How To Start a Blog And Make Money in 2024

A simple Google search on How to start a blog and make money  in 2024 would return thousands of web pages and, in most cases, repeated answers that haven’t really worked. You know why? Many times, those blog posts are written by people with no real life experience on what it actually takes to start a blog.

This will not be the case. As someone with over 9 years of experience in the blogging industry, I’ll share with you ‘un-Google-able’ secrets of blogging that have worked and are currently working for me and others who have learned blogging from me.

Today, starting a profitable blogging career has become easier and more difficult at the same time, especially with the coming to the limelight of generative AI.

I remember back in 2015 when I started my first blog. Ranking content was a walk in the park. At that time, all you needed was to write content on any topic of choice, do a bit of keyword research, stuff the primary keywords in the headlines, sprinkle it at least 5 – 7 times in the content, and ensure that the Yoast SEO plugin turns green. That was the practice, and it was pretty easy for anyone to do.

Fast Forward to today, that practice has taken a new shape. Google’s ranking system has improved in that it can rank content even without you doing any keyword research.

Plus, Google and other search engines are now insisting that every content put out on the web should be written by someone with a flavor of Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T). I discuss further on that as we progress.

With that, how do you start a blog and make money in 2024?

How To Start a Blog and Make Money in 2024

To start a profitable blog in this era of AI, you must be smarter than the average blogger. This entails that you must be diligent in your approach and can say for certain where you should be in, say 6 – 12 months.

For me, if I’m to start blogging again from scratch as a novice in 2024 and make money, here are the actionable steps I’ll take.

1. Plan Long Term

Blogging isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s a business and should be treated as such. Just like every business, it takes time to establish. While it’s true that you can start blogging today and, in the next 30 days or less, make a lot of money, it’s also true that you may not make money in your first 12 months. Here’s why!

Blogging basically has two folds:

1. Buy an existing blog: This process helps bridge the gap it takes to start making money from your blog. It’s like buying shares in a company like SpaceX. You know that you’ll automatically begin to earn dividends without having to work on building the company structure. For blogging, this means that you’re buying an existing blog with monetizable traffic and possibly with a publisher’s ID from Google Adsense. In this case, within 30 days, you should begin to earn money from the blog because it has an existing audience.

Alternatively, you could start Adsense arbitrage or any of the arbitrage models. Many starters, most likely you, may not have the money for this as this option requires a lot of money. Buying an approved AdSense account alone can cost up to $2,000. Note that this method of purchasing an AdSense account is against AdSense Policy.

Since this method isn’t really favorable to many newbies, the second option is.

2. Building from Scratch: This will be my focus. Building a profitable blog from scratch takes time, at least 1 – 2 years. This however, doesn’t mean that you cannot be profitable within a few months.

In fact, with the right guidance and availability of many software and tools, that number can be reduced drastically. You can start now and, in 2 – 6 months, begin to make money.

However, to make enough money to make blogging your full-time job, give it at least 12 months.

That’s why planning for the long term is important. You don’t want to put yourself under unnecessary pressure.

Planning will also help you identify how often you should publish, when, and how you should publish. Aside from that, it’s through your planning stage that you map out the various keywords to write on for the next 1 month to 3 months.

Next!

2. Choose a Niche

Ai is making blogging more difficult in this sense. Information that bloggers usually make available to search users via SERPs, AI is providing it to users in just one click. If you’re going to depend heavily on search engines for your traffic, you need to show yourself as an expert. AI hasn’t evolved to that height, and we humans don’t trust it that much, yet.

A niche is simply a subject you want to focus on or an industry you want to talk about.

Do you want to talk about Business, Law, Fashion, Spot, FOOD, etc? You also want to ensure that the Niche for Blogging has Low Competition, especially as a newbie.

See my compilation of Best Niche for Blogging With Low Competition.

Additionally, when choosing the niche, consider your level of experience, passion, and authority in that field. You don’t want to choose a niche that you’ll grapple with to keep up with providing quality content.

3. Chose a Domain Name

Your domain name is simply the name of your blog – your address on the Internet. There are many rules in choosing a good domain name, such as:

• The name should be short and pronounceable for people to remember it easily.
• The name should be easy to spell
• The name shouldn’t conflict with cultural norms and traditions
• The name, if possible, should be able to tell the user what the blog is about, e.g., bussinessblog.com

These are just guidelines, and not following them will not be the end of your blogging career. You could even choose to use your name just like me, princewilluchegbu.com.

If it’s challenging coming up with a good name, the name generator, Namelix can be helpful.

• 
  How to Start a Beauty Blog for Free [Expert Guide]
• 
  17 Reasons to Start Blogging [by an Expert]
• 
  How to Start a Beauty Blog in 2024

4. Choosing a Blogging Platform

There are lots of blogging platforms out for you to choose from. But WordPress always stands tall among the others. Because WordPress powers 40% of the web. There are other blogging platforms such as Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, Blogger, Medium, and many others.

Note that each platform has its uniqueness.

For instance, while WordPress is best for customization, Wix offers more drag-and-drop functionality. For me, I prefer WordPress to other blogging platforms – that’s why this site, www.princewilluchegbu.com is built on WordPress. Maybe I’m biased due to my long-standing history of using WordPress compared to other systems.

The blogging platform you choose should be the one that your hosting account is compatible with to avoid issues.

5. Choose a good hosting account

While your domain name is your address, the hosting account is the house itself. It’s the thing that stores the information you’ve and makes it available to internet users.

For example, while the address of the house you live in is likened to your domain name on the Internet, the actual building becomes the domain name on the Internet.

When choosing a hosting company, there are key metrics you must look out for.

1. Uptime: This ensures that your website is always available to your visitors without interruption. You don’t want people to visit your blog and it’s showing NOT AVAILABLE or NOT OPENING.
2. Speed and performance: This has to do with the time it takes for the blog to open whenever a user clicks on it.
3. Security features: At least, the company should have the basic SSL certificate for free, among others, like having a backup of the website.
4. 24/7 Customer support: Every hosting company claims to have 24/7 support, but those who have been in the system for a long time know that not all of them do. So, do not rely 100% on what they put on their website.
5. Storage and Bandwidth: The hosting package you’re choosing should have good storage and bandwidth capacity.

6. Building your blog

Once you’ve chosen a niche to blog about, the name for the blog, the blogging platform and hosting, the next is to build the blog.

Building your blog entails registering the chosen domain, buying a hosting account, and installing the blogging software on the account. I’ve made a detailed guide on building your blog from scratch. You should check that out if you’re struggling to do it yourself.

In building your blog, you must do it properly to ensure the structure and a bit of technical SEO aren’t ruined. For instance, mapping the categories and the various plugins to use.

If you’re building using WordPress, once you register your domain and buy a hosting account, the next step would be to begin installing WordPress script to the domain  via the cPanel.

Next!

7. Write and Post on your blog

Once your blog is launched, the next step is to begin writing and publishing your content on it. I usually advise a high level of planning before publishing. Except for certain niches like news/entertainment, publishing haphazardly will really not do you any good. Just waking up to start writing on any topic of your choice usually isn’t a good practice.

For me, based on the various categories on my blog, I could plan the entire content to write on for 3 months before publishing. This gives me a sense of control.

When writing for your blog, do not sound too academic. Keep it natural, like you’re talking to your friend, colleague, or client, depending on the niche. When you’re done, simply edit and publish. I’ve made a detailed guide for you on Writing Your First Blog Post. In the publication, I covered everything you need to write a good blog post.

Struggling to write your first blog post? Check out: How To Write Your First Blog Post on WordPress

8. Promoting your blog

For many people, publishing a blog post is the end of the road. They sit waiting for search Engines like Google to reward them with visitors. “I’ve done what is expected of me,” they usually say. That’s not how blogging should be done, especially for a newbie like you.

When you’re done posting, the next action should be to promote that blog to start getting visitors. While search engines perform their act, you also do yours.

Share a link to the blog post on social media – your Facebook, WhatsApp, or even email list.

Want to know my strategies for promoting my blogs? See 10 methods to get traffic to your blog full guide.

9. Monetizing your blog

Monetization is the holy grail of blogging. Everything we’ve discussed is all because we want to make money from our blog.

There are many ways you can make money from blogging. It could be through displayed Ads Networks like Google Adsense, Ezoic ads, sales of your materials, sponsored posts, or selling other people’s products.

For you to make a reasonable amount from any of the monetization methods (How to make money blogging), having a reasonable amount of traffic is essential. For instance, Google’s Adsense Earning Calculator estimates that to make up to $2,000 in a certain niche, the blog would need up to 50,000 page views.

The more the traffic, the better your chance of making money. But not just anyhow traffic, quality traffic

In the publication, How to make money blogging, I discuss ways you can monetize your blog even if you’ve just 500 visitors.

FAQS | How To Start a Blog and Make Money in 2024

Final Thoughts

Blogging is easy, but blogging is difficult; it depends on the methodology you follow. For example, while AI invention appears to be a threat to the blogging industry, it has also given rise to many blogging software and tools to ease the whole process. Usually, it could take many hours or days to produce good content, but now, you can bridge that length by complementing your production speed with AI.

Also, like I said in the introduction, blogging isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. It takes time to materialize. Treat it as a plant. The day you put a plant seed in the soil, you do not see the fruit the next morning. But as you keep watering it, it begins to shoot out its beautiful leaves.

Lastly, if you can get a mentor that will also shorten the time for you. A good mentor must have developed a system to travel from Egypt, like the Biblical Israelites, to Canaan Land in 40 days instead of 400 years.

However, if you cannot get mentorship due to the cost, consistently practice everything you’re going to learn and observe the cause and effect. If you follow through with my teaching, it’s a form of indirect mentorship because I’ll be sharing everything you need to succeed even without a mentor.

Good Luck, and make sure to check out the other parts of this series on starting a successful blog and make money in 2024.

1. Google AdSense Revenue calculator is designed by Google to estimates earnings of websites monetized via AdSense based on website traffic, CTR, CPC, and other metrics. It helps publishers forecast potential ad revenue. Results are approximate and depend on various factors influencing ad performance and user engagement.
   ↩︎