Do you love to write? Do you like to share the information you have? Then you will definitely love to learn how to start a blog. Blogging can be your passion and a source of generating passive income.

If you’re looking for an easy, step-by-step guide to learn how to start a blog and make money from it, then you are in the right place.

You’ll learn how to start a blog today in 5 easy steps that will take less than 30 minutes. 

Let’s begin to learn how to start a blog

There are two types of blogs. One is free and another is paid or professional.

Free blog:

You can create your free blog with Blogger or WordPress. But there are certain limitations with a free blog. The free blog comes with a subdomain. For example, www.yourblog.blogger.com or www.yourblog.wordpress.com. You have limited tools to customize your blog as well as there are limitations with monetization policies by Google Adsense. But definitely its a good start to get on this.

Paid (professional) blog:

A professional blog is just like a personal website. So, for that, you will have to register (purchase) a domain. To host your blog, you need to get web hosting. Again, there are free hosting and paid hosting. Free hosting will have many limitations which will not suitable for us. There are many best hosting services and I will let you know about that in this article.

Disclosure: This guide to starting your blog contains some affiliate links. If you purchase any service through one of these links I may earn a small commission, this is at no extra cost to you.

How to start a blog and make money in 5 easy steps

Learn how to start a blog by following these simple steps:

1. Choose your niche and blog’s name
2. Get your blog online (web hosting)
3. Design your blog with a free WordPress theme
4. Write your first blog post
5. Promote your blog and make money

1. Choose your niche and blog’s name

The very first step will be to choose a niche and domain. It’s time to pick a topic for your new blog.

It may be more appropriate to choose the subject you are interested in or the subject in which you are an expert. Your blog’s niche is the general topic that you will be focusing your content around. The topics would be like travel, food, fashion, lifestyle, technology, or any other random topic.

Incorporating a word or a phrase that signals what your content is about, within the name of your blog title (like fashionbyjane.com or watchryanhike.com)—will be very helpful for your blog readers.

The domain is basically the URL of your website. Examples: google.com, Facebook.com. See? Its so simple! Choosing a unique and appropriate domain containing your niche words will help you bring visitors on your blog.

2. Get your blog online (Web hosting)

The second step to start a blog is getting your blog online. That’s where web hosting comes in the picture. In this step, you’ll be selecting the blogging platform and web hosting plan you’ll use to get your blog online.

The platform for blogging & web hosting I use (and most of the other bloggers use) is a WordPress blog, hosted by Hostinger.

Web hosting is the space on the server to store your web files to host your website or blog online.

WordPress is a free CMS (Content Management System) that’s been around since 2003 and now powers more than 60% of all blogs and websites on the Internet.

Hostinger is one of the most established, reliable and fast web hosting services. If you are looking for a budget hosting, Hostinger is the best option. Hostinger is having very competitive and affordable plans for shared hosting. We will be using this combination to start your blog. Now, let’s get your hosting set up.

Another 2 best alternative web hosting services worth considering:

Siteground

I’ve hosted literally dozens of websites on Siteground over the years (and I still do). All similar features like 1-click WordPress install, free SSL certificate and site security aside, one of the biggest pros of going with Siteground compared to other hosting companies is that they offer a true pay-per-month plan that allows you to pay for the cost of your blog hosting each month with no strings attached.

HostGator

The reason that sets HostGator apart from other hosting services is their amazing customer support and the fact that they also offer a true monthly payment plan (which helps if you’re starting your blog on a budget). HostGator ranks amongst the largest hosting companies, now powering over 8 million+ websites around the world, making them a great partner to scale your blog with over time. If you still want to evaluate more of the top blog hosting providers, then head on over to my breakdown of the best web hosting in India for bloggers this year.

3. Design your blog with a free WordPress theme

Designing your WordPress blog is not that difficult as you think though (if you’ve never worked on a blog before), but I promise this won’t get too technical.

I usually choose something that looks professional and pretty easy to customize. WordPress allows you to change themes with just a few clicks. So if you start getting tired of your current blog template, you can just switch to another one without losing any precious content or images.

Here are few of my favorite themes which are free.

Hestia

GeneratePress

OceanWP

Remember, your blog’s design should reflect your niche, but also what the blog is about. The relevancy is important when you use a theme to your blog.

On top of that, it should be easy to navigate if you want people to stick around. If navigation and content are not easy to understand, users will not be engaged. Despite all design is a subjective art; because everyone likes different things.

But no one likes ugly or dirty websites, and people hate websites that are difficult to navigate. Make it easy for them.

There is a wide range of paid themes developed by professionals bundled with tons of plugins and features. But for the time being, it is not necessary to go with paid themes. You can try free WordPress themes.

4. Write your first blog post

Now we have stepped into an important stage of blogging. Before you start to write your first blog post, you must define your target audience. What do they want to know about? How it will resonate with them? What are the expectations? This is where creating your buyer personas comes in handy.

So, your blog should convey the messaging and the information about the subject very easily. There are certain standards or we can say guidelines to create good content. You must use H1, H2, H3 and H4 tags for headlines and titles sequentially. Paragraphs should not be very long and boring. Instead, you can break down your content in short paragraphs. Use of images is also very important. When images are used, people get engaged more with the content. You can add videos also to give a personal touch.

If you want to make money from your blog, you’ll also want to do a bit of research to see if there is a market demand for your niche. What this means is: Are people actively searching for what you are writing about? And can you add value and help them in a way that makes you money? To create a business from your blog, you need to solve a problem for people.

5. Promote your blog and make money

This is an essential step to promote your blog in the progression towards monetizing your content and building a real business of passive income around your blog. Because without a steady flow of visitors coming in each day, week and month—you will not be able to take advantage of monetization on your blog.

Creating highly impactful, useful content is the most important backbone of a successful blog, the bad news is that even if your content is truly the best and unique in your niche—it won’t ever stand a chance at reaching your ideal visitors… if you don’t take efforts on promoting your blog and get to those visitors first.