How To Start A Blog To Make Money Online
As we know AI has taken the digital space by storm, with content creation being super easy with the help of AI tools like ChatGPT, Writesonic & AI Buddy.
More people are getting into creating a blog. many people are searching for how to start a blog.so, I thought I would create a detailed blog post where I’ll share with you 3 different ways you can start a blog to make money.
But before that, if you are someone who is thinking about starting a blog solely based on AI content I strongly recommend you to please don’t just copy & paste.
Read, Edit & craft the ai generated content into something that actually adds value not just plain ai content.
Hope this is clear. now let’s hop on our blogging guide so that you can kick-start your blogging journey
What you’ll learn in the article
In this blog post, I’ll show you 3 ways to create a blog i.e
- how you can start a blog for free
- how to create a partially paid blog where either the domain or web hosting is free.
- Start a self-hosted blog
Along with this, we’ll also learn the best platforms, best tools & best ways to make money from blogging
Let’s Start
3 Best Ways to Start A Blog
Start a Free Blog
First, let’s talk about what 60% of people influenced by YouTube videos on blogging are here for…i.e to start a blog for free.
Although this is not something I really recommend if you want to start a serious blogging business, still it is a good place to start learning to blog.
There are many free blogging platforms – I’m gonna share the ones I trust, along with that we’ll talk about the earning opportunities as well the limitations.
Starting a free blog means creating a blog on a platform where your domain address will be the subdomain of the platform
For example, if you create a free blog using WordPress.com then your website address will be yoursite.wordpress.com
Now the best free blogging platforms are
Out of all these 3, my pick is wordpress.com because that is from where my blogging journey started.
Back in 2017, I started my first blog on wordpress.com…It was a generic blog I wrote from technology to entertainment, health to fashion…pretty much everything.
I earned $0 from there but it help me to find my way around WordPress as well as learn a lot about SEO & blogging. So it is really close to my heart.
If you are someone who wants to try out blogging or who wants to earn some bucks or a part-time income from blogging you can start a free blog but remember there are limitations when it comes to earning from a free blog.
Now before we jump into that let’s talk more about the platform
WordPress.com
WordPress.com is the best platform to start a free blog because even though it is a free version but it still gives you an idea of how WordPress.org works. So, that it would be easy for you when you start your self-hosted blog & that is if you want to scale blogging into a profitable business.
Also, WordPress.com has many plugins that make blogging really easy – you can also customize the blog as you want.
WordPress.com also have these daily contests where they give you a prompt & you can publish your content & submit it.
This will help you to grow & build your audience.
Earning Opportunities & Limitations
- With WordPress.com you can’t make money with Adsense as you are not allowed to display ads…WordPress.com does sometimes show ads on your blog but you won’t be making money from it
- You can definitely use WordPress.com for Affiliate Marketing – In fact, I feel wordpress.com is the best free blogging platform for Affiliate Marketing because it has tons of plugins like Rankmath, Affiliate Booster, and Pretty links that will help you grow your affiliate marketing business.
- You can also use WordPress.com to sell your own products like Physical products, digital products, courses, services, etc
You can start your own blog for free in minutes using WordPress.com
- Just go to the website
- Sign up with your email id
- Enter your blog name & you are good to go.
Blogger.com
Blogger is an old player in the blogging niche & one of the best. It is a product of Google. So it’s comparatively easy to rank on Google.
You can pretty much get started in minutes, just sign up, select your blog name, and theme & you are all ready.
Limitations
The only thing I dislike about the blogger platform is… It is pretty much limited when it comes to customization.
There are some basic themes but if you want something attractive & elegant…you got to get the theme yourself from other sources- download it > upload it > and use it.
Also, blogger doesn’t have any plugins to ease your work & no SEO plugin as well…to monitor your title, meta description, keywords density, etc
These are the parameters that help a lot to craft an SEO-optimized article & SEO plugins like rank math & Yoast SEO makes this easy but sadly they don’t work for blogger platform.
Earning Opportunities
As both Blogger & Google AdSense are products of google. So even though your blog is a free blog with a blogspot.com subdomain you can still apply for AdSense.
You can also use a free blog created on blogger to do affiliate marketing, sell your own products, etc.
Medium
Now, this a platform that I used a lot when started blogging – whenever I used to publish a new blog post, I would go to medium & post a small summary of the blog post & link it back to my website…
I have driven a lot of traffic from medium to my blog but then they suspended my account stating that If you are only posting the content to drive traffic to the external source they will suspend your account & that is what they did.
So if you are planning to do something like this please refrain from doing it.
Publish valuable content on Medium & you can also be a part of their partner program.
Limitations
The partner program as far as I know is available in only some countries.
AdSense obviously doesn’t work for Medium
Earning Opportunities
You can definitely use Medium for Affilaite Marketing as well as selling your own products.
We use Medium to sell our digital products & the traffic we are getting is good. so you could try that.
Caution – Please Read
If you are thinking about doing affiliate marketing using medium…make sure you always disclose that the link you are sharing is an affiliate link. if you failed to do so your account will be suspended & no you can post the disclosure at the end of the article where most people won’t be able to see it.
The affiliate link disclosure should be clear & visible – so this is something you need to keep in mind if you want to do affilaite marketing, want to share affiliate links on medium
Start A Semi Paid Blog
In this kind of blog you either pay for web hosting & get a custom domain name for free or you pay for a custom domain & get free web hosting
Let’s get dig into this
Get Custom Domain for Free with Paid Web hosting
When your buy Web Hosting from Bluehost along with web hosting you’ll get a custom domain name for free…You can choose your domain name & get it for free. provided it is available.
This works great because even though you are just paying for web hosting you are still getting a self-hosted blog with a custom domain name & web hosting.
If you are on a budget this is probably the best way to get started with blogging & cherry on the top is Bluehost is really a well-reputed & effective web hosting so you can pretty much kick start your blogging journey.
This is exactly how I started my self-hosted blog journey – I started a blog on lifestyle following this exact method…I’m no longer working on it. I sold it in back 2021 but I loved working with Bluehost. in fact most of my clients use Bluehost or Cloudways.
Use Custom Domain on a Free Web Hosting
Just go to Namecheap get a domain & then use free web hosting.
Here I’m not talking about millions of free web hosting that you can find on google – trust me never go for any one of those, as most of them will harm your site more than do good.
The free web hosting I’m talking about is the one that is provided by Google itself & that is the blogger platform.
Yes! create a blog on blogger with a custom domain, in this way, you’ll have a custom domain blog & as the web hosting is by google – you won’t face the web hosting problems you usually face with free web hosting like- lack of uptime, slow loading speed, limited bandwidth, etc.
Earning Opportunities
Even though the blogs are semi-paid they still work as self-hosted blogs. So, I’ll go in detailed about earning opportunities at the end of the self-hosted blog section
Create A Self Hosted Blog
if you want to start a profitable blogging business & scale it to 5-6 figures. This is my favorite & most recommended way to start a blog.
I currently have 6 blogs live right now & all of them are self-hosted blogs & whenever someone approaches me for how to start a blog that is exactly what I recommend to them.
Having a self-hosted blog not only helps in creating authority & credibility but it also helps in creating accountability which is really important for success in any business.
Starting a free blog is super easy…you can start 1 blog every day if not 10 (you can create 100 if you want…)
Most people who opt to create free blogs are the people who get influenced into blogging by seeing some youtube videos.
Here is how it works
They’ll start a blog today & forget tomorrow because they are busy chasing some other shiny object & that is easy because the is no hassle in creating a free blog & definitely no harm in leaving your blog hanging.
When you start a free blog there is nothing that is motivating you to stick to it. yes, when it is new you might work on it for some time but sooner or later it is gonna be thrown into a pile of inactive blogs.
I learn this the hard way…when I started blogging I used to find different niches & as it was easy to start a blog I used to create so many different blogs for different niches.
If you open up my blogger account you’ll find a minimum of 21 blogs that are completely dead…I hardly have 1-2 post and almost 65% of those blogs doesn’t even have 1 post.
And trust me this isn’t just me…there is a full graveyard of thousands if not millions of dead blogs online & if you don’t want a seat in that graveyard.
If you want to succeed in blogging, you need something that will keep you going.
And that is exactly what a self-hosted blog does.
Consistency is the key to success in the blogging business & to be consistent you need a hook, a motivation & that is what your investment in your blog does…
You have invested money in your blog & if you fail to work on it, you’ll end up at loss & that factor will help you to not only be consistent but actually work hard & find ways to make much more money from your blog.
And before you think this might be a huge investment, it is not.
If you even stop eating out for 1 month, you’ll be able to pay for both domain & web hosting for a year.
Yes! as the digital space is growing, so is the competition.
So many reliable & effective companies have pretty affordable starter plans…so I highly recommend you go for it.
Best Web Hosting – Price Angle & Exactly Why I’m recommending them
If you are seriously tight on budget & if you want a web hosting that is pocket friendly yet reliable, basically cheap reliable web hosting then I recommend Vapourhost or Viewen
I have tried both & I’m happy with the service. Viewen is my personal favorite, even today I have a health blog hosted on viewen & it gets 20k+ traffic & I haven’t had any problems with it.
My site loads fast, uptime is great & if any issue does arise their customer support is top notch…they are one of my top favorites.
If you have a decent budget & want web hosting that is reliable, fast & secure…Bluehost is my pick & cherry on the top you’ll get a free custom domain.
Now, my last & one of the best cloud web hosting out there is Cloudways.
This is a cloud-based web hosting & It is super fast…The loading speed I see with my & client’s website is amazing…one of my most recommended web hosting for my clients.
And it is pretty much affordable as well…
Hope this article was clear on how to start a blog…
If you want to know how to pick a web hosting, and what factors are important to consider when selecting web hosting then I recommend you read this article.
It is a beginner’s guide to finding the right web hosting, you’ll learn everything you need to know about web hosting there.
Now let’s move to important stuff like Tools & Resources that You’ll need to build a blogging business
Must-Have Tools & Resources
Domains
NameCheap ( my pick ) – custom domains at a cheap process
Web Hosting
Bluehost
Cloudways
Viewen
Vapourhost
WordPress Themes
GeneratePress – Text-Based Blog
Affiliate Booster – Affiliate Blogs
Must-Have Plugins –
Cache Plugin – Not specifying because you need to choose the one that is compatible with your server ( mostly comes pre-installed if not the web hostings I recommended use lightspeed cache)
SEO Plugin – Rank Math, Helps to do on-page SEO. it is a free plugin
Affiliate Booster – Provides n number of blocks that helps in structuring a well-crafted SEO-optimized blog, perfect for an affilaite blog. it is a free WordPress Theme.
Prettylinks – Another affiliate marketing essential plugin that helps to track & trace back your affiliate links. turn super long ugly affiliate links into small your domain-specific affiliate links. also if you ever need to change your affiliate link you can just change the root URL & wherever you have posted the link gets updated (must-have for affiliate marketers )
I have addressed pretty much every question that one person might have when it comes to starting a blog but if you have any feel free to get in touch.
Also, subscribe to our email list so that you get all the updates.
Recommended Reads
25 Most Profitable Blogging Niches 2023
Find Your Niche in Just 3 Steps
Important Query
Are you interested in knowing how to start your own domain registration business like GoDaddy or how to start your own web hosting company by just using your PC?
This industry is gonna blow up, and there is a huge potential So I’m thinking about posting a detailed article on both of these business ideas…let me know if you are interested.
Related Posts
- How To Start A Print On Demand Business Using AI
- Best Ai Tool That Does Pretty Much Everything [Better Than ChatGPT]
- 6-Page eBook for 6 Figures – Learn How To Write eBooks in 30 Minutes
- 5 Profitable Businesses To Start With Creative Fabrica
- How To Go Viral On TikTok Using ChatGPT – GPTok Tutorial
