How to Start a Blog and Earn Money Blogging

*This article contains affiliate links.

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If you’ve read a few online business and “make money from home” articles, chances are they will suggest starting your own website or blog. While most people make one as a hobby, others start their own websites as a way to earn money. Do you want to start your own blog? Here’s a short guide to help you do that, AND do it well!

By the way, you don’t need to be tech-savvy to create a blog. Just keep reading this guide here to learn more! (By the way, I’ll use the terms “blog” and “website” interchangeably in this article.)

How to start a blog:

Step 1: Choose a blogging platform

First of all, you need to choose a blogging platform, the websites where you’ll start your blog. There are over 400 million blogs in the world, and a lot of them are hosted on free blogging platforms. If you want to start blogging, these are some of the best websites for beginners.

• WordPress – This is one of the best places to start, especially if you want to make your blog a self-hosted business later on.
• Blogger – One of the oldest and most beginner-friendly blogging platforms. This one allows ads.
• Tumblr – This feels similar to Twitter and it’s great if you love posting pictures and images.
• LiveJournal – One of the older blog websites so it’s pretty solid.
• Weebly – If you want a customizable website, this one allows you to drag and drop text, images, or other elements so you can get your blog to look just the way you want to.

There are many more websites but those are the ones I recommend for now. You can click those links above and see and choose which blogging platform you want to use. Take note though that most of them will not allow ads so monetization might be difficult. If you’re still not sure, just search for “best blog platforms” to read what others recommend. Personally, I recommend wordpress if you want to build a professional self-hosted blog later on. On the other hand, if you want to keep using a free website but still be able to earn money from it, use blogger instead.

Step 2: Register

Almost all blogging platforms will need an email address and some, like blogger, can connect to your Google ID so a Gmail account will help a lot. You can also use that account for AdWords’ keyword planner tool, AdSense, webmaster tools, and a lot of others so I really recommend it. Read this article later if you want to know what those are. (Note: If you use an Android smartphone, you most likely already have a Google account from Google Play Store.)

Once you have chosen a blogging platform, all you have to do is click on the sign-up buttons on their homepage! It’ll usually be on the top-right part of the website near the sign-in button (or front and center if you’re on their homepage). Take note that the signup button is different for each website. Some will say “Get started”, “Create your blog”, “Start a blog”, or something else.

Click those and register your information: username, password (memorize your password and never write it down!), what website name you want to use, and more.

BE CAREFUL: Very often, you CANNOT change your website or blog’s name after registration, so think carefully on what website name you want to use because you’ll be using it for a long time.

Step 3: Confirm your account and start blogging!

After registering, you will usually need to confirm the account on your email address. They will usually send an email with a confirmation link, and you will need to click that to activate your blog account. You might need to wait a few minutes and check your email’s “spam” or “junk” folder just in case. After confirming your account, you can then login and start setting up your blog. Choose a good theme, upload pictures, make categories and menus, etc. You don’t need to change everything at once, you can learn and improve your blog as you go along.

WARNING: NEVER use pictures you just downloaded off the internet for your blog, even pictures you just “found on Google”. That’s because other people might own the copyright for those pictures and if you use them without permission, you CAN get sued for thousands of dollars. Use pictures you’ve taken yourself, or use CC0 or “creative commons license” pictures instead, like those from Pixabay.com.

Step-by-step summary:

1. Think of your blog/website name.
2. Choose a blogging platform and register.
3. Confirm the account on your email if necessary.
4. Login to your blog and start customizing.
5. Start blogging!

Do you want to blog professionally?

Blogging professionally is when you want to build your own brand or business on your blog or you want to earn money from it. While you can put ads of some free blogging platforms like Blogger, if you want to blog seriously I really suggest that you pay for a self-hosted WordPress website.

Why wordpress? That’s because it’s one of the biggest and best open-source content management system (CMS) out there, and you can customize it with all sorts of free and paid plugins online. By the way, if you don’t know what plugins are just imagine smartphone “apps” for your website and you’ll get a good idea of what they are. Some plugin examples include antivirus plugins, picture sliders, newsletter collectors, popup managers, social media share buttons, search engine optimization (SEO) plugins, and many more.

Now why should you use a self-hosted website? First, you get to choose your own domain name and “<yourwebsitename>.com” looks much more professional than “<yourwebsitename>.blogspot.com” or “<yourwebsitename>.wordpress.com”. Second, you are free to customize and monetize your blog any way you want. Again, some free blog platforms can moderate, edit or delete your content, and a lot of them don’t allow monetization (you earning money from your blog).

Requirements for a self-hosted website:

• Online payment method like a VISA credit/*debit card or a Paypal account.
• An email address for registration.
• A hosting service – a server dedicated to keeping your website/blog online.
• A domain name – www.(yourwebsite’sname).com. [Pro tip: Use a .COM extension. Other ones like .net, .org, etc. aren’t as easy to remember.]
• WordPress.org – the software you can customize with themes and plugins.

*(Note: You can use the GCash Debit Card here. Read our GCash guide here!)

First off, you’ll need a hosting service, and some of the best ones are BlueHost, Hostgator, DreamHost, Siteground, and InMotion Hosting (according to WpBeginner). Another host a friend of mine uses is NameCheap and it’s quite affordable. Hosting services can come bundled with domain names so while you’ll need to pay for both, you can do it all on one website.

By the way, this is our affiliate link to Namecheap and you can click it to check their offers:

*Note: I’ve heard there are FREE web hosting services nowadays. I’m not sure how good their servers or their services are, but they are worth checking out. One service I’ve heard of is “InfinityFree.net”. In any case, just search for some free web hosting on Google and you might find some good ones.

After paying for a hosting service, it’s time to setup WordPress.

While some hosts need you to install wordpress manually, some hosting companies have automatic installers that can do it for you in a few clicks. Make sure to read the hosting services’ email carefully as they often contain guides for new users! They will usually also contain administrators’ login information. For example, the host I use has an automated wordpress installer so all I needed to do was click the install button in the administrator dashboard and it automatically created my wordpress website. After that, all I needed to do was login and customize the website by changing themes, adding menus, installing plugins, and more.

Another reason why I recommend wordpress is that there are thousands of users and guides out there on the internet. If you need help with something like how to create menus, customize themes, or anything else, you can simply search for a guide or solution on Google.

If the host you use does not have an automatic installer, it’s easy enough to install wordpress  if you follow online guides like this one. Here’s a video version of the “Five-minute WordPress Installation” tutorial.

While paying for a hosting service, a domain name, and other add-ons like SSL, spam protection, premium WordPress themes and plugins might get a little expensive, they are certainly worth it especially if you want to start blogging seriously.

By the way, make sure you read my 20 Best Blogging Tools and Plugins for WordPress guide here! Those will certainly help you once you start. To install plugins, login to your blog’s administrator page and on the dashboard, look for “plugins” and click on “Add New”. You can search for some good plugins from that page. You don’t need to use MY recommended plugins by the way as you can search online for plugins that YOU want to use.

In short:

1. Decide on a blog or website name.
2. Choose a hosting service and create an account (make sure to check their prices!).
3. Confirm the account on your email if necessary.
4. Login to the hosting service to pay for the hosting and domain name (and other add-ons like SSL, spam protection, etc.).
5. Install wordpress.
6. Login to your blog and start customizing.
7. Start blogging!

Monetization: How to earn money from your blog

1. Ad Networks

This is one of the most common ways of earning money from a blog and, while it is the most popular, it also has the lowest income potential. There are usually two main ways to earn money from ad networks that you use in your blog:

• Cost-per-click (CPC): You earn a little money whenever someone clicks an ad on your website.
• Cost-per-mille (CPM): You earn a little money whenever a thousand viewers see an ad on your website.

Unless you get thousands and thousands of viewers, it’s unlikely that you’ll earn enough from it to replace your job. It can also be difficult to get your ad network account approved especially if your blog is still new.

There are many ad networks that you can join but the most popular one so far is Google AdSense. We use that ad network here on YourWealthyMind and you can read our guide on how to get your AdSense account approved here.

Another popular ad network you can use is PropellerAds and you can check them out here.

Some things you might want to know:

• Read the ad networks’ rules carefully. If you write about potentially illegal things (guns, drugs, crimes, etc.), they can suspend your account and cancel payments.
• Never click ads on your own website. Networks can permanently suspend your account for that.

2. Affiliate Marketing

Have you ever gone into sales? If you join a company’s sales force, you likely earn a small commission whenever you sell some of that company’s products. The more products you sell, the more you earn. You can do the same and sell products on your blog. I’m an Amazon affiliate by the way and here are a couple of examples of affiliate links to blogging books I recommend (one of them is a free eBook by the way). 

This is a good way to earn depending on the kind blog you want to make. For example, if you started a cooking blog, you can write articles and product reviews with affiliate links to kitchen appliances, cookbooks, kitchen knives, or other cooking stuff. If you own a sports blog, you can try selling sports gear and sportswear there. It all depends on how you want to use it, so just try it out when you can. It’s also usually easier to become an affiliate compared to getting an ad network account approved so this is definitely worth checking out.

3. Sponsored Content

This is another popular way blogs earn money. When your blog reaches a certain age and quality, it will start ranking higher on search engines like Google. When that happens, links from your blog (called backlinks) will hold more value and any website you link to will start ranking higher on search engines like Google as well. At that point, businesses will ask you to promote their product or services on your blog with a sponsored post linking to their website. This is similar to how companies pay doctors and actors to promote their products.

Here are a few tips we have if you want to earn money using this method:

• Avoid “Guest Posters” who want to post articles with dofollow backlinks on your blog for free.
• Do NOT spam sponsored posts on your blog. Google WILL penalize you and your blog WILL suffer.
• Do NOT link to scam or illegal websites. Just imagine if a doctor recommended a supplement that was poisonous or if a financial adviser told you to join a pyramid scam. Linking to scam or illegal websites will hurt your reputation.

4. Donations

Have you ever seen some “buy me some coffee” button on certain blogs and websites? That’s one way to ask for small donations from viewers. You can easily make a donation button or donation link if you have a Paypal account or an account on some other online payment service. It’s a pretty straightforward way to receive money from readers and some of them will want to donate if they love you and your content.

Here’s an example of a donation button. Feel free to send your support to YourWealthyMind.com!

5. Create and sell your OWN products

This is said to be one of the best methods of earning money from your blog. Instead of simply earning a small amount from ad views, selling other people’s products, or selling backlinks, you can sell your OWN products online. One tip Brendon Burchard, the author of “The Millionaire Messenger”, gave is that you create tiers of products. For example, first you offer a cheap information product like an eBook or a training video, next you offer a cheap subscription program where you create premium content like podcasts and video guides for subscribers, and next you offer more expensive products like training DVD sets, live seminars, and more.

By the way, you can try checking out Patreon for gathering paying subscribers. While that website is mostly used by artists (like me, I have a patreon page for my digital art), you can probably use it for your blog as well.

You can also sell physical products like t-shirts, mugs, keychains, or other things because there are many print-on-demand services that can allow you to create them. Basically, print-on-demand services means that you don’t need to bulk order hundreds of products, store them around your home, and try to sell them one by one on your website. Whenever someone buys one of your products, you forward the order to the print-on-demand manufacturer and they’ll create and send your products for you (you earn from each sale of course). With this, you don’t need to worry about inventory or how to dispose of products that aren’t selling well. This is a nice option if you’re good at art or graphic design.

As for the second part of this article, click HERE for our top tips for new bloggers!