from WordPress Activity and Latest Stats
77 million comments and 70 million new posts each month on WordPress sites…
Those are HUGE numbers and if you’re probably just starting out on how to start a blog, these stats might intimidate you from even getting started….
But before you give up and cross off blogging in your list, hold on because I wanted to share some of my own stats with you…
Here are just some screenshots from my own results when I decided to start a blog (I have a tech blog and various niche blogs).
Because here’s the truth, there’s tons of guides out there when it comes to starting a blog.
But when it comes to making money from your blogging efforts and building a sustainable online business, finding one that delivers is like finding a needle in a haystack.
That’s about to change today…
But first…
Disclaimer: These results are not typical. It’s not a get-rich-scheme. There’s tons of work involved, but if you’re ready to take massive action, let’s get started.
I can still remember it like yesterday…
I remember the countless of hours of searching for a guide when I was first getting started.
But I’ve realized that the best way to learn is to learn by doing, so yes, you'll need to start writing (at least for your first 30 blog posts).
If you’re just going to read, then you won’t absorb what you’ve learned.
I recommend that you follow these steps one by one. But stop when you’ve finished a STEP and DO the tasks that I’ve recommended.
You can obviously deviate from my instructions and steps, but I don’t recommend that.
I’ve refined this process, so any other step outside of it would just be a BIG distraction or something that is not necessary at that moment.
Before you continue I recommend that you turn off any distractions like your cell phone and turn off the TV.
Get a notepad or open up your browser to follow along as you go through the steps in this article.
Once you’re ready let’s get started.
I would assume that you’ve already picked a market that you’d like to write about and you’ve also identified a specific niche where you’d like to be known for.
But if you’re not sure what topic or Market to write about, I highly recommend that you read my article on how to find profitable niches here first.
Once you’ve identified your target niche and audience, then let’s get started.
The No B.S. Guide On Building a Blog That Makes Money Online
Have you ever wondered how other bloggers monetized and earn passive income from their blogs?
I'll reveal and share some of the things that has worked for me and others.
My entire goal is for you is to be able to find the easiest ways to get started and at the same time, do it the smart and right way.
If you get stuck at any point please don’t hesitate to contact me or leave a comment below this article.
Here's a bird's eye view on how I'm able to make money from my blogs. I launch a blog on a chosen topic or industry, write content, get those content published on my blog, wait for the search engines to rank my content, start getting free traffic from the search engines, and convert those free traffic into paying customers via affiliate marketing methods.
I then earn commissions (sent to my bank or paypal account) for passive income profits. Affiliate marketing is just one of the methods I use to monetize my blog.
I'll cover affiliate marketing in detail in a separate blog post, but here are the complete steps on getting your blog up and running in no time.
- Step 1 : Choose a platform
- Step 2 : Choose a domain name or your brand name
- Step 3 : Choose a reliable website hosting provider
- Step 4 : Install a WordPress theme and important plugins
- Step 5 : Start publishing your product review content
- Step 6 : Start publishing your roundup articles
- Step 7 : Start publishing your pillar content
- Step 8 : Start linking your articles together
- Step 9 : Start submitting your site to the search engines
- Step 10 : Start tracking your rankings and traffic
Note: Steps 1 – 4 can be done in under 1 hour (hence the title of this post), but I wanted to include my entire process in building money-making blogs, which includes up to 10 steps!
Step 1: Choose a Platform
Ryan's shortcut: I will NEVER launch a NEW Blog in a FREE Platform like Blogger.com. 100% of my blogs are WordPress blogs. Choose WordPress and a reliable Hosting platform (step 3) and you're good to go.
You need a platform where you can publish your articles or your blog post and there are really only two main types that are available for you.
One is free and the other paid. Let’s briefly discuss the differences and advantages of each.
Free Platforms ($0 Forever)
Medium
This is one of the three platforms when it comes to publishing your own blog post. and in 20/20 this is where I would recommend you get started if you don’t have the budget to start your own blog it’s free there is an upgrade portion but you don’t need to upgrade right now, if you’re just starting out.
Blogger
Blogger is owned by Google so you can rely on a solid blogging platform to launch your articles, but again just like medium you don’t own this platform.
It’s very possible that you can get deleted anytime and lose all the hard work you’ve done writing your articles, especially if you’ve been doing this for the last few years.
Although I’ve started with a free blogger account when I first started blogging way back in 2009, I would NEVER recommend that route today.
Especially if you are planning to earn and monetize your blogs.
Free platforms are there usually for people to try the platform first before upgrading to a premium or paid plan. And they are usually against some monetization strategies like affiliate marketing which can be a lucrative way to earn a decent income online.
You can publish a lot of posts, start driving traffic, then one day get your FREE blog shutdown because they' updated their TOS and you're in violation in one of those.
It's not worth it building your blog in a free platform. If you're serious about building a long term, money-making blog, it's MANDATORY to build your blog on a self-hosted platform like WordPress.
So here are some of the paid blogging platforms available today
Paid Platforms (plans starts at $5/month)
WordPress
The WordPress software is free, but you need WordPress website hosting to serve your website and host your website files (images, html, etc). More on this later.
This is what I use today and what I recommend you use.
Wix
This is another popular blogging platform which provides a lot of convenience for people who wants to get started right away with blogging.
The biggest problem with Wix, is that you don’t have full control over your site. You can’t install any customization or extra features just like in WordPress.
Overall recommendation: WordPress
And here's why…
WordPress is hands-down the best blogging platform today simply because 34.5% of the websites worldwide are powered by WordPress.
So you know that you’re in good hands and you know that there are a lot of experts out there in WordPress.
So if you have any problems with your WordPress website you can reach out to anyone who is an expert and have those fixed right away.
The other thing that I love about WordPress is that it’s also fully customizable and designable. You can create almost any type of website design today.
And it’s also not really that hard to learn.
There are tons of YouTube videos when it comes to learning WordPress.
Step 2: Choose a Domain Name or Brand Name
Ryan's shortcut: I get ALL my domains from NAME.com because with the COUPON Code : “PRIVACYPLEASE” I can get a FREE Whois Privacy Protection for 1 year.
Do you think Google or Yahoo would be successful if they named their brands “search engine”?
I don't think so.
Even if you don't think it's important, branding (and choosing a domain name) is now more important than ever.
There are a couple of checks you need to do though.
First, you need to make sure that the domain you are wanting to use is not yet trademarked (Use TESS or similar tools to do a trademark search), and that the domain is still available for purchase.
Only pick .com, .net, or .org domain names.
Occasionally, you can also pick a country-specific domain like .ca if you're in Canada, but that limits you geographically.
As another gut-check, I check if social media accounts are registered in my chosen domain name. I use a tool called KNOWEM to find out quickly if the name is registered across several social media accounts.
Step 3: Choose a Reliable WordPress Hosting Provider
Ryan's shortcut: If you can still get the LIFETIME deal on ROOTPAL from Appsumo, grab it (this will save you a lot in the long run. But for 95% of blogs, I would recommend Siteground or Cloudways (with Vultr hosting for more advanced users).
#1 Rootpal – Lifetime deal on Appsumo (ending soon)
#2 Siteground – Easy to manage hosting
#3 Cloudways – Vultur hosting
Step 4: Install WordPress Themes and WordPress Plugins
Ryan's shortcut: I used to install PREMIUM page builders like Elementor, Thrive Architect, Optimize Press, but they have slowed down my editing speed and website. I only use them minimally and publish my content NOW 90% of the time using the NEW Gutenberg editor of WordPress.
WordPress themes and plugins add functionality and features to your WordPress blog.
But adding TOO many plugins can also become a problem because it can slow down your website (while editing and when people visit your site), and it can also cause a lot of headaches (incompatibility, security issues and malware problems).
Which is why I've tried to limit the number of plugins that I use and only install a NEW one if I really need it. Here's the list of plugins that I've installed to 100% of my blogs.
WordPress Theme – Astra (Free) – (PRO is recommended)
Prettylink – Affiliate link tracking (PRO version)
Rank Math PRO – For all my Schema, Sitemap, and SEO needs on WordPress
WP Rocket – Speed and caching. Not needed if you're using Siteground (they have their own plugin)
Stencil – for image editing, featured images, blog images, etc
Step 5: Start publishing your product review content
Ryan's shortcut: I start with the top 3 products around my topic. I have to personally know, used, or tested the product before I publish my reviews. This helps me understand (and review) the product better. I ALWAYS use a PRODUCT review content template to help me organize my content.
Because this article is different than most “how to start a blog” articles, I'll dive right into the most important part in monetizing a blog.
And I'll show you how I did it without even selling my own products.
Without purchasing a huge inventory or reselling physical items (auctions, etc).
The idea here is simple.
I write an article about a product that I use and truly love, and provide my affiliate in the article so if someone buys this products on the vendor website, I'll earn an affiliate commission (ranging from 10% up to 100%).
This way, when I share my positive (and some negative experiences), my readers would be able to relate to my experience.
This can be any product that you use. It could be a blender that you love using in your kitchen, or it canbe tools that you use at work and love.
Here are several examples of “product review” articles from my own blogs.
- Siteground review – one of my top recommended WordPress hosting platform
- Funnelytics review – a tool that I use heavily when mapping out funnel ideas as well as tracking stats
- Automatic Script review – a copywriting software that helps me create copy for sales pages, etc.
I use a “Product review” template together with Frase.io to make sure that the article I create has the highest SEO relevancy and chance for getting ranked to the top of the search results.
Step 6 : Start publishing your roundup articles
Ryan's shortcut: Once I've published my articles on the top 3 products, I then create a roundup review (best X products about topic). I also use a ROUNDUP article content template and optimize my content using FRASE.io for SEO purposes. I use CONVERSION.AI to create content for product descriptions, etc.
After publishing “product review” type of articles, the next step is to publish what most people call as ROUNDUP articles. I sometimes call them comparison or the “best of” articles because that's what they do.
It's an article that compares the best products or the top products in a certain category.
The goal of creating this type of article is to provide several options for the reader. You'll have a top recommended product but you'll also provide more information about the pros and cons of each product.
Here are several examples of roundup articles that can be found on this website:
- Best sales funnel builders
- Best email marketing automation platforms
- Best webinar software
- Best ebook cover creators
Step 7 : Start publishing your pillar content
Ryan's shortcut: I then create an ULTIMATE guide or my detailed HOW TO guide about the topic. This blog post on “How to start a blog” is an example of a pillar-type of content.
And finally, you'll want to create an EPIC article also known as PILLAR content.
Pillar content takes a lot longer to create than your regular product or roundup articles. But it's packed with so much information, that you want that article to be the go-to guide about the topic.
You'll need to structure your PILLAR content properly and create it with both beginners and advanced readers in mind.
This way, I can serve all types of readers who visits my pillar content.
Here are several examples of pillar content on this website:
Step 8 : Start linking your articles together (+authority links)
Ryan's shortcut: I'll make sure that I have my articles linking to one another (whenever relevant) and I have at least one (dofollow) link to an authority site like Wikipedia, industry sites, etc.
Creating internal links inside your blog is important because it will help your blog rank higher on search engines.
Internal linking will also help readers find relevant information within your website and blog easily.
There are various factors that you will need to consider in order to create an effective internal linking structure inside your blog or website.
You'll want to consider keywords that you'd like to rank for, and keyword that you're already ranking for already, but are not yet on page 1 or 2 of the search engines.
This process is called internal linking and it will help search engines determine that your content is relevant to the topic or keyword that they are looking for.
Do not think that this process requires an advanced level of technical expertise, though, because it does not.
All you need to do is to include keywords in your content and make sure that they link back to the page that will provide more information on those keywords.
Step 9 : Start submitting your site to the search engines
Ryan's shortcut: After connecting Google's search engine console to my blog, I'll submit my website sitemaps. If you're using Rank math SEO, you'll be able to create your sitemap automatically.
When you've started publishing at least 5-10 articles (product review, roundup and pillar content) on your blog, it's now time for you to submit your site to the search engines.
Submitting your website to the search engines involves a couple of steps, and while there's a little bit of technical setup, it's really not that difficult.
Using an SEO plugin like RANK MATH Pro makes this process very easy.
It involves a few steps:
- Claim your website URL for the search engines
- Submit your website sitemap URL to the search engines
- The search engines will start crawling your website and will include it to their search index.
Step 10 : Start tracking your rankings and traffic
Ryan's shortcut: Once I've published my blog posts, I'll start to monitor rankings and traffic. I can expect rank, traffic and improvements within 1-3 months. If I'm driving enough traffic to my content, I can also start to expect affiliate commissions to start coming. I then rinse and repeat steps 5 to 10.
This step is important for evaluating your efforts and determining your next steps.
Search engine rankings are important because if you're not ranking for your desired keywords on the first page of the search results you won't be able to get free traffic.
Without traffic, no one will be able to see your content, your products and services.
Traffic is the name of the game for SEO. It's a long term strategy, but when done correctly, it can benefit you for years to come.
I use tracking tools like SERPWATCH or SERANKING to help me identify which keywords are on page 1 (so that I could further maintain and solidify it's rankings), and which keywords are on page 2-5.
Keywords that are on pages 2-5 are what I would call important keywords that deserves my next attention.
With a little bit of promotion and optimization, it would be easier to rank these keywords that are already ranking in pages 2-5.
What's next?
I hope you liked this article and learned a lot from it. If you have any questions, or you feel that I've missed anything, let me know in the comments below so that I could further improve this post.
Here are some suggestions on what to do next now that you've learned what are the steps on how to start a profitable blog:
- You might want to learn more about keyword research and how I find profitable keywords
- You might want to signup for the best deals on SiteGround (if you don't have WP hosting yet)
- You might want to know how you can speed up your WP site (important for SEO)
- You might want to know how to build a sales funnel (to help monetize your blog)
- Want more free tutorials and free video training? Subscribe to my YouTube channel
