How To Start A Money Making Blog In 2021 - Step by step guide
Reasons Why You Should Start a Blog?
- Positions you as an Expert
- Generates substantial passive income
- Allows you to be your own boss
- Fosters your confidence
- Can engage and attract the audience
- You can mark your presence
- Teaches you new things
- Far-fetched personal growth
- And it embraces self-worth.
Busting The Myths That Are Stopping You From Starting A Blog
1. Blogging Doesn’t Work in 2021 or Later!
No, that’s not true.
Look how much I earned only from ads last month. (September 2020). This is ad revenue only, affiliate income not included. Check my full income report here.
Blogging works anytime. It’s never gonna die. Because internet searching is not a habit of just you and me but a habit of billions of people around the world. They all do searching every day using the internet. So, blogging works as long as people use the Internet to search for something.
2. Blogging is Saturated
It is a false claim. People told me the same thing when I was started my blog two years ago. If had given up that day, I wouldn’t be making $7000+/month in passive income these days.
You can check out my recent income report here: How I Made $7147 USD in September 2020 From My Blog?
I agree with the fact that there is a competition but that doesn’t mean blogging is not gonna work for you.
Coming to the competition, let’s discuss some real facts here.
- There are more than 500 blogs out there on the Internet.
- Millions of articles are being published by bloggers every day. (don’t be scary)
Let’s see the positive side of these facts.
- Not all the blogs available on the internet are active.
- Millions of articles get outdated every day and replaced by fresh articles in the search results.
This cycle continues. Got my point? These are the real facts, and no matter how many blogs are out there, you can still rank well in search results as long as you publish the best pieces of content.
3. Blogging Is Very Expensive To Start
Would you call paying $2.95/month really expensive? Not really, right? This amount is far less than a pizza cost and that $2.95/month investment could bring back $100,000+ every month if it goes viral.
4. Article Writing Requires Strong English Writing Skills
This is another false claim. To burst this myth, honestly, no one would be the best example than myself. I completely started with zero blogging knowledge and command on the English language.
As I am not from a native English country, I had to struggle a lot to deal with English in the beginning days.
It is common for everyone to receive mean comments and they shouldn’t bother us. Only a few people care about our writing style and grammar, but the majority of people care only about the concepts.
When your concepts and writings are great, then people really don’t care about your mistakes.
5. Blogging Requires Technical Knowledge
Gone are those days when everyone had to learn programming to create a website or blog. Now any non-techie person can create their own blog in less than 30 minutes and run it for a lifetime with zero tech experience.
6. Blogging Takes Forever To Grow
Yes, blogging takes time to show you the desired result, but it doesn’t take forever.
It’s not fair to expect results from a brand new blog. We are not preparing a breakfast here. We are creating a business that will change our lives. So you should give it some time to grow.
Great things take time. Be prepared to work for at least six months without expecting any results. Leveraging social platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, Reddit will boost up your progress. Work for a long time growth and give your best while creating the content. Once you start getting results, you’ll witness an exceptional growth and income for sure.
For instance, my blog didn’t make a penny in the first 8 months, and later it started growing exponentially. I got accepted to ad and affiliate networks after so many rejections. And some of these platforms who rejected my blog in the past had come back and requested me to be a part of their network.
That’s how the situations will change when you don’t give up.
So yeah, blogging takes time to grow, but the result after that will change your life as it did to me.
How I Started My Blogging Journey?
Our Introduction!
Hello Dreamers! I am Siva Mahesh, A chemical engineer turned successful blogger. I make my primary income from this blog and it took me a year to achieve. Now, through this article, I am super excited to tell my story and help you achieve the same.
Two and a half years ago, I was also searching for ways to make money online like you are doing today. Before blogging, I have worked with MLMs, tried survey sites, and even worked as a Social Media Manager for a few clients from our city. I made money from those jobs but none of them was really life-changing.
But after seeing the small successes of my previous online money-making attempts, a friend of mine, Swathi Chalumuri from HearMeFolks.com insisted me to start a blog. I did start my blog and she really helped me a lot in the beginning days.
Initially, I have struggled a lot with writing as I am not from an English speaking country. but I’ve worked on improving my writing style simultaneously while working on this blog. Finally, all the hard work I put in really paid me off and my life has changed completely just because of this blog’s success.
Starting this blog is the best decision I have ever made in my life. If you ever felt like starting a blog but didn’t take action yet, now I would insist you to take action. Otherwise, you’ll be missed a great life-changing opportunity.
Yeah, we all deserve a life-changing opportunity to escape from the problems like
- high-interest debts
- Boring 9-5 job
- single income source
- not being able to travel
- not being able to make money through your passion
- fewer savings and no early retirement
- and more.
These are some common problems in everyone’s life. I too had faced most of these struggles and luckily have been able to overcome all of these just by trying something new. Well, that’s all in my case, but will it work for you?
I would definitely say YES. It worked for me, it worked for millions of other people, then why it doesn’t work for you? It will definitely work for you without a question.
You have to make the right choice. If going for a $60,000 a year 9-5 job after spending $80,000 on tuition is a good choice, then investing $100 or less on a small-scale side hustle which can bring more fortune than your regular job will be your greatest choice.
Note: I am not trying to insist you choose to blog over your career. I am just explaining its real potential and you can still do it as your part-time. I also started this blogging as my part-time and now working full-time on it as it is earning nearly $7000+/month. Now, I am working towards the $10,000/month milestone.
Now you know the truth that blogging makes money. But how much? What’s the upper limit? Let’s see how much the top bloggers are making from their blogs.
Step-by-Step Guide To Create Your Blog
This post contains affiliate links, please read our affiliate disclosure for more info.
Here we are ready to begin the blog setup. Following these easy steps, you’ll be able to create your dream blog in the next 10 – 20 minutes. So without making any further delay let’s get started.
1. Choose Your Niche (Topic) & Blog Name
Like everyone says, you have to choose a topic that you are most comfortable with. we call it “Niche” in blogging. Once you finalize your niche, then you can start searching for a catchy blog name (yourblogname.com).
Almost, every blog revolves around a topic. For instance, This blog niche is “Finance” and we have other dedicated blogs separately for Health and Lifestyle niches.
Well, you can blog about multiple niches on your blog, but it doesn’t work well in the long run. So I wouldn’t recommend you do that. Here you can find more info about blog niches and their potential.
One more thing I must say, never choose your niche based on its earning potential (every topic has its own earning potential). Because it is you who is going to write about it. If you fed up with the niche in the middle, you may give up or regret later for choosing the wrong niche that you don’t like and not passionate about.
- If you love cooking and making recipes is your hobby, start a food & recipes blog.
- If you are a travel freak, start a travel blog.
- If you love fashion & trends, then you can start a fashion blog.
- Health, Photography, Lifestyle, and Technology are also great blog niches to start with.
So, choose your niche smartly. There is no wrong niche in fact. As long as you can post great content with consistency, any niche will make you money. And once you make the first one successful, then you can start new blogs in other niches you love.
I hope you have your favorite niche in your mind by now. Now its time to search for an available name (domain address) for your blog. The blog name you are on right now is Dreamshala and “dreamshala.com” is its domain address. Similarly, you have to search and find a catchy available name for your blog. So, Let’s do that.
To get a unique available name quickly, try different combinations like HollysKitchen.com or MeganTravelDiaries.com.
Have any blog names in your mind? Then enter the name in the below search box and click on the “check availability” button.
If the domain is not available, try different word combinations and search again until you find an available name. If it is available, continue reading. Don’t leave this page for now. I will explain how to get the domain for FREE. Otherwise, you may have to pay for domain and hosting separately.
Got an available domain of your choice? Now let’s move forward to get that domain for FREE along with a Hosting plan.
Hosting is a space/storage on the Internet where you keep your website files to make your website available via the World Wide Web (www) and domain (ex: www.yourwebsitename.com) will be its address.
Now, let’s go to the Bluehost.com, the best hosting service provider I would recommend for beginners.
2. Buying The Best Hosting Service For Your Blog
We are beginning with buying the hosting services and linking the domain address to it. So, visit Bluehost.com here or click on the blue button below.
We are going to show how to create your blog with Bluehost.com step-by-step along with images. After clicking on the above button, you’ll land on Bluehost’s homepage. (image is given below).
Desktop Users: Now, place your pointer on the “WordPress” option on the main menu which is at the top-left corner of the page. A drop down shows up. Click on the first option “WordPress Hosting“.
Mobile Users: Go to the top-right corner and tap on the “Ξ – (Menu symbol)”, after that, tap on “WordPress” (first option), and then tap again on “WordPress Hosting”.
No matter which device you are on, after hitting on the WordPress Hosting button, you’ll be redirected to this page (Image is given below).
After visiting the page, now, you have to click on the “Choose Plan” button. It will take you to the Bluehost’s pricing page where you can see available hosting plans. The “Basic” plan is enough since you are a beginner. You can upgrade to higher plans anytime if your blog goes viral.
So, for now, choose the “Basic” plan by clicking on it. This plan includes all the basic things required including a FREE SSL Certificate.
After clicking on the “Basic” button, it will take you to the domain setup page.
Simply enter the domain name you have in your mind in the below section “Create a new domain“. (image is given below). Make sure you have entered the blog name all correct without any spelling mistakes. Then click on “Next“.
Now, you are on the last page of this setup. Here you need to fill all your details and choose your hosting plan. The minimum plan is for one year and you choose your term for up to 3 years.
The monthly cost goes down as you choose the longer-term plan. So, I would recommend you choose the 3-year plan to save money.
After choosing the plan, now look at the below section named “Package Extras“. Uncheck all boxes except the first one “Domain Privacy + Protection” and finally, enter your credit card details in the last section named “Payment Information“.
Bluehost offers 30 days Money-Back guarantee, so you don’t need to worry about it. You can try it, and cancel it anytime if you feel blogging is not for you.
Once all the required details are entered, agree to Bluehost terms by checking the box given, and hit the green “Submit” button.
Done. you got the domain and hosting registered. Once you complete the purchase, then it will ask you to create a password for your account. All those steps are pretty straightforward, create a password, and login into your account using your credentials.
3. Choose A Theme For Your Blog
Once you login to your account after creating your password, it will ask you to pick a theme for your blog. There are thousands of free themes available. You can find them by clicking on the Appearance Tab >> Themes of the left menu in your dashboard.
Since you are getting started now, a FREE Theme is more than enough. Or if you want your blog to look more professional, you can go for a premium and customizable theme. I would recommend the Astra WordPress theme. It is cheap, lightweight, and looks more professional.
Pick and apply the selected theme. Now it’s time to launch your blog. Click on it.
You have created a blog for yourself successfully. Give yourself a high-five. Congratulations on creating your first blog. I wish you great success ahead. Start working on it without thinking anything else. You can do it.
4. Important Plugins To Install
Well, you have a very brand new blog in your hands. So before going to start writing, let’s make your blog look even more professional by installing some required plugins. If you don’t know what plugin means, give me a moment to explain.
A WordPress Plugin is nothing but PHP script that used to extend the functionality of the WordPress. It adds entirely new features like Contact Form, Social Share Buttons, SEO to your blog.
Don’t worry about the installation process. You don’t need to code anything here. You can install any plugin by Clicking on “Plugins” >>“Add New” option from the left menu in your WordPress dashboard. The whole process will be like installing an app from the Play Store or App Store. First, you search for an app, then you click on install. Same here.
Go through the below list and install those plugins one by one.
- Akismet Anti Spam (To protect your blog from spam)
- Contact Form 7 (To create easy contact form)
- Google Analytics Dashboard by Monster Insights (To check traffic directly in the dashboard)
- UpdraftPlus Backup/Restore (To enable automatic backups)
- W3 Total Cache (Improves site performance and speed)
- Yoast SEO (To optimize your pages and posts according to search engine algorithms)
- Social Warfare (To enable social share buttons on article pages)
These are some important plugins you should have installed on your blog. Setting up these plugins is pretty easy and straightforward. If you still find it hard, I would recommend you watch some related tutorials on YouTube. (We try our best to add a video tutorial on plugin installation here as soon as possible.)
Once you are done with the plugins installation process, now its time to begin what that matters the most.
5. Start Writing Awesome Articles
Now your own blog is in your hands. It’s time to start writing articles, share your thoughts, express yourself, and write whatever you want to share with the world on the topic you have chosen. ( follow your passion and money follows you. Just be patient until your turn. Don’t ever give up. You’ll make money more than you expected.)
In case, if you still haven’t started your blog by implementing these steps, just click on the button below and get started.
Some Useful FAQs To Read
Blogging doesn’t require huge upfront investments. Most people think blogging costs too much but in reality it is less than $5 a month. But you have to buy the hosting plan minimum for one year long.
Apart from that, you will not have to buy anything unless you want to go for premium features. WordPress has tons of free themes and plugins ready in the store. You can use anything you want.
Income from a blog depends on the number of visitors it gets. Once you start getting daily readers, there are dozens of ways to monetize your blog. Mainly blog income comes from Display Ads, Affiliate Network, Sponsored Posts, Courses, and eBooks.
Affiliate Income
When you don’t own any products that your readers are interested in buying, you can sell someone else’s products by joining their affiliate program.
They pay you a certain percent of the sale as an “Affiliate Commission” if someone purchases the product through your affiliate link.
There are a number of affiliate networks out there. You can join these programs for free and can promote their products on your blog. This blog makes around $3000 – $4000 affiliate income every month from different affiliate networks.
Ad Income:
Ads are common on every website. That’s the main source of most of the blogs and websites. To display ads on your website, you need to apply for a certain ad network to get your website approved. Your blog should get a certain number of visitors to get the approvals.
Once you got your website approved to ad networks like Mediavine or AdThrive, they’ll take care of the rest until ads go live. If you go with AdSense, you have to insert ads into your articles on your own.
Out of these ad networks, we love Mediavine because it pays the highest. This blog makes around $3000 from display ads every month.
Sponsored Posts:
Once your blog got some popularity and online presence, companies and brands will reach out to you to get their products featured on your website. Based on your blog’s popularity, you can demand how you want to feature their products on your blog.
Each sponsored post may get you anywhere between $500 to a couple of thousands of dollars. Multi-article deals may get you even more.
After the deal, they’ll ask you to write and publish content regarding their products or services. Sometimes, they may also ask you to review their products.
Yes, you can start a blog for free but you shouldn’t start a free blog if you want to make money from your blog.
Why I didn’t explain the freeway here because these free blogs don’t get you anything. Those are for fun. Give me a movement to explain whey these free blogs are impossible to make money.
To create a blog for free, you’ll have to use platforms like blogger.com or wix.com. These platforms offer you limited free hosting but your blog address looks like “yourblog.wixsite.com” or “yourblog.blogspot.com“. You cannot remove that “wixsite” from your blog address unless you upgrade to a paid plan.
On the other side, since you are a free user, they run their own ads on your blog and you’ll get paid nothing. To get approvals from affiliate networks, you must verify your ownership which is impossible in this case.
Simply, you can’t run ads, you can’t run affiliate campaigns on these free blogs. Free blogs are for those who want to do it for fun. Not to make money.
If making money is the idea behind your blog, then investing less than $5 a month is far better than having a free blog. The blog will fully be in your hands. No need to depend on any other websites.
Final Thoughts
That’s all about starting a new blog. I hope you have got a new blog following those steps. If you haven’t started yet, I recommend you make a wise decision here. This is really blog changing.
Blogging has changed my life. A decision I took two years back turned into my full-time business now & allowing me to do whatever I want to do in life. Now my goal is to help as many people as I can. If you ever feel like you need help, you are always welcome to ping me through Email.
So, make a decision and take action now. Write whatever you enjoy writing for a long time. And I am sure, it will help you to make living out of that.
What else do we need in our life other than doing what we love and earning a handful of cash? So, start it now. plan it and start working on it. Be consistent for at least a year and the results will definitely shock you.
Siva Mahesh is a full-time blogger and personal finance expert featured on US News, Yahoo Finance, Legal Zoom, The Simple Dollar, Databox, Business.com, Business News Daily, and more. He is the owner/founder of Dreamshala, a go-to place for 100,000+ monthly readers to find legit work from home jobs and make money online ideas.
