Before you start making your own blog make sure you take all your time to find the correct information online. There is many reasons to start blogging, a blog can help you inform, educate, promote and make an income; but only if you are clear about your intention of what you want your first blog to be about. You can make blogs about anything you want the to be about. A blog allows you to have a voice and be heard, you can share your story with the entire world if you choose to do so. Millions of people around the world are turning to making money from home instead of working a 9-5 job. Take your time to figure out your message and purpose of your blog and if blogging will be the right decision for you. Blogging can be one of the most profitable online business with a very low start up cost. There are bloggers who are earning a six figure sum from their blogs each year. If you think you are ready to commit and learn to start a blog that can make you a great source of income, then follow the steps below.

How to start a blog and make money in 11 easy steps.

• Pick your domain name. The name of your domain is what your audience and viewers will see first, also others will be able to discover your domain through search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. The domain is basically the URL of your website. You can buy your domain name on HostGator, Wix, Bluehost, Google domains and you can search other websites that sell domain names. Searching on these sites will tell you if your chosen domain name is available or taken.

• Hosting. Hosting is basically a company that puts your website up on the internet so everyone can see it. Everything will be saved there, it is like a computer hard drive on the internet where your posts will be saved. You can buy your hosting from places like; HostGator, Bluehost, Wix and others. It is recommended not to get free hosting. You should buy your hosting because if you get free hosting it doesn’t generally have great reputations for speed and availability, they also tend to shut down a lot. Also they may not allow you to have ads. With paid hosting you tend to get better reliability and great 24/7 customer service.

• SSL certificate. Buying your SSL certificate will give you the padlock on the search bar and give your visitors secure connection and assurance. It is definitely worth purchasing a SSL certificate as the advantages are making your website rank higher in search engines and the primary reason SSL is used to keep sensitive information sent across internet encrypted so that the only intended recipient can access it. When you use a SSL certificate the information becomes unreadable to everyone except for the server you are sending information to. If you decide not to purchase a SSL certificate visitors may not trust your site which will minimise your traffic. Some hosting companies will provide you with a SSL certificate for free just check with your hosting company if they provide this service.

• Register your domain. You can register your domain with Google and Bing so your website will appear on search results if someone searches your domain. There is many other search engines that you can register your website with. Google, Bing and Yahoo are the top 3 biggest search engines in the world.

• Sign up to a few good affiliate programmes. There is a lot of great affiliation programmes out there like Amazon, Argos, HostGator and many more, you can search for other programmes that will suit you and your brand and commission rates as everyone has different commission rates and regulations. You need to add your affiliations links that you are signed up with into your blog posts, so if somebody buys something on one of your affiliation sites through your affiliate link you will get a commission.

• Design your blog. To design your blog you will need a platform like WordPress, once you have chosen your platform there are a lot of themes and plug-ins that you can choose from to design your blog/website. WordPress is one of the biggest platforms that make it simple and easy to use. More than one in four websites that you visit are likely powered by WordPress. The great benefit of wordpress is that its free to use and has thousands of plug-ins and themes so you can customize what your website will look like. There is a lot of great videos on youtube regarding themes and plug-ins and what plug-ins you will need.

• Create and post your first blog. Creating your first post for your blog will be exciting, you need to decide what you want to make your first post about. Take your time with your post and make sure your title to your post is catchy and interesting for your readers. Do not worry about making your post perfect as you will learn with time and growth. Once you have written your post before posting it to your viewers make sure you take your time reading it through.

• Use free photos and designs to make your blogs stand out. Many sites have free photos that you can use on your posts and websites. You can use websites like Pixabay, Pexels and Unsplash there is much more websites out there. You can even use your own pictures that you have taken yourself to upload on your posts.

• Sign up to google ads. Sign up with Google ads so you can earn money from monetizing your traffic. Once you have signed up for Google ads they will automatically show ads tailored to your site. Google ads provides a way for publishers to earn money from their online content. The ads are created and paid for by advertisers who want to promote their products. You will get paid for the amount of traffic your blog/website gets.

• Promote your blog. You can promote your blog by including your blog link to your social media profiles, include eye catching pictures and use keywords in your title and posts. You can also answer questions on Quora, if you have used Quora you must have noticed the view counts under each comment. The questions asked in Quora are one to appear in search engines page results. There is also an option of using paid promotion to promote your posts and you can use places like Facebook ads, Google ads or lots of others to drive traffic to your post/website.

• Commit to a regular schedule. Commiting to a regular schedule of your content and posts will let your viewers engage and interact with the different posts you will be writing about. Posting frequently will let your readers look forward to your great blog post and will encourage your audience to come back. Having consistent content can get as much as 30% more traffic for every post.