Setting up a blog is easy
Everyone and their mom can start their own blog in two minutes.
But how do you actually make it fast and beautiful, and how do you monetize?
Read on to find out.
BEFORE YOU START
Brainstorm your niche. Think about your hobbies, skills, job. You need to choose a topic that you love already, or you wanted to get into. Otherwise, you’ll get burnt out very fast.
STEP 1: DOMAIN NAME
Many people overthink this. Your domain name should be:
Brandable
Memorable
Hearable
That’s it.
STEP 2: HOSTING
Choosing where your site is hosted is a crucial step. You are trusting a company with your asset, and you need to be sure you’re in good hands. They install WordPress and handle the rest for you.
KINSTA
Speed: Fastest
Support: Excellent
Price: $30/mo
dreamhost
Speed: OK
Support: OK
Price: $3.95/mo
do it for me
STEP 3: THEME
If you want your visitors to trust you, making your blog look good is incredibly important. The first step in choosing the design is the theme. It’s basically a set of general settings for the layout, text, and menus.
Your blog theme can make your life very easy, or very difficult.
generatepress premium
Speed: Fast
Bloat: Lightweight
Support: Great
Comes with excellent pre-made template library
Price: $59/yr
generatepress
Same speed, but no support or templates.
Price: FREE
other themes
If you don’t like GeneratePress, you can always choose one from a marketplace like Envato Market. If you do, pay close attention to reviews.
STEP 4: PAGE BUILDER (OPTIONAL)
When you install WordPress, you get the default block editor called Gutenberg. For most users, it’s enough. If you opted for GeneratePress Premium, you also have GenerateBlocks, and with that, you already have an incredible setup. (This site is built on that.)
But some people benefit from Elementor to make their website look better. It’s more capable than Gutenberg, which can make life confusing or very easy, especially if you’re not a designer.
If you do choose Elementor, I suggest looking into Ooooh Boy’s tutorials. Also, check out the Elementor Template Library for templates that work out of the box.
STEP 5: WRITE
At this point, your main goal is to get to writing. Try to stick to a regular posting schedule. For a few tips on writing great blog posts, see this guide from Brian Dean.
Other things you should also consider:
Optimize for SEO. If your primary source of traffic is going to be Google, you need to know how to improve your ranking. Here’s a nifty guide.
Engage on social media. If you’re focusing on social media traffic instead, be active on the platforms your readers use.
Customize your theme. This really has little meaning from the outset, but I like writing when I know it’s going to look good. So replace your text logo with an image. Choose your colors. Play around with fonts and layout. Have a blast with it.
You have a blog now!
IS THIS IT?
After following all the steps above, you may think to yourself: is this really it? If this was that easy, everybody would have been blogging somewhere on the beach in the Caribbean, right?
Well, yes and no.
Yes, because many times people wrote such good content that success came to them regardless of the fact they had no business plan. 90% of people fail not because of lack of a plan, but because they stop writing.
No, because having a plan puts you above most of your competition, and ensures you attain success, and/or do so earlier on.
Anyway, I wanted this guide to be as accessible to the average person as possible, so I kept it very simple. Again, the biggest problem is people fail to JUST START. You need to stop the analysis paralysis.
If I got you to write, I consider my mission complete. But if you have already started, and want to go beyond, read on.
ADVANCED SECTION
PLUGINS
Here’s my default setup whenever I create a new website:
Site optimization: Apart from a good host, you need to utilize Cloudflare ($0) for CDN. I also optimize all images using ShortPixel (highly recommend this)!
Caching: I love WP Rocket. Easy to set up and use. Connects via an API to Cloudflare to configure optimal settings. It does both Desktop and Mobile caching for CSS, HTML, and javascript. Download my config file for it.
Comparison Tables: I am a fan of custom building my tables with HTML + CSS (will share my tables in a future email for you to use), but I also use Ninja Tables on many of my sites. I use the plugin until the site has enough traffic to warrant a custom table.
Security: I use the free Wordfence plugin to lock down my site. Recommended!
Amazon Affiliate: I use AAWP for any and all Amazon links. Their use of shortcodes is really easy, also you can create customized tables in HTML+CSS with their shortcodes as well. I’ve been a user for years now.
Extra functionality: I use Easy Table Of Contents to get a ToC on the page so Google can show my subheaders under the SERP; works great! Rank Math (free version) for on-page SEO. Yet Another Related Post Plugin (YARPP) for related posts at the bottom of articles. WP AutoTerms for Privacy policies, TOS, etc.
Internal Linking: internal linking provides large benefits in terms of traffic. I use Link Whisper to make this easy.
VISITOR ACQUISITION
To put it simply, there are two ways to get eyes on your blog:
- SEO
- Social Media
SEO is when you tailor your content to serve searcher intent as Google sees it. This may be counter-intuitive, but many times this is not what people want to write, or even read.
Social Media is when you share your content on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other platforms to drive users there and build a following. This is not for everyone, as it requires you to engage and entertain.
These two approaches are very different, but can be used together.
SOCIAL MEDIA
We all use Facebook to post (and look at) pictures of your pets, weddings, vacations etc.
Forget all that.
To drive users to your blog, you need to create content that is either:
Compelling
Polarizing
Compelling content is when you do something so awesome that people want to read and share it. Think research, (genuinely awesome) photos, infographics, cheat sheets.
Polarizing content is when you do something so bad that people want to hate you and share it so others can hate you. Think negative reviews of popular products, celebrity investigations. Basically what tabloids do.
STEPS
When you create such content, you share it on social.
When you start out, your blog’s social pages are empty. Ask your friends to join, like, and subscribe so people who come later see that there’s some life.
Then, spend a little bit of money ($10-$30) to promote your content. This gives you reach, and as people like your posts, this tells the platform they should promote it organically more. In the future, as your organic reach grows, you will need less and less paid promotion.
SEO
When people search for stuff on Google, Google shows them pages that fulfill its requirements. There are a few, but, most importantly, you need to give people answers to specific queries. The more specific, the easier it is to rank in top spots, as there are more websites writing about that.
Best vacation spots – HARD to rank
Best vacation spots for quadruplegics in Vanuatu – EASY to rank
When you’re just starting out, focus on the easy queries.
There are a couple of ways to find them. I use a keyword search tool, but Phil from EarningFinancialFreedom.com has a free, although manual, way that he has seen success with. Check out his case studies, as well.
Keyword tool
Pace: Quick
Scalable: Yes
Complexity: Easy
Price: $120
manual research
Pace: Manual
Scalable: No
Complexity: Easy
Price: FREE
do it for me
MONETIZATION
Now that you have a strategy to get eyes on your blog, figure out monetization.
The best way to monetize is, of course, your own product or service.
If you don’t have a product yet or want to supplement your income, consider the following ideas:
Display Ads
Affiliate Links
PR
Display Ads is when you get paid to show ads to your readers. The most well-known ad network is Google AdSense, but they pay peanuts. Based on your niche, you will be able to graduate to more premium networks when you reach a certain number of visitors. The premium ad network with the lowest monthly reader requirement is Ezoic, and they already pay many times more than AdSense, up to $30-$50 for every 1000 views.
Affiliate Links is when your user follows your link to a product or service, and the company that owns that product or service pays you a commission based on their spending. In some niches, companies will pay up to $100-150 per lead. For physical products, Amazon is the most popular, but far from the best.
PR is a blanket term for all kinds of brand-sponsored content. You can do promo posts, ad placements, etc. You can reach out to companies, they can reach out to you, or there are marketplaces with brands paying you up to $3000-5000 to create content.
MORE?
My goal here was to be brief but comprehensive.
What would you want to read about next? Let me know from my contact page.
Also, for inspiration, read the case studies that I have here.