we proceed further let’s have a look at the most popular blogging platforms that can form the base of your blog.
W have already covered the list of best blogging platforms including the pros and cons of starting your blog.
Before you continue checking the list of blogging platforms I would recommend you continue with the article and get your answer.
What to Look for in Blogging Platforms?
As a beginner, the most important thing you should look for in the blogging platform is ease of setup, no coding skill, and fewer learning curves.
You should also insist on the type of blog you want to publish now or in the future. The blogging platform should have room to grow and help you integrate new things for your readers.
It should have lots of tutorials and support available online in case of trouble. There should be third parties working on the development of plugins and themes.
There should be lots of options available in the case of plugins and themes (both free and paid).
Starting off with the wrong platform can make it very difficult to switch later on.
Lastly, even if you don’t have plans to make money blogging right now, it’s smart to make sure you have the option to do so in the future.
With all that in mind, let me recommend to you the best blogging platforms for beginners.
Why WordPress is a Good Choice?
Well, WordPress has it all and I am proud to tell you that Bloggersutra is built on WordPress. You should also go through the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com before selecting the one for your blog.
I personally feel that as a beginner you should go ahead in creating your first blog with WordPress.org. It gives you complete control over your blog and also the flexibility of migrating.
You can choose from tons of free third-party plugins and themes.
You can grow your blog and add extra features like forums, an online store, and paid membership. This makes WordPress the best blogging platform to make money.
There are thousands of free themes available for WordPress. This allows you to create a beautiful website that stands apart from the crowd.
WordPress is search engine friendly. You can easily create SEO-friendly URLs, categories, and tags for your posts. Plus, they’re a good number of great SEO plugins for additional features.
Our Recommendation: WordPress.org
Step 2: Decide What to Blog About
Deciding on your blog topic is very important. You just can’t write whatever comes to your mind. You need to be focused and select a niche for your blog.
Actually, with the niche of your blog, you select the type of readers on which you want to focus. You just can’t focus on everything.
Hello, it’s not a news website!
If you are working as part of any business or organization then you can blog about the products and services related to them.
If you’re an individual then you must be more conscious in selecting your blog topic. Go ahead and write on the topics on which you can share your own experience with your readers.
Selecting the blog topic also requires some market research. Write on the topics in which the people are actually interested.
You should also consider the revenue generation model for your blog beforehand. Let it be advertisements or affiliate marketing. In case you are not looking for revenue now but of course, you might need it in the future.
When I decided to start Bloggersutra, I wanted to help beginners to start their own blogs and website without any difficulties that I had faced initially.
That is the reason that my tutorials are dedicated to starting a blog and taking it to the next level and finally making money from it.
We have created tutorials on popular website topics that can be easily created with WordPress. If you are looking to start something similar then you can take help from them.
Most blogging platform supports all these types of websites with additional installation of some external plugins and themes. But WordPress does it with ease.
After the selection of the type of website you want to create then comes the selection of a domain name.
Step 3: Select Your Blogs Name
The Foremost important thing before starting a WordPress blog is a selection of domain names. The domain is the most important thing as it reveals the content of your blog and how it will be useful to the user visiting the website.
Here are a few important things that you should consider while selecting a domain name for your blog.
- Keep it short
- Easy to remember
- Should have keywords as per the contents of your website
- Appropriate domain extensions
You can find the list of all the factors that are important for selecting a domain name from the link below.
If you have already thought of a domain name for your website then check the availability of the domain names below. Register it now before it is very late.
Step 4: Selection of Web Hosting Provider
When an appropriate domain name is selected as per your blog theme the most important thing is to select the best suitable web hosting service provider. There are many free WordPress hosting providers, but you should avoid them.
Rather than going for a free WordPress hosting provider, you must select SEO web hosting providers.
Frankly speaking, there are many SEO web hosting service providers in the market offering unlimited hosting at a very cheap price, but not all of them will suit your WordPress blog.
WordPress blog requires the installation of several plugins and themes, Selecting a service provider without knowledge will make your blog dead slow and you will curse the hosting provider.
Also Read,
- Selection of the best hosting provider for your WordPress website.
- Check the best free hosting providers for WordPress
There are many hosting providers which dedicatedly provides the package to host only WordPress website. Remember everyone wants to get more and more traffic to their websites.
Please do not select cheap hosting for initially setting up your blog and then migrating to a better hosting provider. Instead, you should buy good SEO-optimized web hosting for your blog.
I am offering the best web hosting deal to our readers at a cheap price. You must give it a try!
Most people will recommend you buy the domain name and hosting from the same service provider. Well, it is not necessary always until you get a better deal.
If you are getting a better offer separately then you must go for that. An important part of this is the interlinking of the separate domain name with the separate hosting provider. Well, it is very simple to learn how to link domain names and hosting providers by NameServer.
In my recommendation, you must try Bluehost to start your blog. Bluehost is officially recommended by WordPress and our detailed Bluehost tutorial will help you set up your WordPress blog website in a few clicks
Step 5: Installing WordPress on Your Blog
The installation of WordPress does not take much time as most of the hosting providers support 1 click installation of WordPress from their control panel.
Our step-by-step installation guide for WordPress via various platforms will help you to install WordPress on your blog if at all your hosting provider does not offer 1 click installation.
(NOTE: If you want the installation process by any other method please do leave a comment below. We will cover them in subsequent posts.)
Step 6: Selection of WordPress Theme
Great! Now you must have successfully installed WordPress by any one of the methods mentioned above depending on the hosting package. We highly recommend a fully managed Bluehost WordPress Hosting Package.
Your WordPress admin panel and website must be showing the default theme after installation. It is time to select a perfect theme for your WordPress website and our step-by-step tutorial will help you to install your WordPress theme from your WordPress admin panel.
Below you can check a few WordPress theme providers offering fully SEO-optimized WordPress themes at a discounted price. Try to get an SEO-optimized theme, as Google loves search-engine-optimized themes.
- Premium WordPress Themes By TESLA THEMES
- Premium WordPress Themes By MYTHEMESHOP
- Premium WordPress Themes By WPeka THEMES
- Premium WordPress Themes By STUDIO PRESS
- Premium WordPress Themes By GENESIS
- Premium WordPress Themes By THEMELSLE
- Premium WordPress Themes By TEMPLATE EXPRESS
Till now you must have done with the selection of your theme. Hope you must have found a suitable theme for your website from the above-mentioned links. If you are done with the selection then now it’s time for the Installation of WordPress via the admin panel or FTP.
Step 7: Installing Essential WordPress Plugins
Certain important plugins should be installed and activated after the installation of WordPress. However, the installation process of plugins is almost the same as themes but we will recommend you go through the Installation of WordPress plugins via various methods.
1. WPForms (Best WordPress Form Plugin)
The only name that comes to mind while selecting the best WordPress contact form plugin is WPForms. WPForms is the best drag-and-drop builder WordPress contact form plugin offering tons of features.
The plugin is available in free and paid versions. The free version of the plugin offers limited features, wherein the pro version is best suited for webmasters to take their blogs to the next level.
To know the complete list of features of WPForms you must read the in-depth WPForms Review. Recently, we have compared WPForms with the most popular WordPress contact form plugins and the results were amazing.
WPForms stands to be the winner and is loved by millions of webmasters. They are offering a 50% discount to Bloggersutra readers. Just click on the link below to activate the discount (no coupon code needed).
Grab WPForms Pro License with 50% off ($199/year)
We are also offering you the list of Essential & free WordPress plugins to be installed immediately after installation of WordPress and setting up your theme.
There are a few more plugins that need to install to make your WordPress blog completely secure and fully optimized before you start writing your first blog post.
- Activate the Akismet plugin(You will need the Akismet API key. This tutorial will help you get your free API key and teach you how to add it to your blog.)
- Short pixel WordPress plugin(Compresses images on your blog. Important for maintaining a fast website.)
- WP Fastest Cache plugin(This plugin is important for making your blog load faster. Make sure you don’t use any other cache plugin with this one.)
- WordPress-related post plugins (Use any of these plugins to add related posts with thumbnails after each individual post. This will help your readers to discover more content on your blog.)
- SocialWarfare WordPress plugin(These will help you to get more shares on social media.)
- PushEngage(Free WordPress plugin to make your blog web-push ready. Highly recommended .)
Congratulation Bloggers, now you are ready for setting up your first blog. Now you are ready to write your first WordPress post and start making money.
Once you start publishing your posts, now you require to safeguard your blog from spammers and hackers. To ensure your blog is completely secured you must ensure the various security tips.
Important: 50 Important WordPress Settings For Your Blog
Step 8: Writing Your First Blog Post
Now comes the fun part!
Writing & publishing your first blog post might seem scary but I’m going to guide you through the process. Checkout out the technical SEO checklist for writing your blog post and the 14 tools you should use for better blogging. Just follow the checklist and you will be able to write a full SEO WordPress blog post.
First of all login to your WordPress admin dashboard (yourdomain.com/wp-admin) and then go to Posts > Add New.
You will be presented with a screen like this-
Let me explain exactly what you are seeing here-
- Title Area: This is where you write the title of your blog post
- Add Media: This is where you can upload images/gifs/videos
- Content Area: This is where you write the main content of your post with the text formatting tools above
- Publishing: This is where you control if your post is published and live in the world or you can choose to schedule it in advance.
- Other: Choose or create a relevant category for your post or upload a featured image. If you don’t know what tags are then don’t worry about them.
Feel free to write anything you want for your first blog post as you get used to the WordPress system,
Here is an example post-
Once it is done, just click on the blue Publish button, and voila!
You have just written and published your very first blog post!
Now give yourself a pat on the back and take a break because you have just started your very first blog!
Step 9: Securing Your WordPress Website
Once you are done with the installation the most important part is to secure your WordPress blog website from hackers and spammers. Below are a few security tips that need to be implemented on your WordPress blog to make it secure.
You can also go through the various other articles to cover all security-related issues on your WordPress blog website.
- How to change WordPress default username for security
- 7 Essential WordPress security tips
- 9 steps to secure your WordPress Blog
The main aim of blogging apart from sharing your knowledge is making money from a blog. Before you start making money you need to promote your blog and improve your search engine ranking.
Step 10: Optimizing Your WordPress Website
- A DIY Guide for WordPress Blog SEO
- SEO optimizes individual posts in WordPress
- Guide to submitting your blog sitemap to the Google webmaster tool
- Procedure to submit your blog sitemap to Bing
Final Words on Starting a WordPress Blog
We have seen the step-by-step WordPress blog tutorial that will tell you how to start a WordPress blog for free. We have also covered the issues related to WordPress installation, WordPress theme installation, and WordPress plugin installation.
We have offered the best SEO web hosting providers to start your own WordPress blog website for free, and at last, this tutorial also covers the issues related to WordPress website security and a technical SEO checklist to write your fully SEO-optimized WordPress blog post.
If you would like us to cover any other topic in this tutorial then do leave a comment and we will surely add that. Our reader’s suggestions are always welcome and we require your feedback to improve our blog.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook
15 thoughts on “How to Start a Blog That Makes Money in 2023”
Hiii nice article keep going.
Thanks
I know this site offers quality based posts and extra information,
is there any other site which offers such data in quality?
You can search over the internet.
The subsequent time I learn a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as a lot as this one. I mean, I do know it was my choice to learn, but I really thought youd have something interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about one thing that you possibly can fix if you happen to werent too busy in search of attention.
Hi, i feel hat i noticed you visited my website thus i came to return the
prefer?.I’m trying to find issues to enhance my website!I
guess iits good enough to use a few of your ideas!!
very good
Hello Sir,
After reading this article, I am of the opinion that this blog post makes it easy to learn blogging and affiliate marketing. This blog post is in-depth also it is easy to understand.
Sir, I’m a bit confused about the keyword research. Can you recommend any tool for keyword research?
I think every content creator should read this article.
It’s a full value-pack article!
Thanks Again!
Hi, Thanks for your valuable comments. If you are a beginner then you can try initially with ubbsersuggest or Keyword surfer chrome plugin. But if you are looking to get into an advanced level with multiple features then you should go with SEMRush.
You can go through our in-depth SEMRush review for better decisions.
LIKE IT
Hi PRADEEP BENIWAL
I wanted to take a moment to thank you for writing such a comprehensive and informative article on how to start a blog that makes money in 2023. As someone who is interested in starting a blog, I found your article to be very helpful in understanding the steps and strategies involved in creating a successful and profitable blog.
I appreciated the detailed explanations and practical advice that you provided, as well as the specific tips and recommendations that you shared with your readers. Your article has given me a better understanding of the various aspects of blogging, from choosing a niche and creating content, to promoting the blog and monetizing it.
Overall, I found your article to be well-researched, well-written, and easy to follow. It has provided me with valuable insights and recommendations that I will definitely be taking into consideration as I embark on my own blogging journey.
Thank you again for sharing your expertise with us!
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I appreciate about the article is that it covers all the essential steps in starting a blog, including choosing a niche, selecting a blogging platform, and creating content. Also I like helpful tips on how to promote your blog, engage with your audience, and monetize your blog. Thanks!
this website is very useful.
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