If you have passion for writing then this article is for you. To begin with, first of all let us understand the meaning of blogging. In simple words, blogging means creating good content that makes sense. The content should be in the form of articles and part of a website. In this article you will find information about how to become a blogger and start writing quality content. If you are experienced in writing, income from blogging can motivate you to select it as a career. This is a good option to generate passive income for yourself. This does not mean you cannot start a blog without experience. Sure you can, but you have to learn some basic skills of writing. For example if you are new to the blogging industry then you should do some research to find your niche. We will go step by step and understand the basics of blogging. Few things that every new blogger should understand before publishing the first article.
Blogging is also one of the best business ideas for teens because they are full of energy. If you have good command over a topic you can become a blogger. It is a good idea to start early because you can afford to fail and there is a good chance of getting success in blogging. By the time you complete your education, you will already have a mode of making income after college.
How to become a blogger
First of all let us start with the meaning of blogger or definition of blogger. To start with, a blogger is a person who writes articles on a website. The website may or may not belong to the writer. That means the owner can be different from the article writer. In this case you can also name the profile as a content writer. If there is a blog and you are writing articles on it, you can start a blog any day you want. Therefore, we call the profile a blogger. If you are thinking about starting a blog and do not have enough experience here is your checklist. Additionally, being an experienced person, you can use these points as reference.
- Understanding Niche
- Finding a Niche or Category
- High Demand & Low Competition & is the Key to Success
- Become a full time Blogger
- Research is Important
- You can start blog free but choose paid one
- Blogging is a Career
- Technology for blog making
- Cost of Starting a Blog
- Frequently Asked Questions
1 – Understand Importance of Niche
First of all let us start with what is a niche and how to find a niche for blogging.
To answer this niche is the category. But every category is not niche. Finding a niche is searching for a blog category where competition is low. If you are writing articles on a common category better not call it a niche. For example you are writing about search engine optimization and there you do not have any new information to share, your blog will certainly fail. Therefore, a niche is very important for blogging.
2 – Finding a Niche also gives Fast Results
This is part of initial preparation. Therefore, put extra effort into your research. You need to find something (keywords or topics) where very few articles are available. On the other hand the demand is very high.
If you are the first one to write about something then there is a fair chance of your article being on top of search results in Google.
Finding a Niche is important for fast results. Imagine you keep writing articles on generic topics. News is a good example. Many people are writing news at the same time. Being a new blogger the chances of you being on top are less.
3 – Writing SEO Friendly content is important
High Demand & Low Competition & is the Key to Success
You can put in effort, write SEO friendly content but by the time your results come in search, the news will be old. The same thing will happen again and again. This happens because there are famous news websites who are coming on top. These organizations are run by big corporations and there is a lot of money and manpower involved. But we are talking about you as an individual.
Don’t worry, I am not trying to demotivate you. I am just trying to save your precious time. If you are not a journalist, better ignore it. Now find a niche or category and topics with low competition. The information is in high demand but there is very little information available. You can start writing articles and become a blogger. Chances of success are also more in this case.
4 – Start Blogging and do it as a full time job
Yes, you read it right. You can start a blog part time. But if you want to be successful in limited time, do it full time. It is like any other regular job. There is always demand for new or updated content. For example you start a travel blog and write 1000 articles on different aspects of travelling. Can you update all the articles in one day? The answer is a straight “No”. Therefore, to update the blog on a regular basis, you need to do it full time.
5 – Research is Important
First of all, finding a niche for blogging is important. If you find one then research comes into picture. No matter what you write it should be a meaningful piece of information. Especially, if you are a newbie blogger it is important to write engaging articles. If your readers like the content, you can ask them to subscribe. Research based content always does well in search results. If you do a lot of research before publishing an article, your readers will start to trust your information.
6 – You can start blog free of cost but go with the paid one
There are many free blogging websites where you can write free articles. They also give you the option to monetize your content. But the dark side is that you do not own the blog. Everything you publish belongs to the blog owner. You can mention your name in the writer’s column and these websites allow you this. But the ownership of the website stays with the company. Indirectly you are promoting someone else’s brand with your hard work. Sure you can expect some monetary benefit out of it. Since the blogging website is famous, the gains are early.
On the other hand, if you start a fresh blog this may take time. The articles may take a few months to come in search results. If you want to become a blogger and keep writing for long, making your own brand will be my recommendation.
7 – Blogging as a career
Do you remember what I asked you in the beginning? If you are passionate about writing articles then this article is for you. Additionally. If you are writing articles on LinkedIn or any other social media platform you can make it a full time career. Obviously you have to create a lot of good content. After some time, your articles start coming in search results. If you have enough of them then you can take Google AdSense approval. This will help you generate some money also for your livelihood. Additionally, with the growth in money, you grow as an individual brand. Blogging as a career is the primary income source for many these days.
8 – Technology is important to become a blogger and start blogging
Before you start a blog post you need to know which technology you want to use. You can create a blog in any technology from WordPress to ASP.NET and PHP. This is more of a personal choice but I recommend you to go ahead with WordPress website. First of all Writing WordPress articles is easy. Because you will be spending most of your time writing. You can make a WordPress blog free of cost because the software is open source. Therefore, you will not need to pay for future upgrades. So if you want an easy option, this is the best possible way to start blogging.
9 – Cost of starting a Blog
Till now I believe you have decided to start blogging under your own brand. To do this you only need these things. There are free domains and hosting options are also available but we recommend you go with the paid ones.
Book a Domain
Booking a domain name is important. In fact this is the first step of starting the blogging journey.
Buy Hosting Space
A website needs some space on the server. Therefore, you need to buy a hosting space. If possible go with the best domain and hosting provider. But this depends on the budget. There are companies with rock bottom prices and there are some companies selling premium hosting services at premium prices.
SSL Certificate
SSL (secure socket layer) certificate is mandatory in many companies. This certificate shows that your server is verified. Therefore, spend a little extra to purchase an SSL certificate. Some hosting providers give free SSL certificates if you take their service.
Make a blogging website
Creating a blog needs some technical knowledge. It is not complicated and you can learn it soon. If you do not want to get into the hassle of learning technical stuff. You can hire a website development company to make a blog.
After making the blog website your work does not finish. It starts from here. This is part of the initial preparation. Now you have to keep on creating new content for the blog. It is a time taking process and you should be ready to spend these working hours. Over time you create a reader base of yours and the traffic also starts growing with time. Additionally, you should also focus on search engine optimization. To make the work easier, check out some frequently asked questions as well.
10 – Frequently asked questions when you start blogging
As a newbie blogger, you have a lot of questions in mind. Over the last few years, these are some common questions I came across as a blogger. Let us go one by one and check if we can solve blogging queries available in your mind. If I miss out on some important questions, you can leave a comment down and I will try to address them.
How does blogging work?
As soon as you start a blogging website the first thing you need is content. If you are a content writer and have command over a topic you will not face any challenges in writing articles. But there are challenges bloggers face related to creating new content. If you simply copy and paste from other blog posts, this will not work. Google can also penalize the site. Due to this all your hard work will be lost.
Therefore, I always tell people to create original content. With this, I am not asking you to invent something new. You can do that but for regular blogs you can do research on available content and present information in more useful and readable format. For example there is a lot of content available on Search Engine Optimization. Still many people are searching for how to increase traffic fast. If you can do research on this and find a solution you can become a blogger.
In blogging the best thing is to help people find solutions to existing problems. If you can do this you are all set to start blogging and make money from it. Because you can transform your hobby into a full time career.
How much time it takes to create a blog?
Creating a blog does not take much time. In a day or two, you can do a complete set up. Here we are not talking about simply installing WordPress and starting writing. You need to select business specific designs (based on your niche). For example you want to start a travel blog. There is no point in using images of houses and buildings. This suits good for a builder. The website development company can recommend good themes. You can also invest some time and find something great.
How blogging makes money?
So you want to know how blogging pays. Actually there are many ways to earn money from blogging. Some of the common ways to make money online via AdSense. If you have meaningful content and your website comes in Google search results, you can make money from AdSense. You can also do a blogging course to create quality content. Additionally you can take advantage of affiliate marketing. To summarize, here is the list of options that you can use to make money from blogs.
- Google AdSense
- Affiliate Marketing
- Link Posting
- Allow Guest Posting
- Writing Sponsored Posts
How does blogging help your business?
This may not look related to people who want to start blogging. But it is related to promoting business online. If you ask me how blogging helps your business, I will say directly or indirectly both. For example, you have a blog with over a million page views in a month. This means that more than 30,000 visitors come to your website every day. You can create a popup advertisement and show your brand to all of them. You can also generate sales online via product suggestions.
Above all, if the business belongs to you, you have a free marketing tool in your. There are many reasons to start a business and a blog supports them all. You can write about anything you want. From product specific blogs to business related articles, write everything that supports your business. Many businesses (specially IT companies) invest in blogs in the form of tutorials and product related information. The idea is to make strong connections with new and existing customers and sell more if they are interested. Indirectly if you have a product specific blog, you save time and money involved in supporting customers via phone.