Are you thinking about starting a blog but don’t know where to start, we shall discuss the cheapest way to start a blog and make money with some handwork.
Starting a blog cheaply can cost you between 60$ to 300$ if you going to use WordPress the best blogging platform in the world.
The easiest way to start a blog is by using WordPress as your blogging platform.
Using WordPress is also an affordable way to create a blog even for a broke person because its cheap
According to research, 4.4 million blog posts are being put on the internet every day, so if you thinking about starting a blog, you need a clear plan that will help you make money because not every blogger becomes success full.
Disclaimer: Some of the products I am recommending in this article include affiliate links, which may provide me with a small commission at no cost to you. This 1000+ word article contains all of my vetted ways to make money online and includes products and software that I recommend. You can read my affiliate disclosure in my privacy policy.
Step by guide to starting blog cheaply and how to make money
1. Pick your niche
Starting a blog starts with picking what niche you want to focus on and which audience do you want.
Choosing a blog topic always ranges around 3 things, Passion, problem-solving, and money.
Passion Blogging
In most cases, you are advised with starting with your passion, because in the world, we all have something we are passionate about.
So what are you passionate about?
If you are passionate about cooking, you can start a blog showing the various recipes.
If you are love gyming, you can start up a blog about fitness and health where you showcase and motivate other people to exercise and stay healthy.
If you don’t know what your passion is, visit discover a hobby
Passion blogging is nice because you talk about something you really love but to some people, blogging isn’t about passion but solving a problem.
Problem solving Blogging
Here, you choose a topic not because you are passionate about it but only because you are solving problems.
For example in 2018, I started a blog about vaginal health issues and tips not because I was passionate about it but because I wanted to create a place where all women can find information for vaginal health.
This can apply to you, Do you want to solve a problem?
Blogging for money
Most people start blogs to make money, When it comes to the type of blogging, you really don’t care about your passion, All you care about is writing about something that will allow you to accumulate more money.
The best niches that will help you generate huge amounts of money are marketing, tech, travel, parenting, and personal finance.
Note: Whatever niche you choose, you will find some audience online, it might be a competitive niche, but if you learn SEO, you will still make a lot of money.
To find out if people are searching for information about your idea, go on google and type your topic.
You will surely find a lot of searches.
For example, let’s say you want to teach people how to grow tomatoes.
When you search on Google, you will see many searches related to tomato growing.
When you use Google keyword planner, you will know the average number of people who search for a particular term.
You will also see the level of competition in your niche for example.
At this stage, I guess you have figured out your niche. let’s set up your website now.
Click Here to Start a blog on WordPress, Then use the tutorial below to set up your website.
Step 2. Pick a domain name and hosting platform
To create a blog, you need to find a domain name.
A domain name is a name you want to name your blog, you can choose a name related to your idea or a custom name. However, it is always recommended to choose a name related to your niche for traffic purposes.
Buying a domain usually costs around 10$ per year but if you buy hosting at Bluehost, you will get a free domain for a year. Click here to start and then use the tutorial below to set up your blog
We will see this page
Click the Get started Button and it will take you to this place where you will choose your plan.
Choose a pricing plan of your choice.
You will then be taken to the next page where you will choose a domain of your own choice, If your domain isn’t available, try changing things until you find what you want.
After finishing up there, click next and you will be taken to the payment page.
You will asked to put your information.
Congratulations you are done with the first step of creating a blog.
After paying , you will receive an email having all the details.
Step 3. Install word press
WordPress is the popular and easiest blogging platform used by millions of bloggers, it is easy to use and free.
When you log in to your blue-host account, you will see this dashboard.
Click on the my sites button to create your site by installing word press.
After clicking My sites button, You will see the button Add Site.
Click on it and it will take you to a page where you will be asked to choose.
Install WordPress, after installing WordPress, you will be given your login credentials.
keep them safe and log in to your site.
Step 4. Choose a Free WordPress theme and design your Blog
When designing a WordPress, we use a theme, WordPress has millions of free themes that you can choose from.
But if you have money, you can get yourself a premium themes for a better professional look of your blog.
Remember premium themes come with so much benefits.
When you login into your website, you will see a dashboard like this below.
Click on Appearance.
You will something like this below.
Then click on themes and you will be taken to a page like this below.
On that page, you will see the wordpress.org themes, click here and choose from the thousands of themes for free.
You will also see new, favorites and popular themes.
Choose any themes that fit you, install them, and activate them.
If you want a premium theme, visit theme forest.
Step 5. Customize Your Blog
After installing your desired them, you need to customize them and edit them.
You also need to add your logo.
Design your home pages.
Change colors if you not okay with the present one or not.
Go back to your dashboard, click on appearances and then customize.
When you click customize, you will have something like this. You can change the way your website looks from site identity to colors.
It might be a bit hard at the beginning but don’t worry because its the start.
Step 6. Optimze for free search engine traffic
From customizing, you re almost finishing with your blog but there is something important you haven’t done.
That is optimizing for search engine traffic.
You will get free search traffic from google, bing Yandex and Baidu. For the start, you can optimize both bing and google.
First, you have to install a plugin called Yoast SEO.
Go back to your dashboard section, click plugins and then add new.
When you click add new, you will be taken to a plugin section where you will see millions of plugins.
In most cases, most of them are free but others have both a freemium and a premium.
Go to the search button and write Yoast SEO.
You will see the plugin, click install and activate it too.
After you have installed and activated it, you will have to go to webmasters tools to fill out everything.
Click here to for a full tutorial on how to optimize your site with Yoast SEO plugin.
Step 7. Write Your Blog Posts
Since you are done with most of the website setup, now its time for you to write some blog posts on your site. To have a successful blog, you need to do the right SEO.
SEO is something you won’t learn in a day but luckily, there is software that can guide us through this journey.
Before you think about writing an article, you have to figure out a target keyword.
You can use tools like keyword planner or ubbersuggest to have out the less competitive words.
Ranking on first page of Google requires a lot of work and knowledge about SEO.
You need to read this article about beginners’ guide to finding the right keywords that rank on google.
Step 8. Make money from your Blog
There are various ways to make money from blogging because the sky is the limit.
One of the most common ways to make money is to do affiliate marketing, it involves the selling of products that belong to others and you get a small commission out of it.
You will find a number of products to promote on amazon affiliate program.
You can also promote a number of digital products like hosting, Video editing software, email marketing software, and many more.
You can also add google ad-sense and make money as a starter.
If you are experienced in a particular field, think about creating a course online.