Start Your First Blog

What is a Blog?
I assume most of you will be familiar with the word blog but some of you still might not be familiar with it.
Well, Blog is a discussion or informational website which is available to the general audience world-wide consisting of different posts or articles written mostly in discrete, informal and diary style way.Hold up, there is so much info out there on internet regarding the titled query then what makes this article different than others and why should you read this? Well, the other writers first compare Blogger and CMSs (will tell you later what CMS actually is) where they present blogger as an outdated platform with not much support and features but in fact during the recent years Google has introduced many new features to the Blogger. The reason they do not recommend Blogger is that they are Affiliate writers with the purpose to drive traffic to their paid products and services to get commission. Well, they can be right, but what about those who are just new to blogging and want to start their first blog without spending their money. Other CMSs can surely make your website or blog more professional and attractive but they're too expensive for newbies and for those who want to start blogging for free then why to spend hundreds of dollars when you can simply create a blog without paying hosting and domain fees.Or perhaps some of them can't afford to spend. Blogger is the best platform for beginner bloggers. Anyways, this guide is simply for those readers who are beginner or want to create a blog without spending even a single penny from their pocket.
I know you've been facing the same problem reading confusing articles as well.You are confused about what to do and what to avoid. Whether to use an expensive Content Management System or the go with the so called out dated CMS called Blogger. You will find the answers of all the confusing questions you have ever wonder reading those articles. I hope you'll find this guide simple, relatively easy, and definitely easy to understand.
So, now let’s move on.
The need to create a blog:
Before we start, I'd like to talk about what insists you to start a blog. Every entrepreneur who start blogging without aim or passion doesn't make out its way to be successful. Before you start Blogging read some inspiration readings by successful entrepreneurs or Businessmen.
- Blogging is considered to be the most popular way of sharing your ideas and thoughts with the world.
- In today's world, you'd barely find a person not having a blog that means you'd be working really hard to make your blog stand out in the highly competitive industry.
- With a blog, you can even make a living by working from home (it need efforts though).
- Else than above mentioned reasons, blogging can be a passion, some people do blogging just for the sake of enjoyment.
- You can improve your article writing techniques and connect relations online.
1. Select your Niche:
First of all, you should try to think of the niche you'd start writing about. Remember, if you're starting Blog to make money then you need to pay more attention to this method as it effects the earning of your Blog. Select a niche which people needs more than anything else and have the marketing value to attract more traffic to your blog. Here are some of the top Niches you should consider while starting a Blog:
- Health
- Dating
- Fitness and Weight Loss
- Self-Motivation
- Pets
- Make money on the Internet
- Finance
- Beauty
- Affiliate Marketing
- Technology
2. Select the right CMS:
I've mentioned the word CMS above with which some of you might not be familiar especially if you're new to blogging. CMS is the abbreviation of Content Management System. A CMS is a platform where users such as website owners manage their websites without knowing the codding happening at the back end of their website. It simply involves drag and drop technique which is not complex for ones who don't have knowledge of HTML or CSS. Here you need to choose whether you want to go for premium services of the free ones. As this guide is for those who want to start blogging for free therefore, I'd go with Blogger. Blogger is a CMS which is owned by Google. It is a free service hosted on Google servers. Follow the step by step guide with pictures below to set up a free blog with blogger.
3. Go to Blogger.com
Of course the first step is to go to blogger.com. After visiting official site of Blogger, click on Create a Blog and give your google account details. Then you can create you Blogger profile or Google plus profile which will be shown to your blog readers if you choose to show.
After choosing your profile, you'll enter into Blogger dashboard. If you haven't already created any Blog, then hit on Create a Blog and give your preferred title to the blog. Subsequently, give your blog address, now you need to be unique while create you address as this will be your blog domain through which people will visit your site.
After giving preferred title and address, choose a theme for your blog. The theme must be audience friendly as this will cast a good impression on the visitors and they'll hopefully subscribe or bookmark your site to visit it again. Once, you've chose the theme, hit on Create Blog and that's it. You've successful created your very first Blog hosted on Blogger.
4. How to work on your Blog:
Now, remember what was your goal which inspired you to create a Blog. Keep in mind the niche you've already chose in step one. The main part of blogging starts from here. You need to add content to your blog in order to attract the audience.
What most of the bloggers do after creating a blog is they copy and paste the other blogger's content. That is strictly prohibited in blogging. You need to create your own content in order to attract the real traffic. If you'll copy the content then chances are high that you would be rejected by the Advertising Networks which are the main source of earning, though there are other ways to make money as well but the advertising is far better than any other because it makes you earn passive income.
5. When to sign up for Advertising Network:
Before you sign up for Advertising Network, remember if your blog qualifies for their requirement or not. What mistake most of bloggers do is that after creating few posts they apply for Adsense or some other network which in result gets rejected. Here I've highlighted some of the basic requirements which almost all of the advertising networks check before they accept the application of a publisher. I'd give examples of Adsense because it is the highest revenue paying Ad Network to publishers. Before applying for the the ad network make sure you follow these steps:
- Your blog must have enough traffic (how to drive traffic to your site)
- Your blog must have sufficient content i.e. at least 25+ unique posts.
- Articles should not be written in poor English with grammatical errors.
- Each post must be at least 500+ words long.
- Design of your blog must be audience friendly. Blogs having bad interface and poor design gets rejected by many of the famous advertising networks.
- You must define your Privacy Policy, add Contact-Us and About Us page.
- Check your site's niche before applying for Adsense, they don't accept sites having saturated niche, like making money online, marketing, and seo like stuff.
- Try to get custom domain before applying for Adsense.
- Adsense can work with other ad networks but it is always wise to remove other ad networks before applying for Adsense.
If you've followed the above checklist, I'm sure your application would be definitely approved in a short span of time. However, if for some reason, you still didn't get approved by Adsense. Don't lose hope, there are numerous of other ad networks which you can use to monetize your site. Infolinks is one of the best Ad Network which works with Adsense and is not that hard to get your application approved.
6. What next?:
Once you've got your application approved by Ad Network you should be generating some revenue. If, it doesn't work according to your expectations then you can, along with monetization, use other ways to make money with your Blog. There are, uncountable ways you can choose from. Some bloggers are generating enough revenue just by Affiliate Marketing. While some other, use Digital Marketing, selling their Ad space directly to advertisers, selling their services, by reviewing other's products etc. Now, this is upto you what works best for you or which you can use easily to make some enough revenue.
Some extra tips:
- Use as many income streams as you can reasonably manage.
- Successful bloggers don’t start blogging just for the sake of making money. Instead, they write about a topic they truly enjoy and can write about for years.
- Excellent content is the key to long-term success. So always try to avoid copyrighting and generate original content uniquely for your Blog.
- Each blogger has a different combination of income streams. There are endless possibilities. Find your combination that works for you.
- Don’t be a clone of another blogger. Be unique and spread uniqueness.
Blogging is considered to be the main source of passive income. There is no limit for the revenue you can generate with Blogging. The only thing which matters a lot is the way you Blog and the way you use streams of income with Blogging to generate revenue.
Lastly, if I missed some important step, don't forget to mention it in the comment section. If you need more information or just guidance then you can contact us directly. We're
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