How to make money by starting a blog

Do you want to start your blog & make money with it?

If your answer is yes, then you are at the Right place. I’ll show you exactly how you can Start your blog & make millions of Naira.

Starting a blog can be difficult and complicated task if you are a beginner. But you don’t need to worry about anything as in this tutorial I will guide you on every step that you need to follow to successfully create your Blog.

I know that there are many questions that might be in your mind right now.
Do I need any coding skills?

No, Not at all!
You don’t need any technical skills or coding experience for creating your blog. You only need 15 Minutes & the desire to follow all the steps that I have laid out in this guide & you are good!

Can I Make Money from a Blog?
Yes for sure, you can earn money by your blog and it is very easy to do so. I have explained all the steps in this article from starting your blog to getting your first payout from your blog.
I have listed all things you will need to do in simple steps for you.

So without any more wait, Lets get Started!

Things you need for Starting a Blog:

Let me start by listing what you will need to Start you WordPress blog.

There are 2 essential things that are needed to start a WordPress blog.

1. Domain name: It will be the name of your blog on internet such as our website name is DomainKing,NG. I have explained all things on how to choose a good domain down in the post.

2. Web Hosting Account:

A web hosting account will be need to install WordPress in it. WordPress is the most popular CMS that is known for developing websites without any technical and coding knowledge.We will be using the self hosted version of WordPress that will be installed in your hosting account. The detailed process for installing WordPress is explained in step 4

Step 1: Choose Your Blogging Niche

This is a most important thing as without the topic or idea it is difficult for you to create or start a blog.

Choosing a blogging niche highly depends on your interests & knowledge in the topic of your interest.
Start by thinking about the things you like the most, are you are cooking expert or you love to take beautiful photographs. You can be a fashion designer giving tips about fashion on your blog.

So, you should go for a niche that you love to write about. It will always keeps you going even if you don’t make any money from your blog in starting months.

But think about the monetary value of niche Will you be able to earn from your blog. Lets suppose, if you start a blog about political gossips, Would you be able to earn something by this.
You guessed it right. NO!
Because you cannot sell anything or not even you will be able to use it in any other way to earn.

What if you write about Web designing tips, then you can share your tips and top of that you can join various affiliate programs to earn by recommending them.

So make a thumb rule to choose a niche that you have interest in along with that the niche has some earning potential.

This was all about niche, lets move on to next part.

Step 2: Register a Domain Name for your Blog

1) Domain Name: A domain name is the name of your blog. Just Like lindaikejisblog.com or yourdomain.com.ng. The “lindaikejisblog” and “yourdomain” are the names of your website. And .com & .com.ng are the domain extensions/tlds (top level domains).

Points to be noted while choosing a domain:
1. Keep it Short: By keeping your domain short, you make it easier for your visitors. You may see this with various domains such as JIJI.NG , NAIJ.COM. BBC.COM and many more.

2. Keep it related to your Niche: If you write about football, then you can add football or soccer in your domain. It tells the visitors what you write about.

3. Domain extension:
Choosing your domain extension totally depends on your preference and requirements.
If you are targeting a website for Nigeria then we recommend you to go for .ng or .com.ng as it will also offer you an advantage in SEO on Google Nigeria and .ng, .com.ng is also very brand in Nigeria.

But if you want to create a global website then you can go for a .com domain as well. Generally we recommend you to have both .com & .ng domains for brand protection.

You can register your domain name at the cheapest price in Nigeria from our our website.

If you are finding any difficulty while placing the domain order then you can take help from our domain registration guide.

Step 3: Choose a Web Hosting Plan

Web Hosting is a space on the server where all your website files will be stored. Whenever someone open your website like “yourwebsite.com.ng” on their devices, then your website and its contents including images, videos, text, etc. will be displayed to them from the hosting provider’s server.

As a beginner,you can start with our best selling Soldier plan as that comes with a free .com.ng domain.

It comes with 1 GB disk space &10 GB Bandwidth. In future when your traffic increases, then you can easily upgrade to higher plan that comes with more disk space and bandwidth according to your requirement.

Steps to place order for web hosting plan:

Step 1. Visit our web hosting page.

Step 2. Select your desired web hosting plan and click on “Order Now”

Step 3. On the next page, you will need to choose domain for your Blog. As you are doing this for first time. So, you will need to register your domain.

Click on 1st option “I want DomainKing to register a new domain for my Hosting Package”.

Note: If you already have a domain name registered then you will need to select the 3rd option: “I already have a domain and I will update its nameservers Or I will register a new domain from an another provider.”

After selecting your preferred option, Enter your domain name in the box.

click on “Click to Continue”.

Step 4. Now system will check if your domain is available. If it is available then select the term (number of years) for which you want to buy your domain and click “Click to Continue”

Step 5. Now, you will need to select the term for your hosting plan. Confirm the duration and click on “Add to Cart” and continue to checkout on next page.

Moreover,if you need a detailed guide please refer to this

Step 4) Install WordPress on Hosting plan:

Now that you already have a Domain Name & Hosting for your blog. Its time to start creating your blog & we will do it using very popular CMS called WordPress. Let’s do it!

What is WordPress?

WordPress is a popular CMS that can be used to start your blog within a few minutes. It is so popular & widely used and used by popular Nigerian blog like: Naij.com, Naijaloaded.com.ng & many others.

Installing WordPress is really very easy. It can be done with the click of a few buttons & I’ll show you exactly how. The Hosting account that you just bought from DomainKing.NG comes with 1 Click Installer for installing WordPress. So, all you need to do is is login to your cPanel and then install WordPress with Softaculous 1-click installer.

Just follow these steps listed below:
1.Login to cPanel:
Once your domain and hosting order is activated you can refer this guide to login to cPanel using client.

You will also receive a mail with subject “New Hosting Account Information” from our system when you will buy the hosting plan. I contain all the details of your hosting account and cPanel. You can also get the details from there to login to cPanel

2. Install WordPress in cPanel
Once you are in cPanel, navigate to Software section and click on “Softaculous App Installer” icon.

3). You will now see all the apps that you can install in 1 Click using Softaculous. Click on “WordPress” icon in the Softaculous apps.

4). Click on “Install” button in the navigation bar.

For complete guide, you can refer to How to Install WordPress on your hosting account with Softaculous.

5). Check your Blog: Once you have successfully installed WordPress then you will be able to see your website at yourdomain.com. It will look something like this.

Looks very basic?

No worries. lets change the theme in next step.

Note: If you are still not able to install WordPress by your own then you can contact our Chat Support Team from bottom of this page or Support Team at support@domainking.ng. They will help you to install WordPress as all our plans comes with free WordPress installation.

Step 5) Installing WordPress Theme:

Theme is the layout of your website and overall appearance of your website greatly depends on the theme it is using.

Once you have installed WordPress, you will see that default WordPress theme is installed that is a very simple.

I am sure, you want to change it some dashing and attractive theme that serves your needs.

You can choose from thousands of free WordPress themes from Theme Directory . There are alot of beautiful and attractive themes available over there.

If your website is related to sports then you can search sports in WordPress theme library. By doing this search filter will display you the lots of WordPress theme related to the sports. You can install it by picking any one of them.

As you have just installed WordPress, so you would be already logged in to WordPress dashboard.

1. On your Homepage, you will see a top bar and when you hover cursor over it, you see menu options, click on dashboard.

2. Once you are in Wordress dashboard, navigate to Appearance > Themes in the sidebar. You will see that there is a default wordpress and theme. There will be a Add New Button the top, click on that.

3. On the next page, you will see a lot of featured and popular themes, you can select from them. You can also search your desired them in the search box given on the right side.

4. You need to just click on theme you want to install and then active it. Please keep in mind to check the star rating of theme as good theme have higher rating.

For detailed guide on wordpress theme installation you can refer to this guide.

Step 6: Write your First Blog Post

Now you have successfully setup your WordPress and you have changed the layout of your blog. Its time to write your first Blog post.

For this, you need to Login to your WordPress dashboard.

If you are are already logged in, Click on Post in the left side navigation bar. Then click on Add New on Next page.

Add a title for your post, let write My first Blog Post

Then add content for your post. Write a few lines, anything you like to write on your blog to see how it looks.

Once you have written your post then you can click on publish button in the right side. Also, if you want then you can first preview or save draft before publishing your post.

Your first post will look something like this. You can see your post as well as the Default WordPress post of Hello World.

This was all about creating wordpress blog, then changing theme and writing your first blog post. Now let’s see how can you earn by blogging or via your website.

If you want to start an Online Store or E-commerce website then you can read our article on How to start an Online Store With WordPress.

Step 7: How to make money from your Website?

Done with making your blog. So what next?

Don’t worry if you have started your blog just as a hobby. May be this hobby become a bread earner for you in future. It all depends on your efforts to lead your blog from non earning to money making blog.

There are thousands of ways to monetize your blog from google Adsense to direct ads.

Keep one thing in mind, google plays an important role for success of an every blogger in early days. It can be SEO or Adsense. Later on when your blog become a authority for your readers then you will surely find other ways to monetize your blog

I have listed some of the ways to monetize your blog in starting.

1) Google Adsense:

Google AdSense is program owned by Google that allows website’s owner or webmaster to earn money by showing advertisement on their websites. These ads are displayed according to the niche of the website.

Google Adsense is a contextual ad network that means ads are shown on your website according to the content of your website.

When you sign up for Adsense then google provides you a JavaScript to add it into your website that reads contents of your website and show relevant ads according to the content of your website.

It is a very easy to use program and you can start start earning right away once you get traffic on your website. You don’t have to deal with advertisers or worry about collecting money. Google administers and maintain relationships with the advertisers.

Google pays you via Paypal or wire transfers. You will see all the options once you sign up for Adsense.

AdSense offers cost-per-click ads (CPC) which means that you earn money every time a user clicks on the ad on your website. The amount received per click varies based on multiple factors. But keep one thing in mind to always publish quality content as it is appreciated by google as well your readers will love it.

So, what are you waiting for join Google Adsense and start earning.

2) Affiliate Marketing:

Affiliate marketing is a system with which a web-master and bloggers earn money by recommending services to threir readers. Actually it is done by adding affiliate links to your website and redirect potential buyers to advertiser’s website. If the visitor make a purchase then you get commission for that sale.

Wikipedia defines affiliate marketing as “type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards an affiliate for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.

Let’s take an example, if your blog niche is about technology and you write about latest technology such as new mobiles, TV’s and online things. Then you can join affiliate programs of various E-commerce websites such as Jumia, Konga and Amazon etc.

E-commerce Affiliate:
Jumia, Konga and Amazon are the top 3 top E-commerce websites in Nigeria that sells everything from electronics to beauty products, laptops, house hols item and everything other item that you want to buy online.

So, if you have any niche that doesn’t matter much as you can just add there attractive banners on your website and earn commission for your referrals.
All the E-commerce affiliate program works on pay per sale program. So, you get paid for every sale that is done through you.

You can join any or all the three affiliate program and recommend their products on your website. They provide commission on every sale that is made when the visitors has clicked your affiliate link and purchase the product from their website.

DomainKing.NG Affiliate Program:
I want to inform you that we also a affiliate program that provide best Commssion rates in Nigeria for hosting referrals.
We offer upto 30% of cost of hosting plan if some one buy’s a hosting from your affiliate link or banner. You can place our banner on your website & when someone will click your link/banner on your website & buy hosting from us then you will get paid upto 30% commision.

We pay our affiliates once they reach N1000 in affiliate balance & we offer N500 signup balance, so when you join our affiliate program then you will have N500 signup balance.

You can join our affiliates program to earn a commission.

3. Direct Advertisements:

Direct Ads can earn you a huge gains if your blog has a huge targeted traffic. But it comes with times when your blog becomes a little old and you get a comparable audience in a niche.

You will actually sell your Advertising space to the Advertisers. You can show ads on Website sidebar of 300 x 250 and that’s it.

But for that, you should concentrate on increasing your traffic, because advertisers don’t want a blog with few visitors. Think of this avenue when you have reached atleast 10k visitors per month.

4. Sponsored Post:

A sponsored post can help you make money in a single shot. All you have to do is increase traffic of you blog and you have a good number of readers then you can reach possible advertisers in your niche.

It is far now the best way to make money from your blog. If your blog is about “Technology” then can reach a party that might be interested in buying a review on your. This works exactly the same way as direct advertising for finding the potential advertisers.

You can always look of new players in the market as they are more likely shed a few more dollars as they need to penetrate the market. But, if your blog is well established then you will get sponsored post on its own or you can reach old player as well. They will surely do business with you.

Few things to keep in mind:

a). Always post reviews that are related to niche of your website as only then advertisers will become ready to pay you. As no one want to pay if he is not gonna get anything from review.

b). Post review of only good products, because if you post review of bad products then your audience may not like it. So, always keep in mind that your readers are at stake.

This was all about earning money while you are just starting your website. Once you have grown your website and you have alot of traffic then you will get more exposure. You can contact potential advertisers on your niche for direct ads.

I hope you liked the articles and I will keeeping adding more options for earning via your blog. If you have any questions then please let me know via comment section. I will happy to answer them.