How to Start a Blog That Makes Money
If you’re looking for a walk-through of actually setting up a blog, there’s a video at the bottom of this page.
On this page I’m going to show you exactly how to start a blog, as well as a little bit of theory behind online business in general. These days a blog is the foundation of an online business, and it’s quickly becoming the foundation for any business. People do everything online now, especially product research.
If your blog or website is in front of the customer at the time of purchase, you get the sale… whether you’re an affiliate or the actual vendor.
Why An Online Business is so Awesome…
Let me illustrate my point with an example… a vacation should be fun, right? Well, for the average person who has a regular job… it can be, but it can also be stressful.
Why?
Because that person is only making money when they are physically at their job… so besides the actual costs of the vacation, that person also lost a week of wages.
Then take someone with an online business… the business(your blog or website) is always open, and is generating revenue around the clock.
That means it doesn’t matter if you’re on a vacation or at your desk… you’re still making money.
The benefits to an online business are as simple as that.
That’s awesome, right?!
But… there’s a caveat.
What Most People Do Wrong When They’re Starting Out…
90% of people that want to make money online go about it completely wrong.
Here is what the average “newbie” does wrong:
- They get interested in making money online somehow
- They end up purchasing a training course that promises to make them a lot of easy money fast
- They try it for a few weeks and get discouraged
- They buy another “program” promising they’ll get rich quick
- They keep doing this, and they never approach it as actually “building a business”
Number 5 is the biggest mistake, and is what keeps most people from ever making real income online.
Before I show you how to start a blog…
… I just want to give you a brief overview of what Strayblogger.com is about. If you’re reading this page, then you’re probably interested in some form of internet marketing.
Internet marketing is a broad term, and can mean a lot of different things. At it’s core, internet marketing is just that: marketing on the internet.
If you are promoting your business online, whether you have products or a service to sell, then you’re engaging in internet marketing. That can be done through the use of blogging, social media, search engine marketing, email marketing, forum marketing, or any other sub-category of internet marketing.
My goal with Strayblogger is to provide a resource that will help you accomplish your internet marketing goals.
First, I want to give you a few reasons why starting a blog is a great idea:
- A blog is the easiest way to start an online business
- A blog is the most newbie-friendly way to start an online business
- A blog is an excellent way to spread the word about your current business
- A blog is an excellent way to reach your target market
- A blog let’s you be seen as the “thought leader” in your market
- A blog is your piece of online real estate that you can grow and cultivate
- A blog is search-engine friendly
- A blog has the “sticky-factor”- meaning it makes it easy for you to interact with your readers
- A blog becomes your springboard for your future online ventures
- A blog is the best way to impress and engage your target audience
- Those are just a few reasons why you should start a blog… I’ll spare you the rest for now
Decide What You’re Going to Blog About…
When it comes to starting a blog, there are usually two groups of people:
- People who have something to say, and want a platform to say it
- People who want to get into blogging, and need something to say
The first group of people are usually business owners who want to increase exposure to their business, or someone who is passionate about something and wants to start blogging about it.
The second group of people are usually individuals that want to start a blog to make money, and don’t yet know what they are going to blog about.
It doesn’t matter which group you fall into… this page will help you get started.
Deciding Between a Free Blog, or a Hosted Blog
This is a decision that people agonize over… sometimes for weeks or months. A free blog would be something like a Blogger.com or WordPress.com. This means that if your blog name was prettyflowers.com, the web address would actually be www.prettyflowers.wordpress.com, or www.prettyflowers.blogspot.com.
The Upsides to Free Blogs
The upside to free blogs, is that they’re free and easy to setup. Actually there’s not even really a setup process… you just create an account.
The Downsides to Free Blogs
There are actually many downsides to free blogs… here are some of the main problems:
- You don’t own anything… the site or the domain name
- It’s common for free blogs to get erased… Spammers will setup hundreds or even thousands of these free blogs to promote their spam, and so sometimes the hosting companies delete big sections of their servers to clean up, which can sometimes include legitimate blogs that someone(you) has worked hard on
- It’s a lot harder to get ranked highly in the search engines from free blogs
- People don’t take free blogs as serious… it’s hard to establish that you’re a professional if you don’t have your own domain name
- Very limited customization… this means limited everything from blog design to plugins to overall functionality
- This list could go on, but that’s enough for now…
Actually, there’s one more, and this is the biggest problem with free blogs…
Let’s say you tell yourself that you’re going to start with a free blog and then upgrade when it starts getting traffic or making some money… What happens is that when you do get it built up, all of your content is on that free blog… You’ll be completely starting over when you setup a hosted blog with your own domain name.
And any search engine rankings you might have had will be gone and will have to be earned again from scratch.
So, it’s pretty obvious that if you’re even half serious about starting a blog, you’re way ahead to go the self-hosted route from the beginning.
How To Start A Blog: Setting Up Hosting
Before you can setup hosting, you need to choose a domain name. You might already have one picked out, especially if you are going to be blogging about your current business.
Here are a few tips to consider when choosing your domain name:
- Exact match domains are best for SEO purposes. If your business name is Green Candy, then you should try to get www.greencandy.com
- If your blog is for any commercial purpose, then you should only consider a .com, .net, or .org domain name. These three are by far the best for SEO purposes, as well as for coming across as professional
- If your exact match domain is taken for .com, .net, and .org, you can add a hyphen such as www.green-candy.com, or you can add one word to the domain, such as www.greencandystore.com
- Another thing to consider, is that you might want to go for a highly searched keyword phrase instead of your business name. For example: if have a window cleaning business in Dallas, it might be more beneficial to use www.dallaswindowcleaning.com than your business name. The reason is, if you rank in the top 10 Google search results when someone searches “Dallas window cleaning”, you’re going to get a lot of new business… a lot more than you’ll get from your domain name just being your business name.
- If you’re starting a blog to target a niche market online, then you definitely want to use a keyword phrase for your domain name, because the lifeblood of your blog will be search engine traffic.
How to Setup Hosting for Your Blog
The nice thing about hosting these days is that it’s cheap. High-quality hosting is less than $10 a month, and pretty much every host now has one-click WordPress installation.
Here is a complete walkthrough video that I made for you: (open Hostgator in another window so you can follow along)
I recommend that you use Hostgator for your hosting. There are a few reasons:
- They are the biggest hosting company and have the best support.
- They offer everything from shared hosting up to a dedicated server… This is crucial in a host because with hosting companies that are only “shared” hosting, when your site(s) starts to get any real amount of traffic, they’ll kick you off their hosting- this happened to me. With Hostgator, when you outgrow your shared hosting account you can seamlessly upgrade to a VPS and then a dedicated server without having to transfer your entire site and all your files to another host.
- They’re one of the only companies with a monthly payment option- most hosts show you a low monthly fee but you have to pay for one or two years in advance.
Click here to open Hostgator in a new window so that you can follow along.
- Tip: When you signup for Hostgator, use the coupon code “1cent” and your first month is only one penny.
How to Choose a Domain Name
I’ve always just registered my domains through my host because it’s easier, and for dot com’s it’s a dollar less than GoDaddy. To choose your domain name, you simply pick the best of your money keywords that you’ve found, and then add a word that makes it sound like a brand. This way, you get the benefit of some main keywords being in your domain, but you also have the brand-thing going on, which is getting more and more important in the eyes of Google. For example, if you are making a site about homemade dog treats, a good domain would be: dogtreatschef.com or dogtreats101.com. You can also use .net or .org- they’re just as effective as .com.
If .com isn’t available, .net or .org is just as good, but don’t choose any besides those three, because they’ll be harder to rank for. If those three aren’t available, then try your domain with hyphens in between each word, such as: www.organic-dog-treat-recipes.com. If none of those are available, then try your second best keyword phrase, and so on. Once you’ve got your domain, you just go through the checkout process.
Now, I’m just assuming that you’ll want to use WordPress. That’s all I ever use now, and it is the perfect fit for this type of site.
If you haven’t yet, go to Hostgator and setup your hosting account.
Choosing a Theme for Your Blog
WordPress blogs use what is called a “theme” that dictates how the blog looks and functions. There are free themes, and paid themes.
As expected, paid themes are usually superior to free themes, and the best paid themes provide amazingly convenient features.
The appearance of your site is extremely important. If it looks crappy, people instantly exit… they don’t even give your content a chance.
As far as free themes, you can look through all of the examples here.
As with anything else, there are things that are free, and things that are paid for a reason… the paid things are usually a lot better.
If you’re planning on selling digital products such as ebooks, whether your own or as an affiliate, or if you want to be able to set up a membership site, the best theme that will do all of that for you is the Profits Theme.
The Profits Theme is what I use on 90% of my sites, and besides all of the awesome features, you just pay once and you can use it on as many sites as you want. You can get started with the Profits Theme here.
If you plan on blogging about your existing business, or you won’t be using your blog for actual transactions, then the best theme is Thesis- I have a few content-only sites I run Thesis on and I love it.
25 Responses to “How to Start a Blog That Makes Money”
Trung Nguyen
I agree with you that we should start a hosted blog instead of free blog because we will freedom to do anything with our blog in the future.
Nate
Yeah definitely, the free blog route is too limited.
Trung Nguyen
most thing I don’t like to create a free blog is we can’t 0r hard to make it goes professional
Holly
I’m interested in starting a blog. Just about my passions etc. i found your post very helpful. Was wondering do I need to subscribe to WordPress before install?
Nate
Hi Holly- glad you liked the post. You don’t need to have a WordPress.com account at all- that doesn’t matter. WordPress the self-hosted software and WordPress.com are two different things… WordPress.com lets you setup a free blog like Blogger but then your domain is http://www.mysite.wordpress.com instead of having a real domain name.
Did that answer your question?
Holly
Oh I see, thanks!!!
Trung Nguyen
Show us your blog when you done
Hamdard
Thanks Nate.
i found this post helpful.i have already created a domain so almost done with creating a blog but i have a problem with selecting a theme because i don’t want to pay for it at the first and i want to try a free theme.
so can i have some suggestions regarding free themes?
Nate
The free theme that I used before I ever bought a theme was called Atahualpa. I know it has a whole community behind it and is frequently updated, so it’s a good one.
Hamdard
Hi, Nate , as you suggested the free theme Atahualpa i downloaded that but don’t you think that its resolution is quit large?
Nate
Resolution? You can change the site’s width if that’s what you mean.
Garnet Barcelo
Nate, I started the above free blog back in September 2008 when my Thai wife returned from Thailand on a trip to fetch her two sons to join us here in Canada.
It was initially started with good purpose — a family journal. But it wasn’t long before I found it to be a place to bitch and vent. I have done so much of that these past few years! And eventually, it also became a heavily monetized venue where I ramble on about practically anything that has my fancy.
I set myself up with a HostGator account later that same year (2008), but because I was lazy, I never tried to transplant the content of my free blog over to HostGator.
And now there is just too much there to be able to successfully do it, for it contains hundreds of photos that are hosted on Picasa Web Albums (and now Google+, too). These images in the blog would not migrate.
So I just carry on with it. It’s too much to lose. Thus, your comment that free hosts like Blogger.com sometimes permanently erase a blog came as a disturbing read!
I eventually used HostGator to get four automated blogs going, and I have another at Super Green Hosting. All have free themes or templates.
The hope has always been to try and make an income, but I have yet to actually receive a payment. The likes of Amazon or Google’s Adsense do not release payments bound for outside of the U.S. until the account reaches $100, and that has not happened in the three years or so that I’ve been doing this.
Blogging can certainly be disillusioning as a money-making process. If I did not have the passion for blogging, I would have abandoned it long ago. It’s all that sustains me…and some hope that just won’t die.
Nate
Garnet- Yeah there’s a fine line between the idea of blogging about something you’re passionate about and choosing a topic you know people are spending money on… But, writing a personal blog like you mentioned is much easier, even therapeutic, to just sit down and write on each day and you don’t have to plan any strategy either… the bad news is it might not always be a big money maker.
Mary C
Hi Nate – thanks for the info on the reasons for having
a blog, the video, etc. I wish I had these basics when
I first started trying my hand at IM, but better late than
never.
All the best,
Mary C.
Nate
Thanks for reading Mary.
gabriel daalmans
Hello Nate,
Thanks for a very useful post. Allow me one question and one remark.
Q: You are stating that Welly Mullia’s Profits Theme is very useful in order to generate a membership site with WP. Why is that? I am living in the believe that you just need to integrate a plugin – wish list or something like that – into the WP installation and that’s it. Do I am wrong?
Remark: I do not understand the question about starting either with a self hosted blog or a free blog hosted by blogger.com or wordpress.com. I would take both using the free blogger.com and wordpress.com to get free visitors to my paid blog. What’s wrong to that model?
Gabriel
Nate
Gabriel- No you’re not wrong… it’s just that Wishlist costs $297 and then you need a theme as well. Profits Theme does both for $97 and it’s an unlimited license.
And as far as using free blogs for buffer pages- that’s valid, I do the same thing myself.
gabriel daalmans
Thanks a lot Nate,
Still one Question; Does the Profits Theme already include the membership plugin?
Nate
Yeah it’s just built-in… it will integrate with Paypal or Clickbank.
Rinchen
Hi,
This has been very informative for me since I am planning to try my hand at blogging…I , basically, want to share my travel experience with all my friends and family…and write a bit about food too!
thanks for the info
Nate
Glad you liked it- thanks for reading.
Lauren
Hello,
I have always wanted to start a blog, a website for a future online business and I am currently working on a ebook. Though I am internet savy I am not familiar with building my own website or blog and I would prefer to not go the free blog route. As I mentioned I am writing an ebook and would like to have a blog that could be used for advertising and later selling my ebook. What I got from your article about not going the free blog route is that if you decide to create your own blog you will have to pay for web hosting. I also got that if I want to sell on a site or blog that I should look into Profit Themes now does purchasing this also cover the cost of web hosting for my blog and site. Or do I still have to pay for that seperately if so where would I go? I know I probably sound like I dont know what Im doing at all but I learn quickly and I want to learn to do all of this myself that way I know it will be right and the way i want. All help and addiditional information you could provide will be appreciated. Thanks
Nate
Profits Theme is separate. You need hosting- which costs the $7 or $8/month, then in your hosting account you would install the WordPress software- which is free, then you need a theme to install inside your WordPress site.
It’s all easy to figure out, especially if you’re a fast learner, and Profits Theme has very detailed support videos and tutorials.
crystal
Hi Nate
I want to start a blog just about my everyday life as a mother of twins, share recipes…basically typical, domestic stuff. I read a lot of other blogs similar to the 1 I want to create and see that they have tons of links to advertisements that relate to what’s being talked about in the blogs, for example: diapers, books on sex advice,disney family trips, recipes, food, shampoos…you get the picture! When I do create my blog- how do I get to that level where it’s not just simply a place where I share my everyday life, but to make it profitable to me? When I typed in the google search’how to start a blog” You’re website was the first and only 1 I’ve been to so far and very informative! I’m not very computer savvy- expect for Facebook and uploading pictures, so this is going to be a challenge for me for sure! Thanks so much!
Nate
Crystal- There are mom blogs just like you’ve described that do very well… and the best thing about them is that type of content is very social friendly- meaning it gets shared, liked, pinned, etc… which brings you more traffic.
As far as making money from it, you just add affiliate links where they make sense, for example when you mention a product or service you’ve used.
If you don’t know, an affiliate link is a special link you get from a company or affiliate network that has your affiliate ID coded into it- so when someone clicks the link on your blog and makes a purchase, you get paid whatever the affiliate percentage/amount is for that product.
Blogging is like anything else… just a skill you get good at over time, but it’s easier than ever to get started. Let me know if you have any other questions.