Ever thought about getting into blogging? Ever wondered about what it takes to create and build a successful blog that not only attracts many visitors, but also makes you a passive income? Well you’re not alone, thousands if not millions of people start their blogs everyday, but only a few of them manage to make them lucrative enough to generate a substantial income.

Just one thing to keep in mind, making money blogging is a great thing, especially the passive side of it, but it’s also important to understand that you need to be passionate about what you’re blogging about, because without this passion, You’ll loose the motivation to consistently add content to your blog, and you’ll find yourself in frustration and upset which will make your blogging project a failure.

But hold on, this is not to say that making a successful blog is not achievable, because it is, but it requires focus, persistence and willingness to learn and research.

And the results can be astonishing

Check out how much money these bloggers are making monthly.

And these are just the earnings of a couple of blogs in the three-figure range so you don’t get big expectations as a beginner, because there are also many blogs making 6 figures a year in different niches.

Still got your attention? Great! I will you through in this simple step-by-step beginner guide where you will learn how to start a blog from scratch, how to drive traffic to it, and how to monetize it and start making money online.

So without further ado, let’s get to it.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Step 1: Choosing your niche

I know that you’d rather jump into the next steps that address the technical side of creating the blog, but hold on. It goes without saying that defining your niche and your audience is very essential when creating a blog. This will help you not only with structuring your content but also with building digital products, courses, or services that you might offer your audience later down the road.

Also, one of the top reasons why new bloggers fail is the lost of interest. That’s why picking the right niche is important and will be a motivation for you to keep making new blog posts.

So how do your find your niche? It’s easy. You just need to ask yourself these questions:

  • What am I passionate about?
  • What am I knowledgeable enough to teach people about?
  • What do I have a deep interest in, and want to learn?

So once you’ve answered one of the questions above you should be able to define the main topic of your blog and you can proceed to the next step which is a bit more fun as it involves the technical side of creating the blog.

Step 2: Choosing a Blogging Platform

This is where things will get a bit technical as we will dig a bit deeper into installing

Step 3: Choosing a domain and a hosting for your blog

Okay, so you made it to the technical aspect of the process. This is the part where most beginner bloggers tend to struggle, but it’s easy and straight forward once you follow the next step.

Choosing a and name and a domain for your blog.

The name of your blog is very important, it’s essentially the first indication for your audience to know who you are and what kind of content you’re offering.

Here are some simple guidelines to take into account when choosing a name for your blog:

  • It should be clear.
  • Easy to pronounce and type.
  • Catchy, and brandable if possible.
  • Don’t use hyphens.
  • Stick with the .com domain extension. You can use a .net, .org, or .co, but avoid extensions like .online, .site and so on…
  • Avoid free domains. Those have bad reputation and will influence your ranking negatively.

How much does a domain name cost?

Domain name prices vary depending on the provider, however, for domains that are available for registration it shouldn’t cost you more than 10$-15$ a year for a known top-level domain (TLD) such as .com or .net

The price of the domain name is usually separate of that of the hosting, but I’ll provide you with a deal to get a discount on your domain’s registration cost.

What is hosting? How much does it cost? And which one should I choose?

Simply put, a hosting is basically a space on a server where the files of your blog will be uploaded. It’s straight forward, and easy to understand.

When it comes to hosting, there is a wide variety of services and price rages, which also depends on elements like storage, bandwidth, server resources and so on … But the good news for you as a new blogger is that you don’t much to start with in terms of hosting power, which means that you won’t be spending much money when you just start out.

Now which hosting to choose and how?

As a new blogger, you basically don’t need much. But there are some important features that you should look for in a hosting for your blog.

Luckily, and in order to spare you the time wasting and frustration, I’ve tested many web hosting providers and found one that’s fit for the job.

It’s called FastComet, and provides pretty much everything you needs to start you blog hassle-free. And here is why I recommend FastComet it over other providers:

  • Competitive prices especially for the entry level plans.
  • The discount is not related to the subscription period. Most hosting providers only provide a discount for longer periods like 36 months, but with FastComet you can choose a 12 months period and still benefit from the discount (So you’ll save even more $$$).
  • Easy to use and install your blog (We’ll get this step later on).
  • Great and fast support.

Remember the deal I was talking about earlier, well with FactComet, you should be able to host your blog for as little as $2.95 a month (After a 70% Off discount), AND you also benefit from a 9% discount on your domain registration fee. Great isn’t it? It’s basically around what you’d spend on a Starbucks coffee, only this is a worthy investment that has a chance of changing your life entirely.

To benefit from the deal offered by FastComet, all you need to do is click here

Then you click on “START NOW“.

Here you just select the FastCloud plan. It’s cheap, and has all you need to start out. And you can always upgrade your plan later when your blog starts growing and bringing more visitors.

This is the step where you’re gonna need to enter the domain name you previously picked.

You should get a message informing you that your domain name is available for registration. If not then you just need to type in another one and hit enter to check for its availability again.

Then you scroll down the page to enter your personal details.

Here you need to choose your subscription duration. You’ll basically have the choice between 1, 12, 24, and 36 months. You don’t have to subscribe for more than 12 months for the start (it’s actually the recommended period for beginners), however, you can go for a longer period to benefit from the discount for an extended time. But the yearly period is perfectly fine and should give you enough time to really work on your blog. But feel free to pick the period that fits your budget.

Next you just need to pick any package extras that you’d like to include with your subscription. You DON’T need any of these options as a beginner.

The only one you might want to select is the domain privacy protection which hides all the personal details associated with the domain name (available publicly by default).

Then you move to the payment section where your enter your credit card details, accept the terms of FastComet, and click submit to proceed.

AND THAT’S IT.

All you need to do now is wait for FastComet to do their magic and and setup your account.

Step 3: Setting Up your Blog

This is where things get a bit technical as we will dig a bit deeper into installing WordPress on your web hosting as well as installing a theme and some necessary plugins.

Sounds a bit too complicated? Don’t worry, I’ll walk you through the whole process step by step.

Installing WordPress

So as we talked about earlier, we will be using WordPress for our blog which is easy to use and learn. The installation process is also easy and straight forward. FastComet has a nicely detailed tutorial guide on how to install WordPress, which you can check via this link and follow in order to install WordPress on your FastComet Hosting.

Installing a Theme

Once you’ve installed WordPress successfully, you should be able to access the dashboard of your blog using your domain. All you need to do is to type the domain name you chose followed but “/wp-admin”. For example if my domain is site.com, my WordPress dashboard access should be made via this link: site.com/wp-admin

Installing a new theme is easy as well. You just need to hover over “Appearance” on the left menu in your WordPress dashboard, and then click on “Themes”.

You will then see the currently activated theme, and other default ones. Those can work perfectly fine for you, but if you prefer something better looking and more compatible with your niche, you can always add a new theme by clicking “Add New”

This will show you a page with a wide variety of free theme to choose from. Then once you found your perfect theme you can just click “Install” to proceed, wait for the installation process to finish, and then click activate to enable the theme.

Installing Necessary Plugins

You’re probably wondering what WordPress plugins are. They’re simply bits of code designed to enhance your WordPress blog or add a functionality to it.

Just like WordPress themes, WordPress plugins can also be installed easily.

Here is a list of plugins I think are a must to install on any WordPress Blog:

  • Rank Math SEO: A must to help you optimize your blog articles for SEO.
  • W3 Total Cache: Helps you improve the performance of your WordPress Blog and increase its speed.
  • Contact Form 7: A cool little plugin to help you create contact form and manage them efficiently.
  • Sassy Social Share: Provides your visitors with the ability to share your blog posts on social media.