You might have seen a lot of websites and blogs posting about how to start a blog in 2024, 2025, etc. But it doesn’t matter which year you are on; we are at a point where most of the improvements are happening internally, and you can’t go wrong with the most basic options.
So, whenever you need help with the basics and somewhat advanced guidance on starting a blog, you can always return to this article and clear your doubts about it.
In this detailed article, we’ll cover these topics:
- Why start a blog?
- Benefits of starting a blog.
- The standard cost/ expenses of starting a blog.
- Deciding on a niche.
- Purchasing a domain name.
- Choosing the right web hosting.
- Building the Website
- Basic SEO Practices
- Monetization ways.
- Things to avoid.
- And bonus tips.
We might update the article once in a while; you’ll find the last updated date for the article at the bottom of the page.
Why start a blog?
“Why” is a big question for everything you do online, “Why” is the right question.
Before giving you the reason why you should start a blog, here’s why I do it.
I’ve always liked technology, especially gadgets, and was passionate about gathering information on the latest and greatest tech. Converting that passion for technology, I have started a blog on the technology niche. Slowly, I discovered how to monetize the blog, which motivated me to keep updating the blog in the best way. After about two years of working/ running multiple blogs, I received my first cheque (online payment, but the cheque sounds cool) from Google AdSense.
And after that, my motivation only grew stronger. I have been blogging since 2013. It started as a passion and has become how I live my life. It’s been ten years of trying many things, including blogging, affiliate marketing, and YouTube. Like technology, blogging and making money online have become my passions, and I want to share my knowledge with people who want to start a career in blogging or just out of passion.
Like me, if you are passionate about something, like fashion, technology, science, news, etc, and want to express your feelings and share knowledge with the world, you should start a blog. Remember that you’ll also need a lot of patience; you’ll need basic technical knowledge and willingness to write, review articles, and manage various factors like website hosting, domain renewal, etc.
Benefits of starting a blog
The benefits of starting a blog depend on “Why are you starting the blog?”. If you start the blog to share your knowledge or feelings with the world, you’ll get that benefit. If you want to start a blog to monetize it and make some money while doing it, you’ll get that benefit (remember, making money through blogging can take a lot of time, and it’s not always guaranteed).
The standard cost/ expenses of starting a blog
The expenses of starting a blog can be as low as “zero,” excluding the internet expenses. But yes, you can start a blog without investing a single penny, and that can be achieved by following a few specific steps, which you’ll find below in the bonus tips section. You won’t get a top-level domain like .com or .net, but you can obtain a domain name that receives the same attention from Google and other search engines.. As for web hosting, you can also get great web hosting servers for free, which you’ll find in the bonus tips section.
But if you have some money to spend and want to get the best TLD for your blog or website, like .com, .net, etc, you’ll need to spend a few bucks. The cost of getting a domain name is not very high; you can get the .com domain for a standard of $10 or less, and web hosting starts as low as $1.99/month. You’ll find our recommended domain registry and web hosting providers listed below.
- The standard cost of a top-level domain (TLD): $12/ year
- The standard cost of a basic web hosting plan: $2-3/month
Yes, that’s the ideal cost of starting a blog or website from anywhere in the world.
Some web hosting providers also give you free domain name registration with annual plans. Be sure to check if your chosen hosting provider has that offer.
If you ask me, the recommended annual cost for a basic starter blog is between $50 and $80 (including domain name registration fee, whether free or paid).
Deciding on a niche
Choosing the niche can decide whether you’ll be able to stay motivated to keep the blog updated and running.
While deciding on the niche, you’ll need to keep a few things in mind.
Firstly, if you want to share your feelings or knowledge online and monetization is not your priority, you can choose to create a blog around whatever field you like. Eventually, when you find an opportunity that aligns with your niche, you can choose to monetize your blog through that.
But, if your goal for building a blog is to monetize it and make as much profit as possible, then you might need to invest some time researching what’s best for you. You can go ahead if you are already interested in a field that makes good monetization. But if your field of interest is not good with monetization, and your primary goal is to make money with the blog, you must reconsider your niche.
Choosing the primary niche
Consider the points mentioned above to choose the primary niche of your blog. You can think of it as the main category of your blog. Considering the current competition in the blogging community, you should not mix all the categories and make an all-rounder blog. Decide on your blog’s main category or primary niche, which may be technology, health, etc.
Choosing the secondary niche
A secondary niche can decide how long it’ll take you to succeed with your blogging journey, which may be different depending on you.
If you want to make the most profit out of your blog, a secondary niche or subcategory can make a significant impact.
For example, if you are interested in gaming and PC gaming is what you love and know best about, create a blog around gaming as the main or primary niche and PC gaming as the secondary niche.
You can also mix subcategories of gaming, such as PC gaming, Mobile gaming, and Console gaming, and make a blog around it.
Finalized your niche? Now, you can move to the next step: setting up your website.
Purchasing a Domain Name
You might have heard the names GoDaddy, Namecheap, etc. These are some of the very well-known domain name registries. These companies offer full domain management plus web hosting services as well, which we’ll discuss later.
First, you need to think of a name for your website or blog. For example, if your niche is a generic health niche blog, you can choose a name that represents health. On the other hand, if your niche is more micro, for example, focusing on a healthy diet or a single keyword, I suggest you put the keyword in your domain name. This helps with your website’s SEO.
Now that you have decided on the domain name, you can head to a domain registry of your choice or the one mentioned here.
Before purchasing the domain name, I suggest you read the next section, as some web hosting companies provide free domain names with their annual plans.
Choosing the Right Web Hosting
There are hundreds of web hosting companies that promise you seamless service, but only after you onboard with them do you get the full picture.
I have personally hosted websites and my blogs with many web hosting companies. Based on my experience, I’ll suggest my favorite ones here.
Hostinger
I have been using Hostinger for a long time, and this very blog is hosted on Hostinger itself.
What I like about Hostinger is that their plans are affordable and give you great flexibility while choosing the plan. They provide shared, cloud, and VPS web hosting. As you are just starting, I will always suggest you go with the shared web hosting plan because they are usually the cheapest and perform well with small to medium websites.
Hostinger’s shared web hosting plan starts at just $2.99/ month and comes with a free domain offer.
As of June 2024, Hostinger’s cheapest plan will cost you $35.88 for the first year with a free domain name, excluding taxes & fees.
Building the Website
Now, it’s time to build your website.
I suggest you build your website on WordPress; it is easy and highly customizable.
If you are confused about what I am saying or find it hard to follow, you can hire us to build and design your website by clicking here.
Once you have installed WordPress on your website, it is smooth sailing from here. Go to your website’s WordPress dashboard and begin building your website.
Here is the basic checklist to do on your website’s dashboard as the first step:
- Delete the sample posts
- Delete the sample pages
- Go to plugin and delete unnecessary preinstalled plugins
- Go to settings > permalinks > select post name as permalink structure
- Go to appearance > themes, install a theme of your choice, and activate
These are only the basic checklists to follow when starting your WordPress blog.
If you need help with something, you can always Google it or check on YouTube to understand.
Basic SEO Practices
How we do SEO has been evolving since the beginning of SEO. However, the very basics of SEO are the same; you need to produce high-quality content and build authority for your website.
High-Quality Content
Generating high-quality content might seem easy, but maintaining the same quality in the long run can be challenging. Especially in the first few months, your motivation goes down; you don’t see your website ranking in the position it deserves. The trick is to keep generating original, high-quality content and build authority for your website.
Building Authority
There were days when you could build authority for your website just by spamming links to your website everywhere. The basics of that process still apply, except for spamming. Find websites with low spam ratings and contact them for a guest post in exchange for a link to your website. If you have the budget, you can always buy links from relevant high-quality websites. Just ensure that the website linking you works in the same niche as you.
New SEO
Google is constantly updating its policies and algorithms based on how it ranks its websites. You would want to keep yourself updated with the new SEO technicalities to get the best possible ranking on Google. To stay updated about new SEO techniques, you can follow digital marketing influencers like Matt Diggity, Brian Dean and of course our blog.
Monetization Ways
When it comes to monetizing a blog or website, the first way that comes to mind is Google AdSense, but it is not limited to that. There are multiple ways you can monetize your website, and you should.
For example, if your website is based on product reviews, you can always use Google AdSense on your website. However, promoting the same or similar product that you are reviewing on your website will make you the most profit, and you can do that with affiliate marketing.
If you are working in a niche that Google AdSense doesn’t allow, you can use platforms like Media.net, Ezoic, PropellerAds, and many more.
Affiliate Marketing
In simple language, affiliate marketing is when you generate a sale, lead, or click for a merchant and receive a commission. It can be a physical good, a digital product, an app download, a signup for a service, etc.
There are thousands of affiliate marketing campaigns floating in the market; the catch is to work with an offer that is the right fit for your audience and pays well.
To find the right offer or campaign, I would suggest you join affiliate marketing networks, such as CJ.com, Impact, and vCommission, and browse through the available campaigns.
As I have said before, choose the product that is relevant to your website and audience to get the best result in affiliate marketing.
Things to Avoid
Considering the current trend, I would first say to avoid publishing AI-generated content. Yes, you can get away with AI-written articles for a while, but in the long run, your site will get deindexed or removed from Google search results.
- Avoid AI-generated content
Of course, you can use AI-generated images and take ideas for your next article but don’t generate the whole article using AI just because someone on YouTube or Facebook said so.
The second thing to avoid is spamming your link everywhere. Building backlinks to your website is still as important as it was a few years back, but you are not to spam the URL everywhere you can.
- Avoid building spam backlinks
Build backlinks from high-quality, authoritative websites or from websites in your niche.
Don’t start your blogging journey with money in your mind. The journey is not that easy as some influencers showcase it on their course, promotional videos, or social media. Set your expectations; you might fail, your blog or website might get hit by Google’s updates, and you might not make a single penny for the next 1-2 years. But keep yourself motivated and work on improving.
- Set your expectations
There are many more newbie mistakes you are going to make while publishing your first blog or website. Over time, you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t, keep yourself updated, and be motivated to adopt new policies and techniques.
Bonus Tip
As promised, here is where you can get free domain names and hosting for your website.
Here are some of the platforms where you can publish your blog for free with limited resources.
Also, you can get a free web server from AWS and host your website there.
These platforms may offer you a free plan to publish your blog, but there are many limitations. If you can spend about $50, you can get a free top-level domain name (.com, .net, .org, etc) plus web hosting with a lot of customization. We’ll soon publish an article on our top favorite web hosting and domain name registry that we personally use, and that is affordable.
Conclusion
As mentioned in the things to avoid section, don’t start your blogging journey with a lot of expectations, at least for the first year. Once your blog starts to receive organic traffic, gets recognized by people, and starts ranking on Google, you can start the monetization process.
Mastering SEO and blogging is an ever-evolving process; you must keep researching and applying the techniques on your website/ blog to see what works for you.
This guide doesn’t guarantee producing high-ranking blogs. Ranking on search engines is determined by many factors. But by following this guide, you’ll always be able to produce a high-quality functioning blog that users love.
If you have any questions or need help with SEO, feel free to leave a comment below, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.