Do you want to make money blogging? Whether you are interested in starting a blog as your new business or adding a blog to your already existing business, you can make it profitable. It is not only possible to make money blogging but there are multiple ways to do it, allowing you the flexibility to choose those that work best for you.  

Let’s walk through the steps necessary to set up a profitable blog and create a business plan that will help guide you. By getting the basics right, you will waste less time and see results sooner. 

How to Start a Blog that Makes Money

1. CHOOSE YOUR BLOG NICHE

Deciding what you are going to blog about is one of the most important decisions you will make. Defining a clear topic/niche is the center of your entire blog. After all, it will influence the content you share and provide. It’s also going to help you find your audience and define what you can do to help them. What are you good at? What are you passionate about?

One of the most important things in business is to provide a solution to a problem and blogging is no different. So decide as early as possible what you can help them with. What are you good at? What are you passionate about? 

Once you have the niche and problem you can solve for your future audience you will want to create a Customer Journey Map as well. That can also help you define your niche if you are just getting started. 

2. CHOOSE YOUR BRAND

Branding is an integral part of any business. It is how your business is perceived by others. How do you want people to feel when seeing your blog? What message do you want to send through your visuals & content? 

Branding includes choosing your logo, color palette, fonts, photos, title and more. By creating a coherent brand will not only make your blog look professional, but it helps people identify your blog and builds trust. Just think of Nike or McDonalds when it comes to strong branding. 

For more in-depth information about branding (with included workbook) checkout this post here.  

3. PLATFORM & HOSTING

While you can start a money making blog on many free blog hosting sites, you are limited on the ways you can generate income on these sites. Each with their own restrictions. To have the most revenue generating options and control of your content you should create what is called a “self-hosted” blog.

4. BUILDING YOUR SITE

Now it is time to start your blog! Make sure you have posts written before your blog goes live, you do not want your blog to be empty on your launch day.

While there is not a specific amount of posts set, you will want to enough quality posts that your audience can read and spend time on your blog. 

5. LEARN MARKETING & MONETIZATION

As you have probably noticed, starting your money making blog is no different than any other business in each of these steps. This also includes creating your business plan. How do you plan on making money? Are you going to use affiliate marketing? Create your own product? Do you offer a service?

No matter how you choose to monetize your blog, you need to have your monetization plan ready before you launch your blog. Make sure that you research and educate yourself on the options available to monetize. 

Check out this post for some ways you can monetize your blog. 

As for marketing your blog, learn as much as you can about the different marketing options that you will have as a blogger, and build a strategy. Are you going to use email marketing? Social media marketing? You need to know exactly how you’re going to market your blog and your products before you launch your blog.

This part is basically what makes the difference between a blogger who struggles to make money for months/years, and a blogger who makes money from the start. Don’t neglect it!

6. LAUNCH IT!

Last but not least, launch your blog! Keep in mind that all the work must be done before you launch your blog. One of the reasons why a lot of bloggers struggle when their blog launches is because they launch their blog with no preparation. With this preparation done beforehand, you will be able to focus on your audience and making money right off the bat.

Check out my free resource library for more information on blogging and building your business! 

More Ways to Make Money Blogging?

If you still want more information on ways to make money blogging, I did a really fun podcast with The Mama Ladder. You can find the episode here.