If you’re here to learn how to start a blog following the best frameworks, then you’re in the right place.

Have you thought about your goal for blogging? Are you willing to blog because of your passion for writing or want to blog to make money?

Either of your answers to the above questions, don’t worry because in this guide I’m going to walk you through the process of blogging your way as a startup and not just for passion alone and start generating monthly revenue with your blog.

I’ve breakdown this article into sections that’ll guide you through the process of starting your blog and getting your first post published today. So, how do you start a blog?

Let dive into the details of this guide.

Disclaimer: This article contains affiliate links where I may receive a small commission at no cost to you if you decided to purchase one. However, these are courses I fully recommend when it comes to starting affiliate marketing and the commissions help me provide free content. You can read my full affiliate disclosure in my privacy policy.

How to Start a Blog in 9 Easy Steps.

Here’s how to start a blog in 15 minutes following these simple steps:

1. Pick Your Blog’s Niche

2. Write Down Your Blog’s Goals

3. Choose a Right Domain Name and Web Hosting

4. Install Your Blogging Platform – WordPress

5. Choose a Theme For Your Blog

6. Install Necessary Plugins

7. SEO: Set Up Your Blog Permalinks

9. Schedule Content Calendar for Your Blog

8. Write Your First Blog Post

1. Pick Your Blog’s Niche

The important phase of having a Blog is registering for a hosting account with Bluehost. You can get started immediately for only $2.95/Month using my link (63% off your hosting plan).

For your blog to thrive and to avoid any chances of failure on the first day of launching your blog like a startup, you need to pick a profitable niche to blog about.

Not necessary should be something you are passionate about (As always said by gurus to blog about your passion).

There are different kinds of niche to blog about on your new site – It could be DIY Equipment, How to Play Guitar, Personal Development, Home Defense, Teeth whitening, etc. Whatever you choose doesn’t matter but pick a niche that has lesser competition and profitability.

2. Write Down Your Blog’s Goals.

Setting up your blog goal from start is going to help you stay more consistent running every daily activity that needs to be done while keeping track.

You need to prepare a document to compile everything you would be doing on a daily basis on your website.

And this goal can be any of the following:

• Write and publish your first ten blog posts in the next 30 days.
• Create an about page for your blog.
• Source and publish your first guest on related niche sites.
• Get your first 1000/month visitors from a search engine in the next 60 days.
• Get your first 500 people on your email lists in 30 days
• Obtain 150+ backlinks

So you need an actionable plan for your new blog and stay consistent with it

Want to launch your blog? Get started for $2.95/month (63% off your hosting plan) with my link below:

3. Choose a Right Domain Name and Web Hosting

In the previous, we discuss how to pick your domain name and set a goal for your blog. This third step of starting a blog is to actually get your blog online. That’s the importance of a web hosting company to help you get your blog seen on the internet.

For you to get your new blog online, so your audience can start seeing your content. You’ll need a hosting account; I recommend you get your hosting account from Bluehost (at $2.95/month and get a FREE domain name).

Next is to install WordPress a blogging platform that hosts mostly every blog or most websites online, hosted by Bluehost. WordPress is a free and open-source content management system that is initially released in May 2003.

Bluehost is one of the most reliable blog hosting platforms online. For the purpose of this guide, we’ll be using this platform to launch your blog online. Now let’s get started.

Click here to head over to Bluehost and hit the green “Get Started” button

Step #1: Select your Plan

You’ll choose your choice plan on this page (follow by entering your blog name). I recommend you choose the Plus plan choice because it comes with hosting more than one domain and Domain Privacy.

Selecting your plan will look like below and click the green “select” button for your chosen hosting plan.

As I recommended above choosing the Plus plan will give you the opportunity to host more than one domain and Domain Privacy (Protect your personal information to be available online).

No matter the plan you have chosen, they all work the same but you’ll still be given chance to optin for domain privacy on the checkout page for as low as $1/month.

Step #2: Pick your blog’s domain name

Now, you’ll be shown this page to register your new domain

So, choose the domain name that you would like your blog to be called (mine is waleadetona.com).

You might want to use your name as your domain name if it’s available.

The reason I suggested is that later in the future you might be out of content on topic and a need might arise to blog about another niche.

So choosing your name can give you the privilege to write about anything on your domain name that bears your name rather than a niche domain name.

For example, if your niche is about “make money online” with a domain name (makemoneyonline.com) and want to pivot to a niche like weight loss, you see it will be difficult to blog on the domain name but to rather purchase a new domain.

So, I highly recommend you choose your specific name as a domain name like I have on this particular blog you’re reading now.

But if your domain name is not available you can choose to select your domain name later when you complete the registration.

Below is a pop that give you option to choose your domain name later:

Either you select your domain name now or later, you’ll be taken to the next page where to create your Bluehost account.

Step #3: Create your Bluehost account

Firstly, start by filling your information on this page like name, and email address (very important) as this is where your login details and hosting credentials will be sent and also for account recovering in case you forgot your password.

You can as well create your account using your Google account without entering your information manually.

Select your hosting package

Here is where you’ll select an account type and billing cycle you want to pay for based on the plan you have chosen.

Unlike other hosting platforms that offer a monthly hosting plan and charge more for their plans, Bluehost offers an option only for 1, 2, 3, or 5 years plan at a discounted price.

Bluehost doesn’t offer a monthly base subscription plan but whatever plan you have chosen It’s still a great plan and can power the hosting of your new blog and get it online.

The recommended pricing plan for starting a blog

I highly recommend you choose the “Prime 36 Month Plan” if you want a low cost and discount for your web hosting. It gives you peace of mind about not renewing your hosting plan every year but focuses on growing your own blog.

But the 3 years plan is only applied to new customers only on their first payment, but if you skip this then you’ll have to pay the normal payment.

That’s why I recommend the 36-month plan, so you lock your hosting account for the next 3 years and secure your domain privacy.

Selecting the right package extra (choose important one)

I recommend you keep the Domain Privacy checked, but you can get started skipping the rest. Later on in this guide, I will show you how to install the proper plugin and setting to give your blog better SEO optimization.

But if you choose the basic plan then you might consider checking the Domain Privacy option for $1/month.

Then the total amount you’re going to pay for the purchase will be sum together.

Remember in this case you won’t be paying for 1, 2, 3, or 5 depending on the package you choose.

Also, there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee in case you change your plan for blogging.

Enter Your Billing Information

Next is to enter your billing information and agreed to the Bluehost term and condition by checking the box and hit the green “Submit” button.

Woolah! You’re done purchasing your web hosting account.

You’ve just completed the first phase of starting your own blog.

On the next page, you’ll be shown how to set up your blog, installing WordPress on your blog through Bluehost. Also later in this guide, I will show you how to optimizing all your pages and install necessary plugins.

Click here to head over to Bluehost and register your domain if you haven’t already.

Are you ready to launch your blog like a startup? Register your domain and set up blog hosting:

4. Install Your Blogging Platform – WordPress

After going through the process of planning your blog goals, register your domain and web hosting.

Next is to start setting up your website but to do this you would need a Blogging platform to power your blog.

The most popular and widely used blogging platform mostly used by bloggers is WordPress.

So for the purpose of this guide, we will be installing WordPress on your blog that comes FREE with your Web Hosting with Bluehost.

Here’s an infographics of the most used Blogging platform and their usage.

WordPress also offers several free themes, plugins, and lots of ways to modify your blog.

If you want to start blogging and make money, then WordPress is the best platform to choose.

But there are few things you need to know, WordPress comes in two variants which is WordPress.com (Free) and WordPress.org (Paid – comes with web hosting) like Bluehost, etc.

Here in this section, I will be covering some terminologies between these two platforms.

WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org

The main difference between both of these platforms is who’s actually hosting your website.

Using WordPress.org you host your website yourself (I highly recommend).

With WordPress.com, It’s WordPress that handles everything for you (It’s free and easy to start). That’s a major difference between both platforms.

Let’s look at basic features of both platforms below.

WordPress.com:

• You can’t monetize your blog or website.
• You can’t install any plugins or themes on the platform aside from the themes that come with the installation by default.
• You can’t remove WordPress.com branding or ads from your website.
• You can’t place your website under a subdomain.
• You’re limited to a maximum of 3GB of disk space.

WordPress.org:

• You can start an eCommerce store or membership website
• Cheap monthly hosting fee (from the reliable hosting platform to get your website online)
• SEO friendly features (so your blog can be visible to people easily)
• You can have full control of monetization on your blog.
• Fully customizable design, unlimited plugins, and no branding.

The choice is yours to pick which platform to choose, But if you want to take full control and advantage of your blog then WordPress.org is the best option to go for when you’re learning to start a blog.

With Bluehost, you can install WordPress.org when it comes to starting a blog set up in a long run.

How to Install WordPress the Right Way (and setup your blog settings)

Bluehost will automatically install WordPress right from your hosting platform.

Immediately you’re done with your account password set up, you’ll be redirected to a page below to select your theme.

There several themes to choose from and then install on your blog with verities of free themes as well.

Also, if you want to pick your theme later then you can stroll down and click the “Skip This Step” link to proceed to final page below.

From here you’re to be sent to a page where you’ll need to click on the “Start Building” option.

Next is to choose which kind of website you want to create and WordPress will take care of the whole setup for your new blog or click the “I don’t need help” to proceed to the dashboard.

Lastly, navigate to the next page to enter your “Site Title” and “Site Description.”

From here you’ll be redirected to a page to launch your blog and setup other settings for your blog as shown below:

Next is to get yourself familiar with every page and features of your new WordPress blog.

Make sure to select from several themes your most like to be activated on your blog.

That brings us to the next step – Choose a Theme for Your Blog.

Are you ready to start your blog? Get started for just $2.95/month (63% off your hosting plan) with my link below:

5. Choose a Theme For Your Blog

Now that you’ve WordPress installed, next is to start installing a WordPress theme for your blog.

WordPress theme consists of templates, files, and style sheets that power the structure of any WordPress theme on your blog.

But before that kindly login to your newly created website through mywebsiteurl.com/wp-login.php.

These themes come with lots of free Options to choose from.

I recommend one of the two Astra or OceanWP (Completely free to install and can be upgraded later).

Both themes are good for a start and clean for easy blogging then later when your blog is start bring income, you can purchase the premium themes design.

Install a New Theme for Your Blog (Step-by-Step)

Below is how to install a theme for your Blog (either you go for free or paid)

Click the “Appearance” Option on the Sidebar

Then Select “Themes” from the “Appearance” Menu on the list section’

Click on the “Add new” button to see difference type of WordPress theme to use on your blog.

As shown below, these are varieties of free themes you can choose from.

You can browse through the theme and determine which one suited you.

To use a theme of your choice simply click on “Install” then WordPress will start the process of installing the theme for you then click activate. See below image that show how it looks like.

That’s the process it requires to install a theme on your blog, so let continue with the guide

Basic WordPress blog settings to be familiar with on your blog

Setting your blog homepage

Your homepage is the frontend of your website i.e. the first page that’s shown to your visitor when they land on your website. The homepage will comprise your blog’s most recent posts.

You can decide to have your homepage to be static or custom since you’re just starting your blog.

I will advise you to keep your homepage static so later when you have more posts you can design a custom page as your homepage which has an email opt-in, about you, testimonial, or showcase of your products.

To make changes to these settings, navigate to Settings > Reading

Setting your blog menu

You’ll need to set up some basic core menus for your blog like (About, Contact, Shop, and Hire). And to add these menus to your blog just navigate to Appearance > Menus and you’re good to go.

Setting your blog category

Your blog will eventually have some sub-topic that WordPress blog allows you to group into categories. You can add as many categories you want to add to topics on your blog. WordPress doesn’t limit you on that.

Check below screenshot for better way to add your own categories to your own blog.

Setting your blog default site URL

These settings allow choosing which website URL protocol you want blog url to be linked, An example of this https:/yourdomain.com/ compare to well known https://www.yourdomain.com/.

You can change these settings from your WordPress dashboard by navigating to Settings > General as shown below image.

Are you ready to start your blog? Get started for just $2.95/month (63% off your hosting plan) with my link below:

Disclaimer: This article contains affiliate links where I may receive a small commission at no cost to you if you decided to purchase one. However, these are courses I fully recommend when it comes to starting affiliate marketing and the commissions help me provide free content. You can read my full affiliate disclosure in my privacy policy.

6. Install Necessary Plugins

WordPress plugins have essential roles to play in the functionality of your blog.

With the help of plugins, you can do some magic with your content creation.

Below are my recommended plugins to install on your blog and their uses.

1. Yoast SEO.

This is a powerful must-have plugin for your blog because this plugin is going to save you tons of headaches most newbie’s bloggers face when starting a blog leveraging SEO traffic.

With this plugin, you can optimize your blog title, description, content length plus other element involved with ranking in search engines.

2. Google Analytics Dashboard for WordPress.

This is Google analytics plugins that allow you to see every data of your blog analytics inside of WordPress.

You simply connect the plugin to your Google Analytics account, so you can see how users are interacting with your website in real-time and which of your post is getting more traffic.

You can signup for a free account here.

3. WPForms.

This plugin allows you to add a contact form to your blog, so people can reach out to you. In some cases, other bloggers might want to collaborate with you and the best way to get in touch with you is through the contact form.

WPForm is simply a drag and drop form builder where you can build something like a contact form, payment form, quote form, etc.

4. Header and Footer Code.

Sometimes if you want to track activities on your blog then you’ll be provided with a code snippet to add to your header or footer of your blog.

If you’re someone that’s not familiar with basic HTML and CSS it might look scary. But with this plugin, you can add a code snippet to your header and footer without touching a single line of code on your blog.

5. MaxCDN.

MaxCDN is a content delivery network that accelerates your blog and decreases the server load such as images and other static elements of your blog.

This plugin helps your blog to load faster.

6. WPRocket.

WP Rocket is a premium cache plugin for WordPress that does everything starting from minimizing HTML, CSS, and Javascript with CDN integration.

WP Rocket will make sure that your website loads faster with essential to improve SEO ranking and increase conversion.

To take advantage of this, you can choose a single license on 1 website for $49/year, a Plus license on 3 websites for ($99/year), or an infinite license for an unlimited license for ($249/year).

WP Rocket for all licenses also includes 1 year of support and update.

7. Asset CleanUp: Page Speed Booster.

This plugin help you to prevent unnecessary HTML and CSS to load on page that’s not required.

Whereas you don’t need all this code on your page before it could load.

For example, you might have a plugin that generates contact form and loads its CSS and JS files on every page of your website instead of only on yourdomain.com/contact page.

“Asset CleanUp” detects all assets that are loading on that page and all you have to do when editing a page/post is just to select the assets that needed to load on that page, this way reduces the load time of your blog.

8. Easy Table Content.

This plugin allows you to add a table of content into your posts, pages, and custom post type.

The purpose of the table of content is that it makes your content user-friendly, so they can navigate between your articles, make it easy to read, and keep them engage with your content.

So, you might want to have this available on all of your new contents.

9. BigCommerce for WordPress.

This is eCommerce plugin that allow you to sell digital product from your blog using WordPress.

BigCommerce for WordPress helps you to handle all your content with backend eCommerce in BigCommerce.

10. Classic Editor.

Classic editor is an official WordPress plugin that restores the previous “Classic” WordPress editor and the “Edit Post” screen.

This makes it possible to use plugins that extend that screen, and old-style meta boxes, or otherwise depend on the previous editor.

11. Mammoth .docx Converter.

Mammoth .docx Converter is designed to convert .docx documents, such as those created by Microsoft Word, and convert them to HTML.

This plugin aims to produce simple and clean HTML by using semantic information in the document, and ignoring other details.

The Mammoth .docx Converter converts any paragraph with the style Heading1 to h1 elements, rather than attempting to exactly copy the styling (color, text size, font, etc) of the heading.

12. GDPR Cookie Consent.

The GDPR Cookie Consent is a plugin that will make your blog GDPR with a popup displaying how you use cookies by showing your compliance status regarding the new GDPR law.

13. Elementor Pro.

Elementor Pro is a landing page builder for WordPress that help you with vast professional tools that speed up your workflow and design.

You can literally create different designs with Elementor Pro WordPress ranging from theme builder to enhance the design of your blog, visually design form, professional text, and blocks, various widgets, and features.

You can get started today with Elementor Pro for $49/year.

14. Extended Widget Option.

This plugin offers a complete widget management solution on your blog. It lets you control the widget appearance and visibility on every page.

Extended Widget Option also lets you set widget logic, add custom widget ID, make widget sticky or fixed, style widget, set widget alignment, and many more.

This is built on WordPress and the only tool you would need to have to quickly setup and manage all your WordPress widget in one place.

15. ThirstyAffiliates.

ThirstyAffiliate lets you turn long ugly affiliate marketing links into a well structure format so that they look nice. An example of this is below:

Before: https://thirstyaffiliates.com/?aff=43h4p53gj55k33

After: https://waleadetona.com/recommends/thirstyaffiliates

So the second link looks more nice and structured compare to the first one.

16. Shortcodes Ultimate.

Shortcodes Ultimate plugin allows you to create a blocks of content by adding a shortcodes to your site.

This plugin has a collection of various visual and functional elements, which you can use in the post editor, text widgets, or even in template files.

Using Shortcode Ultimate you can easily create tabs, buttons, boxes, sliders and carousels, responsive videos and many more.

17. OptinMonster.

OptimiMonster is a lead generation plugin for WordPress used by most blogging sites.

This plugin allows you to create an attention-grabbing opt-in form that is guaranteed to boost conversion.

You can get started with OptinMonster starter plan that goes for at $9/month.

18. ShortPixel Image Optimizer.

ShortPixel Image Optimizer increases your website’s SEO ranking, a number of visits, and ultimately your sales by optimizing any image or PDF document on your website.

19. WP Last Modified Info.

This plugin allows you to add the last modified date to your blog for the essence of SEO ranking for your blog content.

20. UpdraftPlus.

You might want to have this plugin install on your blog, what it does is help you to backup your website on a regular basis in case something went wrong on your website, so you can easily rollback your backup.

7. SEO: Set Up Your Blog Permalinks

Setting your blog permalink (URL)

These should be the first thing you set up if it’s not set by default on your new blog.

The best permalink to use for your blog is the “post-name” type because each of your articles URL will be formatted base on your blog title.

The beauty of using this setting is that it helps the visibilities of your blog rank on search engines like Google and the rest.

When you have your permalink set it should be in this format yourdomain.com/post-type:

In your WordPress dashboard head over to “Settings” and navigate to Settings > Permalinks to make changes. It should look like below:

Are you ready to start your blog? Get started for just $2.95/month (63% off your hosting plan) with my link below:

8. Write Your First Blog Post

Now that everything is set up and you’re ready to start creating content on your blog.

But there are few things to put into consideration before pushing the Publish Button for your first post.

Here is little research you need to know before you make your first content goes live.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is the way of performing a word and phrase around a term that people use in search engines, in other to create content around those words and rank for it in search engines.

Keyword research is so important because your content creation depends on its traffic coming mainly from organic reach.

So that’s why keyword research is so important before writing your content.

How do you find keywords to write about (Keyword ideas)?

To find keywords for your content you must write a topic around what your target audience is interested in.

Let’s say you’re promoting a sales funnel builder like Clickfunnels.

In case you don’t know What is Clickfunnels? See below.

“Clickfunnels let you quickly create beautiful sales funnel that converts your visitors into leads and then customers” (Without Having to Hire or Rely on a Tech Team!)

So what topic do you think people might be typing into Google search so they can find your content about Clickfunnels and signup using your affiliate link?

Well, it could be something like Clickfunnels review, Clickfunnels features, etc.

If you want to create content around promoting this sales funnel builder software called “Clickfunnels” eventually these are keyword ideas that people might be searching for online.

• Clickfunnels review
• Clickfunnels alternatives
• Sales funnel
• Lead generation
• Email marketing
• Landing page builder

These are mostly keyword people would be making research for online and that’s exactly what I’m about to show you in this guide on how to come up with some basic keyword ideas on the topic you want to write about.

The purpose of writing content is to drive traffic to your blog and turn those traffic into a customer for your business.

So let’s talk about the 5 stages of customer awareness you should be creating your content around.

1. Unaware.

These stages of customer awareness are people that are not aware that there’s a problem and at the same time don’t know if there’s a solution to that problem.

The way you create your content specifically is going to be different from other customer’s awareness down the funnel.

So, if you want to create content for this stage of customer awareness, you need to ask yourself “how am I going to make it speak specifically to them.”

2. Problem Aware.

These stages of customer awareness are those who know there’s a problem but don’t know how to solve it.

For example, real estate agents that are still closing clients via phone calls, knocking doors to door, and cold emailing might not be aware that there’s a way to get leads online without knocking on the door or better still close the client using software called Clickfunnels.

These stages of customer awareness know their method of approach of acquiring a client is not working and also not aware of how to solve that problem.

What do you think this type of person might enter Google search to discover new solutions for such a problem they are facing.

Well. For this stage of awareness, the possible keyword that pops into their mind might be a solution Clickfunnels solves like.

• How to get leads online
• How to get more client
• How to get clients without cold calling

Targeting this type of keyword in your content and introducing Clickfunnels to them as a solution is not bad, the reason being that they are problem aware but not solution aware and that will lead us to next awareness.

3. Solution Aware.

The way you structure your content for this kind of customer awareness is different from problem awareness stage.

These stages of customer awareness are people that know that there are problems and different solutions but not sure which one.

These people know there’s software that can help them generate more leads and sales online but need more clarity before they can purchase.

What do you think people in this stage will be typing into Google search to find their solution?

Using our previous example of sales funnel builder software called “Clickfunnels”.

An example of content you can create around these stages of customer awareness would be:

• Best sales funnels
• Best landing page builder
• Best lead gen software

4. Product Aware.

These stages of customer awareness are people who are aware of a problem and various solutions (Product).

But still needs buying decision to determine the best option.

They know their problem and the solution is to build a sales process online to get leads and sales using Clickfunnels.

So since these people know that the solution is to use software but not sure which one.

An example of keyword these people might be typing into Google search could be

• Clickfunnels vs Competitors
• Clickfunnels reviews
• Clickfunnels alternatives

Your content can be around this kind of person that is already saying Yes to a product but needs to decide whether to go it or not. So that’s when you create a review around such a product.

5. Most Aware.

These stages of customer awareness are people that are bought a product and use it but eventually are interested in buying similar products that can help them get more results with what they have already bought in the past.

Using our example of Clickfunnels with this level of customer awareness.

What is the keyword term these people could be searching for in the search engine?

• Clickfunnels training videos
• Clickfunnels email integration
• Clickfunnels training guide

These keyword ideas show they are aware of the product and already using it, so your goal with these types of customers is to provide them with content to solve their problem with the product they already have.

Now that you’re aware of the levels of customer awareness, Next is to start searching for keywords to write about for your next blog content.

You should have some search terms on your mind about your blog so you know the keyword you should be targeting in your content.

A great tool that can give you a list of search result people are looking for using the search engine is called “Ubersuggest”

Go to Ubersuggest and input any keyword to start getting keywords suggestion for planning your blog content.

With Ubersuggest you can know different types of keyword most websites online are rank for alongside their position in the search engine.

Your aim is to choose low volume keywords, average monthly searches, and low keyword difficulty.

Below are keyword credentials you should be targeting.

• Monthly search keyword – 1000
• Keyword difficulty – 10

Now it’s Time to Start Creating Your First Post

Here’s how to write your first content inside your WordPress dashboard step-by-step.

Click on the “Post” from the sidebar menu option as shown below.

Then click on the “Add New” button

Next, is to start writing your content inside the WordPress editor.

While writing your post make sure to check proper grammar errors and sentence misspelled before you click the publish button using a tool like Grammarly.

When you are done with your first post you can submit the URL via Google Search Console so the link can be indexed for search engine visibility.

Are you ready to start your blog? Get started for just $2.95/month (63% off your hosting plan) with my link below:

9. Schedule Content Calendar for Your Blog

You have just published your first blog, it doesn’t end there, sorry to tell you the fact that’s phase one of starting to blog like a startup.

It’s not about writing any type of content and went straight to hit the publish button.

You need to make research about the topic your audience is most interested in and then create content around it.

Since most of your traffic will be coming from Search Engine (SEO), so you need to make keyword research your ultimate goal before writing your content.

The question now comes down to “How do you fill your content calendar for a whole year without running out of an idea.”

There are lots of places online where people are congregating discussing your niche or topic right now.

Here are some of the best ways to go about researching your content idea in other to have a long-term content strategy.

#1: Get into your Customer’s head and help solve their problems.

Creating the best content for your audience all revolves around you being able to help solve their problems with your valuable content.

Providing value to your audience can appear in different ways either by sending educational based content via an email, create a product review, or any ways you choose to do it.

But should be helping to solve a problem they face and most importantly related to the keywords they are using for searching.

The best place to start generating content ideas for your next article is a discussion forum like Reddit.

Reddit is a platform that has sub-reddit on every topic you could ever think of.

All you need to do is go to Reddit.com and create an account for yourself.

After that, you can make a search on topic of your choice to see what contribution or opinion people are already given concerning the topic.

#2: Analyze the Search Volume and Keyword Difficulties

Now that you have an idea that your topic is been mentioned on online forums, that’s to show you that it’s well-creating content around that topic.

But you can’t jump straight into creating content.

You still need to make research on how people making the search for that topic on the search engine.

Here’s a breakdown of what you need to do before creating your content around your topic or content idea.

• Check the search volume of your topic ideas
• Estimate total search traffic potential
• Identify “parent topic” (if any)
• Look at the number of linking websites

These will help you to see how your competitors who ranking for the topic is creating content around it.

While there are many tools online you can use to analyze the traffic potential of a keyword or topic.

For the purpose of this article, I’ll be using a great tool from AnswerThePublic, but there are some tools that do the same thing like Ubersuggest, SEMRush, Aheafs, or Google Keyword Planner, etc.

Here on the AnswerThePublic homepage you can input any keyword or topic of your choice to see exactly query on how people are already searching for that using the Search Engine.

Let’s say for instance I search for the keyword “Cat” and see the result it returned for me on the next page.

As you can see from above there are many queries related to the search term “Cat” we initially search for on the homepage.

You might be wondering, how does this tool have knowledge about all of their keywords ideas.

Well, the source of their data is so simple because there are using the Google Auto Suggestion features.

When you head over to Google and start typing your question there’s an auto-complete keyword phase that’s always pop up and ready to be selected matching your main search intent.

Always make sure your keywords are in demand but also relevant to your topic with a good search keyword volume.

Here’s a detailed guide on how to use Answer The Public to help you get maximum traffic.

#3: Tips to Prioritize Your Content Ideas

If you’re planning your content for the long-term then you need a system to be put in place and stick with it for a long period of time.

For instance, if you plan to publish 3 articles per week, make sure you stick with it and get your pieces of content out at that exact period of time.

You should create a schedule to follow up through for entire weeks or months, based on your writing timeline.

Having a breakdown of your content ideas planning helps you to decide which one is prioritized to one another.

That can also help in your publishing more frequently without skipping any of your content schedules.

You can keep track of this inside of a spreadsheet with a column for your future content ideas, including

• Keyword/Topic
• Search Volume (US)
• Best Article
• Traffic (US)
• Linking Domains

#4: Find Keywords Your Competitors are Ranking For

There are many blogs out there right now, who are into the same niche as you.

Meaning you need to do things differently in other to turn it to your own advantage.

For example, assuming you run a Fitness blog, luckily, the audience of those in other competitor’s blog is also your main target audience as well.

So, you can know better which content your competitors are ranking for and what they are doing to increase the chances of their outreach.

Get to know their strategies, and implement what’s working for them and absorb the rest.

Many tools online allow you to input your competitor’s Site URL to find their top-ranking content is getting traffic from the search engine.

A great example is Ahrefs Site Explorer.

Ahrefs Site Explorer tool lets you search and understand the type of content your audience wants the most and what your competitors publish.

But it doesn’t mean you have to straight do everything your competitors are doing verbatim.

As a matter of fact, try to spend some time to analyze all the questions as follows:

• What are the numbers of Referring Domains to all their pages?
• What pages pick with the most “Traffic”?
• How long their content, and try to improve on it?
• What’s their Domain Score?
• Is their site mobile responsive for user’s conformability?
• Does their content have other educational formats like Images and Videos?

Having these questions at the back of your mind will help you to know what steps to follow in other to outrank your competitors.

#5: Determine Your Content Traffic Performance

As your website traffic is increasing and you’re growing your audience with your new blog, you need an avenue to track all your traffic metrics.

The most popular tool widely used by bloggers online is Google Analytics.

You can also use Ahrefs for this task as well.

All you need is to install a simple code snippet provided to you on your website by the Google Analytics platform.

The code will help you to track every user’s interactions on your website with metrics like site visitors, total page view, average time on page, and lots of other amazing stats.

You can also view the result straight from the Google Analytics dashboard or install a plugin called ExactMetrics to view all your website performance stats all from your WordPress Admin Panel.

Additionally, Ahrefs is a great SEO tool to track your website traffic, blog post ranking, and backlinks. You can know the position you’re rank for with the keywords you’re targeting.

As well as which sites are linking to every particular post on your blog and lots more.

Are you ready to start your blog content strategy? Start your blog for just $2.95/ month with Bluehost today.

Disclaimer: This article contains affiliate links where I may receive a small commission at no cost to you if you decided to purchase one. However, these are courses I fully recommend when it comes to starting affiliate marketing and the commissions help me provide free content. You can read my full affiliate disclosure in my privacy policy.

How to Start a Blog: FAQ (Frequently Asked Question)

#1: What is a Blog?

A blog is a regular update website that always publishes as written content, It helps to achieve a common goal of attracting readers in other to generate leads and sales or to fulfill a certain goal.

The statistic of people reading blogs alone in the United State is said to be approximately 77% of internet users.

There are many blogs in various niches you can ever think of online, as a matter of fact, you can blog to grow a list of subscribers and make money from it.

#2: Why should you Start Blogging

You might want to start a blog for various reasons.

But one of the main reasons to start blogging is to create an influence and attract online readers.

If you have knowledge or passion about a certain skill then you can start a blog to share your message with others.

When you do it correctly you can even monetize your blog and start making an extra income off your content.

Blogging can help you to achieve something just by sharing your message with people of which are:

• Develop a better writing skill
• Share your message with you audience
• Build new relationships and network with others in your niche
• Improve yourself as an individual
• Make a passive income

#3: What Does a Blogger do?

As a blogger, there are few things you might need to put into consideration in other to grow your blog as fast as possible.

But here is an overview of what is expected of you to be doing as a blogger.

• Write Content
• Recommend Products
• Sell Products

While there are quite lots of things that also attached to each of those duties I stated above, which includes:

• Marketing
• Sales
• Research and Development
• Accounting and Finance
• Customer Service
• Production

These all serve as the purpose of the three most important tasks to do as a blogger.

#4: How much do Bloggers Make?

It depends on the growth of your blog and the amount of work that has been put into it.

To grow a blog nowadays doesn’t take so much time anymore when you work on your keyword research very well.

But there are few things to put into consideration to determine how much you can really make as a beginner blogger or an expert at it.

To make money on your blog you need to be selling something to your audience either through your valuable content or when they subscribe to your email list.

So as a blogger you can make money through any of the following approaches.

• Affiliate marketing
• Online courses
• Advertisement
• Consulting
• Selling products
• Sponsored post

If your blog doesn’t offer value to people or readers on your blog it would be difficult to make money from it.

That’s why monetization is the first thing to plan out before you considered choosing a niche for your blog.

Also, have at the back of your mind that to start blogging as a full-time won’t make you a millionaire overnight obviously but with dedication and hard work it will definitely yield positive outcomes.

#5: How much does it cost to launch a Blog?

When you’re launching your first blog, there are few things to consider either to start with a paid or free platform, which has its pros and cons.

If you don’t know anything about blogging there are a few free places you might want to start your journey as a blogger which is Blogger, Ghost, or Tumblr. But each of these platforms has the restrictions that come with it.

They are limited access to use premium themes, advert placement on your site, and many more.

But if you’re someone that wants to actually blog for business or even as a novice then you can consider going for the paid platform.

Sales funnel builders like BuilderAll and GrooveFunnels provide an excellent paid plan that helps you to build a customized blogging platform integrated with your sales funnel that sells your products using drag and drop editors, create an online store and many more.

These are basic essential cost of starting a blog:

• Domain name: It cost around $10 per month
• Hosting: The cost of these depends on the plan you subscribe to, there are Shared hosting typically cost $3 – $10 per month. But there is another plan too like Dedicated hosting, VPS hosting, and more.
• Theme (Optional): You can get a WordPress premium theme for your blog costing between $29 to $67, marketing tool, and more.

In conclusion:

When you consider blogging for just a passion then it shouldn’t cost you anything to start.

If you consider making a blog but not full-time, it should cost you an average of $60-$100 per year.

But if you want to invest your time and consider doing it full time then you should be expecting to spend an average of $500 per year.

How to Start a Blog: Final Thought (Summary)

Like I have shown you here, understanding how to start a blog is not difficult, but requires your energy and time most importantly dedication.

To create a profitable blog that spin money for you on autopilot requires a smarter approach of SEO knowledge, persuasive writing, and hard work.

I have well-covered everything you need to start a profitable blog for your niche and as time goes by I’ll keep updating this guide with the latest blogging strategies and tactics.

Here is recap of how to start a blog in 9 easy steps as follows:

• Pick Your Blog’s Niche
• Write Down Your Blog’s Goals.
• Choose a Right Domain Name and Web Hosting
• Install Your Blogging Platform – WordPress
• Choose a Theme For Your Blog
• Install Necessary Plugins
• SEO: Set Up Your Blog Permalinks
• Write Your First Blog Post
• Schedule Content Calendar for Your Blog

Over to your now, what’s stopping from starting your blog today?

Start your blog now with Bluehost and 63% discount off your hosting plan ($2.95/month)