Let’s be realistic; making money from blogging in 2021 is challenging, with hundreds of blogs sprouting up daily. Blogging is an excellent marketing tool that you can turn into an income-generating powerhouse. However, the question is, how can you start a blog that makes money?
This article shows you how to start a blog leveraging proven and practical techniques. It covers how to start your own SEO blog in 7 steps. You will be able to launch your blog with full confidence that you are in for a long-term return.
However, this is not a get-rich-quick blogging guide.
Are you willing to give it what it takes to become a successful blogger in 2021?
If yes, then let’s go!
7 steps to start a successful SEO blog in 2021
1: Choose your niche and do keyword research
Many successful writers have stated how important it is to write about what you are passionate about. However, what will you do if it’s hard to convert your passion to a decent income? It’s better to be flexible in choosing a niche, especially when you want to make money blogging. Before you get started ask yourself these questions:
Is it profitable?
If yes, can you develop a passion for it?
If not, then focus on your passion and choose a niche.
This could be travelling, pets, making money tips, fashion, etc. However, niching down means you solely focus on definite topics and a specific audience. For instance, weight loss for nursing stay-at-home moms will earn your target audience trust faster than just weight loss for every dick and harry.
Overall, you want to focus on that niche and start writing several posts closely related to that central topic.
We may not delve into in-depth details of how to write SEO-friendly blog posts in this guide. However, your blog posts must be SEO-friendly so that you can easily be found via search engines.
You must write only about similar topics so that your target audience will always know what to expect when they visit your blog. Of course, don’t let anything stop you from writing about other topics once in a while. But focus more on your niche as that will make you an authority in your readers`’ eyes.
After you choose your niche, the next step is to carry out in-depth keyword research. Find out precisely what your target audience or readers are searching for online on search engines like Google, Bing, etc. If you can find the keywords these individuals enter into the search box when searching for information about your blog, it becomes easier for you to get found.
As a blogger, you need to constantly find both competitive – and less competitive – short-tail and long-tail keywords. You can easily do this using online tools like Google AdWords Keyword Planner or paid tools like Ahrefs, Moz, SEMrush, etc.
Note that you must always keep search intent at the back of your mind when carrying out the research.
2: Choose your website, domain name, and how you want to showcase your content
This is where it gets a bit more interesting. You need a website. A website is essential as it helps showcase your message to the world, or more specifically, your target audience. Instead of creating a site from scratch, consider using Content Management System tools such as WordPress and Wix,
Weebly is another great option for you as a beginner. However, WordPress offers more SEO-friendly features.
The next step is to get a domain name and hosting provider. The domain name is the URL or name of your blog.
When choosing your domain name, you should consider the following:
- It must not be too difficult to type.
- It must be memorable.
- Avoid making use of hyphens and numbers in your domain because it can easily confuse people.
- Keep the domain name relatively broad in case you pivot to adjacent niches later on.
When you have decided on a domain name, sign up for web hosting. BlueHost, Namecheap, HostGator, GoDaddy are some of the leading platforms to host your website.
3: Create a content calendar and fill up to 3 months of content at the first pass
Before you type the first word on your computer, you should create a content calendar. Try to fill it up with up to 3 months of content at the first pass.
This means that for the next 3 months, you will have several topics to write about. And you will be able to structure your blog into different categories.
Before you publish your blog post, ensure that you optimize it with Yoast SEO or other SEO plugins. Your SEO title is essential: create a fantastic one as well as a pretty decent snippet. Your text must be SEO-friendly and readable as well. You want to take an agile approach to this. What I mean by that is trying to deliver results as soon as possible, so write content that you know that you understand and are an expert in so that you can gain traffic as quickly as possible.
4: Ensure you have the tools to track results
By now, you have created a pattern that you follow when you are writing and publishing your blog posts. However, you need tools to help you track results.
The best tools you should take advantage of our Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Google Analytics is a user-oriented tool that provides data highly related to your blog visitors as they interact with your blog.
On the other hand, Google Search Console – formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools – is a search-engine focused tool that provides insights. You can leverage these insights to significantly boost visibility as well as a presence in the search engine result pages (SERPs).
These tools will help you check your performance with search engines as well as your readers.
5: Have a content process in place and develop a cadence
As a blogger, you must have a content process in place. This helps to move things along seamlessly as you create your blog posts.
Not developing a cadence or content process can prevent you from creating your write-ups. You shouldn’t overlook it if you want to stay long in this business.
6: Retrospect at regular intervals to improve your process
From time to time, look back upon the period you started writing and publishing your posts. This enables you to look at what you may be doing wrongly and take the necessary steps to improve them significantly.
Fine-tuning your process helps you get things done faster so that you can focus on other stuff.
7: After a year of writing content, evaluate how things are going
You have been writing content for over a year now. However, you need to evaluate how things are going.
Go over the steps highlighted earlier in this guide. This will help you see what else you can do to improve your blog. You can use Ahrefs Webmaster Tools which will help you boost your blog’s SEO performance. This tried-and-tested tool will help you monitor your blog’s SEO health.
This is crucial since creating your blog is to make money and impact the lives of your readers. You can also check for ranking keywords so that you can make necessary adjustments. These will help to push you up the SERPs, which is vital to the success of your blog.
This is the agile concept of a retrospective, and it’s incredibly important as it will allow for you to grow and evolve outside your comfort zone.
Conclusion
Now that you know how to start a blog and get paid, start taking the steps outlined in this guide. And when you have started writing and published your first blog post, keep at it.
You can determine the frequency of writing and publishing your blog posts. You do not even have to blog every day: once or twice weekly is good enough to help you build traction online. And your readers will always look forward to reading your blog posts every week.
So, what are you waiting for? Go through each step outlined in this guide and get started right away!
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William Chin and is an agile web consultant and owner/operator of YourDigitalaid.com, a digital aid for those who need web development, digital marketing or overall digital support. Professionally, I have been doing SEO and digital marketing for well over 7+ years. 17
