How to Start Blogging with WordPress (# 1 Beginner’s Guide)

If you’re committed to blogging with WordPress, this simple step-by-step guide will help you get started in the most convenient way possible.

This is my simple step-by-step guide on “How to start blogging with WordPress” which will walk you through the entire process from starting a blog through Bluehost to making money from your blog.

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links, and are at no additional cost to you. I may receive compensation when you shop using them, which drives us to create more valuable content like this and helps make this guide free for you. Needless to mention I only recommend products or services that I have personally used and found to be worth without prejudice.

No matter if you want to boost your already established business, try blogging as an online career or are already living the nomadic life as a full-time blogger, you are reading this article means either you are inclined towards blogging with WordPress or want to give it a try.

How frustrating it was in the years before 2010 that the information you were desperate to find was not available in one place. When I was searching online for blogging-related information, it was available in pieces and I had to visit many sites to quench my thirst.

To save you from being a victim like me, I have created this free step-by-step guide to help you get all the quality information related to blogging with WordPress in one complete package. After reading this article you will be surprised to know that blogging with WordPress is not as complicated as it seems.

Do not hurry, take your time and read at your own pace! If you have already decided about your blog name and niche and want to skip the introduction, you can directly skip to step #3 and start setting up a WordPress blog with Bluehost.

PS: In the meantime, if you have any questions or got stuck somewhere, don’t hesitate to contact us and I will be happy to assist you in this regard.

How to start blogging with WordPress in #8 easy steps

To help make blogging with WordPress even easier, I’ve divided the entire process into 8-easy steps, from choosing a blog niche to how you can make money from your blogging efforts. You might find something that you are already familiar with, but don’t get overwhelmed and try to go through all the details as you need to be proficient in a skill which is going to be the deciding factor in your long-term career. 

Step #1 Choose the topic area for your blog
Step #2: Choose a Suitable Blogging Platform
Step #3: Register a Domain Name and Buy Hosting
Step #4: Set up your blog on WordPress
Step #5: Customize and design your WordPress Blog
Step #6: Write and publish your first blog post
Step #7: Promote your blog content to get readers
Step #8: Make Money From Your Blog (if all goes well)

Before starting blogging with WordPress, here are some important points to justify why it is important to start a blog and why one should start blogging.

  • To share your thoughts and ideas with a huge community.
  • To become an authority in the niche you are blogging in.
  • To network with others and grow your audience.
  • To learn and master new skills that interest you.
  • To be self-employed and earn extra money.

A blog can help you accomplish many things, such as: informing, educating, promoting and even selling things. There are a lot of benefits to blogging, and for some people, it can be a great way to earn extra income online. 

Once your blog collects enough traffic, you can start earning online in several ways. Many people have tried it and lived up to their expectations. Now it is your turn to delve deeper into an endeavor that can become your way of life.

Let’s start with step #1, which is to decide on a clear topic area in which you will be blogging, i.e. a specific niche in which you will create valuable content for years to come.

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Step#1: Choose the topic area for your blog

I think deciding on a clear topic area is the first and most important step before knowing anything about blogging with WordPress. Everyone likes to choose a blog niche with lots of potential and business opportunities so they can live their passion for the years to come. To create content for your blog it is important not only to choose a topic that interests you, but it is equally important to see if there is a business opportunity involved in the niche.

I know that choosing a clear subject area to focus on can sometimes be a challenge. I am often asked by many readers which blog they should choose based on their particular skills, interests and experience. To help spark your imagination, here are some time-tested blog niche ideas that have already proven to be in demand.

  1. Search Engine Optimization
  2. Fitness
  3. Fashion
  4. Lifestyle
  5. Career and Jobs
  6. Personal Finance and Investment
  7. Personality Development
  8. Small Business Marketing
  9. Entrepreneurship
  10. Photography
  11. Travel
  12. Natural Life
  13. Food and Cuisine
  14. Parenting
  15. Coding
  16. Writing
  17. Side  Hustle
  18. Sustainability
  19. Women’s Empowerment
  20. Digital Marketing
  21. Dog Training
  22. Meditation

Keep in mind that a particular topic that interests you can be considered a smart topic for a blog if other people share the same interest with you. If you already have a large audience seeking answers on the topic you’ve chosen, you’ve probably found a great blog niche. In the rest of this guide, we’ll cover how to research and validate your blog niche to make sure you’re on the right track.

When you choose a blog niche, you’ll want to choose a topic area that you enjoy writing about regularly for years to come. This means, a very narrow niche like “best mobile phone under 25k in 2024”, probably won’t work well in the long run.

In the beginning, you may feel excited because of less competition in the niche, but you will struggle someday or may even get bored of creating the same type of content for a long time.

With a topic like this, you’re better off expanding your blog niche to include “must buy electronic devices for YouTubers”. Within this broad space, you can still include all the marvel cases you want, but you’re also allowing yourself to expand to many other closely related topics.

How narrow (or wide) should your blog niche be?

According to the recent blogging statistics, there are now an estimated 31.7 million bloggers in 2024. This makes a clear blog niche has become more important than ever now. If your blog covers a big topic like “food,” “health” or “business,” you’re really going to struggle to build a focused target audience.

Instead, you’ll want to focus on something a bit more focused. For example, instead of “food,” you can choose a blog niche like “best recipes on seafood” or “healthy food recipes.” Plus, you’ll also be able to end your blog name in a more obvious place – which ultimately helps to brand themselves to readers.

Now that we understand how to choose a blog niche without the risk of being too narrow or too broad, let’s consider some ideas on what to blog about.

What is a blog niche and how to choose the best

Let’s take a look at what a blog niche is. A blog niche is a clearly defined area or topic that you will focus your blog content on. Choosing a blog niche is one way to answer questions that revolve around a particular topic. In other words, it is a way to decide what your blog is about or what you are going to blog about.

Some bloggers write about whatever comes to their mind and you know this is not a good strategy. If you want to build a relationship with your readers and want your blog to be more than an online magazine, you need to choose a blog niche. A clear subject area on which you will focus all of your blog content to establish what your readers should expect from you.

Some bloggers know what they want to write before starting a blog, but other new bloggers have no clue (and that’s okay). They are still in the process of figuring out what a blog niche really is, and they only know they want to blog about something. If this sounds like you, here are some methods you can implement to better empower your decision on whether or not you should consider a blog niche.

1. Make a list of all the things you are interested in

List all the areas you are most interested in whether or not you think this would be a great blog niche. Just think of all the possibilities at this stage. It’s okay if some of your niche ideas seem too general and others are more specific. No thoughts are bad ideas at this stage. Your list might look something like this:

  1. Travel
  2. Painting
  3. Mount Riding
  4. Consulting
  5. Teaching
  6. Review Movies
  7. News Editing

This comprehensive list will cover all the possibilities that you need to consider for a blog niche. You might even find a potential blog niche in particular that stands out to you, put a star next to it to make it a point to look again after cross-checking all the topics on your list. And remember, if you’re blogging about topics you’re personally interested in, that’s a recipe for not only faster writing but a more enjoyable experience for both you and your readers.

2. Consider blogs, magazines, and books you enjoy reading

Which blog or site do you visit most often? Which magazines or books do you like to read? You may have a wide range of different interests, or you may find that all your reading is focused on one subject area which can help you gravitate toward a particular blog niche to focus on your content creation. 

Write down the topics and blog titles of all the sites, magazines and books you’ve read, then see if they bring up any clear ideas for your blog niche.

3. List your past jobs, hobbies and experiences

How many work experiences have you had in your life? Write them down, even if they have no relevance. What about your hobbies? Which places do you like to visit more often? What do you like to discuss in general? Maybe you like to play an instrument or you’re part of multiple sports teams. Don’t forget to mention them all.

While you may not want to start writing blog posts about your actual job, you may find that there are elements of your job or hobby that you enjoy blogging about. Maybe you’re a salesman in an advertising agency, a musician, or you enjoy sketching and painting—thus it makes sense for you to choose a blog niche focused on your creativity. If you have some experience blogging in the past, try to gain some insight into the type of content you have enjoyed writing about the most.

4. List the notable achievements you have made

From gaming, digital photography or dog training to travelling or working on special projects, gather some insight into what you’ve accomplished and how you can work on it. What achievements have you had so far? It could be something like this-

  1. Learn to Build a Website
  2. Made greenery on the roof of my house
  3. Lost 30 kg of weight doing yoga and adopting good eating habits
  4. Learned how to service a car or
  5. Great Travel Experience in Europe

These are achievements that other people would love to experience and you can blog about how you achieved them.

5. Consider some popular topics you’ve always wanted to learn

If you are still stuck, here is a list that is still unlikely to be out of demand and hence considered to be evergreen topics for blogs:

  1. Creating a Website: This can include your technical skills in writing about topics such as how to build a website.
  2. Health and Wellness: which covers a wide range of areas such as weight loss, mental health, alternative therapies
  3. Personality Development: It can be targeted at different age groups or different philosophies or styles.
  4. Parenting: Parenting at various stages including children, adolescents and adult children as well as different parenting methods
  5. Personal Finance: It covers issues like managing debt, increasing income, reducing expenses, investing etc.

However, just because it has a high demand in the market, choosing a blog niche is not ideal. You may find something on that list that appears as a topic to explore blogging and eventually as a solid blog niche over time as you learn the specifics of the space.

Key Questions to Answer When Choosing a Blog Niche

By now, you should have at least some rough ideas on what to blog about or maybe a few different ideas that you can try to test out. Now, how do you know if your niche idea will actually translate into a successful blog that can attract readers?

Try answering these simple questions to fully evaluate your potential blog niche. If you say no to any of the below cases, it’s time to go back to the select list and find a new topic to write about.

Question#1. Are you interested enough in this blog niche?

Yes, it is tempting to choose a blog niche idea that is already in demand like “make money online”, digital marketing or “SEO” which you see in advertisements all the time. But you have to be limited in your area of interest. Because once you face stiff competition in the niche, chances are that your interest will wane over time.

However, you can hire writers to write for you. But, it is you who will decide the future of your blog no matter how much you invest till it becomes profitable. Don’t pick a niche just because you think it will make money for your blog. Instead, pick a niche that you’re genuinely interested in. Something that you will love writing about day in and day out for years to come.

Question#2. Do you have a good understanding of the niche you have selected?

If you are wishing for a successful blogging journey, you need to be able to create content that readers will find helpful, not content filled with inaccuracies or misleading assumptions. You need to choose a topic that you know a fair amount about, at least enough to start a conversation on that topic.

You don’t need to be proficient in the subject to answer what your readers are looking for. However, you need to be skilled enough to quench your reader’s thirst so that they can find it relevant and more valuable than anywhere else. However, readers will always expect you to be specific in your niche.

After all, who would love to learn cooking tips from someone who struggles to boil eggs or blog SEO strategies from someone whose website has never topped Page 10 on Google? So it is up to you how you can make them realize that even with little knowledge of the subject, you still hold onto it. 

In most blog niches, you will not need a certified degree. Readers will be perfectly fine to listen to your “yoga tips,” as long as it’s based on your own personal experience. However, some fields, such as medicine, health, finance and investing, require formal qualifications or a certified degree so that your readers can trust what you write.

In that case, they will want to have at least a significant number of quotes and advice from the experts involved in your recommendations.

Question#3. Is there already an audience for that niche?

For a blog niche to work, you will need an audience so that they can potentially spend money on the product or services (related to the niche) you plan to blog on. If you don’t have a following, all your monetization efforts will be in vain. Below are some pointers to establish whether you have a paying audience for your blog:

1. Are there any books or magazines available related to the niche?
Go to Amazon and find a book related to this niche. Comments or reviews can be a great way to conclude whether people are interested in a niche. If there is a book (or an e-book) on Amazon with zero reviews, it probably isn’t a sign that there is a large-paying audience.

2. Are there products or services targeted at this audience?
The availability of products or services related to the niche proves that there is a paying audience and can potentially be a source of advertising or running affiliate programs to generate income for you.

3. Are there ads running for your keywords?
If it’s common to see keyword-related ads in the niche you’re working in, there’s a high chance that the niche has a huge audience potential and this is a great opportunity for you to work.

Going through these parameters will definitely give you a clue as to whether a certain niche is potentially worth considering or not.

Question#4. Is there enough search volume for keywords in your niche?

What search terms are people using in search engines (like Google) to reach the type of content you’re writing? What is the volume associated with those search terms? These are important questions that you need to answer before you start writing. Prioritizing your target audience based on geographic location is also important to check how popular those keywords are in that particular region.

Make sure you are targeting your country and relevant other large countries. For example, if you’re in the UK, but you plan to promote your services (or products) that can be purchased by a worldwide audience, you might want to target the US and other English-speaking countries.

Question#5. Does the niche have a long-term future?

While you can manage to make your blog a success by focusing on momentary trends, building a popular blog takes time. Creating an entire blog around something that is designed to be short-lived (the fate of Europe due to the Ukraine-Russia war) is unlikely to be worth your time.

Likewise, blogging around something that may soon disappear is not a good plan either. Therefore, it is important to work around a long-lasting blog niche. A good indication of the longevity of a blog niche is that it has been around for a while. Anything that has only come on the scene in the last year may not be worth considering.

Question#6. Is there a fair (or moderate) amount of competition in your blog niche?

You might think that a good niche shouldn’t have a lot of competition – but the opposite is true. If there is no competition, it indicates that your niche is not as popular and has a less potential audience. Other bloggers are just not your competition. 

They can also be your allies. For example, you can guest post on big blogs, and you can host webinars inviting the big names in your niche to help grow your combined audience. Of course, if there is a lot of competition, it becomes important to differentiate your blog from all others, by locating the untargeted audience.

Question#7. Is the niche trending (increasing demand)?

Google Trends is a tool to quickly find the public interest for a particular search term and provides a solid explanation of the behaviour of a search term in different geographic regions. You can see if a search term is becoming more or less popular over time in different countries. 

It’s better to avoid a topic that is steadily becoming less popular unless you have a good reason to believe it will re-capture people’s interest. If interest in a niche is steady, that’s fine but the ideal scenario is a niche that is trending upwards on Google Trends.

You can also compare the two search terms, so if you are discussing the two blogs below, it can help you see their relative popularity. If the graph looks pretty flat for the past year, check the previous date ranges to see if it is declining or gaining popularity over time.

Question#8. Is this the blog niche you wanted to work on?

Although you can blog with potentially the most demanding niche, it is not a good idea to engage with the target audience already. Ultimately this is a long-term undertaking between you and your audience.

If you are not deeply involved with the niche you are blogging about, you may not be able to build a relationship with your audience. Therefore, think twice before considering a blog niche that you do not feel comfortable with.

Question #9. Do you have evergreen content in your niche?

Blog content falls into two major categories: “real information on evergreen content” and “news events.” “Evergreen content remains relevant forever and there is little or no change in the basic information. “News events” can be overly interesting for a short period, but they quickly fade as other events progress. 

While there are plenty of blogs that still primarily publish news, the opportunities for evergreen content make it easier to grow your site. Instead of constantly publishing new content to attract readers, your evergreen content can work hard to drive people to your blog.

Question#10. Is there a business opportunity in the niche you are looking for?

Business ideas don’t just fall from the sky. While you can find great inspiration on the types of businesses you should consider, you shouldn’t chase a random idea just because you saw a provocative ad related to that business.

In a study by CB Insights included in Forbes, 22% of unsuccessful startup founders cited a lack of genuine interest in their niche as their primary reason for failure. The best business ideas come from your strongest areas of interest. So be extra careful while choosing a niche and make sure there is the right business opportunity in your niche.

Validate your ideas on what to blog about?

Now that you have come up with the theme for creating content in your blog, wouldn’t it be great if you could validate your blog niche before all the effort of building an entire blog around it?

Yes, you should because there are many other sites related to this and it is something you are really interested in. Here’s how you can validate the specific ideas you’re considering before spending hours launching your website.

Test #1. Come up with at least 50 headlines for blog posts in your niche.

To be honest, you can write as many blog post titles as you can, but you need to aim for at least 50 views. It doesn’t matter if some of those ideas seem a little generic, or if you’ve seen them before and elsewhere, just try to make a list as long as you can.

If you get bored halfway through, or if you run out of ideas before you have 50, it’s a sign that this blog niche might not be the right choice for you. Because if your blog starts gaining traction midway, you will eventually lose your hope.

Test #2. Write a few guest posts (more than 10) in your blog niche

Go and find blogs that are interested in hosting articles covering those topics as guest posts for your already existing readers. As a less-blocking alternative, you can choose to set up a free account (on Medium or Tumblr) or go to LinkedIn and post your test guest posts there to see how people in your network respond. Write.

This is a great way to check if you enjoy writing about your blog and it can also allow you to get some real-life feedback from readers about your content. If you find it difficult to write these initial guest posts or the response from the audience you encounter is surprisingly negative, it may be a good sign to reconsider the niche you choose.

Test #3. Join groups and start posting on your Facebook page

Posting on Facebook groups or your own page can be a great way to gather quick feedback and ultimately decide if a niche is worth considering. You can also give this page or group the name of your future blog.

This page or group can be a great destination for sharing interesting links, asking questions, and sharing tips related to your niche. If you can attract a good number of following or group members, you’ll also get a constant source of new content ideas.

If you love posting there and start building some traction with some likes, comments, and shares, it’s a good sign to build a community within this space before starting a blog.

How to shortlist with multiple ideas on what to blog about?

Consider all of the areas that interest you. For example, you may have little or no knowledge about health, fitness, dog training, cooking, or motivation. If you are good at something, then there must be some passion involved in it. However, gaining a deeper understanding of the topic can help develop your interest in it.

On the other hand, let’s say you are interested in photography or video editing. How will you decide whether to follow your passion or already-acquired skills? The best way is to narrow down your niche ideas and balance your skills, interests and resources so that you can choose a niche that leans towards your passion but does not compromise on your talent.

If the list is really long, it is not easy to choose from many and hence you will have to shorten the list so that you can specify your specific area of interest.

The correct way to truncate the list

I was sceptical about doing this as well and wasn’t sure how to target one from the list available. I had to choose between topics related to financial market analysis, banking and investing, mutual funds, currency trading and blogs.

But as you know, despite having very little knowledge of the subject, I eventually opted to create content related to blogging, as it was deeply ingrained in my heart for a long time. If you’re trying to juggle a lot of balls at the same time, it’s going to be hard to develop a skill that will pay off in the long run. So, try mastering a specific category and see how easy it will be to turn your passion into an opportunity. 

 So it is better to master one thing, just create the best possible content related to that niche and try to build a following with the same group of people. The purpose of creating unique content is to focus your potential readers so that they can identify your skills and strengths as soon as they visit your page.

To better understand how to do it well, I’ve created this four-step method to help you choose one from the list available.

Step 1: List the ideas you are proficient in and are passionate about

First, you need to make a long list of areas that interest you or have gained some experience over time, whether you are good at them or not. If you find something you are good at but are not sustainable in the long run, it is not the right topic and should be put at the bottom of your list. To draw better conclusions, it is important to strike a balance between your interests, skills, and resources. Try to come up with at most four or five specific ideas by practising this way.

Step 2: Differentiate between your passion and your skill

Try to explore the options that fall under the skill and passion category for step number two. If people don’t see any skill or passion involved in that niche, they’re more likely to kick you out and go elsewhere. Therefore, you should be able to find something that excites you. It doesn’t matter if it’s not under the list you choose, but it can be something you definitely turn to in your skillset.

Step 3: Narrow down the list

Now is the time to start narrowing down your list so that you have a few options to choose from (maybe just 3 to 5). Remember that you can always develop a passion by gathering in-depth knowledge about a topic that doesn’t interest you right now. Try it, I recommend doing it for 10-15 days. Try deleting categories one by one until you have a final list (maybe just one or two) of what you really need.

Step 4: Finalize by choosing the best niche

Now it’s time to decide on your favourite blog topic from the last two available options. Then, draft at least fifty blog posts using a variety of keywords to see if you end up with a lack of ideas. If you want to write posts consistently for years to come and the topic you choose is so focused and narrow that you can’t even create 50 blog posts, maybe it’s time to try and see if there is any way to expand it.

To Sum Up

To decide on the right niche before you start blogging with WordPress, the best way is to narrow down your list of ideas and strike a balance between your skills, interests, and resources. Every blogger needs to choose a blog niche before starting a blog and it is not important as it will earn you a lot of money but it can give you reasons why you are in this business.

If you want to build a successful business and drive real traffic to your blog, you will need the best possible ideas on what to blog about. The following is a quick check on how you can come up with a pivotal topic area that you will continue to live your passion for years to come in your life.

  1. Before you get too hooked on one, consider a list of niche ideas.
  2. Don’t stick to the first idea thinking it’s the best. There may be a better option that you haven’t even thought of yet.
  3. Run through the list of specific tests in this guide to ensure that your chosen blog niche has a good chance of success.
  4. If you ever find that you lack ideas to create more content, it’s time to reconsider your niche.
  5. Validate your blog niche before you commit to it.
  6. Write guest posts, start a Facebook page and finally publish some articles on your blog to see how readers react before investing in your niche. Don’t invest a ton of cash before you can prove you have the chance.

Following these steps, you will not only potentially avoid throwing a lot of time, energy, and even money into it, but you’ll also learn a lot about how well readers really are in that niche. After deciding on a blog niche, it is time to look at a blogging platform that will help you create and design a blog suitable for your niche.

There are many CMSs like- Joomla, Drupal, Squarespace, Wix, Ghost, Shopify etc that you can choose from but, I think WordPress is the one that is most popular among bloggers and even business owners. So, let’s take a look at why WordPress can be a great way to start your online journey.

Step #2: Choose a Suitable Blogging Platform

While I am a strong proponent of blogging with WordPress, at least you need to choose a blogging platform or a content management system (CMS) that will help you put your imagination into practice. When it comes to choosing a platform, you have only a few options other than WordPress. The image below shows statistics on the distribution of various blogging platforms used by people in the United States.

As you can see in the graph above, WordPress is by far the most popular CMS as a blogging platform, including in the U.S. has more than 90% market share. Naturally, the first thing that comes to your mind (if you are just getting started with blogging) is whether you should use a free platform or create a blog on the most popular CMS like WordPress.

Of course, no one likes to invest right away in the early stages of their career due to the uncertainty along the way and perhaps a tight budget. But, wait, if you’re serious about your long-term vision, I suggest you choose the right solution, not the simple-looking solution that can hinder your success before you make the leap.

Also, many so-called gurus or consultants will suggest you not to buy hosting if you are a complete beginner and try a free online platform first until your blog collects significant traffic. But you know, I don’t recommend it. Why? Because it is extremely limited, with only 300MB of storage and 3GB of bandwidth, only one monthly backup and usually not suitable for users who are serious about their business. The free plan lacks security features and is not a scalable solution either.

Why are free online platforms not suitable for a long-term business perspective?

A free blogging site, however, allows you to experiment without creating financial stress. It’s a great way to get creative and find your own way to connect with your audience without spending anything other than your own time. Let’s take a look at what are the Cons of using free online platforms and why they are not best suited for a serious business from a long-term perspective:

  1. You are not the owner of the blog.
  2. Bad domain and URL structure.
  3. Domain redirection is not easy.
  4. Building backlinks and authority is difficult.
  5. Less customization of your theme.
  6. Difficulty uploading other media files.
  7. No access to plugins at all.
  8. Monetizing your blog is difficult.
  9. You cannot have 2 Adsense accounts
  10. Slow updates and poor support.
  11. No access to FTP.
  12. You have no control over the fate of your blog.

This is why I recommend self-hosted WordPress only, especially if you want to carve a niche in your reader’s mind, reach as many users as possible and eventually build a business around your blog. WordPress offers you the greatest potential to grow as a free blogging site without forcing you to migrate your site as can be the case with free blogging sites.

Why Choose Blogging With WordPress?

WordPress which is powered and managed by wordpress.org is the most popular content management system (CMS) in the world, with millions of bloggers (including me) using it every day to create, modify and maintain their blogs. The latest online statistics show that over 65% of blogs run on WordPress, including popular names such as Forbes, New York Observer, TED, Thought Catalog, TechCrunch, NBC, and more.

What is Content Management System (CMS)?

A Content Management System (or CMS) is a free and open resource where you can write, design and publish your blog posts or website pages with complete control. An easy-to-use CMS like WordPress allows you to organize your content, easily upload images and videos, and use themes or custom design elements to have complete control over how your entire blog looks.

Can I start a blog on a CMS other than WordPress?

Of course, you can. Actually, there are other CMS options you can look into such as Wix, Squarespace, Tumblr, Blogger, Medium or Ghost, but I strongly recommend setting up a blog with self-hosted WordPress because it is free to use and all you will need is a domain name and web hosting plan. I think this is the only option that is worth considering if you are starting a blog with the ultimate goal of making money in some way.

While I am a strong proponent of using self-hosted WordPress to start a blog, especially if you want to maximize your ability to make money from your blog in the long run, there are still CMSs like Squarespace, Tumblr or Ghost that can be used for creating your blog instead.

However, one of the major things to keep in mind when using these platforms to build a blog is that you won’t get the benefit of having the world’s most flexible, functional CMS (WordPress) at your fingertips. And that flexibility pays off big when it comes to creating a blog that can provide a great experience for your future readers—and also give you the most opportunities to monetize your content.

What if I create a free blog with wordpress.com?

If you choose wordpress.com, Squarespace, Tumblr or Ghost for that matter, both your blog customization and monetization options will be dramatically restricted when compared to all the options at your disposal if you go with a self-hosted WordPress blog.

Where you have complete control over everything. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to create a blog and make money from it using others, just that you’re not maximizing your chances of doing so. I’ve been running my blog on WordPress since I first started blogging and I couldn’t be happier with the amount of flexibility, control, and long-term growth potential that the decision has given me.

Why is WordPress so popular?

There are many reasons why WordPress is so popular among users and you can easily count a few.

1. It’s free to use

Anyone can use WordPress as their favourite CMS as it is available for free. All you need is a domain name and strong hosting to start your online journey with this popular CMS.

2. It is easily customizable

WordPress offers you a wide variety of applications, from a simple blog to building an eCommerce store. The WordPress community also gives developers a chance to collaborate with the community to help each other. As a result, there are many themes and plugins available in official WordPress libraries and third-party depositories so that anyone can access them easily.

3. It is a scalable platform.

As long as your web hosting plan has the necessary resources, you can build a website of any size, and there is no need to migrate your website to a different CMS or platform once. It provides you easy functionality and applications to create your favourite blog or website.

4. Less-technical

Compared to hand-coding a website from scratch, WordPress requires significantly less technical knowledge, while tweaking it with code is still an option. Blessed are all those who thought that building a website is very technical and one cannot do it without coding. Today, you can create a beautiful and fully functional blog or website with just a graphical user interface.

Now, one thing you need to be aware of is that WordPress comes in two different platforms. There is WordPress.com and WordPress.org. They have almost the same name, but there is a huge difference between the two.

What is the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org?

WordPress.com is a service that helps you build a website using WordPress software with managed hosting, while WordPress.org is the source where you can download the software yourself, which you can use to build and maintain your website. To help understand this more clearly, let’s look at the two separately.

WordPress.com

  1. Free to use with heavy restrictions
  2. Doesn’t let you choose a custom domain name
  3. Has very limited monetization options (only you can’t sell your own ads)
  4. Doesn’t let you upload plugins
  5. There is limited theme support so you are stuck with very basic designs
  6. You have to pay for WordPress branding and the removal of ads
  7. Limited SEO and Analytics

WordPress.org

  1. Smaller monthly fee than cheaper hosting plans.
  2. You can use your own custom domain.
  3. Full control over your own monetization efforts
  4. Fully customizable design, themes, unlimited plugin options, and no branding
  5. Powerful SEO Features and Analytics

To Sum Up

While the choice is yours, if you want to take full advantage of your blog, grow it with yourself and eventually make money from it, WordPress.org is the way to go and that is exactly what I have tried to message you throughout this guide. This is the CMS of your choice that will sit in the background and power your blog.

Now that we have decided on a blog niche and a blogging platform (WordPress as our preferred CMS), it is time to register our domain name and buy quality hosting from the most popular web host which is Bluehost. So, let’s get started…

Step #3: Register a domain name and buy hosting

As is clear, WordPress is our CMS of choice for blogging because its pros outweigh the cons. But, to make the most of it and start blogging with WordPress, you need an excellent hosting service like Bluehost because your web host plays a vital role when it comes to the reliability, security and optimum functioning of your site.

Why Choose Bluehost as Your Preferred Host?

As you are just starting out, chances are, you have no idea what web hosting is and what features would best suit your needs when creating a blog. So, the question is, why not start with a hosting provider that is most popular and trusted among the blogger’s community? This way you will save your time and energy and hopefully one day you will be on your way to joining the blogger’s community. 

Bluehost is the cheapest and 100% reliable among the top 5 web hosting companies in the hosting world and is best suited for new bloggers or website owners. It hosts over 2 million websites across the web and has been officially recommended by wordpress.org since 2005. If we go with the statistics and hope that you are serious about your business, then Bluehost is the way to go as it gives you the highest value you will pay for hosting. 

A combination of blogging platform and web hosting that I and most other bloggers use is a WordPress blog hosted by Bluehost WordPress is the most trusted, widely accepted and free content management system that has been around since May 27, 2003, and now powers over 60% of all blogs on the Internet.

Established in 2003, it has earned the trust of its users and has been a leading web hosting provider since 2005. It offers 1 year of free domain, 24/7 support, free SSL, free CDN and seamless one-click WordPress installation to help you create your desired and optimal blog in a matter of minutes.

That’s all I could do to help you make an important decision that can become a problem if not made wisely. From now on I will assume that you are quite confident and determined in your decision to start a blog with Bluehost. This will help you spend more time working on other important tasks. Ok? Let’s get started.

Below is a quick 7-step process to help you register your preferred domain name and create a web hosting account with Bluehost.

Step #1: Head over to Bluehost (www.bluehost.com)

Rest assured with your decision and click here to visit the Bluehost homepage, the final dashboard for registering your preferred domain and opening a web hosting account. As you can see, there are two options- 1. Shared Hosting and 2.-Website Builder. 

WordPress hosting is designed to host websites that are using WordPress as a content management system (CMS). Known for its speed, reliability, and enhanced security, WordPress hosting allows you to focus on your content, while the host handles all the technical server details. A subset of this is managed WordPress hosting which, as its name implies, is entirely managed by the host and is best suited for businesses with higher-than-normal traffic. I would not recommend it as the plan is unreasonably expensive upon renewal.

Shared hosting is usually meant for small blogs or websites, and is one of the most popular hosting types among new bloggers and website owners due to being the most affordable and very user-friendly. If your website doesn’t require many resources or server optimization, shared hosting may be the right solution for your hosting needs and your gateway to the online world as millions of bloggers (including me) have made their online journey with this popular hosting type. So, just click on the ‘Learn More’ button to see the different types of shared hosting plans and their pricing.

The ‘website builder’ plans come with a lot of web designing tools that a blogger may not need right away. In Shared Hosting, you are free to create and design the blog of your choice and 24/7 support is always there to assist you. I would strongly suggest that you go with shared hosting and not the website builder plan which is more suitable for already established businesses. So, don’t overthink here and click on the blue ‘Get Started’ button to see the details.

Step#2: Select your plan

As you can see Bluehost offers shared hosting features in four different tiers and you are always free to choose the one that suits your needs.

Basic: As the name suggests, the Basic plan is the starter shared hosting plan and is also the cheapest shared hosting option. Limitations are that you can run a single website with limited SSD storage (50GB) and they also don’t have the required domain privacy feature that is required to protect your personal identity from being online. However you can add them anytime you want.

Plus: The ‘Plus’ plan is an affordable but highly futuristic shared hosting plan. This includes all the features of the Basic plan plus unlimited SSD storage, bandwidth, subdomains, and databases. If your idea is to set up multiple sites then a shared hosting plan is just for you. The disadvantage is that they also lack the domain privacy feature and you may have to pay more to include it.

CHOICE PLUS: If you prefer WordPress as your preferred CMS and are looking for an incredible hosting solution, then you should definitely sign up for this plan. You will get all the features from the Plus plan along with a site backup option, domain privacy and free SEO tools to help you grow your business without any stress. Features included with the Choice plan are:

  1. Install Unlimited Websites
  2. Get Unmetered Website Space and Bandwidth
  3. Free SSL
  4. 1 FREE domain (for the first year)
  5. Unlimited Parked Domains and Subdomains
  6. Unlimited Email Accounts and Email Storage
  7. $200 Worth Marketing Offer
  8. 1 Spam Expert
  9. 1 Domain Privacy
  10. Site Backup Included

P.S: I always prefer “Choice Plus 36 Months Price – $7.45/month” because it is the one that gives you the most bang for your buck and the true value of what you pay for hosting. It includes all the features of the ‘Plus’ plan as well as the free domain privacy feature which gives you an extra layer of security (protects your personal information from being made public) while working online. However, you can add it later if you are choosing the “Basic” or “Plus” plan.

Clicking on the ‘Select’ button i.e. the plan of your choice will take you to a new page where you can check the availability of your preferred domain name.

Step#3: Choose a domain name for your blog

Done? Well, now is the time to choose your domain name based on your blog niche i.e. the subject area you are going to blog about or the name that defines your business. Here you have three options to choose from:

1. Create a new domain: If you have already decided on a domain name, you can simply proceed with the first option. Simply enter your name in the box and click ‘Next’. If you’re lucky, you’ll get your domain name immediately on the very first try. Otherwise, you’ll have to modify your name a bit to make it work in a few more tries. It is not easy to decide on a perfect name and be sure of its availability. It will take time and you have to be patient here. 

2. Use a domain you own: You may have already registered your name. In that case, simply enter your registered domain name in the correct box and click ‘Next’. In this case, you do not need to register a new domain with Bluehost.

3. I will create my domain later: This is the option that you can choose when you are not really able to decide on the right name or find your preferred name available there. All you have to do is click on ‘I will create my domain later’ to go to the next page.

This is a popup window that will appear when you hover over the page for a long time. To get rid of it you can simply click ‘Close’ and continue brainstorming new ideas. If you can’t find the domain name of your choice, don’t be obsessed. You can always do this after you complete the checkout process so as not to be in a hurry and have more time to think.

How to find the right domain name for your blog

Finding the right domain name of your choice is not as easy as it sounds and can be quite frustrating at times. The following are some important tips to help you get the job done in a more technical way.

  1. Use the correct domain name extension (.com, .org, .net)
  2. Your name should be more brandable than usual.
  3. keep it as short as possible
  4. Make sure your name is easy to type
  5. Make sure your name is easy to pronounce
  6. Avoid hyphens and numbers if possible
  7. Consider using “niche” keywords that represent your site
  8. Check if it is not a trademark or has already been used
  9. Use a Domain Name Generator when you’re stuck

Note that a brandable domain name is unique and different from the competition, whereas a generic domain name is usually full of keywords and words that are easy to forget. So make sure you are more specific when choosing a domain name. Well, either deciding on your domain name or choosing to create it later, you will be taken to the next step in the signup process which is creating your Bluehost account.

I hope it worked and by now you have got the name of your choice. Clicking on “Next” will take you to a new page where you can check availability or find some specific name suggestions and this is where you will create a web hosting account with Bluehost.

Step#4: Create your Bluehost account

You can either sign in with Google to make creating your account even easier or fill in all the details like name, email, address and phone number to do it manually. Make sure you are using your up-to-date email address as this is where you will receive the receipt, your login credentials and account information once you complete the checkout process.

I would prefer to enter all the details manually as it is not always safe to share your Gmail credentials everywhere online. Well, you are free to choose any of them as either works well while the former is more convenient.

Step#5: Choose the right hosting package

This is where you will choose a plan based on the price you wish to lock in and how much upfront you will pay for maximum benefits. Note that the Bluehost ‘Choice Plus’ plan comes in 12-month and 36-month packages. They do not offer monthly payment options. However, hosting companies that do offer monthly payments charge a bit more. It is also worth noting that choosing a long-term plan is always beneficial and budget-friendly.

Which pricing plan is best for starting a blog?

As I mentioned earlier, I always like to choose “Choice Plus 36 Month Price – $7.45/month” if you want to lock in the lowest possible price you are willing to pay for hosting. This is the plan used by most new bloggers and entrepreneurs and this is what I use. You’ll be stress-free for the whole year with secure web hosting, a free domain with privacy protection, and a free SSL.

Step#6: Choose the right package of extras (Uncheck all except one)

Bluehost usually has a lot of premium add-ons that you may not need right away, so be sure to uncheck them before making the payment. I recommend keeping the domain privacy protections extra, but you can skip the rest if you choose a plan other than “Choice Plus.” In the “Choice Plus” plan, your domain privacy protection will be listed as “Free”, as you can see in the screenshot above.

But, if you’re choosing the “Basic” or “Plus” plan, be sure to add domain privacy protection to your order at around $1/month. The total amount you can see is the amount you are going to pay now. Don’t worry at all, if things don’t turn out as expected, there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee that you can always use.

Step #7 Complete the payment information

This is where you will need to enter your payment details and confirm the order. The easiest way is to select a credit/debit card as the payment option, but if required, you can contact them anytime to ask for other options as well.

Don’t forget to check (tick ✔ mark) the correct box to make sure you agree to Bluehost’s terms of service. Now hit the green “Submit” button and complete the payment process.

Done?
Congratulations! it’s time for a little celebration because you’ve officially completed the first big step of starting a blog. You are now officially a member of the Bluehost community with your own domain name and web hosting plan.

To Sum Up

To start blogging with WordPress, you need a reliable web host that provides you with the best hosting services and ensures the smooth functioning of your online enterprise and there is no doubt that Bluehost is one of them. Remember that starting a blog and making it live on the internet is only half the battle.

Since we have successfully registered our domain and created a web hosting account with Bluehost, it is time to quickly install WordPress and start setting up our blog. Let us see how convenient it can be due to the user-friendly interface and quality features offered by Bluehost.

Step #4: Set up your blog on WordPress

To start blogging with WordPress, you will need to install the CMS of your choice and start setting up a blog around your niche. Isn’t it? Just like creating an account, WordPress installation is also quick and easy, thanks to the user-friendly interface and the intuitive one-click installation feature by Bluehost.

Once you complete the signup process, you will see a confirmation message from Bluehost and a link to create your password which you will use to log in to your account.

To proceed, click on the bright green button that says “Create your password.” On the next page, you will need to set up your password to log in to your Bluehost account.

what next? Enter a password that you can easily remember, re-type the password to confirm it, and click “Next”. You will use this password to log in to your Bluehost account.

Step #1: Install WordPress

Log in to your Bluehost account using either the details sent to your email or the one you created after completing the signup process. Now, to install WordPress, simply navigate to the “My Site” tab on the side menu and click “Create Site” at the top right of your screen.

1. Enter your site details

Now follow the instructions by filling in some basic information such as the name of your site (site title) that defines your business and a tagline that expresses your business idea.

I suggest you brainstorm some keyword ideas for your site name and tagline as they play a vital role in structuring your SEO parameters. If you are not sure how to choose one right now, don’t worry as you can change it anytime at your convenience.

2. Enter your domain

Now enter the domain name you chose while creating your Bluehost account. You can also choose whether to install some of Bluehost’s recommended plugins before pressing the “Next” button.

3. Click “Next” to install WordPress on Bluehost

After entering all the details, simply press “Next” to see how Bluehost starts installing WordPress automatically. You can also see your login details once WordPress is installed.

Now, enter the login details sent to your email and click on “Login to WordPress”. Once you’re logged in, get started with building and customizing your blog to your liking. It might sound technical when you first look at the admin area but once you devote a fair amount of time, I’m sure you’ll soon be familiar with everything.

The best part is that you don’t need to be a web developer or programmer to create the site you want, thanks to all the updates WordPress has made so far. Plus there’s always 24/7 support available to assist you when you need it along the way. As you have successfully installed WordPress, it is time to create and set up the blog you want.

So, let us now start setting up our blog, which will not take more than a few seconds to start the process using Bluehost tools.

Step #2: Setup your WordPress blog

Blogging with WordPress requires setting up a blog as per the demand of your business or which is suitable for your blog niche. You can use Bluehost tools to create a blog of your choice in a matter of seconds which is more convenient and best suited for beginners. Let’s see how we can use it in our own way.

How to set up a blog using Bluehost tools?

First, we should note that you are not required to follow the steps in this section. You are always free to build your website using the regular WordPress dashboard. However, if you’re not sure where to start, Bluehost offers its own dashboard in the Bluehost area of ​​your WordPress dashboard that can help you get your site up and running in just a few minutes.

In the Bluehost area, you can

1. Add New Pages and Posts
2. Manage Your Menu
3. Build an eCommerce Store with WooCommerce
4. Create a Staging Environment to Test Your Website
5. Disable the Bluehost ‘Coming Soon’ page and launch your website

Most of these are core WordPress features that have been put together for your convenience. The Bluehost Dashboard is an especially useful tool for those who are new to WordPress, and who may need some direction to get started. Here is how you can use it.

1. Use the Quick Launch Wizard

Using the Quick Launch Wizard is a great way to get your blog started in a matter of seconds. As soon as you log into your WordPress, you can see the Bluehost Quick Launch Wizard. Follow the instructions in the wizard to set up the blog of your choice. Let’s know about these features…

1. Jetpack – This is a multi-functional plugin that will help increase the security and performance of your blog. It can also provide social media features, analytical data about the behaviour of your visitors to your site, and more. The Bluehost Wizard will help you quickly connect to WordPress.com to access and activate these effective Jetpack modules.

2. Contact Form – Every website needs a contact form so that your audience can connect with you and help you increase lead generation. Quick Launch Wizard enables you to set up a contact form for your website instantly using the free WP Forms Lite plugin.

3. Caching – Bluehost provides a built-in caching feature. When you activate this tool, your website will load faster, which is important for both user experience and SEO.

2. Choose a WordPress Theme

The theme controls everything like how your site will look and function. Choosing the right WordPress theme is an important task, and it can take time as there are so many to choose from. One of the features found in the Bluehost menu is the marketplace where you can choose from a lot of premium themes.

You can browse through these but I don’t think you will need them right away. You should not be limited to the selection here as there are thousands of free and premium WordPress themes available outside the Bluehost marketplace.

3. Install Some Required WordPress Plugins

When installing WordPress, Bluehost also installs a selection of WordPress plugins by default. It also includes-

1. Akismet Anti-Spam
2. MonsterInsights, a Google Analytics Plugin
3. Jetpack
4. WP Forms Lite

Of course, you can use or remove any of these plugins, or install your own plugins. Here are some essential plugins that we recommend installing before you start creating content on your blog.

1. Yoast SEO – It improves the SEO of your site and helps your page and post to rank well in search engines.
2. Wordfence Security – Keep your site safe and secure with this free security plugin that includes an endpoint firewall and malware scanner.
3. UpdraftPlus – You may underestimate this and probably won’t value it, but keep a backup of your website so that if your site gets hacked, you can get things back to the original.

4. Create content (pages and posts)

The next step is to create pages and posts for your new blog – start by adding pages first. To do this, within your WordPress dashboard, click on the Bluehost menu. Then navigate to Pages and under Content, select Add New Page.

Although pages will vary depending on the type of website you are building, here are some page types you should consider creating.

Homepage: This is the page that your visitors will reach when they visit your site. It’s always best to include powerful imagery, engaging call to action (CTA), and signpost content on your homepage to maximize engagement and increase conversions.

About Page: This is where you share your own story, discuss your ideas or plans, introduce your team members, and add other introductory information that will engage with your visitors and can help you build relationships with them.

Contact Page: This contains information to let visitors know where they can contact you to ask questions. Your contact form should have all the details, including your address, phone number, a map showing your location, and social media links. Make sure all of your information is up to date, especially if you want to build trust with your new visitors.

Portfolio – WordPress is the perfect solution for freelancers who want to showcase their achievements on a budget. A good-looking portfolio site on WordPress can open a lot of doors to meeting potential clients. It gives employers a better idea of your abilities and enables you to differentiate yourself from the competition.

Blog: If you are building a site for an already established business, you should include a separate blog page for writing posts about your business. Almost all websites today have a blog section to attract and educate visitors to their sites. You can use your SEO-friendly posts to attract new customers to your site which will help you in building a bigger community for your business.

Step #3: Launch your blog or website

After creating all the pages, creating the required content and optimizing your site properly, all that is left to do is launch your website and do it online. Bluehost offers a ‘coming soon page’ which is activated by default whenever you install WordPress.

This gives you the privacy to work with your website without the worry that someone will visit your site before it is ready. Once you are ready to launch, click ‘Launch My Site’ to view your blog live on the Internet.

To sum up

Beyond its prices, another attractive thing about Bluehost is how easy it is to set up a blog which makes blogging with WordPress even easier. Bluehost is not only user-friendly, but it also includes a wide variety of tools and functionality in your WordPress dashboard to help you streamline website creation without any experience in coding or web designing.

Now, it is extremely important to optimize your site well before you start creating content (such as posts or pages) so that your readers can have a good experience visiting your site and make it easier for search engines to rank well in the searches. So let’s start with this important step.

Step #5: Customize and design your WordPress Blog

If you do not know how to make your blog user-friendly, blogging with WordPress will be just a fantasy. From choosing a suitable theme to designing your layout before creating any content for your blog, everything you do is called optimizing your blog. It makes your blog look great to your users and helps the search engines to rank well in organic searches.

As far as SEO point of view is concerned, optimizing your blog properly is a good practice as it helps to make your blog easily searchable by search engines. But, how to optimize a blog seems really daunting, especially if you are doing it for the first time. Only you need to follow a few steps without getting bored and once you are well-versed with all the technicalities, it will free you from a lot of burdens.

Choosing the Best (Free) WordPress Theme

Generally, when you are about to start your blog, I do not recommend buying a paid WordPress theme right away. Once you have some traffic and you can justify the investment, only you can choose a premium theme with more features and options, by then you will be familiar with some basic theme customization.

WordPress comes with several free themes to choose from, so without spending too much time on it, go to Appearance > Themes > Add New Theme > Start with one of the popular ones (recommended – Hello Elementor or Astra Theme). You can come back anytime and change it later. I recommend choosing Hello Elementor or Astra for WordPress themes, all of which are 100% free, fast and can be upgraded later.

How to choose a WordPress theme for your new blog

I like these two WordPress themes the most because they are user-friendly, simple, clean and fast to load. I can bet that you will be fond of using these free themes once you are familiar with them. If you want to experiment with different WordPress themes to start a blog, be sure to use these criteria to guide your decision.

1. Ease of use: Too many fancy themes compromise usability

2. Responsive: Responsiveness refers to the topics that ensure that your blog looks good on a laptop or smartphone. More people use their phones to read blogs and Google supports mobile-friendly websites as well.

3. Supports Plugins: The real power of your WordPress blog comes from plugins. Make sure your theme supports all popular WordPress plugins.

4. SEO Friendliness: SEO, or search engine optimization, refers to how well Google and other search engines can find your information when people search for it. Some themes contain heavy code which makes it difficult for search engines to find your blog.

5. Support: Some free theme developers will not offer support for their products, so keep that in mind before installing.

6. Ratings and Reviews: Look for topics with a good track record and a history of positive ratings.

Why is design so important when starting a blog?

Well, even if you don’t care about the design itself, your readers will change their behaviour dramatically depending on the characteristics of your blog layout. In fact, during a 2012 study by Google and the University of Basel, researchers found that users rate a website’s aesthetic beauty and perceived functionality in 1/20th – to 1/50 second. Plus, thanks to a small psychological bias called the halo effect, people will extend that judgment to all aspects of your blog.

Good blog design builds trust

Design matters because in the short amount of time it takes to snap your fingers, readers can judge the effectiveness of your blog and decide whether or not to trust your blog. It tells people that you care enough about your blog to make it look good. That doesn’t mean you need crazy animations or lots of fonts and colours. The best designs are simple, clear and easy to read.

Once you have found the right theme for your WordPress blog, it is time to dive into the world of WordPress plugins so that you can unlock even more customization to help you grow your blog into a real business.

Install the best WordPress plugins

Whether you need to optimize your site or need to improve the user experience for your readers, WordPress plugins play a vital role in growing your online business. If you don’t want to spend money right away, free plugins can be a great option to start with, and most of them are good enough to cover the basics.

I recommend you to install Yoast SEO, UpdraftPlus, Wordfence Security, Wp-forms Lite, WP Rocket and Monsterinsights before taking any steps or creating content for your blog or website. Later, as your blog grows, you can also add other plugins based on your needs.

Elementor Website Builder is an essential plugin that you must install before you can create pages for your blog or website. It will take a lot of time and energy if you do all the required work manually and it creates a huge hole in your wallet if you hire a web developer.

Plugins make these complex tasks easy and with little or no cost, so you don’t have to make a choice. These native plugins can pave the way for success if you use them as needed. It is always recommended to start with the free basic plugins in the beginning as most of them are enough to do the basics and you will decide later whether to go with the premium-based plan or not.

Basic WordPress Blog Settings

It doesn’t matter whether you’re building a blog to share your ideas with the world or a website to promote your already established business, you need to have a basic understanding of the broader aspects of how WordPress works so that you can easily control the visual appearance of your blog. Let’s dig into some of the bigger picture settings you can find in your WordPress dashboard.

Step#1: Optimize Your WordPress Permalink Settings

If you set up your WordPress blog using Bluehost, the permalink settings will already be optimized by default and the URL of your new blog post will be in the format domain.com/post-name/. If your permalink settings are not already set to this format, it is important to change them now. This will help you rank better in search engines like Google. In your WordPress dashboard, hover over “Settings” and navigate to Settings > Permalinks, to edit it as you can see in the screenshot below.

You will still be able to optimize the URL if you think you can make it more SEO friendly and lean towards your target keywords before clicking the publish button. For more information please refer to my guide on ‘How to Create SEO Friendly Permalinks’.

Step#2: Edit your default site URL

After installing the Hello theme and customizing your permalinks, you’ll need to set your blog’s default URL to include “www” before your blog’s URL. This will take you from a URL that looks like https://yourblogname.com to a more secured https://www.yourblogname.com. You can quickly change this by going to Settings > General and following the action as shown in the picture below.

All the pages on your blog will now automatically redirect to the www version of your blog’s URL, which seems cleaner and more trustworthy to the readers.

Step#3 Discussion Setting

The following image will show you some basic settings that you need to make before you can start creating content for your blog. I have customized them as per my wish. You can have your own settings. This example is only to help you if you don’t know exactly what to do.

Step#4: Setting up your homepage

Your landing page is set to ‘Your latest posts’ by default and you can skip it if you haven’t finished your first blog post. I suggest you set your homepage where your blog posts will be displayed for now because you are just starting your blog and you don’t have a bunch of content. You have the option to set your homepage as static or custom-designed which can serve you multiple purposes. But, for now, stick with your list of blog posts.

If you set your homepage as a blog, one thing you can consider is changing the settings so that the full text of your blog posts appears directly on the homepage, not a list containing excerpts from your posts. Later, you can change the setting back to list view after your first 5 or 10 posts have been published. To change these settings, simply go to Settings > Reading as shown in the screenshot above.

When you first start your blog, you probably won’t need a menu unless you publish enough posts and create main pages like About, Contact, Products or Services etc. When you’re ready to create a menu, just go to Appearance > Menus. And here you can create your own menu in just a few clicks. So far, we’ve covered the basic foundations of dialling in your blog’s WordPress settings. Now we are going to create some main pages on your blog.

Step#5: Creating the main page of your blog

As I mentioned earlier when you have enough content like posts, articles or offers on your blog, you will need to categorize them to help your readers find the content easily. Thus you have to create different pages like ‘About Page’, ‘Contact Page’, ‘Product Page’ or ‘Service Page’ etc. These pages are not only pretty benchmarks but also give a lot of clues about what you are offering to your readers. So be selective in deciding about the name and meta description of your major pages.

You can start creating pages directly in your WordPress dashboard by clicking ‘Pages’ and then clicking ‘Add New’. Yes. It’s that easy. Or you can go to Bluehost’s ‘Menu’, just click on the ‘Content tab’, then ‘Pages’ and then ‘Add New Page’.

Creating an About Page

To win the trust of your readers, you’ll want to display some basic information about yourself such as who you are, why people should listen to you, and how they can contact you if they have questions. This requires a separate page like ‘About Page’ which allows your readers to know you well and understand what you are going to offer them. In fact, you can use an about page to not only describe who you are and tell your story but also to explain your value proposition and showcase your achievements.

You may not think much about its importance, but your about page can become one of the most popular pages on your blog. But the million-dollar question is how to create a page that can be a bridge of trust between you and your readers. So, let’s dive into the subject matter and try to figure out the ways that will help you create your own impressive intro or ‘about page’ for your blog.

How to create an about page for your blog?

Writing about yourself is not as easy as it seems. It is not writing your biography and forcing everyone to go through it. Whereas, you really have to win the trust of your readers and make them believe that you are the right choice for them. So let’s start with some basic questions that every page should answer.

What value are you going to create for your readers?

It may be called an about page, but you don’t want to make the mistake of just talking about yourself. Yes, you have to talk about who you are, but it should equally be about your readers and the value you are creating for them. You need to be clear about who your audience is, what value you are going to create for them and answer why you decided to help them.

For example, my blog is about helping people how to start their own blog and make it a reliable source of income. So, that’s exactly what I use to explain at the top of my About page. This helps my readers to choose whether this is the right platform for them.

Q#1: Who is your blog for?

Your value statement can establish a strong connection with your ideal readers and you will want to make sure that when the right person visits your blog, they know they are in the right place. There are a few ways you can consider accomplishing this.

Q#2: How to convince your audience?

Nothing is more basic than saying who you are. For example, if you are starting a blog to build a community around travel tips for people wanting to explore the beauty of nature, you can simply write a catchy statement like- ‘A blog for nature lovers’. or ‘Started a blog for the travellers’. You can show real-time photos or videos to make them believe you are a true nature lover.

Q#3: Do you have anything to show them credibility?

Show proof that you are part of their community. There are several ways to do this such as adding comments, testimonials or social posts from someone in the same category who reads and likes your blog. If you have the ability to show your contribution to the broader community in which you are working (as a freelancer) or blogging (as a content creator), this is your chance to highlight it.

Q#4: How can you show your own Credibility?

Not only do you let your readers know who you are, but you can also show social proof that other people have recognized you as a thought leader. Now, imagine if someone reads your about page and says “Okay, that’s a good one but it’s not what I’m looking for.” That’s exactly the purpose of a short description ‘about page’. That way only those readers will be committed to the blog you were expecting. The more you know your ideal reader, the better your blog will serve that person.

Q#5: Why should they listen to you?

If you are successful in convincing your readers in the first few sections, your reader should have a pretty good idea of ​​who you are and should be able to decide whether or not they want to continue reading you. It doesn’t hurt to talk a little more about yourself to explain why they should be listening and following you. Here are some more ideas you can incorporate:

1. What Kind of Blog Posts You Write: If you love something, you will never be short of content to write. So, just elaborate on the content of your blog that you are going to offer.

2. What will they get from reading your post: You can share your ideas on how to start a business from scratch and grow it.

3. Where they should start: You can guide complete beginners on where they should start. For this, if you have any related post, article or eBook, then you can refer it.

4. Why your blog has credibility: You can share some of your past experiences which are relevant to your current affairs.

5. How You Started: You can describe the incident that inspired you to start the blog and help others.

Be smart enough to convince them: People usually connect more to stories and vulnerability than to carefully crafted prose and narration. You just need to take care of how you can establish a cordial relationship with your readers so that they would love to see you again. In my case, people come here to seek information on how to start a blog and make it a reliable source of income.

Use a Call to Action (CTA) for your readers:

The last and possibly most important part of your brief is telling your readers what to do next! Do you want them to wait for your latest post? Watch your videos on YouTube? Sign up for your newsletter? Follow you on social media? If someone made it to the bottom of your page, they’re likely to be convinced by you on some scale. Why should we let them do nothing?

In my case, if someone has made it to the end of the intro page of my blog, they probably just met me. So, I don’t want them to sign up for newsletters or follow me on social media. Instead, I want them to know me even more so that they can make better decisions. That’s why my call-to-action (CTA) is only to read my best content and not to sell my services directly.

Use your about page to show the value you’re creating for your readers—and work hard to capture their attention instead. Don’t try to be a mentor and just help those who are in need at the moment. Time will tell you what to give them otherwise.

How to make a contact page?

Another often overlooked important page that you need to include early on when starting a blog is the ‘contact page’, an easy way for people to contact you whenever they need it. Creating a contact form in WordPress is very easy today. Wp-forms makes it as easy as creating an email id with the help of dragging and dropping elements. One thing you should keep in mind while creating a contact form for your blog is that simply entering the form is not enough.

Always think about why someone should contact you. Are they interested in the products or services you are offering or are they deeply convinced by your ideas? These are some basic points that cannot be ignored. I think the best approach is to answer some basic questions with the FAQ on your contact page. This will help them make a better decision about whether they should contact you or not. When creating your contact page, focus on your core purpose as a blogger.

As in my case, people will want to hire me to help them with their content marketing strategies. Thus, I had to create my contact page explaining everything in detail. This page clearly states what I do, and who I want to work with and thus allows people to contact me. Just think about your business, and the type of people you want to work with and use your contact page as a FAQ to quickly implement those expectations.

In addition, you will need to create some pages that will save you from a lot of liability in case the information provided in your blog is misused. These are the Terms and Conditions page and the Privacy Policy page. You can easily create these legal contracts online for free as a beginner and pay later when needed.

To sum up

Whether you like it or not, these initial settings are very much needed to get the real experience of blogging with WordPress. Sooner or later you will come to know about its importance, so why not start doing it before creating any content for your blog. Once you have gone through the entire process of making your blog reader-friendly, it is time to start thinking about writing your first blog post. But what to write?

Now let’s start the dream project which is writing your first blog post and start creating content for your newly created WordPress blog. Ready?

Step #6: Write and publish your first blog post

Writing posts is a great way to keep your followers engaged with your blog on a regular basis and is an important step on your way to blogging with WordPress. No matter how great the design of your blog is, it is the valuable content you create and publish that is responsible for bringing your readers to your blog and ultimately helps you earn money from blogging.

To create great content, you must have a thorough understanding of what you are going to include in your blog. Before writing your first blog post, you need to answer some simple questions like-

  1. Why did you choose the topic you are blogging about?
  2. Why do you think others will listen to you?
  3. Why is this topic valuable to others?

To answer these questions, you need to think of blogging like any other business and stress the importance of choosing a clear niche.

What is a blog niche?

A blog niche is more than just a subject area. It’s the attitude you’re going to take, the steps you take to get your audience to follow you, the way you’re going to communicate with them, and how you place yourself in it the subject matter you claim to be perfect in. The best niches are exciting enough to inspire you to keep writing because it’s going to be a long journey.

Why is it important to have a blog niche?

The sooner you decide on a blog niche, the better you will be at creating a road map. Your blog needs a niche because it defines a clear focus area and a topic for a certain type of people. It is your niche that will help you plan your content calendar, decide on blog layout or design, and market your content. It also explains how your audience will find you and how you will be able to build a relationship with them.

How to decide on a perfect blog niche?

If you are not able to decide on a clear blog niche right away, then the following are some questions whose answers will help you define your niche. Ask these questions before determining a smart blog niche:

  1. What is your childhood dream that you wanted to fulfil?
  2. What is the best event of your life?
  3. Do you have any hobbies that are natural or hobbies you would like to learn?
  4. What is your Intensive Value?
  5. What is an achievement that you are incredibly proud of?

Immediately, you should have a thought or two in your mind for a clear place in which you can start blogging. It doesn’t matter that your niche grows, develops, and changes over time.

Knowing business opportunities in your blog niche?

To earn money from blogging, there is a need for market demand for your content. To see this you have to do a little research to know if there is a demand for your niche. It means: Are people actively searching for the content you are writing? And can you add value and help them in a way that makes you money? To make blogging a serious business, you need to solve a real problem for people.

Online tools that can help you decide your blog niche

You can take the help of Google Trends to find out what people are searching for, which will help ensure that you create content that your target audience will find useful. Google Trends brings in data from Google searches and allows users to compare the frequency of search terms compared to other similar keywords.

You need to come up with 5-8 keyword phrases or topics within the niche you want to write about. For example, if you want to start a blog about ‘trading forex’, you might want to read “Best Forex Strategy,” “How to Trade Forex,” “Forex Trading System,” and “Forex for Beginners.” and so on.

How to know if people are interested in my niche

To know this, you need to enter one of those keywords from above in your Google search. If there are over a million results, that indicates that people care about your topic but it could also be more competitive. So, to be extra sure, I would suggest you use a free tool like- Twinword to check monthly search volume so that we can come up with a keyword that is often asked and is less competitive.

You need to do this for each of your keywords and see the results. If the monthly search volume for all your top keywords is around 5,000 – 6000, then you have definitely found a potentially profitable keyword. If monthly searches exceed millions, you’ll need to be more specific with your niche rather than competing with very large, established blogs on more popular topics.

Developing smart blog post ideas using keyword research

Although coming up with a smart blog niche is like winning a battle, coming up with a strong keyword that is in demand determines the fate of your blog posts. For this, you need to do some keyword research to generate the right blog post ideas that will actually bring readers to your blog. Well, it’s your blog, and you can create and publish whatever you want.

Creating a predefined list of blog post ideas

Remember that what you like does not mean that it will be in demand for others. You need to develop blog post ideas based on what others are thinking. Based on the keyword research mentioned above, you can follow the same method to find your blog post ideas. Make a list of some predefined blog post ideas and note it down in a spreadsheet or notepad so that you can use it whenever needed.

Creating an editorial calendar

You need to make a ‘Simple Editorial Calender’ which has a list of some important blog post ideas that you are going to write in the coming days. This way you will have a predefined list of some important blog post ideas that will free you from banging your head against the wall when you are about to write the post you want. This tactic is implemented by most famous bloggers including me.

5 ways to come up with unique blog post ideas

  1. Creating a Long List of Your Selected Keywords
    Start by making a long list of keywords you already have in mind. Target ideas that you think your target audience will find valuable. What question are they asking? Where do you have the expertise and how can you help them? And so on.
  2. Use Keyword Research Tools:
    Use keyword research tools like Ahrefs, Twinword Ideas, or Moz to get more ideas. These tools will show you several keywords related to keywords you’ve already come up with, along with how much traffic those words are getting, to show whether people are interested in your topic.
  3. Decide on one of several keyword phrases:
    Take all your terms and start refining them by narrowing down your list of selected items. You need to decide on a keyword that gets asked the most and is in high volume
  4. Note down your thoughts in a spreadsheet:
    Now, turn it into your blogging journal or editorial calendar spreadsheet to include all of these keywords, including estimated search volume, SEO difficulty, and opportunities. Keeping all these in mind, give priority to each subject of high, medium, or low level.
  5. Outline material that meets all three key requirements:
    Consider your top priorities and set deadlines for them. Look for themes that meet all three key needs such as suitable for your niche, the actual needs of your readers, and the ability to drive traffic to your blog. Then try to outline a blog post, reinforcing your main points.

Points to target a unique blog post idea-

You can also consider the following points to target a unique blog post idea

  1. Seeing what other bloggers cover in your niche
  2. Take a look at the most successful posts to see what readers love the most.
  3. Think about some popular topics that don’t require a ton of original ideas or effort.
  4. Chat with other bloggers and get new ideas by joining groups or forums.
  5. Talking about specific posts or articles that other bloggers are finding useful to them.
  6. Keep in mind the blogging mistakes that bloggers make and the strategies that are in trend today.

By this point, I am sure you will have a long list of topics to help you decide on a unique blog post idea whenever you need it.

I hope you are now ready with your incredible blog post idea with a list of all the target keywords you want to rank for. Now you need to navigate to the ‘Posts’ section in your WordPress dashboard. So just click on ‘Post’ and then click on ‘Add New’ which will take you to the ‘WordPress Post Editor page’ as shown in the screenshot below.

Writing a blog post title that prompts readers to click

The most legitimate reason you are writing this post is to attract readers, isn’t it? So, it becomes necessary to put some effort into learning ‘how to write blog post title’ which will attract your readers and most importantly your article is really helping the readers to solve their issues. So let’s say you have decided to write about a new forex trading strategy for complete beginners. Next, on your new post page click into the “Add Title” bar and type in a title such as A Beginner’s Guide to Forex Trading.

You can see that as you type and publish your post title, the default permalink is created using every single word in your title. To make it SEO friendly, you can edit it however you like but keep in mind that it should be short and easily memorable and don’t forget to use your focus keyword (Learn more about permalink settings). In my case, the focus keyword is- ‘Guide to Forex Trading’ as you can see in the screenshot below.

Use numbers and words that have positive or negative sentiments to make your headline more appealing. You can check the SEO score on the top right corner of your editor’s page. Always use focus keywords in headlines and within a few lines of your opening description

You can learn a strategy for writing a strong headline initially by looking at the headlines of other successful bloggers in your niche:
and try to observe-

  1. Do they prefer long or short headlines
  2. Do they often move on with numbers?
  3. How many titles of his articles include parentheses?
  4. Is it a best practice to capitalize the first letter of each word?
  5. How many keyword phrases do they use.

Check out some recent headlines from my blog to get some inspiration on how you want to structure your titles.

If you’re still not sure how to title a new post, do a Google search for the target keyword phrase you’re following and get inspiration from headlines other successful bloggers are using. You may not get the exact idea, but it will definitely lead you in the right direction.

Choosing an SEO Friendly Blog Post URL (edit permalink)

If you want the URL of your new post to rank well in organic Google search results, it is extremely important to optimize it. Continuing with our example from above, I’m trying to rank the article “A Beginner’s Guide to Trading Forex” for the keyword phrases like “guide to forex trading” so that’s exactly what I put as my post URL.

Here are some more URL writing hints:

  1. Remember to separate each word in a new post URL with a dash which is always recommended from an SEO perspective.
  2. Keep it at least not more than 3 – 5 words or even less is better.
  3. Avoid using numbers unless there is a very compelling reason
  4. Be sure to include your target keyword phrase.
  5. Avoid using unnecessary words like ‘a’, ‘to’, ‘a’ or ‘the’

Creating an engaging introduction to your new blog post

Try to write in just 2 or 3 sentences to convince readers that the post you are writing is worth their time and they will find something useful in your content. For your convenience, here is a sample blog post introduction:

“.No matter if you are an experienced trader or just trying to make a fortune in forex trading, this guide will prove to be the best among all and ultimately help you become profitable in the long run“.

Here are some dos and don’ts that you can follow to create a powerful introduction to your post.
Dos:
1. Use simple and engaging language
2. Open with shocking figures
3. Start with a quote
4. Use funny words
5. Take advantage of attractive formatting like bold and italics

Don’ts:
1. Don’t use unattractive fonts
2. Do not capitalize the main sentence unnecessarily
3. Don’t make unrealistic promises
4. Don’t distort the facts.
5. Do not forget to highlight the most interesting thing in your article.

The right strategy for writing a compelling introduction is to answer the how what, and why as quickly as possible. Another trick is to start with your conclusion first. In the age of short attention span, people want to absorb their extracts as quickly as possible. The sooner you establish a connection with your readers, giving them a strong reason to believe they’re in the right place, the more likely they are to dive into your content.

Customizing the design and layout of your blog posts

Whatever the quality of your content, when it comes to the visual appearance of a blog post, its look and design matter the most. Ultimately, how you want your blog post to appear is subjective and completely up to you, which one you think will resonate most with your readers. But the most important lesson I’ve learned so far is that design matters a lot. Here are five ways to perfectly structure a blog post layout.

1. Make Your Blog Post Reader-Friendly

Designing isn’t about using crazy colours, amazing fonts, and a bunch of images, but it’s about making your reader’s experience as interesting as possible. So, always look for ways to simplify things to make your blog posts reader-friendly. The good news is- “You can easily implement all of these using a free WordPress theme”. Using amazing fonts, the appropriate font colour, the right font size (16pt or more) and motto length (about 50-85 characters) are some of the best steps to start.

2. Include a relevant featured image

To make your blog post more attractive, clearly visible, and easily remembered by readers, use a featured image at the top of your blog post that contains relevant images and keyword text. You can use custom-designed images by including a relevant image and a title on it to build a strong connection with your readers.

3. Often use subtitles to split long textual content

A long paragraph is intimidating and your readers may get bored of reading such a long text. Therefore, I would recommend you to use sub-headings after every 250-400 words. Also, if possible consider including images around each title to divide the flow of text.

Recent studies have proven that blog posts with images are viewed 94% more often than those viewed without them. And when it comes to posts that are shared on social media, tweets with photos get 150% more retweets, while Facebook posts with images get 2.3X more engagement. This suggests that adding a few visual elements can almost double the number of views you get with a normal post.

4. Emphasize key parts of your post

People don’t want to see the full text on their first visit to any post or article. You need to get their attention. The easiest way to do this is to emphasize key parts with bold or italics and try to emphasize the text that you think is more important.

5. Be sure to provide links to other posts or pages

To keep readers on your posts, it is extremely important to provide them with what they are looking for. You can provide them with easy navigation or internal links to other posts or pages in your blog. 

I hope these time-tested design principles will be of great help to you in creating an attractive blog layout. If you follow everything mentioned here, you are likely to have a 90+ SEO score, which needs to be maintained for your upcoming posts as well.

Hit the ‘Publish’ button on your first blog post

After writing your first blog of 1,200+ words, you’re probably feeling crazy about hitting the publish button! But wait, did you categorise your posts? If not, be sure to do so now (somewhere on the right side of your editor’s page). Lastly, don’t forget to check SEO suggestions like ‘Focus Keywords’, SEO Title, Meta Description and ‘Keyword Density’ and make sure they are meeting all SEO requirements before hitting the “Publish” button.

Congratulations. Your post is now live on the Internet.

To Sum Up

When blogging with WordPress, writing your first post requires a lot of attention as it creates the first impression about you in your reader’s mind. I have tried to give a better idea of ​​how you can write your first blog post effectively but there may be a little room for improvement. No one can write an effective blog post in their first attempt. 

It takes time to come up with a better idea of how you can create such valuable content for your readers so that you can build a relationship with your audience. You need to start practising it from today itself and one day you will surely acquire the required skills.

As you have created and published a well-optimized blog post which has some value for its readers. Now, it is important to know how you can promote your blog posts to attract maximum potential readers. 

In the next step, you’ll learn about some practical methods you can apply to reach as many readers as possible. Ok?

Let’s move on.

Step #7: Promote your blog content to get readers

Promoting your blog content is something that you will not pay much attention to in the beginning. But as you gain experience blogging with WordPress, you will realize how important it is to have a well-planned blog promotion strategy along the way.

What do you do after you’ve completed your first blog post and hit the ‘Publish’ button? Well, you probably want to know how to promote your blog content so that many readers can read your content and have enough traffic to your blog. In fact, for a successful blogging career, you have to spend more time promoting your content than you are spending creating them. Right?

How to Promote Your Blog to Get Readers?

Well, marketing your blog content is not an easy task and it takes a lot to implement a strong content marketing strategy. Here are some of the best ways to start sharing your blog posts and make them available to new readers.

1. Using social media to promote your blog content

It is social media that comes first to our mind when we think of promoting our blog content without opting for paid ads. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube are some of the popular platforms that are widely used among bloggers for this purpose. You can easily choose the one that best suits the niche and interests of your audience and there is no need to promote your blog posts on every social media platform. You need to share your blog content on the social media networks where your audience spends the most time.

How to choose a social media network to promote your blog content?

Each social media platform has its own importance and is inherently suitable for a specific niche and a certain type of readership. Here’s what works best on each social platform:
Facebook: Best suited for video and curated content

1. Instagram: For quality images, quotes and stories
2. Twitter: For News, Quotes & GIFs
3. YouTube: For Quality Video Content
4. LinkedIn: For professional content and career news
5. Pinterest: For Infographics and Visual Content
6. Reddit: For Comments About Topics in Your Niche
7. Facebook: Best if you already have a large number of followers

The main point here is that you have to experiment with it thoroughly on your behalf to see which network will best suit your needs.

Using YouTube to Grow Your Audience

YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world after its parent company Google, which means it has one of the absolute best content search networks at your disposal to promote your blog and grow your audience. From the day you start a blog, it is recommended that you publish videos on YouTube with the goal of gaining subscribers and driving viewers directly to your blog if you want to rapidly grow your community of subscribers.

There are also some free or paid online tools with which you can better promote your content on social media as per your budget and need. These are-
1. Buffer – for beginners or small-scale users
2. Hootsuite – for medium scale and
3. Gainapp – for advanced users

Step #2: Guest blogging on other relevant sites

One of the best things about starting a blog is that you are always free to join a community of other bloggers who love helping each other. Guest blogging on other relevant sites gives you the opportunity to connect with an already established audience where you can share and promote your content.

How to publish content on other blogs

If you are not implementing a big guest blogging campaign, try posting your content on relevant sites like Quora, Medium, Tumblr or many similar sites. Quora being a question and answer site has helped many bloggers to answer the queries of the users. You need to search for relevant topics in your niche and then answer the questions about which you have already written on your blog.

If your blog has business-oriented posts, you might consider posting them on LinkedIn. The key point here is that you need to find the places where your audience is, be it other blogs, communities, social platforms or other relevant sites.

Step #3: Joining Forums and Message Boards

Although using social media is an important strategy for marketing your blog content, relying heavily on it is not always effective. Instead, being part of targeted forums and online communities can give you a better return for your invested time if you do it the right way. I would recommend you join some relevant groups on Facebook to see if there is an opportunity to connect with your audience.

Step #4: Using Email Newsletters to Increase Your Blog’s Audience

Everyone knows that the best way to blog promotion is with your own audience. An email newsletter is the most powerful way to get existing readers to stay engaged with what you’re doing and to keep them trusting you. Building your email list can be relatively simple these days. All you have to do is put a signup form within your posts and on the major pages of your site.

You can also use some paid tools like ConvertKit to manage over 100,000 email clients, but Mailchimp is the best free email marketing tool to get started. Apart from promoting your blog content through the methods mentioned above, here are some of the most effective and creative ways by which you can grow your blog audience rapidly.

Step #5: Interview people in your niche:

There is nothing better than learning from people who you feel are more experienced and knowledgeable than you in your niche. So always try to satisfy your queries directly by online chatting, email or interviewing with them. Not only will this help you answer your own questions and build relationships with them, but other bloggers who read your blog can learn a lot from them as well.

Step #6: Network with other bloggers

You can pick one or two from a list of other bloggers who have already garnered a good audience and link their content to your relevant posts or articles. This way you will be able to build a relationship with them and easily get on their radar. You can email them by saying- “Hey! I mentioned you in my most recent article. I would really appreciate it if you link me otherwise I will be more than happy to keep sharing with you.” With the procedure, you can get unexpected results.

To sum up

By reading the guidelines above, I hope you have gained some experience on how to promote your blog and that you can apply some of them to your way of blogging with WordPress. Always try to know what other bloggers are doing in your niche. Try to imitate people who are good at what you are doing.

See what works for them and think about how you can use it in your own way. Remember- you are the most important factor in building a strong relationship with all the people who you think are better than you and you must know how you can make the best use of those opportunities.

It will take some ingenuity and willingness to experiment, but it is well worth the effort. Trust me, I have gained some experience over the years but I am still learning and the process does not stop here. Of course, if you want to increase your domain authority and rank well in searches, it is really hard to build a real audience and get backlinks from famous sites, but you have to start somewhere.

Now is the time to be rewarded for all the efforts you put in as you are eagerly waiting for this moment. In the last leg of this long journey, you will learn about various ways how you can start earning money from your blog and make the most of all the efforts you made to achieve your blogging goals. So let’s get started without wasting any time.

Step #8: Make Money From Your Blog

There are many ways to get paid while blogging with WordPress which include- selling your services, joining affiliate programs, through sponsored blog content, selling online courses, using ad networks, sponsoring podcasts and selling physical products. 

You can choose a few methods that best suit your traffic level and the scale of your business. Well, using sponsored content and ad networks are some of the most popular ways you can monetize your blog instantly.

1. Selling Your Services as a Freelancer

If you want to start earning from your blog as soon as possible, then selling your services is by far the easiest option. These services can be of any type like content creation, blogging jobs, freelance writing gigs or otherwise selling your expertise as a service. All you need is a platform (blog or website) to launch yourself as an independent service provider.

How to become a freelancer

To better present yourself and build a strong online presence, you need to create some prominent pages like About, Contact, Services or ‘Hire Me’ to showcase at least some of your past achievements. If you don’t have anything to show yet, don’t let them stop you here.

Create some sample articles, designs or other creations and host them on your blog as if they were a project you were paid to create. If you have skills that you can sell as a service, why not make the most of it and be ready to start looking for potential clients as a freelancer.

2. Joining affiliate programs

Affiliate marketing is the process by which an affiliate (an individual) earns a payment or commission for marketing a service or product of its affiliate partners (usually a brand or company). As an affiliate, you will receive a tracking link provided by your affiliate partner(s) after joining their affiliate program(s).

Can you make money as an affiliate?

It is one of the most convenient ways to generate income online as you do not need your own products or services to make money. But, it is promoting someone else’s products or services to earn passive income, even when you are sleeping. Sounds amazing. Right? Well, the good news is that anyone can make money by becoming an affiliate.

How do affiliate programs work?

You receive a special tracking link from the company you are affiliated with. Then, you’ll consider using these links in your blog posts, emails to your customers, or just about anywhere you reach your readers. When someone completes a purchase using that tracking link, you’re paid either with a set fee or a percentage of that sale.

Who can join affiliate programs?

This means that you are compensated or get paid for sending new customers to your affiliate partners. Most of the big brands have affiliate programs to better promote their brand or increase their sales. Once your blog gets enough traffic or a good readership, you can get into some affiliate deals with companies that have relevant products that you want to promote to your audience.

3. Through sponsored blog content

When you are paid by a brand, company or individual to share their content in your blog or in front of your audience, that content is called sponsored blog content. Unless you already have a good-sized audience on your blog, you probably won’t be on your community’s radar. It takes time for your readers to grow to the point where sponsored content can be a viable monetization option.

How much traffic do you need to get blog sponsors?

It depends a lot on the blog niche and how engaged your readers are, but you can expect sponsorships only if you reach over 10,000+ monthly visits, which can be overwhelming, especially if you have just started your blog. You may not expect readership to increase immediately, but after a year or two, you may start getting the expected results. You just need to find out who your audience is and which traffic strategies work best for you.

4. Selling courses online

If you have an expertise, skill or experience that others can benefit from, you can easily package your tips, tricks, best advice, strategies or tutorials as online courses for which people can pay for access to accelerate their learning. Initially, you can offer them some free valuable content that you think may be useful to them without hurting your future plans.

The best part about selling courses is that you don’t need a huge audience to generate income online. The same is the case with e-books and a lot of digital products, where you can easily make money by selling them directly to your audience without much effort.

How to make money selling online courses

Once you have a few readers on your blog, try to interact with them by asking questions, offering free downloads or sharing your personal experience so they can join your email list or contact you directly. Once you’ve managed to get a few emails from readers who are interested in you, try to find out about their biggest challenges related to the topics covered in their blog.

Point out ways in which you can help them uniquely based on your skills, knowledge and experience and create comprehensive online content in the form of an e-book that answers those specific questions in detail. Once you find a way that you’re going to help them solve real problems, try to convince them to join your specific online courses.

5. From ad networks

If you’re relatively new to blogging and looking for ways to monetize your growing readership, you’ve probably considered running blog ads by the ‘Blog Advertisement Networks’. Whether or not blog ads help you generate a decent income from your blog, they can still be a viable monetization option but how much you can expect is entirely based on the traffic levels of your blog. Remember that making a living or even a profitable side business doing what you love is well worth the time and energy.

What are Blog Ad Networks?

A blog advertising network works with popular brands and businesses so that you can benefit from the relationship they have fostered with these brands by selling the empty space on your blog or site to advertisers in their network. Some of the best blog ad networks to consider applying to monetize your blog the traditional way are-

1. Mediavine, 2. Monumetric, 3. Google AdSense, 4. PropellerAds, 5. Infolinks, 6. Ezoic, 7. Media.net, 8. AdThrive, 9. RevenueHits and 10. SHE Media.

Can I monetize my blog?

Of course, you can monetize your blog and generate a decent income if your blog gets more than 10,000+ unique monthly visitors, but earning from a blog that collects less than 1,000 visitors a day, is really a difficult task. Remember that unless you are attracting a million+ monthly readers, traditional CPC or CPM ads will not serve as a substantial blog income. Although ad networks are not a great monetizing option to focus on in the short term, they can be one of the easiest ways to make money from your blog in the beginning.

Google AdSense

Google AdSense is usually the first and oldest blog advertising platform that people sign up for when they are trying to monetize their blog. Being a Google product, it is easy to incorporate and usually has no traffic requirements, but it can be one of the easiest and most convenient monetization options. If you’re considering using Google AdSense for running blog ads on your site, here’s what you need to know about Google AdSense.

How to Sign Up for Google Adsense

To sign up for Google AdSense, simply go to their main page and select “Get started”. Now you have to choose an email ID before proceeding further. On the next page, you will fill in some details like- your site name, select some options, choose your region and agree to their terms and conditions as you can see in the screenshot below.

Next, you need to provide your personal details such as your name, address and phone number by clicking ‘Enter Information’. To see how ads will appear on your site, just click ‘Explore and’ to see your Google AdSense code, just click ‘Let’s go’ like in the screenshot below.

You can use this code anywhere in your blog where ever you want your ad to appear. All you have to do is copy this code and paste it wherever you want in your blog. It’s a pretty simple process to get started and get your AdSense code but they have a tutorial to help you along the way if you have additional questions.

Requirements for Google Adsense

To sign up for Google AdSense, there are only a few requirements that anyone can meet with a little preparation and these are:

  1. A website with Unique, Valuable and Interesting Content
  2. Content that Complies with AdSense Program Policies
  3. The website owner must be at least 18 years old
  4. Unofficially, your site must be 6 months old as brand new sites may be rejected
  5. The site should be user friendly with easy navigation and both internal and external links.

Keep in mind that your site may be rejected by Google AdSense if you do not meet some of these requirements to participate in their blog ad network. Also, make sure you’re familiar with Google’s advertising rules and beware of ‘Google’s two-click penalty for publishers‘. It can often be someone’s fault if you don’t closely monitor the performance of your website ads regularly. Some of the main reasons why you may be rejected include lack of original content, too little content or duplicate content.

Google Adsense Payment Terms

For displaying ads with AdSense for content, publishers receive 68% of the revenue recognized by Google in connection with the service. For AdSense for search, publishers receive 51% of the revenue recognized by Google. These percentages are consistent, regardless of a publisher’s geographic location, and are not in any way averaged between publishers.

You can refer to Google Adsense ‘Payments FAQs‘ for more details. AdSense makes monthly payments and releases the payment between 21st to 26th of the month. You can see all the details on your ‘Payments’ page as shown in the screenshot below:

Typically, payments are provided via cheque, electronic funds transfer (ETF), Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA), Rapida and wire transfer. The payment limit varies depending on the payment method you choose, but you must reach at least the $100 threshold before applying for any payment.

Google Adsense Pros:

  1. Google AdSense is often the first and most convenient blog monetization option for many bloggers because Google is so well-known—and because it’s easy to implement. Here are some of the benefits of working with Google AdSense:
  2. Easy to sign up: The process of signing up is very simple and anyone can access it without much effort. This is the reason why it is most popular among beginners as their first blog monetization option.
  3. Works on multiple sites: Using a single account, you can run ads on multiple sites. This can be extremely helpful if you are running more than one blog and want to run Google Ads on all of them.
  4. Ads are customizable: You are free to change the size, colour, layout and design of your ad regardless of the location to suit your blog or website.

Google Adsense Cons:

  1. High Payout Limit: To receive payment through Google AdSense you often have to wait until you have made $100 or more to celebrate your first payment.
  2. Accounts Get Closed: Google AdSense is very particular about its policies and even established bloggers get fired without realizing that they are violating a policy. Many of them have pointed out that once you’ve been removed it can be nearly impossible to get back in.
  3. Not everyone is approved: Getting approved for Google AdSense is not a very clear process. While many bloggers are easily approved on their first application, unfortunately, some of them are not approved even after several attempts. For best results, it is a good idea to review their program policies and terms very carefully.

6. Podcast sponsorship

Another great way to start monetizing your blog is to launch a simple podcast for your readers. You can use the traffic to book sponsorships from brands that want to reach your audience. You can also combine podcast ad placement offers with sponsored blog posts on your site to better present your content. Podcasts can be as easy as casual conversations with other bloggers in your niche.

How to make money with podcast sponsorship

You can record conversations on the topics you’re blogging about with other bloggers in your blog. I would recommend you record a few episodes and launch your show without trying to book a sponsorship in advance. People who start liking your shows will definitely subscribe (an opportunity for monetization) and look forward to your future episodes.

How to launch a podcast

One of the best ways to reach more listeners is to guest on other established podcasts in your niche. In the beginning, you might think that you have deviated from what you are doing now, but I am sure you will get over it normally once you start the process. In just a few days, you will see how your audience is growing rapidly and eventually turning into a monetization option.

7. Selling physical products or software equipment

Another great way to monetize your audience, such as selling online courses, is to sell physical products or software tools to your audience if they need them, especially to start an e-com business. This way you are helping your readers by providing them with exactly what they need. If you need some extra incentive, consider that 75% of online shoppers say they use social media as a part of their business.

How to sell products on your blog

In what used to be a very labour-intensive business, a blog has proved to be a convenient way for eCommerce, especially with the proliferation of drop shipping and order fulfilment services. In addition to selling just to your audience, you can take advantage of loyalty programs that allow customers to invite friends to shop with offers like first-time customer discounts, one-month free trials, gifting programs, etc.

What does it cost to sell a product online?

The options discussed above create opportunities to spread your message and market your products through verbal marketing efforts, which will not cost you anything. But, if you run a paid campaign then definitely you have to pay a decent amount for it which is beyond the scope of this discussion. Of course, these methods are suitable for already established businesses, but with measurable steps, they can be applied to your blog monetization options as well.

To Sum Up

At the end, which monetization option you are going to implement while blogging with WordPress depends entirely on the niche you are blogging about and the traffic level of your blog. There is a lot of care and dedication involved in getting to the level of starting a blog, creating valuable content, and maintaining the minimum required level of traffic on your blog. It doesn’t happen in a day, but it does happen. Only you need to believe in yourself and know what it takes to reach the destination.

All at a Glance

I wrote this guide (blogging with WordPress ) because starting a blog has been one of the most challenging endeavours of my life. I wanted to share my experience with everyone like you to help learn the whole process in a more convenient way. I hope that by now you have created your blog or you are confident enough to do so.

Thank you for being with me till the end of this article. I assure you that I will keep bringing more valuable content like this in my upcoming blog posts. Till then have faith in God, work as efficiently as you can and be sure of a positive outcome. Wishing you a wonderful online journey ahead.