HOW TO START A BLOG AS A SIDE HUSTLE: A STEP BY STEP GUIDE

Becoming a blogger is a great way to express yourself online and, if developed effectively, could allow you the opportunity to make some extra money from home.

Every week I come across more and more bloggers that are quitting their 9–5 jobs and are making a full-time living from blogging. Follow this step by step guide to creating your own website!

START A BLOG

Let’s get started. By this point you should have decided on your blog topic (niche). In order to be a successful blogger, you need to be knowledgeable and enjoy writing about your niche. Without the knowledge and enjoyment, people won’t be interested in your blog and you will likely get bored quickly.

Once you know what you want to write about, follow these steps to create your own blog:

• Set up web hosting

• Choosing your blog domain name

• Hosting

• Create quality content

• Promote your blog

• Automate your blog business

• Start making money from your blog

Also note that once you start a blog there’s still lots of work to be done to promote and improve it. If you’re looking to start earning money straight away you’re likely going to be disappointed, it takes time to start earning money from your blog.

1. CONTENT MANAGEMENT

Every website needs a host. A web host is a home for your site and content. WordPress (WP) is a free Content Management System. WP allows anyone to create, design, write and manage their website without being particularly tech-savvy. WordPress powers 25% of all websites across the internet (including this website!).

Once you’ve signed up to WP you’ll need to choose an initial theme design for your new site (you can change this later). WordPress makes it super easy to write content that looks great. Once you’ve published a couple of articles on your shiny new blog, there are endless opportunities to grow your audience and even make some money! Word press is a great option for helping you to write your first blog post, but if you want to create a professional-looking website you need to purchase your own domain name.

2. DOMAIN NAME

A domain name is what people search for to view your website. www.thesavvymoneygirl.com is a domain name. There are a wide range of domain name extensions available, including .com, .org, .net, .info, .biz.

When choosing your domain name try to choose something simple and catchy that summarises what your blog is about. After you decide on a domain name, check the availability of your domain by using this tool. It might be a good idea to make sure that the social media usernames you want are available too.

3. HOSTING

Web hosting is a business that provides the technologies and services needed for your website or blog to be viewed on the Internet. Websites are hosted, or stored, on special computers called servers. You can often buy your domain and hosting as a package deal from most hosting providers or you could also try renting one, depending on your needs.

Choosing a good hosting provider is important. Go with a poor host and your website could experience downtime (your website will be unavailable to view or edit). Hosting can cost anything between £100-£200 a year. When you first start a blog be wary of the cheap hosts as they’re often slower, less secure and don’t offer much customer support.

4. CREATE QUALITY CONTENT

Content is key when you start a blog. According to an analysis from search engine land, there are over 130 trillion known web pages, so how are you going to make your content stand out?

The first step is to make sure you do your research on the topic before writing. Look at other content in your niche and figure out what’s working for the niche leaders, then come up with a game plan to create even better content!

Another important thing to consider when creating your content is search engine optimisation (SEO). If you really want to improve your content with SEO, then you should try a tool called BuzzSumo. This will provide you with the top-ranking content for your blogging area.

The Yoast and Rank Math SEO plugins are great tools for helping you to improve your on-page SEO as you create a blog post.

5. PROMOTE YOUR BLOG

Building social media pages and links to your new blog should be your main focus when promoting your blog. Social media pages will attract new visitors to your blog.

• Create a Twitter account for your blog, post new articles from your blog & use hashtags. What you first start a blog it’s a good idea to reserve a username on social media.

• Create a Facebook group or page to complement your website will make it easier to connect with people interested in your content.

• Facebook and Instagram Ads are super effective at expanding your audience quickly. You can also target a specific demographic that may be interested in your content.

• Pinterest is one of the most underrated methods of growing your blog traffic. Make your blog posts pin-able and find groups boards in your niche.

• Comment on well-known blogs in your niche. Leave thoughtful comments related to the blog content.

• Collaborate with other bloggers. Reach out to other bloggers in your niche and collaborate with them. This can include cross-promotion, interviews, and guest posts.

• You’ll also want to consider SEO for promoting your blog. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of affecting the online visibility of a website in a web search engine’s results. The higher your page ranks on popular search engines (like google and other search engines), the more traffic your blog will gain organically.

6. MAKE MONEY FROM YOUR BLOG

Making money may be something on your mind when you start a blog. Once you’ve built up your following and have regular blog traffic, you can then start to consider how to make money from your blog. There are tons of ways to generate income from your blog. Here are some of the most common opportunities for new bloggers to make money:

• Sponsored/Guest Posts

• Paid Advertising

• Product Reviews

• Affiliate Marketing (I use Awin)

• Freelance Writing

SPONSORED/GUEST POSTS

A guest post is where someone else writes the content and you’re paid to publish it on your blog. Payment varies based on your DA (domain authority) and blog traffic.

If you’re fairly new to blogging you could try applying for blogging assignments via Get Blogged. Another way to find sponsored work is my looking up #BloggersWanted or #PRRequest on Twitter and networking with brands and marketing professionals!

PAID ADVERTISING

Using advertising to earn money from your blog means placing a banner style ad on your blog. Thee ads are usually placed in your sidebar, footer, or within the content of your posts. You can set up your own advertising packages, offering ad space on your blog.

Alternatively, you can apply to an advertising network such as Google Adsense or Mediavine. You often need to be generating a significant amount of traffic to generate ad income.

PRODUCT REVIEWS

You can get paid (or get free stuff) by writing product reviews. This method involved working with a brand, testing their product and writing about your experience on your blog. You do need to disclose if you were gifted the product or paid for the review; as this can often make your review much more positive and it’s only fair that your readers are aware of this.

AFFILIATE MARKETING

Affiliate marketing is where you earn a small commission from a company for promoting a product or service. I use Awin for affiliate links on this blog, but there are a whole range of affiliate opportunities depending on your blog niche and traffic. Some of the best affiliate programmes include Amazon Associates, Awin and Skimlinks.

FREELANCE WRITING

Interested in freelance writing? Use your blog as your portfolio! Your blog is the perfect opportunity to show off your writing skills and your niche-specific knowledge.

Once you feel confident in your writing start sending out personal emails to individuals and companies related to your niche. Find out who in the company the email should go to, tell them what you write about, link to a great post you have published and set your prices.

Are you ready to start a blog? Research all the free tools you can use to create, design and promote your blog. Remember that all good things take time, focus on creating the content you enjoy and don’t undervalue the work that you do!