How to Make Money Blogging About What You Love

Are you looking for a way to make money blogging online? Are you trying to add an additional fat payday to your income every month? Maybe you want to make enough money blogging to free yourself from the daily grind of the corporate world and discover a way to pursue what you love. I’ve done it with blogging. So can you! Here’s How:

When I first started blogging…

I had absolutely NO idea of what I needed to do. Basically, I just jumped around aimlessly for weeks on end asking anyone I could find questions. I had no clue where to get started. I knew what a website was, but I had no clue how to make one… let alone how to make money from it!

Luckily, after months of searching, I found a few mentors that were able to point me in the right direction. I am grateful to this day for all their help.

But looking back…

I really wish that I would’ve an easy step-by-step guide to blogging for money. Preferably on how to make a blog for someone just starting out, like I was. Now that I have some experience thanks to my mentors, I felt that giving back to the community was something that I needed to do. I feel that this guide will help you skip the grueling task of searching endlessly for information. My goal is for you to read this guide and hit the ground running. I hope this will end up saving you many days and weeks of tedious research and work!

Let’s get started.

How Much Does A Blog Cost?

The old adage of “you have to spend a little money to make money” applies even in blogging. While setting up a blog is not free, it’s still relatively inexpensive. You should look at your blog as a business. A small investment in this industry can go a LONG way.

Free examples

Now, there are some free options. All 4 of the options listed below are free. The first three options are the easiest, but those are very limited. If you are just looking to make an extra couple hundred dollars from your blog, these choices might work. However, if you are truly serious about trying to make good money from your blog, I recommend using self hosting (which we talk about in the next section…).

Tumblr.com – This is probably the most straightforward blog to use, but it also is the probably the least customizable. This means it could be something good to start with, but it would be more challenging to generate income with it.

Blogger.com – Blogger is also good, relatively easy to set up, owned by Google, you can customize the theme, and the domain name includes “.blogspot.com” (in some people’s opinion a little less professional). Blogger continues to have more options and now has a lot more options than they did a few years ago.

WordPress.com – I like wordpress.com they are completely free, easy to set up, you can customize the theme, but other options are limited, domain name includes “.wordpress.com”.

WordPress.org – Hold on, how is wordpress.com different from wordpress.org? Well… to put it simply WordPress.com is where you will go to set up a basic, easy blog with limited features. WordPress.org is where you will go to get a self-hosted blog. If you get to the point where you become serious about blogging and really want to make some money with it, you need to self-host your blog.

Setting Up Your Blog

If you are going to be using one of the first three options above, you can skip this section.

If you are serious about setting up a blog and are looking for the best way to customize your blog’s look and other features, then I recommend getting a self-hosted blog from WordPress.org as the best way to go. It is currently the most popular choice for many bloggers. It does require some work up front and does has a few small costs associated with it: buying a domain name ($10 per year) and hosting your blog ($10 per month).

One major advantage is that you can choose your own domain name (i.e. yoursite.com). While this might not seem like a big deal, it is a lot easier for people to remember yoursite.com rather than yoursite.blogspot.com which is what you will be given if you use a free service. It also makes your blog look more professional.

I will warn you, this took me a bit of time figuring out how to get my self-hosted site set up. WordPress.org has great step-by-step instructions for getting your blog set up. While it requires some work on the front end, I am really glad I got good advice and did this from the start, instead of having to do it now.

Setting Up Your Hosting

To set up this wordpress blog, you must set up a hosting account.

There are numerous options when it comes to hosting. When I was starting out, the choices were a bit overwhelming. I was originally recommended to go with GoDaddy and their hosting service has been great. Recently, I started up a second website with Host Gator. Host Gator has a great cPanel feature which makes installing a WordPress blog quick and easy. I’ll discuss the cPanel set-up more in the next section.

Buy a Domain

A domain is the address your site will point to. When you decide on a name for your site, you can if the domain name is available. I personally buy all my domains at GoDaddy for $12.99. It’s simple and easy. I also have quite a few friends that always use NameCheap. I have never used them, so I can’t give too many details, but all my friends said they are very helpful. I would recommend getting a .com domain as it is easiest to rank in Google search results. If you really want a particular name, .net or .org should work fine as well. However, I would not recommend .info, .co, or any other domain extension. Last I checked, GoDaddy had a great deal on their .COM domains for $7.49.

Set up a FREE WordPress Blog

If you used Hostgator to set up your account, it comes with CPanel and Fantastico tools to make installing WordPress on your site extremely easy. Just go to the Fantastico tool and create a WordPress blog where the steps are clearly laid out for you.

Make a post

By now, you should have a good idea about what you want to write about. If your having trouble getting started, I recommend writing a list of 7, 10, or 15 tips or facts about your topic. It’s pretty effective at getting people to visit your page. I mean, it got you reading this post didn’t it? I recommended writing about 1 to 2 pages in Microsoft Word per post. I usually make a post 2-3 times a week. Sometimes I will write 2 or 3 blog posts in one sitting, and then save them to be posted later in the week. I recommend just getting a feel for what works best for you, and make it a routine.