The Ultimate Guide on How to Write a Blog

Thinking of how to write a blog but don’t know where to start? Or even How to start?

Are you hearing stories on how bloggers are earning tons of money and you want to get in on the ride?

Pat yourself on the back, cause, you magically got yourself to the right place!

Woohooo!!

So.. now that you are here, let me tell you what you will be learning today.

What are the types of blogs you can start right away
How to start that blog from scratch
How to make money blogging about something you are passionate about

So, let’s start with the types of blogs…

Types of blogs

You must have come across many blogs in the past and different people (bloggers) like to blog about different things or things they are interested about.

To help you decide, I’ve put together 4 types of blogs that you can start.

BUT… before that, think of a particular goal you want to achieve through blogging apart from making money.

Is it, to grow your personal brand? Or share your knowledge with the world? Or is it to give a life update to people who might be interested in what you do?

After you came up with that specific goal, make a mental note of it and let’s move on to the type of blogs that will help you achieve this goal.

Personal blog:

This blog is exactly what it sound, it is your online journal, you write about everything that interests you.

Some bloggers focus on some of their particular interests, like a hobby or a cause they are passionate about. Some just write whatever is on their mind every time they start a new post.

A successful personal blog is the one that finds a topic that others are interested in and share it with their friends. These type of bloggers build a community around their blog and find other bloggers who share the similar interest and share their content with them and market their blog. Once you found such bloggers, start interacting with them by commenting on their posts and social media.

2. Business blog

Business bloggers are those people who blog about their business.

It can be a small business or big business.

Blogging for your business has many advantages for your business, since there is a bigger chance that your audience can become your customer and clients.

There are many freelance designers, writers, boutique owners who blog for their business and showcase their work online through their blogs.

The main goal of a business goal is to gain exposure, get more traffic and ultimately gain customers through blogging.

Unlike a personal blog, a business blog focuses more on their business and not on themselves.

A business blogger will write on topics that attract their ideal customer like, if a designer is writing, he would write about “Best fonts and colors to use on your website” or “How to design a good looking blog”.

A successful business blog’s aim is to attract readers that will purchase or subscribe to them so that they can send emails and lure them to buy from them.

The best way to get traffic or build a community for a business blog is to find the right people who are most likely to become your customers and cater all your content towards the things that they are interested in.

Then ensure that all your blog posts lead them to clicking on your products or service or to learn more about what your business does.

3. Niche blogs

Niche blogs are very specific to a particular topic. Studies show that the narrower the niche the better results you get.

Some ideas of niche blogs are beauty blogging, Pitalies blogging, bulldogs blogs, designing for biz owners blogging.

Yes, it can be as specific as that!

The best part about niche blogging is that you can make your blog a one-stop shop for everything related to a particular topic, and in addition to that it will make research way easy for you as a blogger.

It is best to write about things you know or are aware of in your niche blog.

The best part is, after you’ve gained some influence or created a community around your blog, you can turn it into a small business as well!

Want to learn on how to find your niche, read the article by Sophie from sophievl, she dives in depth into how you can discover your niche.

4. Media blogs

Media blogs mostly consists if photography, art or video.

If you enjoy any of the above forms of creativity, then media blogging is for you. Most of the popular influencers started off as media bloggers. They enjoy video blogging, hence, they are called vloggers.

This type of blogging is popular among many young people from different fields.

The most important factor of such kind of blogs is to choose the right platform to blog. Something that would suit your needs and find the right hosting provider that will allow you to store big size files without charging a fortune. We would recommend you use WP engine for your blog since they have decent storage and many other benefits for bloggers.

But if you want to test the waters before you dive deep in, go with Bluehost (in-depth setup in this post).

Setting up your first blog

Many big and influential bloggers in the past have started their first blog with WordPress which we recommend for you as well.

When we asked a few popular bloggers, what was their favorite place to host to blog was, it was hands down Bluehost.

Bluehost now has seamless functionality where it automatically sets up your WordPress site for you!

How cool is that!

To begin with, all you need is a domain name and a hosting platform. Once, you have that, you just have to install WordPress for free and start blogging.

Let’s dive in and see how you can set up your first self-hosted WordPress blog in the next 5 minutes!

It is super easy and I will add a few videos that will help you set it up.

Step 1: Purchase your hosting

You might ask, girl… What is hosting? Why am I buying this? I just need a WordPress website.

Well, hosting is where you will be storing all your blog files and install WordPress into your hosting since it can basically store your entire website on its server.

It is like renting out some online space for your website. Haha!

So buying hosting means, buying some space on the cloud (servers) so that people can view your website.

Since this is really important, I recommend that you go with a reputed company like Bluehost and not be cheap and go with other options and get hacked after putting in a shit load of effort into your blog.

This is what you see once you get on the Bluehost page

Click on “Get Started Now”.

Now when you click that you will be seeing this page

Enter the domain name you want to call your blog.

Since you want to make this a professional blog and make money off it, I recommend that you have a professional name to your blog. You know what I mean…

You can add unlimited websites to your Bluehost account so don’t ponder or worry too much about this. You can always add in domain names to your account with the Addon Domains feature.

So, just type in the domain name and move on.

You will see the below page next

The next steps are easy peasy.

Just fill out your contact information and payment information (choose billed annually). Just make sure you use all your real details and put in the right spellings since your account will be verified by Bluehost.

As you can see, this page has some extra options, It is really up to you if you on what you want to choose.

We generally recommend that you buy the Whois privacy as it keeps your information hidden on the web.

Now after confirming your details and buying the hosting. You should have completed the first step in having your very first professional blog hosting!

Woohooo!!

Congrats girl… Look at you, taking the first step in building your online empire!!!

Step 2: Set up WordPress on your Hosting

Now that you’ve purchased a domain and hosting to your blog, you will be directed to something called a cPanel, which just means control panel.

This page is the brain of your hosting, it has many different icons on it that link to different kinds of services and features that are available for your hosting account such as scripts, account, emails and so many more.

At the first glance, you might feel overwhelmed.

Trust me, you can ignore, 98% of all that is on the cPanel. But there is that little WordPress icon, that should grab your attention.

Click on it.

BUT, hold on!!!!

Before that, Bluehost will ask you if you want to set up your WordPress blog yourself or if you need any assistance. Just ignore it since I will show you how to do it, it’s really easy.

You will see this message the first time you open your cPanel.

Now, scroll down the cPanel screen and you will find the WordPress icon like this.

Click on “Install WordPress”.

The following steps are really easy, it’s amazing how this software does most of the stuff for you.

The next screen will have a few options that you need to fill in.

I advise you not to use easy admin names, just use a name that you can remember and complex.

Yaayy!!

You’re done!

This is literally what needs to be done to set up a WordPress blog.

Once, it finishes installing WordPress for you, you will get a confirmation screen with your unique login URL that will look like this:

http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin

Copy that link and bookmark it and ensure that you have your username and password saved in Evernote or a computer notepad.

That URL is your access login to your WordPress dashboard. This will be the backend of your blog where you will be publishing posts, editing the fonts, upload images, change themes, etc.

You will basically be running the blog from the backend.

From this point onwards, you will not be logging back into your cPanel.

All you have to do is click on the bookmarked URL and get into the back end of your blog.

That’s it!

Step 3: Designing your blog

This is hands-down the most rewarding step in the whole process.

Here is where you will be installing your WordPress template and start writing your blogs.

To change your theme, you can simply go to the side menu on your WordPress dashboard and click on Appearance > Theme > Add New.

Here you will have a search box where you can type in a theme that suits your needs and you will have thousands of options show up. Choose one and proceed!

Once, you’ve found a theme that you like, It is always good to check if that theme is a good one and has good rating and support.

You can also preview the theme in the window pane before installing it or you can directly install it!

I suggest you take a look at Bluechic, Angiemakes, Studiopress and Restored 316.

Now you are ready and equipped to start your blog! The whole process of setting up literally takes 5 minutes to do and them theme setup will not take more than 5 minutes too.

Just follow these steps and you are good to go.

If you come across any problems, the amazing Bluehost live chat team is always ready to help you out and help you set up!

They are available 24 hours every day!

Making money with blogging

Now that you set up your blog, now what?

I recommend that you have at least 10 blog posts up first and work on building a small audience to your blog before you go ahead and monetize it into a full-time income.

There are many ways you can start making money when you start blogging.

I am going to talk about the most popular and profitable ways in this post.

You might ask about, how long does it take to start making money on my new blog?

Well, it really depends on how you market your blog and how serious you take it, an average blogger starts making money from her second month of blogging.

Isn’t that really cool to think about!

Here are the top 5 ways most popular bloggers make money

Affiliate marketing
Offering Services
Own products
Sponsored posts
Advertisements

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a form of marketing where you promote other people’s products or services and earning a commission if someone purchases through the affiliate link.

Affiliate marketing is the best and fastest way to begin earning as a new blogger.

You can promote these products and services through your blog posts you write or the social media posts you post.

I highly recommend that you read this ebook “How to Make Your First Affiliate Sale in 24 Hours”. I love the strategies that Elise talks and most importantly how to market your blog posts which contain affiliate links.

I also recommend this amazing bundle from Ana called From Zero To Superhero Affiliate Marketing Bundle.

Offering services

As a blogger, you will have to build a certain authority before getting into offering services. This is the next best way to make money blogging.

As a blogger, you can offer just about any kind of service. If you are a food blogger, offer private cooking classes. If you are a beauty blogger, offer makeup classes or get booked as a makeup artist. If you are a dog blogger, give dog watching services or dog training services.

The possibilities are endless.

You can offer services or be a consultant! It’s really up to you.

The best thing about this is you can advertise your own services on your blog by writing valuable content around that service and in the end offer to help them with your service.

There is no start-up cost involved in this! Win-win!!!

Own products

This kind of monetizing takes a little more time than the first two methods, but trust me the profits are much higher in this.

As a blogger, you can start selling any kinds of products, it can be physical products or digital products.

I’ve seen bloggers sell everything from T-shirts to coffee mugs to planners to phone cases to e-books to mini-course on their blogs. It really depends on the type of audience you cater to and the niche you are in.

Conclusion

So let’s recap!

You asked how to write a blog and make money…

Decide what type of blog you want to start with
Choose a domain name and get hosting for as less as 2ish USD a month with Bluehost
Set up your WordPress theme (I suggest you take a look at Bluechic, Angiemakes, Studiopress and Restored 316)
Start implementing the money making strategies we’ve discussed.

To start and write a blog is really simple and easy and basically, anyone can do it.

But many drops when it comes to being consistent. If you are posting once a week, make sure you post once a week for the next 12 months. If you are posting every day, make sure you post every day for the next 12 months.

Whatever it is, make sure you stick to a schedule and post consistently.

It takes a lot of time and effort to start making money through blogging. Blogging is not a “get rich scheme”. But if you treat your blog as a business and make certain investments (self-hosting, a premium WordPress theme), it’s worthwhile and you will for sure see the results you desire.