How to Easily Start Make Money Blogging Online in 7 Days

Do you know I can still remember when I ever wrote my first blog post and created my first blog site – I must reveal this to you – It was in the year 2007 while I was residing with my parents somewhere in Kumasi, Ghana. Honestly, I had little or no knowledge about blogging.

I never even knew “what is a blog” “how to start a blog” or “How to set up a blog”.I was blank in these matters, although, I had heard stories of BlogSpot and WordPress, as well as how an individual will start a blog for free and start making a living out of it.

When I first started, I was curious about the money that people talked about online through blogging. However, I never made an effort to comprehend or educate myself about it.

I just wanted to get involved in blogging and never considered knowing how it works, how the people who are successful in it do it.

I just wanted to make money blogging… Period, I searched the internet and found a blogging community called WordPress. I was so excited as I thought, “yeah, I have found the money-making machine”

I created an account with WordPress for free and starting Blogging with WordPress. Moreover, one thing I enjoyed in the process as a beginner was that the website was organised such that new users who want to start a blog for free are guided in a step-to-step manner on how to create a blog website.

 

After I successfully created an account with WordPress, the next thing that came into my mind was “How do I make a blog on WordPress so I will begin to make instant cash”.See! As at that time, I had accumulated many debts, I had pressing bills to settle, and I was young and in the University of Ghana.

 

Though I was young and in school, I desired to gain full financial freedom, whereby, I won’t depend financially on my parents including others. I had big plans, great desires and always wanted to live it essential no matter the place or circumstances I find myself.

Furthermore, I have just heard useful reports about blogging and have seen the proof and evidence of how people are making money blogging. How even blogging has turned many into celebrities, and they are out there commanding a lot of fame and wealth.

 

All the stories and testimonies of how an individual can make money blogging, become wealthy, influential, famous and impactful to his environment and society caught up my mind. I was so determined to begin as quickly as I could with the little or no information in my hands.

 

At the moment, I had created a free blog, and I didn’t know the best way to blog, but I had to write a blog even without reading a beginners guide for blogging to see how I was so desperately in haste of making quick money with my blog.

 

Allow me please, as I want to partially pause my blogging story so I can tell you something you need to know first before you start a blogging business.

 

You need to know what a blog is. I was never opportune to know this on time, and I happened to learn this, after much trials and errors. When I found out this, it served as a good and solid foundation for me to grow in learning, practising and having a high performance in my blogging business. Without wasting much time, I will teach you what a blog means.

 

WHAT IS A BLOG

A blog is a piece of writing presented on the internet as a post. It’s a journal or online diary where someone posts updates about their daily life. (Effective Communication and Writing Skills, 2012)

Blogging is now a well-celebrated art and has attained an important position as a form of writing. And a blog post can narrate events of all works of life and various topics are shared through a blog post from narrow topics to wide topics.

A blog is not like newspaper articles. It allows for interaction and is a form of social networking.

So, when I learnt this information about what it means to blog, this gave me an edge in blogging as I knew what I was doing.

In fact, knowing what a blog truly means made me understand properly what I was doing and opened that door of the easiest way to make a blog and the whole blogging became easy for me.

Of course, I will be teaching and sharing with you in this tutorial of how to start a blog – including tips, tricks, advice, secrets, guide, and wisdom of how to create and grow your blog, and get it secured and noticed.

You don’t need to worry or bother about anything, whether or not, you are a beginner or you have been blogging with no success.

This tutorial of how to start a blog is for you and it’s going to guide you step-by-step on every vital thing you need to know to become a successful and prosperous blogger.

In blogging, there are some vital things you need to know that you can easily over-looked, but when you put those vital things together, you can start to make huge income through your blog.

I will tell you the truth, even though most people pretend or like to hide their hidden motives in doing anything. For a person like me, what motivates me to do anything or start anything in life are two main things –

First, I love to be the change and solution in people’s lives, that is one of the reasons I run free social media training in my house for people who want to learn to promote their products on social media

Second, I love to be productive in whatever I do as much as I want to get a good reward or make a good profit.

I believe anything that does not make a profit (or give a reward) to me or anyone, is not worth sharing to others as it will not be beneficial to them.

Before I share any information or teach you a thing, I will make sure it has solved a problem for me before I can recommend it to you. It has to be tested, trusted and proven by me.

This is the way I can transform and impact you and the world we are leaving in – which is sharing solutions to every issue of life.

 

Constantly on the news, I see and hear about the high rate of unemployment in the world especially in Africa, Asia, Europe and so on.

As I’m touched, I keep saying that an individual should not rely on the government or even on anyone either it be a company or whatever. We should all be self-employed, be creative and put our skills to earn money, literally earn money online.

On the internet, blogging is among the various ways you can earn a living, it has become a more lucrative business than ever, which makes it an opportunity for you to make more money for yourself.

As you read this text, I will introduce you to many tips for starting a blog and turning it into a money-making-machine – it’s just a matter of patience and commitment.

Since blogging has become a tool for making money, there are many things one can use blogging for; Products, businesses, individuals, ideas are now being advertised and promoted through a blog.

That is to say, either your blog is making money for you from the advertisement or your blog is selling a product or service. So all ways around, it is blogging that can solve that financial deficit you are experiencing.

Blogging can keep you self-employed, its blog that can top that little income your boss is paying which is not enough to cater for your financial needs.

Now, I will be teaching you about types of blogs so you can know the one that suite you.

As I told you early on, blogging is something anyone can do, as you could see when I started a blog there was no much information online on how to make a blog for beginners or how to start a blog site for free.

I learned about blogging while starting a blog page at that time, there were no tips for beginning bloggers as I have prepared this tutorial to help you in the process of making the best of blogging.

Just know this, even if you are a novice in creating a blog now, as you proceed in learning this tutorial, you will know how to start up your own blog and how to start up a great blog as well.

So, therefore, this brings us to my earlier said subtopic “Types of blogs” which I will elaborate on the various types of blogs beneath here.

How are you doing so far ? …Are you with me ?

 

TYPES OF BLOG

There are various types of blogs. However, it is interesting to know blog-types on the internet are many and time would not allow me to discuss all here but I will talk about some of the popular blogs.

And I assure you this, that as soon as I start to list them for you below and explain about them, you will find a type of blog to fit in.

In other words, you will find a type of blog you are comfortable with and eventually start a blog now just as I did with little or no knowledge about making a blog page. Here you go, friend!

 

Fashion Blog:

Fashion blog covers clothing, lifestyle and fashion industries. This type of blog is good for fashion lovers as they talk on topics relating to fashion such as clothing, accessories, beauty tips, the trend in fashion and design industries, celebrity fashion style and street fashion.

You don’t need to be in the fashion industry for you to be able to start this type of blog, what you need is for you to be passionate about fashion. You can start this blog by sharing your own style of fashion to your audience.

You need to find your niche, find what you are really good at in the fashion world. Are you good at sophisticated or simple dressing, are you good at sharing fashion advice or are you good at talking about what is the latest trend in fashion? Whatever area you are good at, you can start a fashion blog from there.

Many fashion lovers are looking for fashion tips and ideas in order to improve on their fashion life – even celebrities. There is a general saying that the way you dress so you would be addressed. People are more concerned about your outward look, so you need to dress properly in other to appear well in front of others.

Because everyone wants to be updated in the fashion trend, they have found interest in the fashion blog. A fashion blog is the online version of a fashion magazine. Just every topic a fashion magazine will discuss, a fashion blog has a better version of it.

Having a fashion blog could open the door for many opportunities to you, it stands as a platform for you to easily become a celebrity, you could easily be called for interviews, and given contracts by various fashion industries.

As a fashion blogger, you can convert your audience into potential buyers of your fashion items. Most fashion industries run a fashion blog to promote their products and services.

As I was saying, know that fashion blog covers everything that relates to fashion and if you are interested in having a fashion blog, all you need to do is to identify a niche and choose the aspect of fashion that you know that you are comfortable with, and finally exercise your authority on it.

It is highly required that a fashion blog should be appealing and attractive to one’s eyes just as a fashion magazine because fashion blog is about beauty and aesthetic.

Truly speaking, clear and sharp photos are so much required to accompany your story in fashion blogs as readers find it more interesting and appealing to their senses.

Examples of fashion blogs are:

1. (Glam)https://www.glam.com
2. (Pink is the New Blog) https://pinkisthenewblog.com

Still talking about fashion blog, know that you can run a fashion blog if you are working in the fashion industry or if you are not working in the fashion industry or if you are either an individual or company. It does not really matter your status, all that it takes to have a fashion blog is your drive and passion for fashion.

 

News blog

News blog is becoming more popular day by day as people have become to depend on blog based news. Unlike before, when people were depending on TV news and doubting the reliability and authenticity of blog news.

Even as at now, due to the business nature of the world and the widespread of information, most people find it easy getting their favorite kind of news from a specific blog because this kind of News that the new channel will ignore, bloggers will post such on their blog.

So, News blog has the capacity to carry every kind of news ranging from common news to top news to their audience.

If you want to run a blog like this, you should be prepared in all ways. I can see that most news blog copy same news and change title. But this method will not really work with the Google search engine.

Google hates blogs carrying copied contents (news), so my advice for you, is a start a blog that will carry original news within your reach. Find a niche, and start a news blog within your area of influence and be consistent in it.

It is good to know that there are many visitors out there looking for that original and unique news you have posted on your blog. Hence, google search will help you promote your new blog to its users when your news blog carries original contents that are not against the terms of Google Search.

Another way is that you can start a news blog that you will include your opinion or comments on other published news, it will just be in the form of a news reviews website. Many of your audience will appreciate such news website as it will give you that opportunity to write original contents for Google to display for their search users.

Example of news blog

1. (The Guardian) guardian.ng
2. (Punch News) www.punchng.com

 

Food blog

Food blog carries posts of varieties of foods, beverage and/or drinks as well as their pictures, description, recipes, ingredients, cooking steps etc. It is a “how to” kind of blog that shows varieties of foods and/or drinks to visitors and how to prepare them, ranging from local dishes to continental.

In fact, everyone is a food lover, so everyone one will love a food blog at a glanced. It shares a lot of diverse foods and/or drinks of various cultures and gives cooking tips to readers.

If you cook regularly or work in a restaurant, all you need to do is a take appetizing pictures of the meals, write a short description on the meals, write the list of ingredients used to prepare the meal, and write the steps involved and timeframe for cooking it.

For sure, when you post these high-quality foods pictures and their preparation stories, many audiences will find such information useful for their choice of next meal or follow your cooking guide to prepare theirs.

Don’t forget that when you are writing a blog on food or drink, there will come to a time that you will have to experiment cooking a new meal and post it to your audience to try for themselves. It’s all about creativity and uniqueness.

So, a food blog is all about showing your audience various kind of foods, drinks or beverages along with the steps for preparation. You should be able to prepare a different kind of dishes or you can start with the type of food you prepare in your home or workplace.

Example of a food blog:

1. (Tasty Kitchen) https://tastykitchen.com
2. (Whipped) http://whippedtheblog.com

As a restaurant, it is very good to start a food blog as you will be able to share most of the food you cook for your customers on your food blog to grow your audience and also promote your restaurants as well.

This does not limit food blog to only restaurant owners, but as many individuals who are passionate about food can share various meals to their audience and it is also a good technique to try to post food on your blog that meets the needs of your audience.

 

Personal Blog

Now, you might be saying, If I have a personal blog, what will I blog about? A personal blog is like starting a private blog where you write things about your life.

But the difference between a private blog and Personal blog is that: the private blog is like a blog diary of yourself or team, restricted to only yourself or a particular small team or group while the personal blog is about sharing yourself, your lifestyle, your experience to the public or your visitors to read and relate their lives to it.

A personal blog can be used as a medium to motivate, encourage and educate your audience on various lifestyle. Many personal bloggers are able to fulfill these by sharing their life stories and experience along with their thoughts and ideas.

The personal blog is not restricted to a topic, unlike other types of blog, you can write on anything from travel to science or anything you desire to write about.

In a personal blog, you are allowed to share your own view of the world, how you see things, what you like and dislike, your needs, wants etc. You can also share your daily story, life experience to your audience.

Having a blog about your life, you can capture a lot of audience with powerful and heartfelt stories of your life and people around you and later turn your blog into a source of income.

Examples of personal blogs are:

1. (Krista Gray) http://www.kristagray.com
2. (Red Russak) http://redrussak.com

You can go through this personal blog to see how it is so you will know how to begin writing a blog based on the examples of personal blogs I have shared with you.

 

Music blog:

On Google, I wanted to know the most popular blog, so I used the Google “Average Month Search”, and searching by “type”, I selected blog. I found out that Fashion blog is highly searched, followed by Food blog, then Travel blog and Beauty blog.

On the result, Music blog was the fifth most popular blog website. So, one can be wondering “why music? Music is something that keeps you happy and joyful, as they say, it is the medicine to the soul.

So, if you have a blog where you can share everything that has to do with music and entertainment or share some aspect of it according to the niche you have chosen. Then you can draw a lot of visitors to your blog as far as you are unique and stand out in your own niche.

I have seen various popular music blog that shares lyrist of various popular music to local music, while some music blog gives their visitors the opportunity to download music to their gadgets online.

So you can create a blog website for music and begin to share your passion for music to your audience. When you have gathered some audience, you can start advertising on your blog or selling products on your blog to generate revenue.

Later, in this tutorial, I will teach you on how you can monetize your blog i.e. converting your visitors into revenue.

Before I talk about the next type of blog, let me share with you examples of music blogs so you can look upon it in your browser. And you’ll know how you can create a new blog on music.

Examples of music blogs

1. (Pitch Fork) https://pitchfork.com
2. (Tiny Mix Tapes) https://www.tinymixtapes.com

Know that to have your own blog is to be creative and smart, and it is also knowing the area you are good at and how to present it to your audience, in a way that they will appreciate it. Blogging is about given your visitors what they need and about making them happy.

 

Travel blog

It is the 4th most popular blog according to the way users search for travel blog on google. It is a blog that you don’t need any qualification to start.

When you have created a travel blog site, what you need to start a blog post is your traveling experience. You have to be a traveler to run this type of blog site and share your traveling experience to your audience.

The kind of experience you can share about your travel journey varies from personal experience to general experiences, experiences that interacted with you on your journey along with high-quality pictures of every place you visited.

As a traveler, you can make money while travelling. Travel bloggers have many ways of making money once they have been able to gather a considerable number of visitors.

Many Hotels and countries can invite them and lodge them for free so that these bloggers can share their good experience while in the hostel or that particular country to their audience. You can also sell materials such as travel guide, ticket etc to your audience.

As a travel blogger, every travel experience you have, and the material collected while travelling can be turned to an instrument to making wealth. As travel blogger have greater chances of gaining contracts all over the world.

Examples of Travel blogs.

1. (Travel Episodes) http://en.travelepisodes.com
2. (12 hrs) https://www.12hrs.net

Look at these two travel blogs, see how you will be able to do yours and I want you to be inspired to do yours.

One secret of bloggers is that they are good storytellers of events and incidence. Every travel journey they encounter, they will be able to tell it to their audience in a way that will interest their readers to enjoy such experience as the bloggers had shared.

 

Beauty Blog

Beauty blog tells a lot of tips and trick about makeup, skincare, haircare, and other fashion stuff. So, beauty blog passes this information across to their viewers and readers with high-quality pictures of beauty products.

The easiest way to make your blog about beauty post very successful is for you to find out what you are passionate about, what you are good at in the beauty world, what makes you unique and how you can inspire your audience with your passion.

For instance, you are good at applying make-up to enhance your facial appearance in a unique and distinct way. And whenever people see the facial looks, they admire you and tell you to teach them the secret.

I tell you now, start a beauty blog and make yourself up and try to get a high-quality photo of your makeup pictures, tell a story about it and post it on your blog and promote on your social network as well.

Your friends and new visitors will begin to follow you, visit your blog. And one thing about a beauty blog is that you need to invest your time posting contents on various topics according to the niche you choose on a regular basis.

As time goes on, different beauty and cosmetic companies will begin to give you their products for free so you can review or talk about them on your blog site. In that way, you’ll have to get products free from various companies without spending a dime.

As a beauty blogger, you can make money selling your own tutorial on beauty, selling other companies beauty products, sponsored ads, or you can promote your own brand or services with your own beauty blog.

Examples of beauty blog

1. (The Beauty Look Book) http://thebeautylookbook.com
2. (Lisa Eldridge) http://www.lisaeldridge.com

To be a successful beauty blogger you need inspiration from other top beauty blogs and bloggers, and also know that if you are just starting a beauty blog, you can go some beauty industries and tell them that you have started a new beauty blog and that if they have sample products to give you so you could review them on your beauty blog. Different successful beauty blog started that way!

 

LIST OF SUCCESSFUL BLOGGERS

I will make this clear, that as a beginner, you can make it to this level of success or even greater, you just have to know that the list of people I will mention here who have been a success and a role model to other bloggers did not get there overnight.

They all started from somewhere, which is the place you are starting now, but one thing that made them stand out is that they sold themselves to blogging – they are totally committed to blogging.

It is also important to know that they did not start as professional writers, they improved on their writing skills due to consistent writing, reading and learning from feedbacks of concerned readers.

If they could make it to this level, I challenge you today that you can do betters, you just have to choose a niche where your passion is because these successful bloggers did not give up to challenges because they blog what they love.

I will also advise you to look at their blog to see what they are doing and it will also act as an inspiration to you. Many successful bloggers became successful by following other successful bloggers around their niche.

 

1. Name: John Lee Dumas

Niches: Entrepreneurship, online business, and podcasting

Annual income: $210,291

Source of Revenue: John makes his revenue from products/services, affiliate income, and advertising.

URL: www.eofire.com

 

1. Name: Pat Flynn

Niches: Entrepreneurship, online business, and podcasting

Annual Income: $167,553.31

Source of Revenue: Pat also makes his revenue from products/services, affiliate income, and advertising.

URL: www.smartpassiveincome.com

 

1. Name: Lindsay Ostrom

Niches: food, photography, and cooking

Annual Income: $95,1797.34

Source of Revenue: Lindsay also makes his revenue from recipes post, affiliate income, and advertising.

URL: www.pinchofyum.com

 

1. Name: Justin Weinger

Niche: Internet marketing

Annual Income: $87,441.32

Source of Revenue: Justin also makes his revenue from internet marketing, affiliate income, and advertising.

URL: www.soOverThis.com

 

1. Name: Michelle Gardner

Niche: Frugal lifestyle and savings

Annual Income: $78,541.54

Source of Revenue: she makes money from multiple strings of income and her blog generate huge revenue from products/services, affiliate, and advertising.

URL: www.makingsenceofcents.com

So, I will want you to also check their blog with the information I have shared to you about this successful blogger that earn a huge sum of money on a yearly basis. After you have checked that, we can move to the next topic, Tools for Blogging.

 

 

TOOLS FOR BLOGGING

Just the way a farmer will need tools to work on his farm, it’s the same way a blogger will need tools for blogging.

I will share with you some of the important tools you need, to become a successful blogger like the successful bloggers I mentioned earlier on.

 

Blogging Platforms

You may ask, what is a blogging platform? It is a content management system in the form of a blog that allows you to create and publish your content online. However, it is a software or service you need for your blog. With a blogging platform, you won’t need to hire a website builder to create your blog afresh.

And know that there are both free and paid blogging platform. The choice of which to use should depend on the purpose you want to create your blog.

If you are looking for a blog for the sole reason to pass your content across to your audience, I suggest you go for a free blogging service, but if you want to use your blog for commercial purposes so you can make money through it, you should go for a self-hosted blog from WordPress.

There are two types of WordPress which are WordPress.com and WordPress.org. WordPress.com has all the provisions and services for free blogging platform while wordpress.org have the software and plugin and hosting for the paid blogging platform.

One striking difference between both is that WordPress.org have more advanced features and services that will make your blog a top tech blog and you can purchase all the essential plugins and add-ons to meets the aim of your blog.

Though, I will discuss other blogging software or platform you can use to create a new blog. So, for the sake of this tutorial and other benefits I recommend you should use the WordPress blogging platform.

Here is the List of blogging platforms that can serve for your own blog site

 

WordPress

WordPress is a highly demanded Content Management Service (CMS) for the use of the creation of both websites and blog. Its services are used in the creation of 70 million websites which account for about 30% of the website on the Worldwide Web.

The reason why WordPress is the most preferred and widely used among other Blogging Platform will be discussed after now along with the comparison of other blogging platforms.

 

WordPress Vs Wix

Flexibility: WordPress is an open source software which gives access to other coder or developers to edit their software and create plugins and add-on for others to download and install on their WordPress platform for free or paid.

The benefits of this is that you have access to thousands of plugins and add-ons to enhance the features and capability of your blog site, but the con is that because WordPress give access to every programmer, so anyone with little knowledge can create plugins and add-on which may be poor in quality and not good for your blog.

So one has to examine all plugins and add-ons first before use as some few numbers of them are junks.

Wix is a website that provides its blogging platform for paid and free users. Just that the paid version covers hosting plan. WordPress is free but as you continue to upgrade and it will attract other paid inclusive such as the cost for some themes, plugins, and add-ons.

Wix has a considerable number of plugins and add-ons but not as much as WordPress. One good thing about Wix plugins is that they are perfectly tested and screened by their management team before they are made available for use.

If you are creating a blog and you have a broader perspective of your blog, using WordPress will be preferable and match your long term goal as it is more flexible to advancement and change.

I will share other factors to compare both WordPress and Wix

Security – Wix seems to be more secure than WordPress as all the Softwares and plugin available on Wix are thoroughly double-checked by their team but as for WordPress their Plugins and Add-ons are sometimes done by inexperienced programmers which might lead to malfunctioning in your blog. So, it is good to thoroughly sift through all themes, plugins on WordPress before use.

Easy to Use – WordPress is a more powerful software than Wix, due to its complexity, Wix is easier to use but WordPress is more SEO friendly.

Ongoing Maintenance – Both have good maintenance habit but WordPress is more like a community, so it gives access to a wide number of developers involved in the maintenance and advancement of the blogging platform.

Support – the customer support of WordPress and Wix are good and are very helpful in tacking every issue you are experiencing.

Cost – WordPress blog can be started with a lesser budget than Wix.

 

WordPress Versus Joomla

Both WordPress and Joomla are Content Management system. Joomla will be a good suggestion for pro-like programmers, who have deeper skills in programming a blogging platform.

Joomla is more flexible than WordPress. But in terms of security, Joomla is stronger but other factors like SEO friendliness, Easy to use, Ongoing maintenance, Customer service, WordPress is highly rated.

When I say Joomla is stronger in security than WordPress, I don’t mean the WordPress is not secured. It just that when you use WordPress, you should take time to examine each Plugin or Theme before you use on your blog. You should examine the themes and plugins based on the reputation of the developer, the reviews and the compatibility.

So, when you put everything together, I mean the pros and cons of WordPress and Joomla, WordPress is still a better choice for your blog than Joomla.

 

WordPress versus Drupa

I want you to know that both WordPress and Drupa are open-source Content Management System (CMS). Drupa has long been before WordPress. The two of them have their Prons and Cons.

Flexibility – they are both flexible but WordPress can be set up easily but as for Drupa, you will need to hire a programmer to help you reprogram or set up your blog. WordPress has more plugins and add-ons compared to Drupa which will help you to customize your blog in the way you want it.

Easy to Use – when you try to compare both WordPress and Drupa on the bases of which is easy to use, most users or programmers will find it difficult to tells.

But when we put into consideration that WordPress is more user intuitive, and the fact that anyone can easily build a blog with WordPress platform and its creation and installation processes are made in such a step to step manner.

Then WordPress wins but in the aspect of security, Drupa wins.

And that does not mean that WordPress can’t be made secure, WordPress gives you access to a lot of security add-ons that can help fortify the security of your blog site. You have to take precaution as you choose a security add-on as I have discussed before.

WordPress has a better Support as it has a large community which can help you in tackling any issue you encounter in your WordPress blog. If we are talking about the attentiveness and friendliness of the companies customer care, I will say both Drupa and WordPress have 5 stars in that.

Ongoing Maintenance – Both Drupa and WordPress provide adequate ongoing maintenance to their users. One thing about Drupa is that most of the plugins and addon are inbuilt while that of WordPress are open.

You will need the help of a coder to perform certain updates and upgrade on your Drupa blog but WordPress requires little or no help from programmers, you can install plugins and addon to upgrade your blog on your own ability.

Conclusively, when you sum all factors together such price, user friendliness, easy to use, security, SEO compatibility, supports, ongoing maintenance. WordPress will always be a prepared choice to every new blogger and it is also powerful and cost-effective

 

KEYWORD RESEARCH

This is a common question, many new bloggers ask till date. What is keyword research? Actually, keyword research is when you know what users are searching for on search engine.

So when you know the kind of contents, products and service users are searching for along with the particular keywords they are using on Search engines, then you will be able to be aware of what your target visitors really need and structure your contents based on what they are searching for so as to increase your blog traffic.

Some bloggers say that they can be able to discern the content idea or topic idea that visitors really need and write a topic for their blog based on that.

I tell you, that you can get it wrong because there is no content idea that is compared to data-based researches of keywords that users are actually typing on search engines to get what they are looking for.

So, I will introduce to you the powerful software that can accurately tell you what keywords users are using on search engines, the rate the keywords are used, and competitors also using those keywords.

Having such accurate data will help you create content that matches what your target visitors are actually looking for, and also, you will be able to know your competitors that are using that same keyword and write better content than your competitors.

No content creator or SEO expert has underestimated the use of Keyword research as a technique of creating contents that will grow their audience easily.

Do you know what? Search engine help to match the words their search users type on their search with the contents having that same pattern of words (keyword) their search users typed in their search engine.

By that, search engines will be able to match the keywords users type on search and match with other blogs or websites having that same keyword so as to provide the relevant blog that has what the users are searching for on the search engine.

Though, search engines put other factors into consideration as they match what their users are searching for, with blog contents or websites. The way to keep a good reputation with these search engines is to provide unique and high-quality contents according to google search engine policy.

Being able to know what keywords that search users are using to find contents, products, and services. It will give you an insight into how you will write your blog to meet the needs of your targeted search users.

On that account, to make your blog content effective and easily found on search engines your will also include those keywords search users are using to find the information they want on the search engine.

When you do this, the search engine will easily present your blog on search results when search users keywords match the same keywords you included in your contents.

Note that keyword is a pattern of words typed in by search users to find an item or information with search engines. Search engines relate the words typed in on their search engine with the list of blog sites or websites that have those words in their contents and present the results to users to choose from.

This will help search engines match your blog with what their users are searching for and display your blog on the search results for their users to access your blog contents.

So, this is where high-quality contents come in because Google will not only suggest your blog to the search users but along with your competitors that have the same keywords in their contents which the search user has Googled.

So, if your contents have better quality than your competitors’ blog or website suggested by Google or other search engines, then the users will go for your contents as it best meets his/her needs.

So, Google works in such a way that the more users go for your blog with those particular keywords you used in your blog contents, the more Google will rank your blog on the searched results.

I will share with you now with a list of powerful keywords research tool with which you can use to grow your blog audience with every article you post.

 

AHREFS

This is a powerful keyword research tool that is user intuitive and gives very detailed information on what your competitors are doing to rank high and how you can rank higher than your competitor.

Since this keyword research tools hit the market, it has been the choice of every strategic content creators and SEO experts.

Wow, so amazing!

On a daily basis, the keyword research tool crawls over 6 billion pages and 12 trillion links to know how powerful and reliable its data are to help you to grow your blog and get more search engine results than your competitors.

With this powerful tool, you can always use its data for your advantage, you can be able to search all the important information you need to make your blog post better than your competitors when you enter a keyword or URL.

This Keyword Research Tool will make available to you the keywords related to what you have searched, it will give you more details around the keywords such as referring domains, backlines, organic keywords, contents review and many more.

So, when you click on one of the organic keywords, it will show more details such as the search volume (ie. The number of times the keyword is being searched within a particular period time like daily, monthly etc). In addition, it will show you search rank, URL etc.

This software will help you to have a look on what users are searching for within your niche in order that you will be able to create contents that will match with the keywords that are highly searched by users and having lower competitors.

Therefore, with a powerful keyword research tools like Ahrefs, you can never be stranded of a topic idea that your target audience is in need of and you will be able to grow your audience with every new post. I have provided a URL below so you can access this Keyword Research Tool.

URL to AHREFS: https://ahrefs.com

 

SEMRUSH

If you overhear SEO experts talking about the Best Keyword research tool to drive more search traffic to your blog and at the same way get you a good topic idea for your post, that discussion will not end without these experts mentioning SEMRUSH.

SEMRUSH is an in-depth keyword research tools that will be able to perform the following such as organic research, keyword research, paid advertising research and an in-depth competitors analysis.

And it also has a new feature “Magic Keywords” which you can use to get a broader and quicker keyword search and once you have found that, you can click on any of the keywords and you will have a quick analysis on the search volume and numbers of competitors using that keyword.

URL to SEMRUSH: https://www.semrush.com

 

KWFinder

It is a powerful SEO tool that can help you find long tail keywords that have high search volume and low competitors.

It works like Google Keyword search and provide you with the main niche keywords that can drive more traffic to your blog.

KWFinder is known to provide accurate results and you can search for keywords according to your location of interest which help you to find related searched keywords of that locality so you can construct your article to target such particular audience.

This SEO tool is simple and user intuitive. It also displays the results in a chart and graphical pattern so you can look at results in a virtual analysis.

More also, these SEO tools will provide all the detail you need to know if you stand a chance with your competitors. It reveals pieces of information such as Top Google Result for the keyword researched, Page authority, number of backlinks, social shares, domain authority and so on.

You will have to create an account with KWFinder as a free member or paid. If you are a paid subscriber, you will have access to more keywords and more features.

URL to KWfinder: https://kwfinder.com/# .

Email Marketing

Sending emails about you new post to subscribes is a very good method of promoting your blog but has to be used moderately so you don’t end up spamming. There are many services that can send bulks emails to multiple email subscribers at once and at the same time manage the email as to scheduling time and more more.

I recommend Covertkit or Sendlane email marketing services as they are very effective

URL to Covertkit: http://covertkit.com

 

SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS

Organizing is the key to success in marketing, so when it comes to fulfilling your marketing goal for your blog, you will need a social media management tools to help you manage all your social media profile in one place and schedule post for your social media.

Using such tools have made it a lot easier to schedule posts in advance, track analysis, run a contest and it will save you the stress of attending to one social media at a time.

One fantastic thing about these Social Media tools that I will be sharing with you is that you can use these tools to accomplish your marketing goal for free.

 

Hootsuite

It is the most common social media management tools used by most bloggers and it is available for both free and paid subscribers. As a free user, you can use this tool to manage 3 social media profile and schedule 30 posts in advance.

URL: https://hootsuite.com/plans/free

 

Buffer

It is also similar to Hootsuite and can allow you to manage 3 social media profile and schedule 10 posts in advance as a free member.

URL: https://buffer.com/

TweetDeck

It a software that is free and made specifically for social marketers having multiple twitter accounts. You can use this social management tools to create and manage twitter searches and list, add teams account and for custom timelines.

URL: https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/

Linktree

It is a powerful tool for social marketing that can help you to optimize your Instagram and help you link all your posts in one place making it easy to drive your followers to your contents resource. It is also available for free.

URL: https://linktr.ee/

 

Social Warfare

Though this social marketing tool will require a subscription, this social media tool allows you as a blogger to be able to increase your blog traffic and social shares with this tool. It is very good for your WordPress blog as this software will make your blog’s content-sharing fast and easy. So, it worth its cost!

URL: https://warfareplugins.com

 

SocialOomph

This is the social management tools that can ease so much of your time. You can use this tool to schedule and monitor your social media activities on Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, Linkedin, RSS feed, blogs, Plurk. You can get to use these tools for free but with limited features.

URL: http://www.socialoomph.com/

 

Friend+Me

Do you know that there is something good about getting your articles to your audience at the right time when you use this Social Management tool? you will be able to schedule when you want your series of contents or posts to be published on your blog. It works with various social media such as Facebook, Linkedin, Googleplus etc.

URL: http://www.socialoomph.com/

 

 

TOPIC AND HEADLINE RESEARCH TOOLS

One of the common challenges most bloggers face today is the ability to determine the topic idea and headlines that will suit their target audience.

I’m glad to tell you that Buzzuma services have a better solution to that issue.

This type of software allows you to analyze your competitors’ contents and give you full information on what they are doing that give them the best results.

You know that when you have such vital success secret of the type of contents your competitors are posting, it will give you an edge over your competitors.

You can spy into their contents to know their topics, article structure, and headlines, to give you an insight of how you will create a better version of that same topic for the consumption of your readers and viewers.

Instead of guessing the kind of contents your audience needs, Buzzuma can help you to access the kind of contents that your target audience is searching for and consuming so that you will be able to create a better version to meet the needs of your audience.

Blogging is like a relay race, where your batting is the contents and your audience is the one waiting to pick the batting from your hands.

You have to strive harder than your competitors to get the relevant contents into your audience hands first.

It’s all about competition and you don’t have to depend on your human ability alone.

You have to use effective software that can enhance your ability and produce greater output.

As you know that you are not the only blogger on the niche you have chosen, so you have competitors as well on that niche trying to meet up with the kind of topics and contents your niche visitors are looking for.

A better understanding of the kind of contents your competitors are posting that have produced considerable results will also give you a better result if you create a better version of their contents.

Buzzuma also gives you topics and keywords of what the audience of your niche are searching for.

This information will enable you to create that kind of contents so you can give your audience what they want.

This service is a must-have and they will offer you 7 days trial to see for yourself how the program is effective before they ask you to subscribe.

I will be sharing Buzzuma website to help you generate the actual topic idea and headline your audience is looking for based on what your audience has been consuming from your competitors and on what they are searching for on search engine.

URL: www.buzzsumo.com

 

 

CONTENT TOOL

Like I said earlier, a farmer will need farming tools to perform his duties on the farm and the more the capability of the tools he uses the more his efficiency and output.

It is one thing to write content but what will make that content advance and flashy is content tools.

A content tool will make a simple or ordinary text to become mind-blowing content that will ‘wow’ your audience.

So, you don’t bore your target audience with just letters and figures. There are several tools you need as a blogger to make you more creative with texts so it will be presented in a way that will appeal to the eyes of your readers or viewers.

The tools I will share will help you in various areas of blogging so as to make your posts meet the expectations of your audience.

Conclusively, crafting a good post is the best way to increase your audience, boost your traffic and rank well on google.

 

Canva

Canva helps you customize your graphic online and helps you create professional looking layouts and images for your blog or social media.

You can use this online platform to design anything including creating images for your contents that will appeal to the eyes.

And know that you don’t need to be a professional graphic designer to use Canva for creating an amazing image to make your blog virtually appealing to readers and viewers.

You can access the URL to the website below here.

URL: www.canva.com

 

 

Grammarly

Grammarly will automatically help you check the grammar of your content, check the spelling and plagiarism in order to display suggested corrections for the error it has identified.

As a blogger, you need to post contents without errors and to make this is possible – you have to use Grammarly.

You can use Grammarly online or install the application on your system or browser so that when you are typing post on your blog, Grammarly can automatically help you detect errors so you can make immediate corrections.

URL: www.grammarly.com

 

My Stock Photos

Looking for free photos that are relevant to your post has been a thing of concern to many bloggers.

Websites such as My Stock Photos have helped in providing free photos for a blogger to use to make their contents more attractive to readers.

You can use My Stock Photo with Canva. You can upload the free photo to Canva and customize the photo to meet the aim of your content.

You can access the website below.

URL: http://mystock.photos/

Other tools you will need to accomplish the high-quality contents that meet the taste of what your audience really need is SEO tools or keyword research tools of which I have discussed most of them with you and will talk about more as we proceed in this tutorial.

 

REASON I OPT FOR WORDPRESS

Previously in this tutorial, I have talked about WordPress and made some comparison with other website builders.

There are many reasons why I opted for WordPress and I believe that is the same reason why WordPress powers more than one-third of the website and blogs on the internet.

1. It’s free and open source – WordPress is a website builder and content management service that make available their blogging platform, themes, and plugin free for anyone one who wants to have a website or blog. And the WordPress platform and add-ons can be re-coded or edited to suit the user’s taste.

 

1. It is user-friendly: Although WordPress is not the only blogging platform or CMS that is free, open sourced or having plugins, there are other blogging platforms such as Joomla, and Drupa that does likewise.

 

As for Joomla and Drupa, you will need the help of a professional programmer to help you set up your blog,

 

But WordPress, even as a beginner, you don’t need to know anything about coding before you can set up and install your blog, everything you need to create your blog site is already made available. You just need to follow the easy step-by-step guide and add whatever you need through the WordPress dashboard.

 

1. Highly Searchable: WordPress has optimized all their blogs software and add-ons to rank high on Google search and other search engines. So if your blog is of WordPress your keywords will rank high on the search engines and Google will easily crawl through your blog to update your newly posted articles and pages on search engines.

 

1. Multiple functionalities: with the help of themes and plugins you can turn your WordPress blog to perform multiple tasks to meet the goal of your blog and the need of your audience. You can use a theme that will go inline with your niche and you can install a plugin to do a specific task on your blog site Contact form, galleries, shopping cart etc.

 

1. Large Community support: because WordPress is free, It has grown a very large community worldwide who help in changing source file and keeping WordPress secured and updated. And whatever help you need they are there to assist you as well.

 

1. Responsive to Mobile: WordPress blog is built in such a way that it has both the desktop and mobile version. Your blog will be very compatible with the various mobile gadget that has different screen sizes and software. Google also check your blog if it is compatible with mobile devices to rank your blog high on their search results.

These are the reason why WordPress is highly preferred and had ranked first among the top 3 website builders (WordPress, Joomla, and Dropa). In all, WordPress is easy to use, even if you are a beginner.

 

 

FIND YOUR NICHE AND DECIDE WHAT TO BLOG ABOUT

In this tutorial, I have been making mention of the word ‘niche’ so now I want to teach you how to find a profitable niche because that is the key to your success in blogging and choosing a niche will help you know your target audience and how to meet their needs.

So, if you choose to write about something you love, then getting a reward for what you are doing will encourage you to do better and reach more people as we all know that it cost money to start a blog and will even cost more as soon as your visitors increase.

Hence, as your blog grows, you should be able to monetize it by converting your visitors to revenue.

Know that what you love talking about and your niche should be related because passion keeps you going no matter the challenge. So, the best way to decide what to write about and the area of your niche is to start writing a list of 10 topics you enjoy talking about with free mind on a plain paper.

Then, go through the list of topics and see the one that occurs most or frequently and that is your niche.

After you have found the niche, you will also need to check how consistent people are searching for that niche on google trend. https://trends.google.com

If you find that the trend is stable for about 5 years and it has a high trend, you can then use google keyword tools or other SEO tools I taught you earlier to know the monthly search volume and competition rate of that niche.

If it has an impressive search volume and low competitors rate, that means that the niche you have chosen is a good niche. If it has high competitors rate, the niche can be narrowed down when you type that niche on www.google.com and scroll down, at the bottom you will find related search queries.

You can choose one of the search terms that are related to your keyword and check it on google keyword tools to see if you can get a good monthly search volume and low competition rate, and also know that Google keyword tools will also give you similar niches you can choose from.

To make sure the niche you have found is a profitable niche, you have to type that niche on google search again and see if people are advertising on that niche, if you find ‘Sponsored Ads” around that niche on the search result, you will know that it is a profitable niche and you can use it.

The things you need to start blogging

Before you start blogging, there are things you need to put in place so you don’t end up stranded while blogging. So, I will list and talk about some important things about them.

1. What to write about: You should know that blogging is about writing, and before you start, you should know your niche and the area you are good at in writing so you can exercise your authority to your readers on that area. Most bloggers that have risen so high, one day started writing on what they love.
2. Domain: choice of domain name for your blog should matter so much as your domain reflects your niche, brand or goal. Take time to decide the right domain for your blog.
3. Hosting: hosting is as the house of your blog if the web hosting is okay your blog will function well.
4. Audience: these are your target reader, the people you will be writing for and to. So you should first know what you love writing about and the people who will love and need what you will be writing about so you can strategically get your contents in front of them.
5. Commitment: I will tell you the truth, blogging requires much of your time and effort, so you should be able to set out time in a day for writing contents on your blog and attending quickly to readers comment on your blog or social media. You can still run it on part-time basis if you have good time management.

HOW TO PICK A NAME FOR YOUR BLOG

I won’t suggest you to rush to choose a domain name for your blog because the name you pick for your blog will determine how your audience will view your blog and brand.

In every business, a name is very important because it is the identity of your business and tells a lot about your business. And I tell you, it’s what still applies to pick a name for your blog.

I suggest you should pick a name that matches the niches of your blog as this will help visitors know the kind of contents they will see. More also, it better to pick a name that is hard to forget.

If you are short of a name to think of you can use the following.

 

Name Generator or Thesaurus

A good thesaurus can inspire you and give you ideas of similar words that relate to your brand. You can coin out a name with the help of the suggested name from your thesaurus.

Online name generator also works the same way but the advantages of Name generator is that it gives you a list of suggestions and also tell you if they are available for your use or they have been taken. A good name generator you can use is Wordroid (https://wordoid.com)

 

Check Competitors Names

Spying on your competitors can also help you in knowing the kind of name you can pick for your blog and it is better to get name ideas from competitors of the same niche or brand.

 

Use your Personal Name

At least I wanted to use my own name for the blog I thought about and realized my name is not friendly and looking at the people I want to target, it was going to a problem for them to mention or memorize it so I settled for a generic name.

I wanted my blog to be like Neil Patel’s but my name isn’t that short or easy to mention.

Look at your name, if it’s a name you can use and your visitors can easily memorize it, then go for it.

The best place you can purchase an affordable domain name with security is at www.namesilo.com

 

 

Factors to Consider in Picking a Blog Name

1. Go for Short and Catchy: that means that you should think of short and attractive name that people will love and the length of the blog name will not give anyone a hard time to remember.
2. Don’t Go Too Narrow: ensure the name you choose is broad and will go in accordance with your long term goal as a blogger.
3. No Numbers or Special Characters: adding number or special character does not really work well in the domain except you add a number for the sake of your brand but as for special character it can’t work.
4. Avoid Brand Names and Trademarks: stay away from brand name and trademarks, for instance, do not pick a name that is similar to Google, be unique and pick a name that tell more about your niche, purpose or brand.
5. Ask Your Friends and Family: if you are short of idea or kind of blog name to use, you can ask your family or friend in which they will help you make suggestions.

After you have purchased the domain name and decided the name of your blog, the next thing that should run on your mind is where is the best place to start a blog? This question takes us to ‘how to choose the right hosting provider’ for your blog.

 

CHOOSE THE BEST WEB HOSTING

I want you to put in mind again that we have chosen WordPress platform so when making the decision of the web hosting you are to use, you should put it into consideration and I will also talk of other factors to consider such as load time, speed, uptime, price, customer service etc.

Because your blog is for business, you won’t want a situation whereby your blog is not responding to the demands of your audience. I can remember a brother of mine who purchase a web hosting from an untrusted source.

After the installation of his website on the hosting, he found out that there were some parts in his website that use to function and were no more functioning properly. It even took a long time for pages to load, his whole website started malfunctioning.

All he had to do was to purchase another hosting from a reliable and efficient web hosting company before his website came back to life. You can imagine how many new and old website users he had lost due to his website failure as a result of the poor hosting provider.

On thing you should know is that visitors won’t entertain breakdown in your blog as you have so many competitors offering the same thing that you are offering. So, if they find out you are unreliable, they will switch easily to another.

So, I will recommend Www.bluehost.com because of the following reasons.

• Bluehost is the largest web hosting in the world and having the cheapest hosting plan for starters.
• A domain is free when you purchase a web hosting plan from Bluehost.
• Bluehost is a friend of WordPress platform and add-ons as it is highly compactable and their customers care are responsive and deal properly with issues relating to WordPress.
• Bluehost supports upgrade, add-ons, e-commerce, and email setup, ability to add domains.

So, if you need a webhosting that is secure for your blog and have the facilities to back up your blog in case any threat happens. And finally, as a beginning, installing your blog, running it and promoting your blog will be very easy when you purchase your hosting with Bluehost.

 

HOW TO SET UP A BLOG WITH WORDPRESS

 

Why blog

Do you know that WordPress first started making blogging platform before they ventured into website building?

I considered a blog for this tutorial because I know that the search engine is more of a friend to blog than a website. On the other hand, blogs are regularly updated with contents and a blog is structured in such a way that it allows a search engine to easily access all its pages and index them on a constant basis.

This makes the blog an easier and fastest medium to grow the audience for your contents and business. As a result of that, many website owners have become to include a blog to their website so they can update their customers and allow Google to search to access their website on a regular basis.

Now, as a business minded person, having a blog can generate more money to you than having a website as blog draws more traffic, more visitors and higher rank on search results.

If you have a company, you can create a blog for it, as you can also use a blog to add pages that also make up a website, pages such as Homepage, About, Terms, Privacy, Contact us, etc.

Therefore, having a blog is more than having a website as a blog can perform the same function of a website and still have other benefits as it is easily accessible by visitors and search engine.

A blog is more social like and a good way to network people of like minds. And this people that visit your blog can be converted to a source of making more revenue to your business.

 

HOW TO INSTALL WORDPRESS

 

Installation of WordPress on your hosting server is very easy as most web hosting such as Bluehost and Hostgator have tools that will help you install WordPress.

Such as 1-click automatic installation which have WordPress pre-installed in them as you will have no need going to www.wordpress.org to download the WordPress platform to your system and later upload to your Hosting through FTP like, FTP client (FileZilla)

Since we have recommended Bluehost as the world largest and recommend hosting for WordPress bloggers, I will first begin with the teaching of the easy methods you can install your WordPress on bluehost and how to set up your MSQL database for your Blog.

If you may ask what is MSQL database, its main function is to manage and store every data of your WordPress users: It receives data, organizes them and releases any data required by your blog platform or users.

Some examples of data that are managed by MSQL are username and password, personal details, account details or data collected by your blog site from users or web. All these data are stored and retrieved from MSQL.

So, I want to make this clear to you that if you want to choose a different web hosting apart from the one recommended to you in this tutorial, you should always check first if the hosting works well with WordPress and if the hosting already has preinstalled MSQL database.

I will share a simple procedure on how you can automatically install WordPress on your purchased hosting on Bluehost and how you can install WordPress manually if you have purchased a hosting that does not have preinstalled WordPress.

 

How to Install WordPress on Bluehost.

Now as a beginner and having chosen Bluehost as your web hosting. I tell you that Installing WordPress on your Bluehost has been made easy through 1-Click installation.

Using the 1-click method will take you 5 minutes as an easy step-by-step procedure to get your WordPress installed.

So what’s next? It is to install WordPress.

1. Open bluehost.com on your browser and you will find a different kind of hosting plan with different prices as at now the hosting plan that was once $7.99 is now $2.95/month which is the cheapest plan on Bluehost. You can start with this as a beginning and as your blog begins to expand your can go for a higher plan with more features.

 

1. After selecting your desired hosting plan, it will take you to where you can sign up for a new domain, I know by this time you must have decided the domain name you are going to use for your blog or must have purchased a domain from namesilo.com. I recommended namesilo.com because of its added advantages, free domain protectiôn and cheap purchase and renewal.

 

 

1. Although, one thing about Bluehost is that when you purchase hosting, you are entitled to free domain registration for the first year but will be charged for subsequent domain renewal. So, you have three fields or option and you are to choose one and click next or you can choose the free domain later.

 

1. The first field “New Domain” will help you sign up for a new domain for your blog free while you will use the second field “I have a domain name” you will put your registered domain name there and click next if you have already registered a domain name with another company as I recommended namesilo.com due to its short and long term advantages.

 

 

1. Then create your account and removed any extra added features that are out of your budget.

 

1. Now you have purchased your hosting and domain. You can log in into your Bluehost account with your username and password for you to quickly install your WordPress within 5 minutes as you follow my guide here.

 

1. After login, click on “My Site” and then click on “Login to WordPress”

 

1. On the new page, click on “Create Site” at the top right corner.

 

1. Here the installation wizard is launched for you to Create a new WordPress site.

 

1. Fill in the following fields, Site Name, and Site Tagline

Note: This detail is very important to optimize your blog and ensure your Site Name and Site Tagline communicate the niche and branding of your blog to your visitors

 

1. Then you click next

Note: if you have already purchased a domain before, you can always add the domain by visiting “Domain page” on the dashboard.

 

1. Then select your domain and leave directory path blank for the installation wizard to decide then click next.

Note: before you click next, some WordPress plugin will be recommended and you can tick to install them along.

 

1. It will take some moment before you will receive a message “WordPress Installed Successfully” and this pages will display important details such as Blog URL, Admin URL, username and password to access your blog and Admin area of your blog.

 

1. Wow! You have successfully installed your blog and now you can Click on “Login to WordPress”

Now, you see how easy you were able to install your WordPress on Bluehost, next on the line, I will teach you how to install WordPress manually on any Web Hosting that supports WordPress.

 

How to Install WordPress manually using FTP.

Here, I recommend FileZilla Client and you can download it to your computer free when you Click here and run it on your computer.

Then you can download the newest version of WordPress here

1. After downloading the WordPress you need to unzip and you can open the unzipped Folder to look at the files you will upload to your hosting server.
2. Now, you will connect your FTP client to your host server with the FTP details (ie. Host, Username and Password) you were given when you purchased hosting for WordPress or you can also get this details when you log in to your hosting Cpanel.
3. To connect your FTP, click on File => Site Manager
4. Expand on “My Site” => My Website (note you can rename any file to suit your taste).
5. Enter your FTP details such as Host, Username and Password to connect your FTP to your hosting server.
6. Click on Connects and a page will open with some pieces of information.
7. Finally, Tick on “Trust Certificate on future” and click on OK button
8. Then a connection process will go on, once successfully. Your FTP client will display your Local files on the left column and your Remote Files on the right column.

Note: Local files are your computer files where you will open your WordPress files there. While your Remote files are your server-side files. You will upload all your WordPress file in the Local files column to a particular folder (Public_html) in the Remote Files column which I will tell you in the next step.

1. You have located your unzipped WordPress files in your Local file column, it is time to go to your Remote files column to open the particular folder (Public_html) you will upload all WordPress files to.
2. To access “Public_html” click on Home = > jsmith => Public_html.
3. Now select all and/or right click on the WordPress file(s) in your computer or Local files and click on “upload” after right clicking to upload all your WordPress files to your Remote files or hosting server side.

Note: After uploading all WordPress files to the Public_html folder in your Remote files column, there are specific folders for specific uploading and installation. For instance, if you want to install plugins after unzipping, plugin files should be uploaded to this folder “/x9m-content/plugins/” in Remote files What you need to start blogging because that is where the installation will find the plugin. As for Themes, you upload to this folder: “x9m-content/themes/”. After which you can Locate plugins on your WordPress Dashboard to install it.

 

Having Uploaded your WordPress files, including your desired Theme and Plugins to the server side of your hosting. It’s time to go to your Control Panel or Cpanel to create MySQL database before we finally install your WordPress.

 

How to Create a MySQL database for your WordPress

1. Login to Cpanel, and on the cpanel dashboard click on “MSQL databases”
2. Fill in a name for your database and click on the “Create Database” button.
3. You have created your database so you need to create a username and password to gain access to your database.
4. To do that, on your database page, scroll down to “MSQL Users” section
5. Then add a username and password and click on the button “Create a User”
6. Note that this user you have created has not yet access to the created database until you add it.
7. So, on the Database page, scroll to “Add user to a Database” on the drop-down menu select the User and Database you created and click on “Add” button.
8. Then a page where you can change the privilege to allow this user, select all privilege and click on “ Make Changes”.

Now that you have created and set up your database, it is time to install your WordPress. If you uploaded all your files to the folder “Public_html” you will access your blog to install it on your main domain name eg. www.yourdomain.com

But if you created another subfolder to Public_html to be in this form “Public_html/blog” you will install and access your blog through www.yourdomain.com/blog. I used www.yourdomain.com in place of your purchased domain name.

So, let’s move to how you can finally install your WordPress blog.

1. Enter your purchased domain name in your browser eg. yourdomain.com or www.yourdomain.com/blog if you uploaded to subfolder “blog”
2. A language page will open where you will select English.
3. Then it will open a page and WordPress will request for your MSQL database username, password, and host. So Enter the database details you created appropriately.
4. After that, click on “Run the Installation” during this process WordPress will create a table on your database.
5. In this page that will open, you will provide this information for WordPress to set up your blog sites such as title, username, password, and admin email address.
6. Then click on the “Install WordPress” button.
7. Wow! Finally, you will receive a message that your WordPress has successfully been installed.
8. Click on Login to access your WordPress site.

 

HOW TO CHOOSE THEME

Now that you have installed your WordPress, things you can do is to find the theme that fits your blog from the list of numerous themes on WordPress site and you can find suitable plugins that have the functions you need on your blog.

Early, in this tutorial, I have told you that after you have downloaded and unzipped your theme or plugins, there are specific folders of your WordPress in Remote file that you can upload your theme or plugins before you finally install them on the Admin page of your WordPress.

Note that when choosing a theme to change the looks of your blog, you need to check if the theme will work with your plugins, preview the theme and see if it will work with your old content. I recommend Thrive Themes because it has been tried many times with proven results.

You can install a theme directly from WordPress through this process.

1. Log in, then click on “My Site” then go to Themes”
2. On this page, you can choose from among the top themes or search for a theme.
3. Then Preview the theme to see how it will work on your blog and check it on mobile too to see if it will display properly or you can also Customize the theme.
4. Then, when you like the theme, click on “Save and Activate” or Purchase to change the theme to this current Theme.

I want to give you a little step on how to upload and install a custom or premium theme, although I have previously shared some clues on it before.

1. Unzip the downloaded theme
2. Then Login, go to “My Site” then click on “Theme”
3. Upload the theme to your WordPress from where you saved it in your computer.
4. Then choose install theme now then the theme will be active on your blog.

The same process goes for installing plugin except that you will have to go to “Plugin” instead of “Theme” from “My Site” after the login.

 

HOW TO CREATE A CORE PAGE

Creating a page is just as simple as creating a post in WordPress. The difference between posts and pages is that posts are arranged in a reverse time or chronological order, while pages are static as they are not organized according to time.

In your blog, there are certain must-have pages in which your visitors expect to see in order to know about your blog, trust your blog or connect with your blog. Most of these pages, if they are not present in your blog, Google AdSense may not display Ads on your blog or it might even affect your ranking on search engines.

These are the pages that should be in your blog and the pages are About, Contact, terms of use, privacy policy, disclaimer etc.

Do you know that About page is the most viewed page because this About page carries a lot of information about your blog and you the blogger? It is on this page visitors tend to learn more about your blog, connect to your blog and fall in love with it.

So, this page defines your blog and tells your visitors what they should expect from your blog and the rest must-have pages do have a specific and vital purpose on your blog.

Now, I want to teach you can easy procedures on how you can create these pages on your blog.

1. Go to Administrator (WordPress dashboard) then click on “Pages” then click on “Add new”

Or

1. Login and Click on “My Site”
2. Click on “Pages” at the left side.
3. Then a text area where you can write your page title, under the page title is where you can add the sub URL to the type of page you are creating eg. You can add “about-us” as subdomain when you are creating About page like yoursite.com/about-us
4. The next text field is the editor area where you can write and format the content of the page you are creating.
5. When you are through writing, you can preview the page to see how it will look on your blog.
6. If you are satisfied, you can publish the pages and repeat the process again to create other pages.

The next procedure in this tutorial is how you can quickly create a menu item for your blog.

1. Login and on your Administrator click on “Appearance” at the left column
2. Then Select “Menu”
3. When the Menu editor opens, type in the Menu name and click on “Create menu” button.
4. To add pages to your newly create Menu
5. Locate the pane entitled “Pages”
6. Click on “View all links” to show all the published pages.
7. Select the pages you want to add to the Menu
8. Click on “Add Menu” then finally, click on”Save Menu” button.

 

Connect your social media pages

Many WordPress themes offer a social media button on the header and footer area of your blog.

Thereby, in a short time, I want to walk you through how to connect your social media pages to your blog. You can begin to share your post automatically on your social media as long as you have connected it.

1. Go to “My Site” then click on “Sharing”.
2. On Publicize section you will see Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and Eventbrite.
3. Click on connect and follow promptly.

 

So, that is all it takes to easily create pages, menu and connect your social media page for your newly installed WordPress blog.

Now let us go to how you Setup Google Analytics Tracker for your blog.

 

 

HOW TO SETUP GOOGLE ANALYTICS TRACKER

You may ask, what is Google Analytics Tracker? This tool is so powerful that once you have installed it on your blog, you can track who is coming to your blog, what are people doing on your blog and how they are coming to your blog.

It is the tool that helps you monitor your audience so you can know where needs improvement. However, with this Analytics Tracker, you are fully be informed about the activities of visitors on your blog.

It’s time to teach you how to set up Google Analytics Tracker on your blog.

1. You need to create an account with Google Analytics Tracker by clicking here and you will be asked to login if you already have an account with Gmail otherwise create a new account.
2. Then you will be taken to another page where you have to click on “Sign up”
3. On this page, you will be told to choose either Website or Mobile app. Choose “Website” and fill in the following website details.
4. Click on “Get Tracking Code” button
5. Then you will be provided “Terms and Condition” then select ” I agree” button.
6. Then your Google Analytics Tracking Code will be displayed and you should copy it and save it somewhere as you may need it later.

Now that you have gotten your Analytic tracking code, you will need a plugin called ‘MonsterInsights’ and you already know how you can install the plugin on your WordPress either through searching for the plugin in the Admin dashboard or unzipping and uploading it to the specific area in your Remote file or server side.

However, searching for “MonsterInsights” and installing it seems less technical and for this tutorial, we are using the free version.

1. After activation, the plugin setup process will give you 3 options. Choose Publisher blog or anyone.
2. It will take you to where you will click on “Connect MonsterInsights”
3. Log in your Google Analytics account and click on “Allow” to continue.
4. Then it will tell you to Pick a Profile you want to track: select your Website.
5. Then click on “Complete Connection”
6. It will display some paid features you can add, if no thanks, click on “Save and Continue”
7. Then it will display one of the best Form plugins you can download or you click on “skip this step”
8. Lastly, Click on the “Exit and Finish Wizard “ button.

Now you can go to your WordPress dashboard and view your Google Analytics report on the “Insights and Report” page on the left corner of your dashboard.

 

SETUP GOOGLE WEBMASTER CONSOLE

Google Webmaster Console is also known as Google search console. This tool will help you know how your blog performs and how your visitors are able to find your blog on search results.

This Free search console tools will give you information on which keywords or query visitors use to reach your blog on search engines and what search results have been earned by your contents.

This tools will also give you details about your Mobile site and a new feature have been added to this google search tool which will help you to improve your blog presence on search results. So, I will teach you how you can set it up on your WordPress blog.

1. Since you already have an account with Google
2. Go to google.com/webmaster/tools
3. Click on “Add a Property”
4. Then enter your blog domain on that text area and click on “Add” button.
5. It will display the recommended method but click on “Alternate methods”
6. Select ‘HTML tags”
7. Then copy the “Meta tag code” displayed and paste it on your blog homepage and it should go in the <head> section and before the first <body> section.

So, therefore, to locate this place.

1. Go to your WordPress dashboard, click on “Appearance”
2. Then click on “Editor”
3. Once the editor opens, look at the right corner for Header.php
4. It says you should paste the code in between the <head> section
5. Locate the <head> section in Header.php a paste it in any area in between there.
6. Then click on the button “Update file”
7. After that click on the “verify” button.
8. Then you will receive a success message.
9. Click on continue to view the report and note that it will take some time before the report will start showing.

So, you have now set up your Google Webmaster Console.

Note that this method from step 8-14 can be used to add your Google Analytics tracker to different pages of your blog without using a plugin.

 

SET UP GOOGLE AMP

The full meaning of AMP is Automatic Mobile Page and very essential for speeding up the load time of your blog site for mobile device users. AMP using limited HTML and Java.

And once you have installed AMP plugin on your blog, Google will store your blog on Google AMP Cache, which makes it easy for Google AMP cache to quickly open your blog to your visitors.

I have already taught you how to search for plugins, install it and activate it. So you need to search for AMP plugin: go to “My Site” then click on “Plugin” then search for “AMP plugin” and install it.

1. To activate, go to Appearance => AMP
2. This page will show how your blog will look on a mobile device.
3. You can change the header background, text colour and header background color.
4. Click on the “Save” button to update changes.

When you add /amp/ to the end of any link of your post it will show you the AMP mobile version of your blog. Eg. www.yourblog.com/about/amp/

 

INSTALL PLUGINS: FREE YOAST SEO, GDPR

 

Know that WordPress take care of 80-90 of your Blog SEO to ensure that your blog is visible to your audience on Search Engines and WordPress reader. And, WordPress software and plugin are developed in a way that Googlebot can easily access the contents of your blog.

Anytime, you make a new post, WordPress automatically send updates to Google to see your new post just the same way you send updates about your new post to your email subscribers.

In the process of growing and running your blog, you will need the following plugins

 

Yoast SEO plug-in

WordPress offers this plugin to help you optimize your blog page so your page is easily found on various Search engines. With this SEO tool, you will be able to get more analysis of your blog to help you improve your search visibility.

And you can also connect your Yoast SEO plugin to your ADM and Search console as for installing and activating this tool, it is the same procedure of installing plugins that I have taught you.

 

GDPR Compliance

As the Acronym implies, it means General Data Protection Regulation, it’s an EU law which took full effect on the 25th of May, 2018. Oh, don’t be scared as this law was established for the protection of individuals identity.

So that businesses collecting or using data will have to request permission from their customers before collecting such data. Hence, with this law set in place, individual have full right over their personal information as to whether they want it deleted or how it should be used.

So, this law is enforced on both websites and blogs, and any kind of businesses especially when you are having people from EU. Anyone who does not follow this law will be fined by the GDPR.

As a blog owner, you are expected to tell them what, why and how you are using their data – how you collect their data, how you use them and how you store them.

In spite of that, this is a new privacy rule to protect people identity as this issue has gotten out of hand for a long time.

I’m glad to tell you that WordPress is GDPR compliant and what you need to make your blog GDPR Compliant is for you to install the plugin on your blog.

I have done a lot of lesson on the installation of a plugin and I fully know that you can’t forget at this time as you have been practicing, and I will tell you for the last time so it becomes part of you.

Installation

1. If you are using FTP,
2. upload the file to the x9m-content/plugins/x9m-gdpr-compliance at the Remote Files.
3. Activate the plugin through WordPress Dashboard => Plugins => Tools => GDPR Compliance
4. Or You can search and install the plugin directly through the WordPress plugins screen.

 

 

WRITE YOUR FIRST BLOG POST

I must say that this is that part that you have been waiting for at the time I was walking you through the process of how to blog.

I know every blogger is passionate and enthusiastic about writing and finally, you have arrived at the place where you have to write your first post to your target audience that has been long waiting to hear what you love.

At this time, I can boldly tell you that I have given you all that it takes to ensure your ‘blog-voice’ reaches a wider audience through your social media, content optimization and SEO tactics.

And I tell you that you should put everything I have been teaching you to create good content.

Then what’s next?

It’s to create your first post. How to get started is not difficult.

How to write

1. After you have logged in, on the homepage, you will find an “Icon with write” at the top right corner of the page. Move to the “Icon with write” and click on it.
2. In this scenario, you are new and about writing your first post. So as I was saying, you will have click on the “Icon with Write” then it will open a Virtual and HTML Editor.
3. When this editor box has loaded, you will be able to type in your first post in the Editor’s text box and format it using your formatting tools on top of the text area when you are using the visual. A visual option is very suitable for a blogger who don’t have enough knowledge coding with HTML and CSS. But if you are good with HTML, you should from Editor window switch from virtual to HTML, where you will use HTML to style your post as you want it to appear on your blog.
4. And don’t forget, at the top area of your editor’s window, you will see an area, where you can type in the title of your first blog post.

 

Things you can add to your post

If you want to add Media (Audio, Video, Photo) from your computer files, click on the button “Add” and it will display a list of thing you can add to your blog such as:

• Media – Click here to add media from your system file.
• Media from Google – Click here to add media that you have on your google.
• Free Photo Library – Click here to add a free photo on your blog.
• Contact form – you click here to add a contact form section to your blog.
• Payment button – click here to add payment button on your own blog.

 

Formatting

No one can undermine that importance of formatting as when you don’t properly format your content, your readers will find it boring and hard to read and understand your content at the same time.

However, to my experience in blogging, proper formatting adds more value to your content and increases the chances for readers to spend a long time reading your contents. If you might have a good message on your content but if it is not well formatted no one will be attracted to read it.

• If you want to format your texts and image as you want it to display to users. You should try the various formatting options such as paragraph, headings, bold, italics, colour, underline, justification, hyperlink, subscript, superscripts, Insert, bullets, margin, you will need most of these to format your post in a way that it will appear presentable for your audience.
• To spell check your text – use the “icon with ABC” to run spell check on your typed content to detect where needs correction.

Having done all these and tried other options to properly edited and formatted your post, let’s move forward.

 

How to preview your blog

• Then, click on preview so that that you can know how your formatted post will appear on your blog before you finally decide to publish it.
• If you check the preview and you see you are okay with the structure, layout, and presentation,. You can click on the button “Close” to close the preview window and proceed on publishing the post.

 

 

How to publish your post.

• Now that you are satisfied with the organization of your post. It is time to hit the “Publish button” so your post can appear live on your blog.
• When you click on the “publish button” two button options will show –
• First is to set the time your post should be published either immediately or any time.
• While the second button is to choose who will see your post either public, admins, and editors, or you can protect your post against those who don’t have the set password,.
• After you have done the settings, you can click on publish again to finally publish your post.
• So, to publish a post, you have to double press “Publish button”.

 

MONETIZE FROM YOUR BLOG

The most interesting thing about blogging is the money it generates but this money does not start coming overnight. It starts coming after some accumulation of efforts. So, every blogger will be happy to generate revenue from his blog even if he is blogging for fun.

We all know that it takes money to start and run a blog, as your visitors increase more money will be spent on upgrading and maintaining your blog site. In order to keep you there for your audience, you need to monetize your blog through some of the best ways I will enumerate and explain.

 

Pay-per-click Advert: You can register an account with www.adsense.google.com and place Adsense code that you will be provided on various pages on your blog for Google to display “Sponsored Advertisement” on those pages of your blog, just as I taught you how you added “Google Analytics” code. As for Adsense, you will add them to the pages and sections you want “Sponsored ads” to display. Then you will begin to earn money when your visitors click on those “sponsored ads” from your blog. If you are using WordPress, you can activate Adsense from your WordPress dashboard.

Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate marketing is a better way to monetize your blog, you can register on the Amazon Affiliate Program by clicking here or other company affiliates of your choice. You will get a unique affiliate link from Amazon in which you will use to refer visitors from your blog to purchase products from Amazon. You’ll get a commission of 10% on whatever they buy on Amazon through your affiliate link. A good method of referring visitors is by reviews some good amazon products on your blog with your affiliate link.

Sell your own product: you can make a huge sum of money from your blog for the sales of your own course materials on your blog, an example of materials you can sell include eBooks, podcasts etc.

Be a consultant or online coach: you can make money from your blog through this means especially when you had built loyal followers on the field your consultancy or coaching. With the help of Skype or phone or social media you can coach or consult for your clients as you can charge around $100 per hours.

Sell services or Hire me – This method works for freelance writers and service providers. You just have to write on your blog the kind of services your render and you will begin to get clients from your visitors and make a huge sum of money from your expertise.

Sell ad space: this is also another effective way to make money from your blog as many companies will want to advertise on your blog when your blog has high traffic and your niche is related their brand or products or services.

Donate: if your blog supports a cause or inspires people or maybe benefits people in one way or the other. You can request for a donation from willing visitors. PayPal donation will work well for this and you generate large revenue from this especially when you are a highly reputable person and you have a loyal audience.

Sell Merchandise: You can have a shop on your blog for free and sell products with a plugin such as Woo commerce or E-junkie (you can get junkie for a little cash). This will be a great way to convert your visitors to purchase your quality products like cameras, furniture, etc.

 

Thanks for your learning time. Now we have come to the end of this tutorial, and I hope you had a wonderful time putting all that I have taught you into practice and application.

Also, know that If you have any questions about blogging, I will be more than happy to respond with a helpful answer.

 

Happy blogging!