What if I told you thereâs a new strategy for how to start a blog and make money, thatâs 20X faster, requires no software or technical expertise, and costs absolutely nothing up front? Youâd think there must be some hidden catch, right? But thereâs not. Itâs totally real. In this post, Iâm going to walk you through the newest method for how to start a blog, step-by-step, with screenshots and links to all the resources you need. Letâs jump in⦠Table of ContentsShould You Even Start a Blog in 2019? The Old Way to Create a Blog (And Why It Doesnât Work) Should You Even Start a Blog in 2019?With the dominance of video content on platforms like YouTube and Facebook, you might think the whole idea of blogging is a little⦠out of date. Research tells a different story, though: And itâs not just companies who are getting great results from blogging. It also works well forâ¦
So, letâs say you fall into one of these categories. Should you just install WordPress and get cracking? Actuallyâ no. The Old Way to Create a Blog (And Why It Doesnât Work)A few years ago, I wouldâve said WordPress was the only game in town. Itâs faster, more powerful, and more customizable than anything out there. Thatâs why they power 27% of the sites in the world. The problem? WordPress is also extremely complicated. Hereâs a typical list of tasks for setting up a new site:
If youâre a techie, and youâve done it all before, itâs not a big deal. You can do it all in a few hours. But if youâre a beginner learning how to start a blog for the first time? Itâs overwhelming, and once you see how much there is to learn, youâll probably feel like quitting. If you do push forward, you can spend months or even years stuck in a technical quagmire, just learning how to do everything the right way. Of course, you can always outsource it, but you donât really know what you are doing, your chances of picking the wrong service provider is pretty high. You might get scammed, hacked, or overcharged. And hereâs the really disturbing question: Even if you get your WordPress site set up the right way, what if you discover you chose the wrong market or nobody likes the content you are publishing? It happens all the time. When I was a beginner, I went through three failed blogs before I created one that succeeded. Each time, I spent dozens of hours setting up WordPress, only to discover the blog was never going to work, and I had to start over. If you push forward and set up WordPress without testing your idea first, I pretty much guarantee the same thing will happen to you too. The bottom line: Putting it all together, I think setting up a WordPress site is the worst possible approach for a beginner. Youâre just setting yourself up for failure. Fortunately, after working with thousands of students, Iâve discovered a new method that is much, much easier, not to mention faster, and Iâm going to outline the entire process for you here. How to Start a Blog and Make Money (the New Method)The driving principle behind this new method for how to start a blog is simple: Waste as little effort as possible. If youâre familiar with the thinking behind The Lean Startup by Eric Ries, everything outlined here will intuitively make sense to you. If not, hereâs the idea: Innovation is messy. Anytime you create something new â regardless of whether itâs an app or book or blog â thereâs a huge chance of getting it wrong and having to start over. The problem with blogging? Most people donât know thereâs a huge chance of failure, so they spend months or even years creating a blog that has zero chance of succeeding. Eventually, they realize where they went wrong, and they start over, but again, they invest months or even years into creating a second (or third or fourth) blog that doesnât work. And hereâs the part thatâs tough to swallow: This kind of failure is inevitable. Whenever youâre doing anything new, you will make mistakes and have to start over. It doesnât matter if you are smart, rich, or successful at many other things. The first time you launch a blog, you will fail. Itâs pretty much guaranteed to happen. The good news is, you can dramatically speed up the process. Instead of wasting months or years chasing a bad idea, you can find out if itâs going to work in weeks or even days. In fact, the process Iâm outlining here often destroys a bad idea within minutes. The result? You waste WAY less time. Instead of banging your head against the wall for months or even years before you finally figure everything out, you can adapt quickly and get to the right idea within a matter of weeks or months. Itâs at least 20X faster. Probably more like 100X. So, letâs dive in: #1. Make Sure Your Blog Is Actually Viable (Not All Are)
Important: The ideas in this section are subtle and hard to grasp. Reread it several times, and think about it carefully. We have tested it on thousands of students starting their blogs, and thereâs no question itâs correct, but itâs easy to misinterpret these rules. When in doubt, consult an expert (like us).
Itâs not fun to think about, but if thereâs no chance in hell of your blog succeeding, wouldnât you rather find out right now? Well, sometimes you can. One of the most damaging myths about blogging is the belief that you can start a successful blog targeting anyone, almost as if itâs a one-size-fits-all technology for getting âfree traffic.â But itâs not true. The fact is, blogs are good at getting traffic when targeting specific kinds of audiences, and they are absolutely terrible when targeting others. Itâs also shockingly common to target the wrong audience. Of the thousands of students who come into our courses, more than 95% begin by targeting a poor or nonexistent audience that will never be able to support a successful blog, no matter how much time they put into it, and we have to use this checklist to push them in the right direction. Surprising, right? You probably had no idea there was such a thing as a âbad audience,â but itâs true.
Here are some examples:
To be clear, Iâm not saying you canât target these audiences. Iâm saying blogging is an inefficient way of attracting them. Youâre better off using advertising, public relations, attending conferences, etc. Of course, the obvious question is, âWhy?â Why is it that some audiences are well-suited to blogs and others arenât? Letâs step through the criteria, and I believe it will become more clear. A good audienceâ¦
Interesting, right? And perhaps a bit unsettling? The good news is, a rule disqualifying a bad audience usually suggests the adjustment you need to make. For example, the audience of âparentsâ was disqualified by the rule that a good audience must âshare the same perspective,â but by subdividing the audience down to âmiddle-class mothers of toddlers,â we were able to find a viable audience. Sometimes though, you canât make a topic workable, no matter what you do. In those cases, look at the bright side: you just saved a lot of effort by finding out now rather than after years of trying. But what if your idea for a blog is indeed viable? Well then, itâs time to do a little good old-fashioned espionage! #2. Spy on Popular Blogs to See Whatâs WorkingThankfully, this next step is a lot less painful than the first one. Itâs also much easier to explain. Once youâve verified your blog has potential, you need to study the blogs your audience already reads. For instance, letâs say you want to start a blog for new homeowners. Youâll teach them how to make simple repairs themselves, maximize the value of their home, save money on their mortgage, and so on. After going through the checklist above, you discover it meets all the criteria, and â alakazam, alakazoo â you have a workable blog topic. Whatâs next? Well, the average new homeowner is in their 30s. Many are also parents. Chances are, a lot of them also have at least a passing interest in personal finance. Otherwise, they wouldnât be able to afford a home. So, hereâs what you do: study the top personal finance and parenting blogs. In particular, you need to uncover their most popular content and learn from the patterns you see. Hereâs how:
When you finish, youâll have a list of ideas for blog posts backed by evidence of popularity. While nothing is guaranteed in life, the success of these posts will be far better than anything you might dream up in the shower and decide to write about. As a result, you should have a much easier time outpacing your competitors. But itâs still worth testing a few of them, just to make sure⦠Test Your Ideas for Free on Medium (Not WordPress!)At this point, you might be tempted to grab a hosting account, install WordPress, and start blogging your heart out, but donât. Yes, youâve done some cool research. Yes, your ideas for blog posts are far more likely to succeed. Yes, youâre way ahead of most beginning bloggers. But I hate to break it to ya⦠Thereâs an excellent chance you analyzed all those popular posts from other blogs your audience reads and came to all the wrong conclusions. Before going through all the effort of creating a new blog, I recommend testing your ideas on perhaps the coolest blogging platform out there right now: If youâve never heard of it, Medium is the brainchild of Ev Williams, the geeky and brilliant co-founder of Twitter. He created it to become the largest, easiest to use blogging platform in the world, and heâs managed to attract over 30 million monthly readers, as well as celebrity writers like Matthew McConnaughhay and James Altucher. And hereâs the really cool part: you can write on Medium and get the chance to have your writing exposed to its 30 million readers, free of charge. Hereâs how:
Now, hereâs the big question: How do you know youâre ready to switch over to WordPress? Should you target a certain number of claps? Shares? Comments? Actually, none of the above. In my opinion, none of those really mean much. Youâre much better off paying attention to your outreach success rate. You see, influencers are an excellent judge of content. If you can convince 20% of the blogs you email to share your post, and you can hit at least 20% on three different posts, I believe youâre ready to start your own blog. If your outreach success rate hits 20%, thereâs also an excellent chance at least one of your posts will end up featured on Medium, either on one of the interests or maybe even the front page, driving thousands upon thousands of new readers to your post. Again, not only will that help you build your audience, but itâs an excellent indication youâre on the right track, and itâs time to branch off on your own.
Note: If youâre familiar with the Lean Startup, the approach weâre following here is similar to the idea of an MVP (Minimum Viable Product). Instead of creating a product though, you are creating the minimum amount of content necessary to test your post ideas.
Get a Clear (Not Clever!) Domain NameSo, lots of influencers are sharing your post on Medium, and youâre itching to crank up your own site and snag some of that traffic? Cool. Letâs just take it one step at a time, and the first step is getting a clear domain name. Put yourselves in the shoes of the visitor. Youâre browsing the web, and you see a headline for a blog post that catches your attention. Maybe a friend on Facebook shared it with you, maybe it came up on a Google search, or maybe itâs just a link in another article youâre reading. Regardless, you click the link, and consciously or not, youâre asking yourself a single question as you browse through it⦠âIs this for me?â Within a few seconds, you have to decide whether to keep reading the post or move on to something else, and the only way youâll stay is if itâs relevant to you. Not just the post, either. When youâre deciding, youâll take in the design of the page, other post headlines, and, yes, the domain name. For example, consider Entrepreneur.com. Is there any doubt who the site is for? Entrepreneurs, of course! How about MakeaLivingWriting.com? Obviously, itâs for people who want to make a living as a writer. Neither names are clever, but they help you decide to stay or go by clearly articulating who they are helping. Thatâs what a good domain name does. Of course, all the great domain names are taken, right? Not necessarily. Here are three different methods for finding the perfect domain name for your site:
My suggestion: Use these three strategies to make a list of 10-20 domain names youâd be happy having. You can write them out in a word processor, or if you want to get fancy, you can use a tool like NameStation to generate a lot of ideas at once. Once youâre finished brainstorming, head over to a site like NameCheap to see if they are available. Click âBulk Searchâ in the search box and paste in your domain names to check them all at once. Sometimes you get lucky, and one of your favorites is available. If not, you either have to head back to the drawing board for another brainstorming session, or you can go to a premium domain name marketplace like Sedo. Either way, one word of advice: Donât get hung up on your domain name. While itâs certainly helpful to have a good one, there are thousands of hugely popular sites with terrible domain names no one understands. In other words, itâs not really a âmake or breakâ factor for your site. Give yourself a few days or maybe a week to brainstorm ideas, and then make a decision, because once you have your domain name, you are ready to⦠Switch Over to WordPressYou knew we had to run into some technical stuff sooner or later, right? Well, here it is. Thereâs no code, complicated software to install or anything like that, but there are a lot of little steps you need to follow in exactly the right order. Itâs not too bad, though, I promise. You can do everything here in about an hour, and I have step-by-step guides to walk you through every little detail. Letâs get startedâ¦
Set Up WordPress the Right WayThe great thing about having a self-hosted WordPress site is youâre in total control. You can change how it looks, what functionality it has, improve its performance, and almost anything else you can imagine. The problem? Complete control also comes at a cost: complexity. There are thousands upon thousands of themes and hundreds of thousands of plug-ins to choose from, and you can easily lose weeks or even months of your life wading through them all and trying to figure out whatâs best for you. So, Iâm going to take a minimalist approach here. Rather than giving you a huge list of things to do, Iâm reducing it down to the absolute minimum, and Iâll even recommend some specific themes and plug-ins. Before we begin though, let me be clear about one thing: Your content matters more than anything else. You can have a site thatâs ugly, clunky, and slow, but if you have great content, youâll still get a lot of traffic. Not the opposite, though. You can have the most beautiful, user-friendly website online, but if the content sucks, nobody will give a damn about you. So, donât allow yourself to get lost in these details. Focus on making your website functional, and then you can always come back and make it unique or beautiful later. That said, here are some different options to consider: The Simplest Option: Elegant Themes
Cost: $89 per Year
You might wince a little at the annual price, but the advantage of Elegant Themes is they give you everything you need in one package:
Now, is every piece of it the best? No. In fact, I donât think they are the best in any single category. But the combination of everything put together makes it far easier to get started. The design is also top-notch. Thatâs why theyâve become the most popular theme company on the market with over 400,000 paying customers. The bottom line: If youâre looking for a simple, stable solution that will last you for years and doesnât require a âtech guyâ to get up and running, Elegant Themes is the way to go. The Free Option: A Hodgepodge of Stuff
Cost: Zero
So⦠what if you canât really afford to spend any money on your blog? What should you do then? The answer: Cobble together a hodgepodge of free stuff into a workable site. Hereâs what I would do: The downside? Sumo will only last until you hit 500 subscribers, and then you have to either switch to something else or start paying a rather high monthly fee to stay with them. You also have to update everything separately, and youâll have far less support if anything breaks. To me, those are some pretty big downsides, and I really wouldnât recommend it, but sometimes you donât have any other choice. If thatâs the case, give it a try. A Quick Word about CachingRegardless of which option you choose, youâll want to install a caching plug-in before you start getting too much traffic (100+ visitors per day). The two most popular options are plug-ins called WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache. If youâre looking for simplicity, I recommend WP Super Cache. You can install it, and youâre done. Hereâs a video where a guy gets everything set up in three minutes: Later, when youâre getting 10,000+ visitors per month, you might think about getting a tech guy who really knows the ins and outs of either plug-in to configure it for you. It really helps, but itâs not worth the trouble or expense for a new blog.
Important: If you end up going with Siteground (affiliate link), as I recommended above, they have their own caching plug-in, and it only takes about a minute to set up. Hereâs a tutorial that walks you through it.
Grow to $1,000 per Month (And Beyond)In the immortal words of Harry Connick Junior⦠Up to this point, youâve published posts on Medium until itâs clear people love what you write, you switched over to your self-hosted WordPress site, and now you are up and ready for the world. So, hereâs the big question: When does the money start rolling in? After all, thatâs the point of all this, right? Well⦠good news and bad news. The good news is youâve done the hard part. By far, the hardest part of building a popular blog is writing posts other people enjoy reading. Nothing else even comes close. The bad news? Thatâs just the beginning. Now that your blog is up and running, you have to learn the ins and outs of getting traffic, building your email list, and monetizing your site. Even if you have top-notch writing skills, itâll still take you at least 3-6 months to figure all that out. But think about it this way⦠Nothing worth doing is quick or easy. Personally, I was a slow learner, and it took me three years to reach $1,000 a month. Thatâs a long time, right? Well, two years after that, we crossed $100,000 per month, and weâve never looked back. So yeah, itâs hard work, but Iâd say itâs worth it. Letâs go through some other common questionsâ Frequently Asked QuestionsHow do I start a blog for free?WordPress.com and Medium.com both have free options. Of the two, we recommend Medium, because they feature the best content from writers, and if you get featured, it can send you a ton of traffic. But the truth? Starting a blog is never free. Even if you donât spend any money, youâll be investing lots and lots of your time, and thatâs worth something. Donât forget about that. How do you start a blog to make money?Your best bet is to blog in a niche where lots of other bloggers are already making money. For example, the marketing, personal finance, and self-improvement niches can all be very profitable. If your goal is to start a blog to make money, those are the least risky options. But what if you donât want to blog about those topics? You donât have to. You can theoretically make money blogging about anything, assuming the audience a) trusts you and 2) frequently spends money on products and services related to your blog topic. You can either make money blogging as an affiliate or selling your own products and services. What should I make a blog about?It depends on your motivations. If you want to make money, you should probably start blogging in a well-known space with lots of traffic and buyers, and then stand out by offering exceptionally good content for free. For more on what it takes to choose a popular blog topic, read this post on what to blog about. How do I get my blog noticed?Getting noticed is about three things:
Lots of people obsess over getting the links from influential people, but the truth is, thatâs relatively easy if your content is really the best. Focus on that, and then tactics like these will help it rise to the top. How much does a beginning blogger make?If youâre working for another company, you can make as much as $50,000 per year. Professional content marketers get paid very well. On the other hand, most beginning bloggers are hobbyists. They tinker around in their spare time and seldom make much. If you do commit to blogging over the long-term, and you start a truly popular blog, you can make millions. Itâs a long road, and most people fail, but itâs worked out well for me. The Bottom Line on How to Start a BlogJust getting your blog off the ground is the hardest part. It might take you a few months or even a few years to build up momentum. And you might feel a little dumb for investing so much time to it, but then that momentum builds and builds and builds, and you wake up one morning to the stupefying yet delicious realization that youâll never have to worry about money again. Thatâs what happened to me. Might happen to you too, now that youâve learned how to start a blog. At the end of the day though, thereâs only one way to find out: Get started and see what happens.
About the Author: Jon Morrow is the CEO of Smart Blogger. Check out his new blog Unstoppable and read the launch post that went viral: 7 Life Lessons from a Guy Who Canât Move Anything but His Face.
The post How to Start a Blog (and Make Money) in 2019: 20X Faster Method appeared first on Smart Blogger. from https://smartblogger.com/how-to-start-a-blog/
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ABOUT MEHello I am Claude 32 years old. I have been doing internet marketing for 7 years and successfully running 3 e-commerce stores. I like to share tips with people aobut online business. Archives
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