“How to make money blogging for beginners?” you ask. Excellent question and here’s the short answer.
First: Create quality content that ranks in search engines like Google to bring in traffic.
Second: Then convert that traffic to cash through affiliate marketing programs, advertising, or sell digital and/or physical products from your blog.
Simple, right?
And it is… once you know what you’re doing! I turned a simple blog into a passive online income source and you can do the same thing too.
Anyone can do it really, but it helps to have proper training and guidance as you begin your blogging career.
I’ve seen way too many new bloggers waste time and effort through trial and error, only to never have their content rank.
Eventuall they quit their blog and abandon their blogging dreams.
Don’t let this happen to you!
Today I’ll show you the exact steps to take to get your blog started and the most efficient way to make money with your blog.
How to Make Money Blogging For Beginners?
Beginning bloggers need to start out with a clear focus before they start creating their blog.
You basically need to decide what your blog is going to be about.
This is called you niche and it’s important to pick something that’s meaningful to you, and one that has products associated with it that you can sell online.
Otherwise it’s tough to make money with your blog. If you’ve got enough traffic, you can make money through advertising, but you’ll make much more money if you have niche related products that you can promote.
As you create blog posts, you want to make sure that your posts are targeted with keywords that reach your blog audience.
This is how you build warm leads that are already interested in your niche. It’s also how you connect with your blog audience on a more personal level.
Need Help Targeting Keywords? Get Our FREE Targeted Traffic eBook:
You do this through keyword research. Which isn’t really that complicated, it’s like predicting what people are googling for – within your niche.
You then rank that content, bring in traffic to your blog, then direct that traffic to buy something.
Still with me here? Excellent!
This could be as simple as directing the reader from one blog post to a product review or a sales page.
Eventually you lead that reader to a helpful product through a link (this is affiliate marketing) or you send them to a digital or physical product directly from your blog (this is e-commerce).
The easiest way for most bloggers to start earning cash is through adverting. Things like placing banner ads or Google Adsense on your website or within your content.
When someone clicks on the ad, you make money.
Most advertising that pays you on a pay per click basis don’t pay that much money, so that’s where affiliate marketing and e-commerce come into play.
Once you have traffic, you will then add email marketing.
This is simply marketing to the reader through emails, typically an automated email series that you’ve already created.
Hopefully you then send more helpful content to your new email subscriber and an occasional helpful niche related product (that you make a commission on).
The following steps will help maximize your time and financial success as a blogger!
Find Your Passion, Find Your Niche!
You need to really focus on what you’re passionate about. Your passion will ultimately define the theme to your website.
Like I said, in the online world we call this theme or passion a niche.
What do you want to blog about? A hobby, your profession, your interests, you?
Make sure you really take some time to think about it. You will be writing plenty of content in your blog related to your niche, so it helps if you are passionate about that niche.
Tips for Choosing Your Niche:
Don’t choose a niche based on the profitability of the niche.
Choose a niche that you love or at least enjoy, or something that you want to learn more about.
Obviously you don’t want to pick a super competitive niche.
That being said, most any niche can be broken down further to a smaller niche AND most any niche can be successful through proper keyword research.
As mentioned earlier, make sure your niche has products or services that are associated with that particular niche. Products can be digital, educational, or commercial by nature.
You can read more about how to choose a niche reading this post: What is Your Niche?
Once you’ve got your niche figured out, take the next step.
Find A Good Affiliate Program Related to Your Blog
Start searching for affiliate programs or products that you can associate with your niche. There are literally thousands of affiliate products, programs, and networks that you can work with.
Some products have their own affiliate program, but most are set up through affiliate networks.
Affiliate networks manage the tracking of sales and payouts for you as the blogger. Some examples of affiliate networks are…
- Amazon Associates
- eBay Partners
- Rakuten LinkShare
- Shareasale
- Clickbank
In order to find affiliates for your niche, just take out a piece of paper and write down a few products that you can associate with your blog niche.
Then, put the name of the product into a Google search, add a + sign, and then add the words: Affiliate Programs.
It will look like this.
Immediately, you’ll be able to find affiliate partners to work with. Below are the results of my search for affiliate programs for Bluetooth speakers.
To understand more about affiliate marketing, feel free to check out this post, Internet Marketing and Affiliate Programs.
Find A Keyword For Your Website Name
Now that you’ve got your niche nailed down and potential affiliates for your blog, you need to come up with a website name.
One that will help search engines like Google index your site.
And something that is related to the keywords of your niche.
For example, if your niche is selling professional baseball cards online, you would want to find a website name to be something like ProBaseballCards.com.
You want to use a name that is short, easy to remember, and brand-able… What was I thinking… Learn To Grow Wealth Online.com 😉
I actually was using a long tail keyword phrase that targets my niche audience. You ideally want to buy a domain name that ends in .com.
But .org or .net are fine as well. Also, try to avoid hyphenating the website name if you can.
Also, think of your domain name as your brand. Every blogger needs to realize the you start branding your blog from day one.
And that starts with a good domain name. Read to post if you need help selecting a good domain name.
Buy Your Domain Name
To buy your domain name, you can use companies like GoDaddy.com, but many bloggers and website owners feel that GoDaddy tries to up-sell them on too many other products.
I use Wealthy Affiliate’s Domain Name Service because they don’t have all of the up-sells, they have a very good domain search as well (right on their homepage), and they tend to be very quick when updating your DNS settings (Domain Name System) with your hosting.
Domain names should run you about $15 dollars per year or less.
Set Up Hosting for Your Blog
Website Hosting is where your website lives, it’s like the physical address of a home.
You can get hosting from a number of services. SiteGround hosting is one of the hottest providers our there these days. Most basic hosting services cost around 5 dollars per month.
You can always buy a yearly membership and pay around $35 – $40 dollars per year.
For hosting plus online business training that rocks, check out our Wealthy Affiliate Hosting Review.
Installing WordPress
WordPress is the most popular blog and website building content management system to date. It’s easy to use and offers great functionality. This is like the backend of a website, from where you control everything.
The process to install WordPress to your computer is..
1). Download the latest version of WordPress to your computer
2). Unzip the downloaded WordPress file to a folder on your hard drive
3). Create a database for WP on your web server
4). Upload the WordPress files to your web server
5). Run the WordPress installation script
For more details or questions on installing WordPress, you can get more information here.
Sound’s like a bunch of boring steps? It is, there’s a much easier way to get your site up and running.
With my favorite blogging/online business training program, Wealthy Affiliate, they have a built in WordPress website creator.
So it actually takes about 30 seconds to install your WordPress website, it’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.
Since Wealthy Affiliate also hosts your blog, you can conveniently access your website directly from the Wealthy Affiliate homepage.
You can also check out your blog’s health, get feedback on your blog and/or blog posts – which is pretty helpful when starting out.
Here’s how my access page looks below.
Setting Up Your Site
This is also very easy to do with a little help. Before you start blogging, you will need to get familiar with using WordPress as well as install just a few plugins.
Plugins provide functionality to a website. For example, social share buttons on blogs allow you to share content through your social networks – this is completed using a specific plugin. Or say you have products that you sell on your blog, you would use an eCommerce plugin to accept credit card payments.
There are 1,000’s of plugins and you don’t need most of them to get started creating your blog.
The plugins you will first need for your blog are to protect you from spam and maximize your search engine optimization.
You want to keep the number of plugins between 5 – 10 so that you keep the speed of your blog at a maximal level.
This will give your blog audience a better user experience – which is what it’s all about. No one likes a slow blog, right!
Below I’ve placed a video to the Wealthy Affiliate classroom on setting up your blog/website. Click below to check it out.
You can see step by step instructions on how to manage and understand WordPress as well as install your initial plugins needed to manage your blog.
Finally – Content For Your Blog
Now that you’ve got your blog set up, you will need to understand the importance of content.
Content will make or break your ability to make money as a blogger.
Remember, QUALITY CONTENT IS KING in the blogging business.
Don’t want to write content. I didn’t either.
I now outsource most of my content these days. One excellent source for finding original content as well as help boost the process of starting your website is an excellent service called Human Proof Designs (click the link to read our review of these guys).
Read the full article: https://t.co/hdcGiXmr2D#bloggingtips #blogging #makemoneyonline #makemoneyblogging #bloggers #marketingonline #blog pic.twitter.com/tXDKJAhedU
— Todd Maltzahn (@ToddMaltzahn) August 3, 2017
Content is mostly thought of as written content, but videos and info-graphics are other forms of content that can play a massive rolls in getting traffic to your blog as well as influence your website rankings.
Keyword Research
If you want to truly understand how to make money blogging for beginners, the first thing you will need to understand is..
- How to write content based on keyword research that is related to your blog’s niche.
Keywords, and really keyword phrases, are the basis of what your blog audience is searching for online and what you ideally want to provide them.
If you can write quality content that helps your audience, and is based off of keyword research, then you will see your content rank under specific keywords and keyword phrases.
You need to use low competition keyword phrases so that you will be able to rank faster and easier.
If you pick keywords that are highly competitive, you’ll never get your content to rank, thus never get your beautiful words in front of your blogging audience. 🙁
Here’s how you find keywords as well as content ideas for your blog.
- Google Instant in conjunction with the alphabet soup technique
- Utilizing Jaaxy’s Keyword Research Tool
Each one of these techniques are discussed in separate blog posts linked right above for more details.
To simplify the process, let’s use another training video provided by Wealthy Affiliate so that you can see how keywords work.
Monitize Your Blog
When people start searching how to make money blogging for beginners, the keyword here is money.
I want you to really take off the emphasis on the money part as you start your blog.
Think more about writing for and helping your blog audience.
Focus on building traffic to your site and growing your blog on a daily basis.
Then as your site gains some clout with Google, Yahoo, and Bing, then you’ll focus on the money.
This can be done by several methods including:
- Private Advertising
- Advertising other company’s products or affiliate banners on the side bars of your blog
- Add Google AdSense to your top ranking blog posts or side bar
- Writing product reviews on Affiliate Products that you support and that are related to your niche
- Advertise and review Amazon products through the Amazon Associates Program
The key to making money from your blog is going to be creating traffic, which is accomplished through content that gets ranked.
Wanna see some bloggers that took their online business serious and developed a 4 – 5 Figure monthly income in a matter of months, not years.
READ THIS POST…
Lastly, Don’t Forget to Share Your Content
Part of getting traffic and ranking your content, is to start to develop your social networks and/or become involved in chat forums that are based on your blog niche.
For every blog you write, you want to be sharing it socially on all your social profiles, networks, and groups.
You want to pick social networks that are relevant to your blog niche.
Sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, Linkedin, Triberr, etc.
This is a big part of bringing traffic to your blog and as more visitors engage in your content through social media, you will see better rankings for your blog which will lead to even more traffic.
More Traffic = More Money 🙂
Click here to get our guide to drive targeted traffic to your website or online products – It’s Totally Free!
In Conclusion
The key to making money by blogging is intention.
Go into this with the intention of helping people based on something that you are passionate about.
If you can help people that share a common niche with you, the money will come.
I hope this has been a helpful guide for you to learn how to make money blogging for beginners, if you have any questions, please leave me a comment below.
Want to learn more?
Get the Help You Need!
Hi Todd,
I am Matt, a blogger with multiple wp sites working with adsense and now i want to get in affiliate marketing. I need suggestions like should i create a data backed/based affiliate website or should i just go for plugins that i see in advertisement a lot and use my current site’s traffic and try promoting there for commissions?
Here in UK we have this company that offers a great deal of plugins and stores data…. thing is the plugins they are offering are free and commissions that they are offering is 100% which seem attractive, so here is the address of list revglue(.)com/free-wordpress-plugins so please help me out and drop your opinion n let me know what should i go for?
Much appreciated.
Hey Matt,
Great question. I’ve added the revglue program to our list of product reviews. You already know that most ad-rev programs take a commission.
Even if they don’t, is it a good thing to do to earn more money from you current traffic and webistes?
I say no, it’s easier than going through and adding specific affiliate links, so it could randomly work. That does happen in affiliate marketing.
But in general, you’ll have much higher conversion rates when your sales funnels are specific and relevant to your niche audience.
The difference is huge in my experience. Like going from a .05% conversion rate to a 10% to 20% conversion rate.
You want to make the most out of your traffic that’s for sure. I recently switched my entire site over to Thrive.
I changed to the Focus Theme which is designed for sales conversions. The landing pages and optin’s are perfect for developing the highest conversion sales funnels.
Plus, you can A/B Split Test everything. So you can constantly improve your sales conversions with actual data.
For more info on Thrive, check out our Thrive Themes Membership Review.
You can always just go the lazy route and get what you get. I’d look at the sites with the most traffic, work on one of them and see if the results are worth it.
Maybe just add Adsense or Amazon links. I’ve got a friend who created a plugin to translate the meaning of names within Asia. He added Google Adsense around his page and it makes him a consistent 4K per month. That was his whole website – Amazing!
Anyways, it all depends on your sites and the type of traffic it’s got.
Hope that helps,
Todd
Thanks for the wonderful guide on blogging. I found it helpful for beginners as I’ve gone through some of the issues of using grey and black hat seo.
Your recommendations are all white hat seo and I wish I would have read this before I started my first blog.
Good work!
Very useful tips on how to make money from blogging. What a great post, the information is well organized and very comprehensive. I can imagine the effort you put into this and especially appreciate you sharing it.
Thanks Ramans for your kind feedback, happy to help!
Great Article but I am also focused on making my website to make money but somehow I’m not getting any of the traffic can you check my website and suggest me as to where i have done wrong?
Hi Anjali,
You’re site looks nice, seems a bit slow and looks like you’re not too sure about how to do keyword research.
I honestly think that the best thing for you to do is to get some structured education on SEO, content writing and keyword research.
This is what I did the first 9 months of building this website and for me, it made all the difference between success and failure.
This is the training I used. I’d encourage you to get rolling in the classes and take the training until you complete all the courses and do all the tasks.
This is the next best step you can take if you want to have success with your website.
Best,
Todd
I’m making a blog. I think there are some things that are difficult for new bloggers like me. Content that is clearly going to make many people visit our blog. That is the important thing and I think about the keywords that will be searched by people a quite difficult.
Hi Kino,
I think you’re right, blogging can be a challenge with out proper training and guidance. For beginner bloggers, go with the systematic training at Wealthy Affiliate and you’ll get everything you need to build a successful blog.
Best,
Todd
Nice work, really a helpful guide for those learning how to blog and make money.
Thanks
This article is very helpful. It really helps me out in my doubt of whether I should start blogging or not.
Thank you for sharing this article.
You bet Navneet, happy to help.
Hey Todd,
Thanks for this blogging post, or should I say blogging guide. Really detailed post and I appreciate it because it confirms with me many things that I have researched.
I realize I’ve got to invest in a site, keyword research and focusing on my niche.
Is it possible to make a blog or niche site based on a single product. If so, how much should the product cost?
Thanks,
Jill
Thanks for the feedback Jill, much appreciated.
For your question. You can absolutely make a small blog or niche site based off a single product. It’s actually easier to start making money with this concept.
Your blog size will be small, but you can make some nice residual affiliate commissions if you do it right.
Wealthy Affiliate had a recent 4 week case study on doing this.
Oh, pricing, try to keep it around 50 dollars. You’ll find that $30 to $50 dollars is a pretty sweet spot for buyers.
It’s not too much money to cause too much thought or anxiety to purchase.
Here’s the course if you want to check it out.. 4 Week Niche Case Study – Week 1.
Best,
Todd
Awesome guide to blogging. Actually I am going to start a blog with the intention of creating a full time professional career, your article has inspired me. Thanks a lot.
You bet, happy to help. This is the guide for blogging that I needed when I was a beginner and now it’s good to hear that it’s helping other as well.
Cheers,
Todd
Really thanks to you for providing this important information to your site. Actually an I want to start a blog, finally found a valuable article on this topic, keep writing.
Thanks for this valuable post on blogging, I finally found a valuable article that really breaks the process down.
I’ve booked marked this page to keep it as a reference.
Thanks
You bet, happy to help and thanks for the feedback. If you want the fast track to long term online success, and what to know what it takes.
Read this post.
Best,
Todd
I’ve been reading about blogging and how bloggers make money. I think after all my research, that your post has summed up the best way to go about it.
Unless you’re blogging for fun or as a hobby, you might as well get educated on how to turn your blog into an online business.
I signed up for your free traffic book. Looking forward to the read.
Hi Dylan,
Thanks for the feedback, that’s great to hear. I strongly recommend you follow the steps to create a successful blog.
It makes all the difference in utilizing ones time online. Quality content can take time, so you want to make sure you know SEO and content/social marketing.
Great points, don’t be like many wanna be bloggers, learn to actually make a niche blog correctly from the start to maximize revenue.
Eventually you can hire content writers or even try Human Proof Designs original content packages, but you need to know how to edit content and optimize the post.
Thanks,
Todd
Truly a great post for beginning or experienced bloggers. I know and use the WA community and the Wealthy Affiliate platform offers so much to bloggers, online businesses, and really anyone with an online presence.
The best way to profit with a blog is what these guys teach, they teach you how to target your blog audience. How to rank for things people within your niche are searching for on Google. You got to know this if your blogging, otherwise what’s the point?
I feel numerous bloggers will benefit from this guide – extremely well done.
Thanks Raff, well stated and totally true. If you want to direct specific traffic that’s looking for whatever you sell or promote online, then Wealthy Affiliate’s training program is imperative.
You just got to check it out and get a feel for the environment. It’s good stuff!
Thanks,
Todd
10 easy steps – each step you have explained clearly, this post is helpful for many beginners… who want to start their own home based business. Well, for my knowledge base a single blog can monetize different ways.. Thanks for sharing your knowledge Todd!
Awesome Charan, thanks for your feedback. Hope it helps. I think most bloggers don’t follow a proven path to success and so the eventually waste a ton of time and eventually give up on their blogging dreams.
If you follow what works, you’ll see success, especially if you’re passionate about your blog.
Best,
Todd
Great post Todd. Well-researched with lots of great points. I see so many people start out with blogging without a clue as to how to create a successful blog – one that makes money and helps people within whatever niche you like to blog about.
I also can vouch for your resource of Wealthy Affiliate. They are highly regarding in the online business and blogging communities.
Thanks Rocky for your feedback on our post and Wealthy Affiliate as the number one support platform for bloggers. Anyone who’s checked them out can instantly see the value they provide new and experienced bloggers improve their sites and business.
For those that want to see WA’s Free and Premium Memberships, go for it, you won’t be disappointed.
Todd
Hi Todd,
Thanks for this post, that is a very clear step by step overview on how to successfully get your blog started. I couldn’t agree more with regards to using a an education systems to be truly successful blogging.
I see you recommended Wealthy Affiliate, I’m a user of Wealthy Affiliate myself and agree it is a great place for any level of blogger to learn more and become more successful.
Thanks for your feedback on Wealthy Affiliate and this post. I wanted to make as simple and easy to understand guide to help fellow bloggers.
I just saw so many blogs around that are so poorly put together that I hope I’ve provided a solid resource to help those become successful in the blogging world.
Thanks,
Todd
I’ve earned a few dollars from my blog, but would love to grow it in the coming years. For now, though, it’s more of a hobby and an accountability tool, as we work to pay off our debt.
Thanks..!! 🙂
Hi Sakshi,
Thanks for your feedback as a blogger. If it’s a hobby, I’d still encourage to get training in SEO, keyword research, etc.. You’ve already seen that you can make money blogging, what if you were targeting your articles that you like to write more to an audience that is already searching about things that you are blogging about. Searching on Google or YouTube that is.
That way, as you build out your blog, you’ll drive more traffic and convert more sales. You can learn to do this fairly easy using the right education and training.
I a month, you’d understand it better and with time, your blog might be doing well enough to pay off the debt. Then keep building and now you’ve got your self an asset.
Cheers,
Todd
I enjoyed reading your step by step guide to setting up a blog. It was very easy to read and helpful. It’s perfect for beginners, I am with wealthy affiliate at the moment and am enjoying the courses. I think it’s the best thing i have ever done was to join. I love the step by step tutorials and the community is great. Thanks for the read
Hi Jenny,
Thanks for your feedback on WA and our Blogging for Beginner’s guide. I wrote it to help those starting out their blogging career to give them direction.
Living in Colombia and managing guest homes, as well as doing my online research, I realized there are 1,000’s of wanna be bloggers who realize the income potential a blog can create yet they don’t have a clue as to how to get started, autenticas of creating a success blog, keyword research, and really how to connect with their niche (blog) audience.
I watched a friend work tirelessly at his blog and he was able to post 5x’s the amount of content that I did, yet his blog never saw any traffic and never made any money.
My blog on the other hand is very targeted (using long tailed keyword phrases) to help people within the online money making niche. I have 140 or so posts and he had over a 1,000, yet this site sees 30 times the amount of traffic and makes a full time income.
My friends blog on the other hand is now abandoned and makes nothing. So I really hope this post gets to those bloggers who think, “it’s blogging, what’s to learn”. When the reality is that there is a stellar education to help anyone create a money making blog.
Cheers,
Todd
Hi Todd.
I like the way you describe the 10 easy steps for beginners to start making money through blogging. This give them a very good and clear directions to start as most of the beginners are clueless in the beginning.
For every step you describe there is a guide on it and a beginner can clearly follow it smoothly.
Thanks for such a great article. I like it.
Thanks Mike for your feedback. I agree, I see so many clueless bloggers out there that think they can just randomly write content and expect good results.
I have a friend that did this and wrote over 500 posts and his site makes zero money. I tried to help him and guide him to use our proven educational platform, but what can you do.
Take this compared to my 2 years of running this site and producing only 140 posts and I currently see 500 – 1,000 visitors per day and make a full time income of this site.
The success you can find online by following those that know what their doing is a reality. Check out my #1 Training Program if you want to do the same thing.
Best,
Todd
Hi Todd,
For someone with limited knowledge when it comes to websites and affiliate marketing this was very helpful… you’ve broken the steps to blogging down nicely and this helps make sense of everything. Learning how to make money blogging or simply setting up a blog when you’re a beginner can be intimidating.
Wealthy Affiliate looks like a very good option to get started with!… how long have you been in Wealthy Affiliate for?
Thanks
Mason
Hi Mason,
Thanks for your feedback on our guide to make money blogging for beginners. I’m glad I was able to make the process easier to understand and provide some good resources.
I started my first blog years ago without knowing what to do and of course it was a failure, so I think it’s a great advantage to you to have a structured environment with daily tasks and professionals who already know how to make money blogging.
It will help you accomplish your goals as a blogger much faster with a proven system.
Wealthy Affiliate gives you all the tools and resources you need to create online success. What they’re really teach you how to do is to not only create a successful blog, but create a successful online business.
This is done by simply focusing on a niche that you love and then writing helpful contents for your niche audience.
I started with Wealthy Affiliate almost 2 years ago and really just focused on the training. WA has 2 main courses and hundreds of webinars to go through. It took me 9 months to go through their boot camp training program and it has really allowed me to understand how to make money blogging as well as create a passive income source online.
I make money online everyday for the things that I did 2 years ago and it’s a rewarding experience if you can do the same
Best of luck.
Thanks,
Todd
Hello there. Thanks for writing the post. This article is really good for those who want to start making money through blogging. I also recommend people to join wealthy affiliate for those who want to learn the real method on monetizing their website. You do need a good investment of time, but not much money, in order to get a good income online through blogging, but it’s a reality and your post is the correct path to learn how to make money blogging, especially for beginners. Nice work.
Thanks Mohd, I really appreciate your feedback and personal experience on the process of making money via blogging. It’s really cool once you get to the stage where you simply manage your website or websites.
For me, I’m at the stage of somewhat coasting. This blog itself brings in 500 to 1,000 daily visitors with 86% of them coming from Google.
And this is really good proof that what Wealthy Affiliate teaches works. They taught me how to develop my blog and turn it into a online business that makes cash 24/7, 52 weeks of the year works.
As I continue to add keyword based content that ranks relatively quickly, I continue to build more targeted traffic to my site who’s interested in useful products that help them accomplish their goals.
Outsource tasks as needed and keep building. Keep it simple. To get to this point, it’s going to take some time and effort, but anyone can do it with the right education, guidance, and support.
Thanks,
Todd
Excellent post! I am trying hard to earn money through my blog. I have followed the steps you note, but no luck so far. How long did it take you to start earning? I am wondering if it is my niche or me!
I am really enjoying working on my site, so it is definitely worth it, but I would love to see some money come to confirm I am doing it right!
Hi Ilyssa,
This is natural how you are feeling, I went through it, and so have thousands of other beginner bloggers.
I wrote a post about it and I think you should read it so that you have a better perspective an understanding of this process. I chose an extremely competitive niche for my first site and although I’m happy with the results now, it took me a long time to break into.
I sometimes wish I would have chosen a niche that was more based on my past profession or passions but that’s not how it happened.
But I’m really happy with the various web sites that I’ve created and the financial results from those websites, but it does take some initial time. Remember, you’re getting an education while building your online business. Do college students expect to make money the first semester of college?
Here’s the post I was talking about called; how long does it take to make money online.
Thanks,
Todd
Hi Todd
I appreciate your site and this post. Beginner bloggers are going to be happy they read this. It’s awesomely informative and simple and straightforward. Everyone who reads this will get a clear understanding of how to make money blogging.
The simple images and video tutorials that you incorporate are great too. I left feeling so encouraged knowing I have the ability to take on this challenge.
I am grateful. Thank you.
That’s awesome feedback to hear. If I would have had this knowledge when I started my first blog, I would have created my site in less than one week and not have paid $1,000’s for my first site.
Live and learn. But absolutely, if you’re a beginner blogger or internet marketer or just someone who wants to learn how to make honest money online, then this the place for you.
You want to build your blog or whatever online business correctly from a SEO standpoint. And WA only teaches white hat SEO to build a strong long-term online business.
If you haven’t tried them, you’re missing out.
Thanks,
Todd
Hi Todd,
I see you have put out a lot of effort in doing what you love and now you are teaching others how to make money blogging for beginners.
I am grateful for this. Your site is very informative yet so simple and straightforward. It has awaken my skills in such a way that I have to do what I really love and it’s to blog.
The information is well organized and will help many bloggers get started on the right track. You have everyone’s interest at heart when you write. I can feel the connection.
Thank you for awaking my potential. The images and video tutorials are great. Keep helping us. You are awesome.
Wow, that’s powerful Nadeen. Some of the first lessons I learned at Wealthy Affiliate really instilled the sense of helping others within your desired niche.
This really stuck with me and made sense. When you first start creating an online business through a blog, it’s easy to focus on the money. But that’s the worst thing you can do.
That’s the opposite of what you want to do. You want to focus and put yourself in the shoes of the niche audience you’re trying to appeal to. Once you’ve got that figured out, traffic and sales will come. But you definitely need the training to make that happen.
If you need help, it’s a click away.
Thanks,
Todd
Hi there, you have a great post here. It is a sweet and short step-by-step to how one can monetize his or her blog. Great stuff you have outlined here.
It does seem like easy to set up a blog from scratch but it requires a lot of hard work to run the blog. You mentioned high-quality content is king and share the content with the people. That needs a significant time and effort to do a thorough research while writing and market the content on Social media. I guess there is no shortcut and have to do it this way?
Great post! I will come back for more!
Hey there Alex, I think at first it’s tough to find the routine to the daily tasks that go into creating a profitable and successful blog.
I found this a bit challenging just like anyone will. If if you have a system, you will find that it takes off a lot last time.
This is the system I use to rank content quickly if you’d like to check it out.
If you are creating all the quality content, socially sharing that content, getting comments and social shares for that same content, it can take some time. Nothing more than a full-time job so that’s just part of how you start out.
I found that if you can outsource some of the work you can cut down on the amount of time you spend on your blog. This is why it’s also to pick a niche that your really like or something you are passionate about.
I do this and I found myself spending 5 to 10 hours per week managing my websites that earn a great monthly income that continues to grow as I grow my blog.
This will happen for you too Alex if you focus on helping your niche audience using keyword phrases that you know your niche audience is already searching in Google that is low competition and easy to rank.
To learn how to do this most efficiently, check out these guys.
Thanks,
Todd
Hi
I love this post, it answers a lot of questions I had about how bloggers make money and how to start blogging if you are a complete beginner. I’ve always been interested in making money online and so I really enjoyed the article.
I recently started my own blog and have found my passion but now with the knowledge from this post I can really put all the things I’ve practiced and learned into action.
Thanks
Hi Ben,
That’s great feedback and I know a lot of people who are new to blogging want to get started off on the right path. That’s why I strongly recommend the training program produced by Wealthy Affiliate.
They’ll help you get your site set up for search engine success. Then they have daily tasks that you need to complete that helps you build out your blog and really expand your online business.
Once you learn how to do keyword research so that you can rank for phrases that your blog audience is naturally searching in Google, you can connect with your audience and really generate a lot of online sales that are related to your blog’s niche.
As long as the content helps people out and your recommendations are good, you’ll do great creating a successful blog that makes money on a daily basis.
Very informative and helpful article for bloggers just starting out and wanting to take their talent and make money online. I really appreciate the step by step process you laid out.
I also like the idea of your recommendation Wealthy Affiliate because of the free trial. It’s nice to be able to check out a program to make sure it is what I actually want. Thanks for writing this great article.
You bet Gloria, and thanks for your feedback. It’s tough when you first start blogging to realize the potential of what you are creating.
You’re essentially creating a informative site for a specific niche. As you build traffic through targeting keyword phrases that your niche is already searching, you can connect and covert sales very easily.
And the work that you create pays you time and time again, it’s the coolest thing.
The key is your intention to help – that’s it. No big secret. And if you’re trying to learn how to make money blogging, then Wealthy Affiliate is the proven system to get you from point A to point B.
I couldn’t be happier with what I learned from them, I make money online every single day selling products that people already want and like – It’s the perfect job. Plus, with the education that I have, I’ve changed my financial position for life. That’s powerful stuff.
Best,
Todd
Hey Todd,
I enjoyed reading this post on how to make money blogging for beginners. You have laid it out step by step that even a newbie can follow.
I just have some questions…
How long does it take to rank for a long tail keyword?
Also, you did not include list building or capturing email in your steps. Is that not important?
Any guidance is greatly appreciated.
Hi William, thanks for your kind feedback on our blogging guide. I wanted to really focus on the fundamental aspects one needs to consider when starting a niche based blog so that it’s set up correctly from the start.
Email marketing is absolutely necessary. And I would encourage bloggers to start their email marketing campaigns just as soon as they have traffic coming to their site.
That’s a whole other topic and Kyle from Wealthy Affiliate has created a nice guide to start learning about email marketing called Email Marketing – Getting Started Guide. Check it out when you get a chance.
As for ranking long tail keywords, this all depends on how much content you produce on a weekly basis, the competition of your keyword phrase, and how long your site has been around producing quality content.
As you produce consistent quality content based on your niche, Google starts to recognize your site as an authority in your respective niche.
With a new site, I wouldn’t worry about the traffic to start. I’d try to get those first 15-20 posts published and build the foundation to your site.
I put up a niche site with 5 pages (foundation to sit) and then produced one long tail keyword post and had it on the 3rd page on Google in 2 days. So it can happen with a new site, but as you produce more quality content, you see your site rank more and more.
After I had about 30 posts on this site, I found that I could rank some posts in just hours after writing them. So it’s a bit of a tricky question.
Just focus on helping your niche with quality written and video content, and the traffic will come. But make sure your doing your homework with your keywords.
I use Jaaxy to find all my low competition keyword phrases and my rankings. Jaaxy is definitely a tool that every blogger or internet marketer should have if their serious about their online business.
Thanks,
Todd
You have me hooked. It seems that you have the concept covered on how to make money with blogging. I also like how you encourage people to really follow their passions when it comes to making a business out of your blog.
I’ve been checking out your site and it’s easy on the eyes and very informative. You really have a wealth of information here that can’t be overlook. Seems you have the right answers from personal experience on how to make money online a reality.
I signed up for your training recommendation and am loving the training so far. Thanks
Hi Jimcas,
That’s great to hear and I really appreciate your feedback. I put a lot of thought into this post because I really wanted to help out those folks that are trying to figure out how to make money blogging but aren’t really sure how it’s done.
It seems that those that do know the basics, think the no more than the really do. There is a strategic way to put up a successful blog that brings in consistent daily dollars.
Many people that I’ve meet while traveling have blogs. And when I look at them I usually see a lack curb appeal, disorganized blog structure, and poorly placed affiliate links.
I give some pointers, but man, if people could just open their minds to learning from established marketers like Wealthy Affiliate provides, they could actually make blogs that produce good income.
Can’t save them all, but hopefully this post will help out those that need it.
Take care,
Todd
As a fellow blogger making my daily bread online, I was curious about your 10 step guide to learning how to make money blogging for beginners.
I must say that I’m impressed. Excellent recommendations and resources listed here. I know several other bloggers that got started with the Wealthy Affiliate program and they’re doing great.
This is a very comprehensive list and excellent instructions on how to make a successful blog. I think one point that really stuck out for me was following your passions. Isn’t that what life is all about?
Great read Todd and it’s good to see someone giving good advice to those who want to join the profession of blogging.
Dan
Hey Dan,
Thanks for dropping by and leaving your feedback as a professional blogger. It’s good to know that my tips are well received. This is simply the guide that I would have liked to have had 5 years ago when I started my first site. Well actually I lost $1,000 by having someone else make my blog when I could have now done the work in less than a week.
Live and learn, thanks again Dan for taking the time to leave your comment.
Cheers,
Todd
I think what you have published is actually very sound advice for current and wanna be bloggers.
There’s a lot of people that think they know how to blog. And really, it’s not that hard, but to learn how to make money blogging for beginners the correct way from when you start a blog is an invaluable resource.
This way, you don’t have to go through trial and error, but instead can be very specific about how your target your blog posts to your target audience. I know a lot of bloggers, especially travel bloggers, that could benefit from keyword research and learning SEO skills.
Thanks,
Alex
Aboslutely Alex and perfectly stated. Sorry for not responding sooner, your comment must have slipped my attention.
But thanks for giving us your feedback on blogging and making money with a blog.
Sounds like you speak from experience.
Cheers,
Todd
Hi there,
I’ve been wanting to start a blog that would also eventually make me money, do you really think that it’s imperative that I use your Wealthy Affiliate recommendation for the training?
If so, can you elaborate a little more as to why that’s the case.
Thanks,
Alice
Hi Alice,
Great question and YES, I absolutely think that using Wealthy Affiliate is a tremendous benefit to creating a successful blog and here’s why.
You can go about putting up a blog on your own and start playing around with WordPress and learn about internet marketing, but if you don’t have any experience with this, you could spend a great deal of personal time working on your blog only to make a site that gets no natural traffic, or is seen in the eyes of Google as a spam website.
With Wealthy Affiliate, you have so much personal support, training’s, tutorials, Webinars and everything you need to get your blog off to right start.
Do you want to spend hours figuring out how to optimize photos or 10 minutes? Do you want to learn SEO or pay for it?
Wealthy Affiliate’s got all the tools you’ll ever need to learn how to make money blogging. I would recommend you take a look at my review of them to see all that they offer. (Wealthy Affiliate Review)
If you have any other questions, just let me know.
Best,
Todd
Hi there Todd,
Having owned a website for a year now, I think many beginners are quite confused when it comes to finding a web host and a publishing platform.
Cheaper hosting usually comes with a free web builder – like the drag-and-drop type – which is easy to use at first glance, but has a lot of limited functions when it comes to SEO and marketing tools.
Hosting that comes with WordPress can be a lot pricier because WordPress itself is a customizable software. You’ll certainly need a powerful hosting to manage a WordPress website for sure.
Often times, beginners opt for a cheaper hosting and download their own WordPress only to experience technical glitch later in the website creation which can be a pain.
Moving to another host is doable but it consumes time and you could run the risk of losing some web files in the process. Yeah, that’s how frustrating it could get if you don’t get it right from the start.
I didn’t know what’s what when I built my first website but SiteRubix makes the entire process simple and manageable. I get to try WordPress on a powerful hosting – risk free – and really like it before purchasing my own domain to set up my online business.
Having done some research, I couldn’t emphasize on the importance of choosing the right hosting and publishing platform because that’s where all your effort resides at the end of the day.
I hope your readers will find some helpful tips from this concise step-by-step guide.
Cheers!
Hi Cathy,
Always wonderful to get your take on my posts. I think you’ve made some excellent points when it comes to setting up your blog from the start, and that is another advantage of using the training services of Wealthy Affiliate.
You see, WA offers free hosting with their educational program using the WordPress software but the hosting isn’t the traditional single server you get with cheaper services. WA using PREMIUM state of the art cloud hosting and they have put strict limitations on the number of sites per virtual cloud server.
Then after you finish the training of WA, if you want to transfer your server to BlueHost or HostGater, etc., you can do so with ease. Which is another problem with the “drag and drop” website builders you mentioned. Most of these free website builders make you keep your hosting with them and you can NOT actually transfer your content and site to a new host.
Something for people to think about when they are just starting out.
Thanks again for commenting on my post “How to Make Money Blogging For Beginners”.
Have a nice weekend Cathy,
Todd
F
Hi there,
I really enjoyed your guide on how to make money blogging for beginners. And I feel many newbie bloggers would benefit from this guide – very thorough and nicely put together.
I know many bloggers who have started their blogs out incorrectly only to have to go back months later and try to correct their errors.
Nice work. You’ve also pointed to lots of great resources and programs on your site. I really enjoyed your keyword research post as well.
Thanks for the help,
Ty
Your welcome Ty. I start each post with the intention of helping someone solve a problem. With blogging for beginners, I wanted to lay out a easy to follow guide and point out some great resources that lessons the learning curve when putting together a blog, especially if you want that blog to make money.
Many blogging beginners add too many affiliate links when they start out and so their site comes off as spam to major search engines like Google.
So it’s important to start your blog off with the right education. At least that’s my take on it.
Have a Happy Friday and thanks for your feedback on my post.
Todd
Hi Todd,
What a complete guide to making money blogging. This will certainly be very useful to anyone that is thinking of starting a blog with the idea of earning some money. Although we have to go through all the steps when we are starting a blog, there are two points I particularly appreciated.
The fact that you advise people to get some training is really important. This might be a small extra cost, but it can certainly speed up the process of making money. At Wealthy Affiliate they show you the correct way to do things, no short cuts or black hat SEO methods.
The other point I really liked is telling people not to focus on money, but to concentrate on content that will help others. For me, it’s the content that makes the difference. People may come to your site after seeing an ad or some promotion, however they will leave rapidly if they don’t find the content they need.
Thanks again Todd for a really great post.
Peter
Hey thanks Peter for your kind remarks, I really appreciate it.
Blogging has become a fun hobby for many, but more and more people are finding it can turn into a lucrative passive income.
Just the other day I was reading a blog about bloggers that make serious money from their various niche blogs.
It had around 27 bloggers that made money in all kinds of ways, mostly through advertising and affiliate marketing. But these folks were making full time incomes to 7 figure incomes.
My intention with this article was to show bloggers or potential bloggers what I wish someone would have shown me about 4 years ago. I paid $1,500 USD’s for a site that I can now put up in a day.
It’s incredible what you can learn when you have step by step training and it’s not that hard to put up sites. But you do need to be willing to learn new information.
And Peter you are absolutely right about the training program at Wealthy Affiliate. It’s easily the best education to learn how to create proper blogs and online businesses. Personally, I like the structure that they provide me. As a matter of fact, I need to catch the Funnel Strategy Webinar.
And about the money, it’s a tough concept to put oneself through. But this is exactly what any person that go into business for themselves has to go through. So focusing on the intention of helping others will lift your spirit and take the focus off anything with monetary value and this will sharpen your focus on whatever niche topic you are discussing.
Thanks again for stopping by Peter, it’s always good to hear from you.
Best,
Todd
Just 10 simple steps? Seems a lot more complicated than that! I need to work more on keywords and sharing content, but I appreciate the break down of the 10 steps to creating a money-making blog.
It is certainly different from just creating a blog for fun and family. It would be better to start off with a plan to make money from a blog and put I the right pieces in place from the beginning.
Using the right stuff from the start would certainly streamline the process and build a better foundation.
Wealthy Affiliate seems to be the place to find additional information and resources to build up a website. Thanks for this information Todd!
Hi Busy Girl,
Thanks for your feedback and the excellent points you’ve made about blogging for beginners.
The 10 steps may seem complicated when you think of doing them all at once, just like most skills/talents/or jobs. But when you break them down and take them one step at a time, it’s really pretty easy.
One step at a time and most anything can be accomplished.
And I agree with you, if you’re just blogging for fun, might as well use a free site builder. I recommend Siterubix, they can help get everything set up on your blog so that it’s secure and spam free as well as give you a breakdown on how to manage WordPress to create your own unique blog.
Highly recommended for those that want to start blogging for free.
But if you want to know how to make money from blogging and your are new to this field, you want to build your site correctly from the start. Build a solid foundation for your site to flourish, one that will be beneficial to your audience.
Create content with the intention of helping people, and you will get traffic. Once that happens, you’ll see your blog making you money passively. It’s a very cool thing.
About Wealthy Affiliate – They are more than just a place to build your website. They provide in-depth classes on every aspect of internet marketing, website development, and online business training.
Again, highly recommended for any blogger or entrepreneur who wants to learn how to build honest, ETHICAL make money online blogs and/or businesses.
Thanks for your comment and have a great weekend.
Best,
Todd
Wow,
Todd you have done an awesome job explaining in steps how to make money blogging, someone who is interested in making money blogging can really find your article useful to them.
I am so thankful to have found Wealthy Affiliate, simply the best online education to learn all about content writing and educating people to take what they have learned at WA and put it into action, simply the best way to learn how to become an internet marketer. To gain the skills to become successful online. Great Job! As always love reading your articles.
Hi Jennifer,
Thanks for commenting on my post. I just wanted to give future and present bloggers a step by step guide on how to make money blogging, especially for beginners.
I know a lot of people start out blogging for fun with the hope of that they can make money on it in the future. And that is where I think a lot of bloggers go wrong.
You really need to start your blog right from the beginning, otherwise you could end up wasting a lot of time and effort. There is a step by step approach to putting up blogs that make money, and I believe this is the most complete guide that I have seen online on how to do it.
Starting a blog is relatively cheap, if you want to make a business out of it in the future, get started on the right track with a solid education. And yes, Wealthy Affiliate is the best training program I have seen out there to help bloggers do this.
You wouldn’t think about becoming a doctor, accountant, graph designer without putting in the time and getting a proper education, so why is this any different.
Thanks for stopping by Jenn, I always appreciate your feedback on my posts.
Cheers,
Todd