Every day, it seems as though there are more and more people that are making a living by blogging and why not? It is the perfect work from home job you can do around the little ones. No daycare fees, no 9-5, work whenever you like, play it smart and you can earn a very decent income.
With massively helpful and easy-to-follow step-by-step tutorials like this one, it has become increasingly easy to DIY your own blog.
For some, the income is minimal, for others, there are thousands of dollars made each month or week even.
In order to become one of the more lucrative blog writers, there are a number of things that you ought to do in order to ensure that your readers are entertained, that your audience keeps growing, and that your blog ultimately becomes successful.
How to Determine What to Write About
What you decide to write about plays a large role in how well your blog does.
Ask yourself – what are you good at? Yes, keeping the children alive is clearly something you are good at. You don’t need any super big unique ideas, it can be as simple as Mum life. Check out Constance Hall, she has almost a million followers for just being real. The end.
While there is an audience for everyone and every topic, the passion, and interest with which you write will make a huge impact on how your content comes across overall.
In order to ensure that your blog is both interesting and something that you actually enjoy writing try to find something that you actually like writing about, and have some knowledge in, even better if you are providing a solution.
My biggest piece of advice, don’t wait until you have all of this figured out. Just set up your blog and start practising writing and see where it takes you. You’ll instantly start to get a feel for your style and voice.
Find the Right Platform for You
Finding the right platform is the first step in designing and developing a blog that really reflects you and your goals.
One of the most popular hosts out there is WordPress. WordPress offers novice bloggers a wonderful opportunity to expand their knowledge and gain experience while personalizing and ensuring that their blog has a professional and unique design.
There is a multitude of tutorials available online to help new users understand how to make the most out of their site.
How to Create a Blog
First, you need hosting and a domain name.
You can buy hosting super cheap from Siteground and they even give you a free domain name in the hosting package.
Once you have your hosting you can go theme shopping. A theme is essentially an-out-of the-box-website. Check out ThemeForest and Elegant Themes. Once you’ve chosen your theme install WordPress on your hosting account and upload your theme.
How can You Make Money Blogging?
While some bloggers only make a few dollars a month, others make thousands upon thousands. There are a number of ways to do this, from selling ad space to writing about specific products and earning money through commission.
If you are interested in learning more, there are a number of tutorials and articles available that go into detail as to how to turn your blog into a secondary or passive income but my suggestion is to purchase your hosting, upload your theme and play around with your blog first. Once you get the hang of it then start to monetize it.
Getting to Know and Grow Your Audience
Your audience is why your blog will be as successful as it is.
Not only will your audience be the reason that your blog grows and allows you to earn any kind of income, your audience will also determine how long your blog is a lucrative project.
If you lose them, you lose your sponsors, if you lose your audience, you lose the interest of companies there were paying you for advertising space on your blog.
In a lot of ways, social media will be your best friend when it comes to promoting your blog and growing your audience.
In order to grow your audience, you need to understand who your target audience is.
This is very much determined by what your topic is and goes back to the first two points of know why you are creating your blog, and deciding what it is that you are going to write about. Are you writing a parenting blog?
If so, your target audience is going to be Mothers and Fathers that are looking to educate themselves on both the developmental milestones that their little ones will be experiencing but also ways that they can enrich their kids’ lives through activities, games, songs, and stories.
Are you writing about current events? Celebrity gossip? Sports? Cooking? Depending on your answers to these questions, you will be able to determine how you plan on connecting with both your current and your potential audience members.
One of the reasons that so many people are turning to blogging in order to earn a secondary income -or in some extremely successful cases the main income – is that it is free to do and offers an extremely flexible schedule.
Blogging might be a great job opportunity for you if:
You enjoy writing
There is a topic that you are passionate about and what to share with the world
You are knowledgeable about how to use social media in order to connect with and grow your audience.
You are looking for a way to earn a passive income without disrupting your full-time job
A flexible schedule is important to you
You are looking for an opportunity to become your own boss.
There is a topic that you are interested in and would enjoy learning more about
You can handle both positive and negative feedback
If you fit into any of these categories it might not be a bad idea for you to consider starting a blog. One of the best things about this opportunity is that in today’s world of social media there are always people looking for new blogs to read and follow and it provides great freedom to work around your children.
Writing a blog is a fantastic option in order to earn a passive income, and while it does take quite a bit of time in order to grow and develop your blog, it does not have to cost you a penny to get started.
Don’t get overwhelmed by all the feels, just try it and work it out along the way
Start with setting up your blog, it is super simple if you know a few basic steps. Once you have it set up, try doing a few test posts and seeing how it feels. Does it come naturally? Did you enjoy it? Do you feel you can keep on writing? To do this, will cost nothing but some of your time and the hosting and domain fee.
STEP 1: Choosing a Platform
With over 74 million sites operating on the WordPress platform, it is hard to deny that they are one of the leading website platforms in the world.
WordPress has thousands of themes and plugins at its disposal making the platform capable of handling a simple blog website to a full e-Commerce set up.
What do we love most about WordPress? It is totally free. Yep, no ongoing fees, costs or charges. Unlike Squarespace, Shopify, BigCommerce and the like, you won’t have any monthly fees to pay and you’ll be able to host your website on your own hosting account which means you’ll never have any issues accessing it.
Don’t worry, you if feel like you have no idea about any of this, you’ll get the hang of it as you go. What I love about WordPress is if there’s something it can’t do out of the box you’ll usually be able to find a plug-in (or 200) that solves the problem. You’ll also have access to a massive selection of site templates (called themes) Some templates cost money, but many are available for free. However, I don’t recommend the free ones.
You’ll also be able to have your own domain name, and email address.
Step 2: Set Up Your Domain and Hosting:
Before you can start setting up your website and selling online, you need a domain name and website hosting.
This can be done in one place with Site Ground. We love Site Ground and use them for all of our businesses.
Register with Site Ground and pick your domain name (making sure it is available for use), select your hosting package (we recommend the basic package to start with as you can always go up) and then checkout.
In the additional extras boxes, we recommend the privacy upgrade as this will keep your more personal details confidential in searches but all the others you can get for free later on.
Step 3: Download Your Free WordPress Package:
Now that you have signed up with Site Ground and secured your domain name, you can download your free WordPress file from the cPanel (Control Panel) area.
Go to the WordPress tab and enter your details as prompted and click on “Install WordPress”. This will give you all the access you need to your WordPress site in just a few clicks.
Step 4: Pick Your Theme:
This is probably the trickiest part of your website build, and it isn’t even that tricky!
The hardest part will be choosing your theme as there are 1000’s and 1000’s.
Que an overwhelming amount of choice.
With thousands of compatible WordPress themes to choose from, how do you know which one is going to be best?
Well, there are a few absolute essentials you need:
– It needs to be responsive
– Ensure it is not super clunky and complicated, simple is better
– Check it is compatible with Woo-commerce if you are selling stuff
– Have a read of the comments area to check feedback on the developer
– Check their star rating too
Or you can take a shortcut and go with Divi from Elegant Themes. We use it and think is a great fit for people learning how to set up a website. There is even a massive Facebook group dedicated to it.
Step 5: Install Your Theme To Your WordPress Site:
Once you have selected and purchased your ideal theme, you will need to upload it to your WordPress site. You will need to download the theme package to your computer so you can upload the files to your site.
Once you have done this, you are ready to upload your theme to your website. You can do this by going to your Plugins section of your WordPress website and follow the prompts to upload the theme.
If you get stuck simply go back to this tutorial, or where you purchased the theme from and find the developer section to contact the developer and ask for support as usually, you’ll receive 6 – 12 months support and they will be able to assist.
