how to start your first blog?

Before you can dig into how to start and make money with a blog, you need to know what a blog is. Think of blogging as the digital equivalent to a zine or newsletter. It’s content but less formal than a magazine, newspaper or website informational page.

I view blogging as more of a one-on-one website, as opposed to a large brand…Typically, you get to know the person a bit writing the blog posts, so you feel it’s a firsthand experience and is built to help you, rather than just promoting something because someone got paid.

— Michelle Jensen, editor at Travel HerStory

Blogging is about sharing information with others, a way of creating a digital community. In contrast, a website (although blogs can be a website or part of a larger website) is generally less frequently updated and contains more long-term information. Think of a website as an instruction manual and a blog as a weekly meeting of your local craft group.

Step One in Starting a Blog: Planning and Preparation

Yeah, yeah, yeah, don’t roll your eyes at me. I know planning and prep is boring. You have an idea in your head, and you want your blog live now! Just bear with me, I promise the planning and prep will make a difference in how you can earn money from blogging.

Why Are You Blogging?

Be honest with yourself about why you are starting a blog. If the answer is “money,” that’s fine, but know it isn’t an easy money-making machine. There’s a lot of hard work that goes into it. Whatever your reasoning, being honest about it will help you stick to your goals, make better decisions and stay motivated throughout the process.

A blog can be like an online diary…and that’s fine for anyone who just feels the need to write something, somewhere, that might be seen by their audience. But for a business blog, you want to prompt them to do something. You’ll want them to reach out to your company, so there should be a call to action, like ‘contact us to learn more about our PR packages’ in pretty much every post. Don’t expect every reader to take you up on that call to action. Most won’t. But the power of suggestion will not work if you don’t suggest something.

— Jonathon Narvey, CEO and founder at Mind Meld PR Inc.

Common reasons to start a blog include:

Making money
Having a creative outlet
Looking for a community (especially common in our increasingly remote world)
A desire to influence public opinion
Building a personal brand to promote existing work
Teaching a skill or hobby to others
Creating a record of events—a digital diary of sorts
Practicing writing for an audience

Pick a Niche

There’s a big difference between casting a wide net and throwing spaghetti against a wall to see what sticks. Even if you have multiple areas of expertise, each blog needs a focus. You might later wind up creating a family of blogs, but each needs to appeal to a definable audience and brands if you want to try for sponsorships. Having a strong topic focus also helps to build community when starting a blog.

In a world where traditional journalism is shrinking, now is a great time to start building your own platform. Starting a blog today isn’t about chasing clicks; it is about building authority. Experts have become the new influencers. The most successful bloggers and creators are not trying to be everything to everyone. They are deeply focused on one niche and speaking directly to the audience that needs them the most.

— Sarah Schmidt, president at Interdependence

Knowledge and Passion for the Blog Topic

If your blog niche is fueled by personal knowledge and passion for the topic, you generally have a better chance of building a community and creating a successful blog. You don’t have to be perfect at any of it, but the authenticity and passion shine through and connect with audiences.

Popular Blog Topics
Photography	Travel	DIY Home Decor
Nature	Hiking	DIY Home Improvement
Beauty	Fashion	Food
Finance	Music	Fitness
Crafts	Sewing	Couponing
Sports	Books	Movies
History	Cosplay	Tabletop Role-Playing Games (such as Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder)
Geek Culture	Homesteading	Living on a budget
Small farm life	Shopping bargains	Advertised vs. Received Clothing

Competition

Regardless of why you started blogging, when it comes time to try to make a little cash from it, you’ll need to know your competition. A big part of how to create a blog is knowing your competition. Research how many other bloggers are covering your topic, what kind of content they publish, what their website looks like and if there are any big names already out there that you must compete with. Niches with less competition are sometimes easier to break into, build a community and monetize.

Instead of guessing what might work, spend 30-60 days analyzing your competitors: which articles drove the most search traffic, what keywords those pieces ranked for and how you can write better versions. Sign up for a keyword research tool like Ahrefs or SEMrush. Identify your top 3-5 competitors’ best-performing articles. Then write better versions of those articles or take contrarian angles. If they write ‘5 reasons to do X,’ you write ‘5 reasons NOT to do X.

— Pat Ahern, managing partner at Intergrowth

Step Two in Starting a Blog: Plan Monetization

The monetization plan you choose, that is, how you can earn money from blogging, will determine the content you make and where you publish your content. Because of that, it’s a good idea to at least roughly plan monetization methods before starting your blog.

How To Make Money With Your Blog

There are a lot of different business models to consider when researching how to start and make money with a blog…or vlog. Some work almost exclusively from built-in social media ad programs that depend on traffic levels, others build exclusive sponsorship relationships with a specific brand, some run on affiliate marketing, and still others use their blogs to sell subscriptions to gated content such as fitness tutorials.

Ask yourself what is the purpose of your blog—if it’s just because you love writing, then great. If it’s ultimately going to turn into a shop, then something like WordPress gives you that option, along with platforms such as Gumroad and Kit.com, which support posts as well as having good options for selling. If you want to drive subscriptions and getting email addresses, consider Substack or Medium. Substack has a beautiful flow for getting people to give you their email address, but be sure you’re happy with their subscription options: people can either be a free subscriber or paid (monthly/annual) and get exclusive content.

— Lisa Freeman, founder and CEO at 18a Productions Ltd

Which features you’ll need from your blogging platform will depend on what type of monetization you want to use. Ads and affiliate links are the simplest, but gated content and sales of any sort require payment processors and checkout e-commerce features.

Common monetization methods include:

Affiliate links and ads
Ads
Social media built-in monetization features
Brand sponsorships
Custom app subscriptions
Gated content
Digital product sales such as printables and e-books
Subscriber-only newsletters
Direct merchandise (merch) sales, often branded

Blog Monetization Platforms

For bloggers, monetization platforms save a lot of effort and give you access to brands and audiences who might not give you the time of day otherwise. The two biggest categories are ad networks and affiliates.

Ad network programs such as Google AdSense allow you to sign up to have ads placed on your website. Ads are placed based on your traffic and topic. However, while easy to set up, low-traffic websites attract the lowest-quality ads. Ads such as “one weird trick” or “new law for drivers in (viewer state)” bid pennies for ad placements and are used to fill in anywhere there’s a cheap unused spot.

Affiliate advertising gives you more control over your ads. While you can go directly to a brand to set up an affiliate relationship, most affiliate advertising is handled by affiliate aggregators. These affiliate platforms manage affiliate programs for hundreds of brands, and getting started usually just requires filling out a bit of “about you” data and applying to the brands you are interested in.

Two of the biggest affiliate groups are CJ (formerly Commission Junction) and ShareASale.

I’ve personally used both and never had any issues with payouts.

Step Three in Starting a Blog: Get Your Blog Online

The bare basics of how to create a blog is to create content and upload it to a platform. However, as with most things worth doing, there’s a lot of nuance and surrounding steps involved in getting those two main items done.

Pick a Blogging Platform

Where your blog will call home is important. You can supplement content elsewhere, but you need a primary spot online to act as a hub and host the bulk of your monetization efforts. While a stand-alone hosted blog is most traditional, the rise of social media has created more options for starting out.

The main choices for where your blog will live are social media, a video platform such as YouTube, a third-party publishing platform such as Medium or a stand-alone hosted blog website. Each one has pros and cons, and different ones work better for different goals and styles. However, remember that if you use social media or another third-party platform, you lose a lot of control over what and how you post.

	Startup Costs	Continuing Costs	Monetization Options	Ownership/Control
Video Platform	•	•	•	•
Social Media	•	•	•	•
Third-Party Publishing Platform	•	•	•	•
Blog Website	•	•	•	•

Legend: Best suited for • | Average functions • | Not well suited for •

Whichever platform type you choose, whether it’s one of the reigning best blogging platforms, a budget-saving free blog system or an underdog, match the features as closely to your specific needs as possible.

For example, if you want to offer on-demand gated video workout tutorials, you’ll need to look at a website builder, CMS or a video platform with that option. Likewise, monetizing by brand sponsorship may work on social media, but you can’t place Google ads as you could on your own website.

For a website blog, you’ll need a hosting package. Many prefer a website builder with blogging features, such as Wix offers, because it is hosting and blogging all for one cost. However, WordPress is still the reigning blogging champ and offers more flexibility in hosting and customization. Just keep in mind you’ll need separate WordPress hosting.

Register a Domain Name

Whether you set up a full blog website or work through a third-party platform, registering a custom domain name helps your personal brand recognition and credibility. It also protects the name from being taken by someone else, even if you don’t have a stand-alone website yet. For a blog website, you’ll absolutely need to register a custom domain name as part of setting up hosting.

Many of the best website hosts offer first-year free domain names, but renewal costs may be inflated. All reputable hosts allow you (on packages allowing a custom domain name) to point a domain name you register with a third-party domain registrar without needing to actually transfer the domain to the host.

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how to start your first blog?