How To Start A Mom Blog And Make Money

Hey, mommy, you would like to start a blog that makes money, right? But did you know that in order to make money you need to set up your blog as a money-making blog right from the start? Because, blogs that make money do things differently, and to help you make your blog profitable in no time, you need three things:

The first thing you need is a strategy and the second thing is, you need to understand what exactly makes money.

And the third thing you need is to start your blog on WordPress with Bluehost.

Writing about random topics will not make you money. 

Bloggers who earn money from their blogs write strategically. Meaning they only write about topics their readers want to read.

So, how do you find out what your audience wants to read about?

And how can you compete with blogs that are already making money even if you don’t feel that you’re the best writer?

How exactly do you need to set up your blog after you bought hosting?

And the biggest question of all you might have is can you start a profitable blog without being an expert?

And I’m sure there are many questions going through your head right now.

That’s why in this post I’m going to show you how to:

• Pick a profitable niche for your blog that attracts evergreen traffic.
• Find out the secret to how to make content that readers want to read, guaranteed.
• Discover the ONE thing you need to consider when choosing a theme for your blog (and it’s NOT what you think).

But first things first, you need to sign up for hosting and then jump into this tutorial where I show you STEP-BY-STEP how to set it up.

Skip my story and start the post.

Why Did I Start My Blog?

For over 10+ years I’ve worked for global brands in some of London’s top advertising agencies and I loved every minute of it.

But, after the agency I worked for started to lose business to “Instagram influencers” in 2016, I got curious to see what else was out there.

And so I started my first blog on the side to help female entrepreneurs build their brand on Instagram.

My business quickly took off and to help more people I created an ebook and a course. Because of that, I was able to earn $2K from my blog quite quickly.

But things didn’t stop there and within a short space:

• I signed my first $3K coaching client from 1 Instagram post
• had a pin go viral and 350K+ monthly Pinterest views
• had over 1.7K female entrepreneurs take my free Insta challenge
• more clients wanting to work with me one on one
• my Instagram coaching expanded into business coaching for women
• I regularly signed $5K clients
• ran a Facebook group with over 2000+ members
• had over 3000+ email subscribers on my list
• spend 6 months working from Bali
• consulted over 50+ e-commerce brands

My Burnout

One day, while working from beautiful Bali, and right after signing another $5K client, I had a major burnout.

And honestly, I was at my lowest and no longer wanted to work with one-on-one clients. My family and friends, however, encouraged me to keep going because I was making good money.

But deep down I knew that working as a coach wasn’t for me and I just knew that something had to change.

The Turning Point

When I returned from Bali, I stopped doing coaching and switched to consulting which was good, but still didn’t feel right. And then, 7 months after my burnout the final turning point came when I unexpectedly became pregnant and had to put my online business on hold again.

Because suddenly I was so nauseous from morning sickness that I was unable to get in front of the camera to consult clients.

And at that moment I knew it was time to switch from working “in front” of the laptop to working “behind” the laptop.

Back to Blogging

To be honest, secretly I had been craving for a more introverted friendly way to generate income without one on one clients.

That’s why it didn’t take me long to decide to go back to blogging.

Because for years I had followed successful bloggers and one thing that fascinated me was reading their income reports.

And it blows my mind every time to read bloggers making $15K/mo or $200K/mo+. Because I know if it’s possible for them, it’s possible for you and for me.

That’s why I now help mommies make money online. Because I believe mommies can build profitable blogs, even during nap times and nappy changes. But the only thing you need is the right blogging strategy.

And in this post, I’ll share my blogging strategy with you, which tools to use and how this free webinar helped me set up my blog as a money-making blog from day one.

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What Is Blogging?

Blogging is the act of regularly adding new content to a blog.

But, what exactly is a blog?

A blog refers to a personal website where you can post about certain topics, such as events, situations, hobbies, and interests.

In 1994, blogging began as a way to share personal diary entries. Then people discovered that blogging could also be used as a business, and now there are over 570 million blogs on the web.

That means there are, therefore, a lot of blogs competing, but there’s one way you can separate yourself from the rest as a money-making blog.

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Treat Your Blog Like a Business From Day One

The blogging business is in fact driven by supply and demand. 

That means the more people that are interested in your blog, the higher the demand.

And if demand is higher, you can earn an income from your blog more easily. 

Therefore, you should write about topics that your readers are interested in and try to attract as many people to your blog as possible. 

Because, on the flip side, if your blog isn’t high in demand, not many people are going to be interested in your content.

And low demand means fewer affiliate opportunities for you, as fewer people click and fewer people read your blog. Ultimately, you’ll have fewer opportunities to make money from your blog.

To sum it up, if you approach your blog as something you want to write about, it’s a hobby (which is what I did the first time).

But, if you approach your blog strategically as a place to write about what your readers want to read, then it’s a business.

So, how can you use blogging to strategically achieve your goals as opposed to just blogging for fun?

How To Blog Strategically

As I mentioned above, the first part of blogging strategically is to write for your readers.

But the second part of blogging strategically is to optimize your blog for SEO (search engine optimization).

Because SEO is important for any blogger that the sooner you start optimizing your content the better.

That means you should learn about SEO from the beginning of your blogging journey.

Because the better you optimize your posts for SEO, the higher the chances for your posts to rank in Google search. And the more people find your posts, the more traffic you’re driving to your blog and the more money you can make (I talk more about how to make money at the end of this post). 

But before we dive any deeper, let’s clear up some questions that you might have going through your head, because I know this was one of my questions.

Is Blogging Dead?

No, blogging isn’t dead. But it’s true, however, that not many bloggers are making money with their blogs. And there’s a simple reason why not as I’ll show you in this post.

To illustrate my point that blogging is definitely still very much alive, take a look at this next example of a very successful blog.

Example Of A Blog That Makes Money

One of my favorite examples is Michelle from Makingsenseofcents.com who now earns over $150.000 per month (!!!) from her blog.

Of course, Michelle’s blog didn’t start making that kind of money right away.

In fact, when she started her blog back in 2011, her blog was making $600 per month. But from there on she’s been blogging consistently and that’s how she was able to increase her monthly income like crazy.

What’s more impressive is that her monthly income continues to grow even though she spends less time working on her blog.

A blogger’s dream, isn’t it?

You can read how exactly she’s making all that money from her income reports.

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How Long Does It Take for a Blog To Make Money?

As Michelle’s example shows that building a profitable blog takes time. But don’t let that discourage you from blogging, because once your blog takes off, it can generate income for years.

And depending on your niche you might be able to make money blogging sooner.

As a new blogger back in 2016, I jumped right into creating my own digital products. Within a few months, I made over $2K in sales. But I made a lot of costly mistakes, thus, I do not recommend that you begin monetizing your blog that way.

Instead, I am going to show you a much easier way to generate income, especially as a new blogger.

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Can My Blog Still Be a Success?

Maybe you’re wondering who will even read your blog? Or maybe you feel your niche is too crowded and that there are already too many bloggers blogging about the same thing you want to blog about.

But, whatever your concerns might be I want to prove to you that there is still plenty of room for your blog to be successful because of the following two aspects:

1. The first aspect is your ability to answer your readers’ questions.
2. And the second aspect is how well you add your personal perspective, twist, and story to your answer. 

That means, regardless of how many bloggers there are in your niche, no one will write a blog the same way you do or have the same stories to share. Do you know what I mean?

How To Change Your Mindset About Blogging

Is this you?

Are you concerned that there is no more space for your blog because your competitors are successful in your niche?

Well, actually, the opposite is true, because if other bloggers are already successful in that niche, you can too! Because all that proves to you is the profitability of your niche.

Does that make sense?

You need to remember that at the end of the day, people don’t follow blogs but the person behind the blog.

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How Much Does It Cost To Start a Blog?

Blogging is the most affordable business you can start on your own from the comfort of your own home. Because paying for web hosting for your blog is really the only cost you have when you’re starting out and this package for just $2.95/mo is ALL you need. Additionally, you might want to buy a theme that usually costs around $100-200 (But the one I recommend is actually free, so keep on reading).

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Should You Start a Blog?

Finally, whether you should start a blog or not is ultimately your decision of course. But here are three reasons when it’s a good idea to start your blog. So take a look to find out!

• If you want to make money and reap in income passively long term and for years to come, then yes, you should start a blog!
• You should start a blog if you want to set your own workhours and spend more time with your kids, yes!
• And yes, if you want to create epic content for your readers, you should start a blog!

Once you’ve made up your mind it’s time to dive in as I take you through the step-by-step process of how to set up and start your blog as a money-making blog.

Are you ready mommy? Then let’s start with step one.

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STEP 1. Pick A Niche

Not all niches have the same potential for profit. That’s why one of the fundamental first decisions you need to make is to select your niche.

But how do you pick a profitable niche for your blog?

What if you don’t know what niche you want to focus on yet?

And what if you pick the wrong niche, what happens then?

To help you pick the right niche for your blog you need to ask yourself “What is it you want to write about? “. In addition, I have provided several profitable niches that have proven to be very good topics to write about for you below.

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Profitable Blog Niches That Make Money

What is the best niche for your blog depends on your intentions.

But it’s good to know that certain niches are evergreen which means they generate high traffic consistently.

Some of those popular evergreen niches include:

• Weight Loss
• Relationships
• Pregnancy
• Personal Finance
• Food and Recipes
• Parenting
• Homeschooling
• Sustainable Living
• Home and House
• Craft
• Gardening
• Home Decor
• DIY
• Fitness
• Travel
• Fashion
• Beauty
• SEO (search engine optimization)
• Lifestyle

All you have to do is pick the niche that you’re interested in the most. Next, you need to decide if you want to run a niche blog or a blog that covers multiple categories.

But let’s start first with what niche blogs are.

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What Is A Niche Blog?

Niche blogs are blogs that are created to solve specific problems for a specific audience. That means a niche blog talks about one topic only like this niche blog that focuses its content on BBQs exclusively or this blog about breastfeeding that only covers topics related to breastfeeding.

In contrast to niche blogs that only cover one topic, there are also blogs that cover many topics. Those are typically lifestyle blogs, so let’s check them out.

What Is A Lifestyle Blog?

Lifestyle blogs are blogs that cover different topics in multiple categories. Those categories are typically inspired by the lifestyle bloggers’ interests, hobbies, and daily lives across many categories. However, some of the most common categories for lifestyle blogs are parenting, food, fitness, travel, finance, and beauty.

And having many categories means there are also more ways to earn money from each category because lifestyle blogs cover so many topics. 

However, keep in mind that creating a profitable lifestyle blog requires a lot more time and effort than building a niche blog. 

One example of a great lifestyle blog, I find, is Gathering Dreams.

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Which Type Of Blog Is The Most Popular?

You might wonder which type of blog is most popular with readers.

Interestingly, both types of blogs are very popular. Hence, it depends on you and what type of blog you want to create. The popularity of brand new niche blogs is, however, slightly greater than the popularity of brand new lifestyle blogs.

WHY?

Simply put, Google wants its customers to have a positive experience. That means readers must enjoy your content across all of your categories not just some.

In order for Google to send customers to your blog, you need to have really good content in ALL of your categories.

But creating a lot of awesome content across several categories requires a considerable amount of time, which might be a challenge when you’re looking after your kids as well.

That’s why before you decide which type of blog you want to start you should consider how much time you can invest in your blog first. In particular, this is true for lifestyle blogs, because lifestyle blogs are more time-consuming to build than niche blogs.

However, if you are still not sure what type of blog is right for you then take a look at the top 10 types of blogs that make money next.

Top 10 Types of Blogs That Make Money

Here are 10 popular types of blogs that make money in no particular order.

• Food Blogs
• Health and Fitness Blogs
• Finance Blogs
• DIY Blogs
• Fashion Blogs
• Travel Blogs
• Marketing Blog
• Mom Blogs
• Lifestyle Blogs
• Home Decor Blogs

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What To Do If You Don’t Feel Like An Expert In Any Niche?

Ok, let me share the biggest blogging secret with you:

You don’t have to be an expert in order to start a profitable blog.

That means, you just need to figure out what people want to read about and create your own valuable content that solves your reader’s problem.

Believe me, I struggled for ages trying to blog about something I thought my readers wanted only to find out that they didn’t.

But if you want to make money from your blog you’ve got to make it about your readers and what they want to read.

What’s more, you don’t even have to be the best writer or speak English perfectly as you could hire a writer or outsource your blog posts.

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STEP 2. Research Your Niche

The question you need to ask yourself is are there are enough people searching for the keywords you want to write about?

Because you won’t get the traffic you need to monetize your blog if no one searches for what you’re writing about.

As a general rule of thumb, if 100 people per month search for your keyword, you will know it has money-making potential.

And to help you “spy” on keyword search volumes I use a Chrome extension called Keyword Everywhere. There is a small cost involved to use this extension. However, I think it’s an investment that you won’t regret.

1 keyword = 1 credit.

For a one-off fee of $10, you can buy 100.000 credits.

Meaning you can spy on 100.000 keywords!

This extension shows you exactly how many people are looking for specific keywords every month.

And from looking at the search volume you can figure out what is worth writing about.

Pretty cool, huh?

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Find Keywords People Search For

But, how do you find the right keywords to write about?

Finding the right keywords was exactly my biggest takeaway after watching this free webinar on SEO with Mike.

And if you’re wondering what my second biggest takeaway from watching the video was, it’s that it’s not hard to find the right keywords.

But my third takeaway is that you need to be strategic about which keywords you use to make money from your blog.

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How Not Researching Your Keywords Can Hurt You – My Real Life Example

At the beginning of my blogging career, I did not research any of my keywords. Not surprising that my blog only received 10 visitors per day. And no matter how much effort I put in I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong and it was frustrating!

But after watching this free webinar I understood why I wasn’t getting any traffic to my blog and how to change that.

And because of it, I learned how to pick my topics strategically in order to help make money with my blog. It was eye-opening indeed!

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STEP 3. Think Through Your Menu

Planning out your blog menu is really important not just for monetization but for SEO as well.

Because where things sit on your menu really matters. For that reason, you should map out your menu before you even start your blog and think about the following.

Which topics or categories are you going to cover?

And where do your “money-making” posts sit on your menu? The easier you make it for people to click on them directly from your menu the more money can you potentially make.

Is the Purpose of Your Blog Clear?

And the other aspect to consider is if the purpose of your blog is clear. Because the purpose of your blog should be obvious not only to your visitor but to Google too.

Because the clearer it is to Google what your blog is about the better it can get you in front of the right people.

Let’s take my menu as an example.

As you know, my blog is about helping moms make money.

So, to make that obvious to Google and my audience I mention my target audience “mommies” in my blog name and my menu is covering various “money” categories.

How To Create the Right Menu for Your Blog

To start planning out your menu for your blog, create a Google spreadsheet and outline the main pillars you want to cover in your menu. To help you get started you can use can my spreadsheet as an example. However, in order for your blog to stand out, you need to come up with your own menu of course.

Nevertheless, here’s my example spreadsheet from AnyMommyCanMakeMoney to help you get started.

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STEP 4. Research Keywords For Your Blog Content

After you’ve selected your niche and developed your menu, it’s time to concentrate on your content.

Because getting your content right is crucial for the success of your blog.

And that’s because your content is important for two reasons.

The first reason is that people are drawn to your blog because of the content you write.

And the second reason is that a great blog post also keeps readers on your site longer, which is important if you want to monetize with ads.

However, in order to attract and keep readers on your blog, you need to write strategically.

And writing strategically means you should only produce content your readers want rather than writing about random topics that come to mind.

To help you write strategically begin by looking up your keywords in Google and see what topics come up.

Once you have researched what keywords readers like to read, create a Google Spreadsheet and write down at least 10 topics around those keywords you wish to create content around.

After you’ve done that, think about what kind of post you can write about around those keywords and start dotting down headline ideas.

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STEP 5. Decide On Your Blog Name

Choosing the “right” or perfect name for your blog can be hard. Nevertheless, don’t stress about it too much, because contrarily to what you might think, your blog name actually isn’t that important. It is however essential that the name of your blog meets the following criteria:

• your name should be easy to remember
• easy to pronounce
• and easy to spell

Ultimately, you want to make it easy for people to find your blog but also reduce typos when people search for your blog.

And if you’re struggling to come up with names at all make a list of blog names that inspire you and why you like them to begin with.

As soon as you’ve decided on a name, you should check if your domain name is still available. Because a lot of times the name you want might already be taken. Therefore, make sure you don’t waste any time checking to see whether yours is still available.

Domain Name Check: How to See if Your Name Is Still Available

To find out if your domain name is still available you can use Bluehost’s free domain checker.

Are you excited to find out?

Then start the process by entering your domain name in the search field below and find out right now if your name is still available.

What If yourname.com Is Already Taken?

Seeing yourname.com taken is frustrating.

But, what can you do if yourname.com is already taken?

Here Are Five Easy Things You Can Do if YourName.com Is Taken

1. yourname1.com: add a number after your name, like your lucky number or your birthday
2. yournamecity.com: add the city you live into your name
3. yournameverb.com: add a verb to your name, like yournamebloggs.com, yournamesays.com, yournamewrites.com, and so on
4. theyourname.com: add “the” before your name
5. bossmamayourname.com: add niche-specific titles in front of your name, for example “boss”, “mama”, “mom”, “SAHM” etc.

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Wix or Squarespace? What You Need To Know

Before I tell you which platforms work the best and why to let me quickly talk about which platforms I WOULD NOT recommend for blogging mommies like you and me and why.

Squarespace or Wix.

Don’t get me wrong, both of them are great platforms. In fact, I’ve used Wix for over 4 years and Squarespace for more than 3 years but there’s a problem you should know about.

To start with, both are two excellent choices if you are looking to build a website, not a blog. 

Squarespace is perfect for you if you want a boutique website with a blog on the side. That means you can set up a blog as part of your Squarespace website but the blog won’t stand on its own.

Wix is the best drag-and-drop website builder platform. They are a little more mainstream and provide you with more functionality to build a professional website for your online business. With Wix, you can have a blog alongside your website, just like with Squarespace. However, your blog won’t stand on its own which isn’t ideal for blogging.

To sum it up, beware of looking at easy-to-built drag and drop website platforms to start your blog as they might not be the right choice for you.

Because what you really need to make your blog successful are two things:

• a self-hosted blog
• a platform built for bloggers, like WordPress

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STEP 6. Get Started With WordPress.org and Bluehost

After having experimented around for years I’ve come to the conclusion that the best platform to build a blog you can monetize is a combination of WordPress and Bluehost. Click here to check out Bluhosts’ basic plan.

Bluehost is the hosting company where your blog lives.

Whereas WordPress is the software you use to run your blog.

But isn’t WordPress really complicated?

Is WordPress Easy To Use For A Beginner?

Honestly, WordPress is not the easiest platform to use as a beginner. And for the first couple of weeks, you’re probably going to feel like there’s no way you get used to this. What’s more, you might even start to question your decision to start a blog altogether.

But the more time you spent using WordPress, the easier it gets, even if you are not tech-savvy. I promise.

And the good thing about a platform like WordPress is that it’s open-source. That means there is a large community out there you can turn to for help for free in forums, on Google or YouTube.

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Should I Use WordPress.com or WordPress.org?

Before we start, I want to ask you a question, did you think WordPress.com and WordPress.org are the same too? To be honest, I did at the beginning.

But WordPress.com and WordPress.org are not the same. In fact, they are quite different platforms and it’s important to understand the difference.

Because if you confuse them you’ll end up buying the wrong blogging platform, which is what we don’t want to happen.

To help you decide which one is right for you, briefly let me explain the difference first.

WordPress.com vs WordPress.org

In a nutshell, WordPress.com is hosted and WordPress.org is self-hosted.

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Who Should Use WordPress.com (hosted)?

WordPress.com is good for you if you’re a hobby blogger and DON’T intend to monetize your blog.

• Furthermore, WordPress.com hosts your blog for free up to 3 GB of space
• WordPress.com displays its own ads on your blog, which makes your blog look unprofessional if you want to build your own brand or work with affiliates
• Also with WordPress.com you CAN’T monetize your blog

To get more space on WordPress.com or to stop WordPress.com from displaying ads on your blog, you have to upgrade to a paid plan which starts at $9/month.

Who Should Use WordPress.org (self-hosted)?

WordPress.org is for anyone who DOES want to monetize their blog.

That means, if you plan to monetize your blog, even in the far future, you need a self-hosted blog.

And that means you need to get your own hosting.

Why Do I Need A Self-Hosted Blog?

You might be wondering why go through the trouble of getting a self-hosted blog. But, there is one major reason why you should consider it.

In a nutshell, if your blog is not self-hosted you don’t own it.

That means the blogging platform that is hosting your blog can delete your blog anytime, without warning or notice. What’s more your blog and all its content, belong to them even if you’re paying for it.

Pretty crazy, huh?

So how do you choose the right hosting for your blog?

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Choosing The Right Hosting

As I mentioned before, a self-hosted WordPress.org blog requires hosting. But to illustrate exactly what hosting is I’ve prepared an example for you below.

What Is Hosting?

Hosting is the server space you buy to store your blog, which is called self-hosting.

And self-hosting is like renting out storage space to store your belongings. However, your belongings still belong to you, instead of the storage company. Because you’re just renting the storage company’s space to store your stuff.

What does that mean for your blog?

That means when your blog is self-hosted it belongs to you. As a result, nobody can take your blog away from you.

On the other hand, if your blog is not self-hosted, it does not belong to you. Therefore, the blogging platform hosting your blog can shut it down anytime without notice.

Pretty shocking, right?

Because of that, who (hosting company) you’re hosting with is important.

Therefore the two things you need to look for in your hosting company are:

1. Customer service
2. How many visitors your hosting plan can handle

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Bluehost, GoDaddy or SiteGround – Which is the Best Web Hosting Service for Your WordPress Blog?

You’ve probably heard of Bluehost, GoDaddy, and SiteGround hosting. But which of these hosting companies is best for your blog?

Let’s take a quick look:

• Bluehost – Basic Plan: Starts at $2.95/mo and it’s ALL you need (regular price $8.99/mo) for 36 months: 50 GB storage which allows you UNLIMITED MONTHLY VISITORS (which is what you need if you want to monetize your blog)

• SiteGround – StartUp: From $4.99/mo: 10 GB storage, up to 10,000 visits monthly

• GoDaddy – Basic WordPress Hosting: Starts at $7.95/mo for 36 months: 30 GB storage, ideal for up to 25K monthly visitors

As you can see with Siteground and GoDaddy, you can only get 10,000 and 25,000 visitors per month (which is too few for serious monetization), whereas Bluehost lets you have unlimited traffic to your blog (which is like future-proofing your blog).

Bluehost	SiteGround	GoDaddy
UNLIMITED monthly visitors	up to 10,000 monthly visitors	up to 25,000 monthly visitors
50 GB storage	10 GB storage	30 GB storage
$2.95/mo	$4.99/mo	$7.99/mo

The best thing about Bluehost is that it is cheap and gives you unlimited visitors. That’s exactly why I chose Bluehost as my hosting provider for AnyMommyCanMakeMoney.

But I’d also like to share with you my other reasons for choosing Bluehost for AnyMommyCanMakeMoney as well.

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Reasons Why You Should Use Bluehost

The first reason why Bluehost is a fantastic hosting company is that they will automatically install WordPress for you. That means if you’re non-tech-savvy you don’t have to worry about how to set it all up because they’ll do it all for you.

The second reason why Bluehost is a better hosting company is because of its free tech support 24/7. In fact, their tech support is so good, that they are the only hosting company directly recommended by WordPress.

That’s because Bluehost guys are real WordPress experts. And you can literally ask them ANYTHING whenever you get stuck, whether that’s midnight or 2 am in the morning.

That’s why customer support is so important because, at some point, you’ll need good support to turn to.

I had a few problems getting started with site backups, custom code, and domain migration, and the agents have all been happy to help every time.

There are a few ways to connect with a Bluehost agent. But my preferred way is to jump in a chat with them.

The reason I like it is that it’s so quick and easy and all you have to do is to click on “Chat” in the top right corner.

After clicking, a chat window opens for Bluehost customers (if you do not have Bluehost yet you can still sign up for Bluehost here and get the cheaper DEAL ) to fill in your name and your website, and soon you’ll get connected to an agent.

But besides the free tech support, there are MANY more reasons why I believe Bluehost is the best hosting company when you’re starting your blog, mommy. And in the next paragraph, I show you what they are.

• As I mentioned, Bluehost installs WordPress for you automatically. That means if you’re not tech-savvy and worried about how to get set up, Bluehost will install WordPress for you with one click. I show you how to step by step in this post.
• Also, with Bluehost, WordPress.org is FREE to use and you have access to all updates and plugins (I’ll explain what they are and which ones you need).
• Furthermore, Bluehost specializes in WordPress and is the only hosting company recommended by WordPress.org (that one was a real selling point to me, because no other hosting company can claim that).
• Bluehost offers a FREE technical support team 24/7 that you can reach out to whenever you need help (their customer service is one of the best and you will be glad you have it when you need it).
• Bluehost is the most affordable web hosting and you can start your blog and run it for as little as $2.95 per month (that’s one of the few expenses you have to worry about).
• Plus, with Bluehost, you get a FREE domain for your blog (and save $20 right there).
• And if you change your mind, Bluehost offers a full 30-day refund guarantee.
• Most importantly, selecting Bluehost as your hosting partner means, your blog is “self-hosted”. That means you can monetize your blog.

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How Much Does Web Hosting Cost?

The price for hosting varies based on the length of hosting you choose. That means the longer you choose your hosting plan the cheaper it gets.

You have the option to select from 12 months, 24 months, or 36 months for your hosting plan duration.

But if you sign up for 36 months through my link, you get a special discount and only pay $2.95/month (instead of $8.99/month) which saves you a whopping $217!

So, click here and head over to get started with Bluehost now.

And when you’re ready, hit the “Get Started” button.

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STEP 7. Select Your Plan

Next, you need to select a plan.

However, this is pretty straightforward as the BASIC plan has everything you need.

And if you opt for 36 months you’ll save the most money and can start your blog for as little as $2.95/mo.

When I started, I went with a 12-month contract but I ended up extending it. As a result, I paid more than if I would have gone with 36-months in the first place. Because of this, honestly, I would go for the 36 months, if I could do it over again. Otherwise, you’ll end up paying more than if you chose 36 months right away.

To sum it up, if you can afford it, I would go for the 36-month plan as you’ll save the most money. However, if it feels too scary to commit to that long or if you’re stretched for cash, go with 12 or 24 months instead.

30-Day Refund Policy

Bluehost offers a full 30-day refund guarantee. That means if you change your mind or discover that blogging isn’t for you 1 month into your 36-month plan then you can request a refund. You can check out their refund policy here.

My personal experience canceling Bluehost after 30 days

The first time I signed up with Bluehost was in 2014.

And I was so nervous about being locked into a 12-month contract that my fingers were shaking as I typed in my card details. After I signed up I struggled to get used to WordPress and wanted to cancel my hosting plan. But I had just missed the 30-days refund window. Despite that, Bluehost they were so kind to cancel my plan immediately and even refunded me the remaining time left on my plan, even though I was well over the 30 days.

Note: Because of this great experience I’m now also an affiliate with Bluehost and happy to recommend them throughout this post. But rest assured that I only recommend products and services, that I use myself and think are so awesome and that you would miss out if I didn’t tell you about them.

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STEP 8. Set Up Your Domain

Next, you’ve got to tell Bluehost which domain you’d like to set up.

To do that you have two options: First, you can create a new domain, or second, use a domain you own (that can be a domain you have purchased with GoDaddy, Namecheap, or elsewhere).

Alternatively, if you don’t have your domain yet, you can get one for FREE when you sign up with Bluehost (and save money instead of having to buy one).

If you already purchased a domain name you own, you can enter it here.

And then hit “Next” to continue.

Create Your Account

Next, you’ll be taken to a page to set up your account information. In particular, you need to fill in your name, country, and address or your business name (optional).

Select Your Package

Next, you need to select the duration of your BASIC plan.

Remember that the longer your plan goes for the cheaper it gets.

To choose the selection of your plan you need to select it from the drop-down menu:

• 12 months for $4.95/mo
• 24 months for $3/95/mo
• 36 months for $2.95/ mo (best value for money)

Note: Bluehost will charge you the full amount in one go. That means you pay for your hosting upfront instead of paying monthly.

And with this plan, Bluehost will encrypt SSL of your blog for free, which is really essential so that visitors feel safe to visit your blog.

Because without that lock symbol that tells visitors that your site is safe, not many people would click through to visit your blog.

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Select Your Package Extras – What You Need And Don’t Need

When you select your package, Bluehost also offers you package extras. Because of that, you might get confused because you don’t know which of the extras you actually need.

For example, two of the extras that Bluehost will select by default are Codeguard Basic and SiteLock Security Essential. But honestly, you don’t need to buy any of them and I’ll explain why (unless you really want to of course).

• Codeguard Basic – This creates daily backups for your blog. But this will only become more important once you got more content, so you can leave it for now and save some cents.  

• Bluehost SEO Tools Start – Personally, I’ve learned everything about SEO from this free webinar so I would recommend you start there, especially since it’s free. 

• Single Domain SSL – This protects your site and your customers. But you’ll get free SSL encryption with your plan anyway, so you don’t need to purchase an extra one.

• SiteLock Security Essentials – This protects your blog from malicious attacks. But there are free options available inside WordPress, so you don’t need to get this. 

That means you can skip all of the package extras and untick all of them for now.

Enter Your Payment Information

The next step is to enter the payment information you wish to use to make your purchase.

Before you can continue you must tick the checkbox that you’ve read Bluehost’s Renewal Terms and policies.

After that, you want to hit “Submit”.

After you submit your card details, you should see a “Success! Next, let’s create your account” message.

In addition, you should have also received a confirmation email by now that was sent to the email address you used to sign up.

To proceed, hit “Create your account” and follow the next step below.

Create Your New Password

The next step is to create a new password for your domain. To make sure you don’t lose your new password, make sure you save it somewhere, or better yet, take a screenshot.

Then hit “Create Account” and Bluehost will create your new account for you.

Create Your Website

Next, Bluehost will guide you through a set of questions to help set up your blog (your website is your blog).

Technically, you can skip these steps. However, I do recommend you fill them out as they help Bluehost and WordPress serve you more relevant content in the beginning.

So, start by filling out the first set of questions.

Then continue with the rest of the questions in step 2.

Since some of the questions are a little harder to fill in I thought it’s best if we go over them together.

What do you want to name your site?

This is asking for your site name, in my case AnyMommyCanMakeMoney. Unless you have a blog name yet, you can leave this section blank and add it to your dashboard later instead.

What’s your site’s tagline?

Likewise, if you already have a tagline for your blog then you can add it here or, alternatively, enter it later in your WordPress dashboard. However, some themes won’t display a tagline in which case you can add it to your logo if you really want a tagline (if you have a logo for your blog).

Do you want the ability to sell anything?

Granting you are planning to have a shop on your blog then you can set the toggle to yes and Bluehost will install software called WooCommerce for you. WooCommerce is free to use in general but it offers paid features as well. But you can download the WooCommerce plugin at any time later if you decide you need it. That means, for now, I’d leave it because the less you add to your blog unnecessarily, the faster it loads.

Are you comfortable with creating websites?

Finally, the last question asks you how comfortable you are with creating websites. By “website” they mean your blog. To answer this question, just be honest and choose the level you feel at because nobody is going to judge you anyway.

This is important because the resources they provide based on your reply vary a lot. That means, if you’re a beginner, you should go with “a little” and if you’re a pro select “very”.

For instance, I had a lot of experience, however, I still went with “a little” and the information that Bluehost and WordPress provided was just right.

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STEP 9. Pick Your Theme

Next, we’re on to the exciting part as Bluehost will ask you to select a theme for your blog.

And you’re probably wondering “Should I start with a free theme or paid theme for my blog?”

Do I Need a Free Theme or Paid Theme To Start My Blog?

Despite what most people say, you can start your blog with a free theme.

In fact, I built AnyMommyCanMakeMoney with a free theme and I’ll show you which one I’m using in a second.

Because free themes generally work but you should be aware that there are limits to what you can do. That’s because some features are exclusive to paid themes. This means that, if you want to achieve a certain look for your blog that you’re unable to achieve with your free theme, then you’ll have to upgrade your theme eventually.

But, the longer you wait to upgrade, the riskier it gets because upgrading your blog while your theme is live could potentially break your blog.

That’s why, if there is a theme that you like and can afford, I’d recommend getting it and building your dream blog right from the start instead.

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How Do I Choose a Theme for My Blog?

So, when choosing your theme, what are the factors you need to consider?

Honestly, the one thing you need to look out for is how mobile-friendly your theme is because most traffic comes from mobile.

For instance, on my blog over 70% of traffic comes from mobile and I’m pretty sure that’s going to be the same for your blog hence mobile friendliness is key.

That’s why even Google looks to see if your blog is mobile-friendly before ranking it because it knows that most people are using their phones these days.

In fact, here’s what Google says:

Mobile is changing the world. Today, everyone has smartphones with them, constantly communicating and looking for information. In many countries, the number of smartphones has surpassed the number of personal computers; having a mobile-friendly website has become a critical part of having an online presence.

If you haven’t made your website mobile-friendly, you should. The majority of users coming to your site are likely to be using a mobile device.

To help you determine whether your blog is mobile-friendly you can use Google’s free checker here.

In any case, you want to get a green message saying that your page is mobile-friendly, like in my example for AnyMommyCanMakeMoney.com.

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Why Make Your Blog Mobile-Friendly?

To answer the question of why you should absolutely make your blog mobile-friendly you best check out what Google has to say because most of your traffic will ultimately come from Google:

If not mobile-friendly, a site can be difficult to view and use on a mobile device. A non-mobile-friendly site requires users to pinch or zoom in order to read the content. Users find this a frustrating experience and are likely to abandon the site. Alternatively, the mobile-friendly version is readable and immediately usable.

In the USA, 94% of people with smartphones search for local information on their phones. Interestingly, 77% of mobile searches occur at home or at work, places where desktop computers are likely to be present.

Mobile is critical to your business – whether you’re blogging about your favorite sports team, working on the website for your community theater, or selling products to potential clients. Make sure that visitors can have a good experience on your site when they’re visiting from their mobile devices.

So, what does that mean for your blog, and how does that affect the theme you’re about to buy?

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Themes: Avoid These Mistakes

In the beginning, I promised you I would tell you the ONE thing you had to look out for when choosing your theme for your blog. And as you’ve guessed, I’m talking about mobile-friendliness.

Because as a matter of fact, not checking how mobile-friendly your theme is, is the biggest mistake most bloggers make when choosing a theme (including myself).

That means you shouldn’t buy a theme that looks good on the desktop without checking how it looks on mobile devices.

Because naturally, on mobile, your blog will look different than it does on the desktop since all elements will be stacked on top of one another.

How To Improve Loading Times

In addition, you should use a theme that loads quickly on a mobile device since most people will access your blog exclusively from a mobile device.

And short loading times are a key ranking factor for Google as Google knows people hate waiting. That means the fewer elements your theme has, the faster it is to load, hence mobile-friendly themes are more minimalistic.

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What Is the Best Theme for My Blog?

Before you pick a theme for your blog, you need to choose a framework first.

What Is a Framework?

A theme framework acts as the platform on which you can create your WordPress blog.

That means a framework gives your blog its structure, like the layout of the columns or how your menu sits.

And the best and most popular mobile-friendly themes for WordPress are built on the Genesis Framework. In fact, many successful bloggers use the Genesis framework and it’s the one I’m using too for AnyMommyCanMakeMoney.

Genesis is one of the most popular frameworks out there for three reasons:

• It’s lightweight
• mobile-responsive
• SEO optimized (which most themes aren’t)

But in addition to that, one of the huge benefits of the Genesis framework is that it’s mobile-friendly, meaning you won’t run into any loading issues for your blog.

Once you have your framework in place you then use a child theme that allows you to customize the look of your framework.

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What Is a Child Theme?

A child theme sits on top of the Genesis Framework and is responsible for the design elements of your site. In summary, because of a child theme, each blog looks individual.

For example, you can build your blog on the Genesis Framework and use the free Sample Child Theme for your blog (which is what I do for AnyMommyCanMakeMoney).

Or you can purchase one of many beautiful Child Themes to achieve the look for your blog you want.

But do I need a framework and a child theme for my blog?

To answer that question yes, for your WordPress.org blog, you need BOTH.

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Why Do I Need a Framework + Child Theme for My WordPress Blog?

You need a Framework and a Child Theme because having a Child Theme on top of your Framework means you can make any changes to your theme without accidentally breaking your blog.

In short, your Framework holds all the code to the functionality of your blog. That means unless you know how to code, you shouldn’t touch it.

The Child Theme, on the other hand, doesn’t require any coding in order for you to make changes to the appearance of your blog.

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Genesis Framework

As I mentioned, the most popular WordPress Framework is called Genesis (and it’s the one I’m using for AnyMommyCanMakeMoney).

And if you’d like to see an example of a blogger who uses the Genesis Framework and is killing it, then check out Jennifer Maker who made $230.000 in Dec 2019 from her blog!

Who is it for? Most successful blogs you see are built on the Genesis Framework.

Pros: Because it’s versatile, lightweight, and SEO-optimized it is THE most popular Framework available for WordPress.

And you can install this Framework on multiple blogs. That means if you ever wanted to start a second blog you could use the same Framework without having to download it again.

Price: Today, you can get it for FREE (it usually costs $59.95, which is what I had to pay when I bought it).

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How To Download The Genesis Framework?

To get the Genesis Framework you need to enter your details and email address and hit “Get Genesis”.

After that, your genesis.zip Framework file should start downloading automatically.

To download the Genesis Sample, click on “Get the Genesis Sample Theme here” next.

In fact, for AnyMommyCanMakeMoney, I’m only using the Genesis Sample Theme. But if you want to give your blog a specific look, then there are gorgeous themes you can choose from as I’ll show you next.

Next, you need to click on the green dropdown menu that says “Code” on it and then click on “Download ZIP” to download your file. Later on, I’ll show you step by step how to install it on your blog.

After you’ve done that it should automatically start downloading your genesis-sample.zip file onto your computer.

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The Best WordPress Themes for Your Blog

Like I mentioned before, the Genesis Child Themes are THE most popular go-to themes for beginner bloggers.

But there are also other Child Themes you can choose to run with your Genesis Framework.

To begin with, let me take you through some of the most popular themes that run with the Genesis Framework.

But before we dive in I want to make you aware that instead of just buying one theme you can get all the themes available by StudioPress with Genesis Pro.

Genesis Pro

What is it? With the purchase of Genesis Pro, you get access to and support for Genesis & all the StudioPress-made themes.

Pros: With Genesis Pro, you get access to not just one theme but ALL the themes by StudioPress to help you build better sites faster with powerful site-building tools for WordPress. And you don’t have to host on WP Engine to use Genesis Pro as you can use it with Bluehost too.

Price: $360/year

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Refined Pro – Best for Home Decor and DIY Blogs

Who is it for? This theme works great for home decor, DIY, travel, and fashion blogs.

Pros: Because Refined Pro allows you to beautifully showcase your photography, your content, and your products—while maintaining a simple, yet elegant, look.

That means if you are a blogger and ready to build a timeless, classic brand, Refined Pro is the perfect foundation for your business.

Price: $75

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Recipe Blogger Theme – Best For Food Blogs

Who is it for? Recipe Blogger is the perfect theme for food bloggers. 

Because this theme offers clean and minimalist layout options paired with easy access to all Google Fonts to ensure it fits your style.

Pros: One of the pros of this theme is that it’s highly customizable and easy to use with content blocks that are designed to showcase your food photography and recipes.

Price: $129

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Foodie Pro Theme – Best For Food Bloggers

Who is it for? Foodie Pro is the perfect theme for food or minimalistic blogs. 

Pros: Foodie Pro is the most flexible Genesis Theme to date – with a minimalist style and plenty of color and typography options.

And this sleek theme not only has a minimalist approach and clean design, but it sure packs a punch when it comes to features.

Price: $75

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STEP 10. Install WordPress

Once you have selected your theme, Bluehost will install WordPress for you automatically.

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STEP 11. Go to Your WordPress Dashboard for the First Time

In general, there are two ways to log into your WordPress dashboard.

1. Log in via Bluehost
2. Log in directly to WordPress (I’ll explain how to here)

And in the future, you can log into WordPress directly as I’ll show you in this post.

But, to log into your WordPress dashboard for the first time, however, you must use Bluehost.

To do that, go to Bluehost.com and log in with the password and email address you set up earlier. 

Next, click on the blue “WordPress” button in the top right corner inside your Bluehost panel.

After you’ve clicked the WordPress button, Bluehost takes you straight to your WordPress dashboard.

And you are here, you’ve made it! For the first time, you’re inside the WordPress dashboard of your brand new blog! YAH!

At the same time, logging into your dashboard for the first time probably feels a bit overwhelming, because I remember feeling this way! Or maybe you’ve got doubt creep up if you can really do this, right?

And honestly, you will feel a little overwhelmed for the first few weeks. But I promise, once you start spending more time inside your dashboard, it gets a lot easier. And I’ll make sure to walk you through every step you need to know about to help you set it up in this post, ok, mommy?

Save This Post Now

More importantly, remember, you don’t have to do it all in one day. Instead, you can save this post and always come back another time to go through the remaining steps.

Note: Once you’re inside your WordPress dashboard there are always different ways to access what you are looking for. That means the first way is via the Bluehost tab within your WordPress dashboard and the second way is via the left-hand side of your WordPress dashboard. So don’t be confused by that.

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How To Get Started With WordPress

You’re probably wondering where to start. And to be fair, it can be a bit confusing to make sense of all the different settings in front of you. To help you, we will go over the most important settings in this section. Firstly, I’ll explain what each setting does, and later, I’ll show you exactly how to use it.

What Is the Post Tab For?

The post tab is where you need to go to create or edit your posts. That means if you want to start a new post you need to come here to do so.

What Is the Pages Tab For?

Under the pages tab, you can create any pages you want to have on your blog, for example, your home page, privacy policy, terms and conditions, about me page, contact page, or category pages (if you’re building a lifestyle blog).

What Is the Settings Tab For?

Although there are many settings to choose from, the ones you really need to check out are general, writing, and permalinks and I’ll tell you why next.

First, let’s start with setting up the basics for your blog. To do that go to Settings/General and if you haven’t already done so you can set the site title and tagline for your blog here.

What Is A Site Title?

Next, you need to set your site title which is what shows up in your browser tab when visitors load your blog page.

As you can see from the next screengrab, your site title shows up to your visitors in the tab of your browser. But it also shows up in Google’s search results as well, which not many bloggers know about.

That’s my I prefer to add my tagline to my site title because I want my audience to know what my blog is about right away when they find me on Google.

What Is a Tagline?

Your tagline explains to your readers what your blog is all about. Usually, your tag line sits under your logo, which means it’s visible to your readers. But you don’t need to set a tagline for your blog if you find it hard to come up with one.

But, whether your tagline shows up on your blog, depends on your theme as some themes are unable to display your tagline, even though you’ve set one.

What Is a Site Address (URL)?

One thing you should definitely check for is that your site address (URL) has the https:// instead of http://because the “s” indicates to your visitors that your site is secure.

If yours hasn’t got https:// yet, you need to get in touch with Bluehost to enable SSL for you (which they’ll do for free if you’re a customer. If you’re not a customer yet you can sign up here).

Likewise, you should check how you want the date to show on your posts.

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How To Log In With WordPress?

Before you can access your dashboard you need to set up your log-in credentials first.

To do so go to Users/ Profile.

Then scroll down to “Set new password” and click on it.

After you click that button, WordPress will generate a strong password for you.

Alternatively, you can set your own password by typing it into the box.

And definitely don’t forget to hit “Update Profile” at the bottom of the page, because unless you save it your changes won’t show!

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How To Log In To WordPress Directly

As I mentioned previously, there are two ways to log into your WordPress dashboard, one of them being to log into your dashboard directly.

And in this section, I want to show you how to log in to your WordPress dashboard directly. So, to start off with you need to type in your blog’s URL followed by /wp-login.php

That means yours should look like this yourblogname.com/wp-login.php

Or like in my example anymommycanmakemoney.com/wp-login.php

Once you typed in your yourblogname.com/wp-login.php you then need to type in your username and password that you set up earlier.

After that hit “Log In” and then proceed to the next step.

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STEP 12. Change Your Permalinks

Next, you need to change how your permalinks show up. But before I show you how to do that I quickly want to explain what permalinks are, because they are quite important.

What Is a Permalink?

In short, a permalink is the URL of each of your posts. And as the name suggests permalinks are “permanent” links that are meant to remain unchanged in the future. That means you must set them up right from the start and not change your settings afterward as this would break all your links.

To set up your permalinks correctly in your WordPress dashboard go to Settings/ Permalinks and select “post name” because your post name contains keywords that are important for your SEO.

Then hit “Save” and let’s continue with the remaining settings.

What Is a Permalink Example?

In order to help you understand what a permalink for your post looks like, here is my example:

anymommycanmakemoney.com/how-to-start-a-blog/ is the permalink for this particular post.

By default, WordPress generates the permalink from your post title. But you can edit your permalinks to shorten it to only use the keywords you want to rank for, like in my case “how to start a blog”.

Why You Should Edit Your Permalinks

Editing your permalinks is important because you want to make your permalinks recallable for your readers. Because your audience will find it easier to search for your permalink when they are recallable.

For example “how to start a blog” is easier to remember than “how to start a mom blog and make money”. That means “how to start a blog” is a better permalink than “how to start a mom blog and make money”. Do you see what I mean?

To edit your posts permalink hoover over your content block and click on “…” and then click on “show more settings”.

After you click that, a panel opens on the right-hand side. And in the right-hand column, you want to make sure that you’re on the “Post” tab so that you see the next steps which I’m about to guide you through.

To edit the permalink for this particular post click on “Permalink” and you’ll see “URL Slug” which is where you can edit the actual permalink for this post.

Why Are Permalinks Important?

As I briefly touched upon before your permalink URLs play an important role in your blog’s SEO (search engine optimization). In fact, they can have a positive and lasting impact on your blog’s SEO and help your blog rank in Google. That means your permalinks should always include the keywords you want your post to rank for.

But we’ll dive deeper into how to find the right keywords further down in this post so don’t worry about it too much for now.

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STEP 13. Upload Your Theme Framework

Before you can install your theme you need to install your theme framework first.

For instance, the framework I’m using for AnyMommyCanMakeMoney is called the Genesis Framework.

To install your framework go to Appearance/ Theme where you can upload the framework file that you downloaded from Studiopress earlier.

Then hit “Upload” to start uploading your file.

Next, you need to choose the file you want to upload.

To upload your Framework and Child Theme which you purchased from Studiopress earlier, check your Download folder on your computer unless you saved it somewhere else.

After you’ve selected your file WordPress will start uploading it automatically. But once your file is uploaded you must hit “Install” and then you also need to hit “Activate” to activate your framework.

Note: In WordPress, only one item can be active at a time. That means once you upload your Child Theme and activate it, your Framework will no longer say active. But don’t let that confuse you because that’s perfectly normal.

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STEP 14. Install Your Child Theme

Next, you need to upload your child theme, which in my case is the Genesis Sample (Alternatively, if you purchased a child theme from earlier you need to upload it here).

In the same way how you just uploaded your framework you need to upload your theme too by hitting the “Upload” button, selecting the file you wish to upload, and then hit “Install now”.

After you’ve done so you should now see both files you’ve just uploaded, which are your Child Theme and your Genesis Framework.

Next, you need to hit “Activate” and WordPress will install the Child Theme for your blog instantly.

And just like that, you’ve installed your Framework and Child Theme.

And now that you’ve uploaded your theme successfully you get to customize it next, ready?

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STEP 15. Customize Your Child Theme

I’m sure you probably have a vague idea in your head of what you’d like your blog to look like. And to achieve the look for your blog that you’re after you have to customize it. That means you have to play around with the settings in order to set it up in a particular way.

And to help you get started let’s go over the most important basics together.

To get started hit “Customize” on your Child Theme.

Of course, there are no limits to what you can do to customize your blog, but there are also a few things I recommend you do regardless of the look you have in mind.

To get started go to Site Identity/ Logo and upload your logo. And if you haven’t got a logo for your blog yet you can design one in Canva for free.

For example, I designed the logo for AnyMommyCanMakeMoney in Canva and it only took me 20 minutes to play around with.

Because it doesn’t have to be perfect and you might still make changes to your brand as you develop your blog.

What Is a Site Icon or a Favicon?

A site icon or favicon is the little logo that shows up in your browser tab.

And to design yours you can use Canva initially but to finalize it you’ll need a favicon generator to convert it into the right file.

Favicons can only be uploaded in small file sizes, so you should upload no larger than 512×512.png.

Once you’re done hit “Publish”, otherwise the changes you just made won’t show.

How To Navigate the WordPress Settings

Before we continue I just want to point out that in WordPress many settings are accessible in multiple ways. For example, you can set your Site Title and Tagline here under customize or under settings like I just showed you earlier. Because I found that very confusing at the start my best advice to you is to stick to one way of navigating around.

My preferred way is to use the left-hand side panel in my WordPress dashboard, but it’s up to you which way you prefer.

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STEP 16. Set Up Your Home Page

Next, you need to decide what you want the homepage of your blog, the page your visitors land on, to look like.

That means you need to decide if you want a static page or if you want to display your latest blog post instead?

Choosing what your blog’s homepage will look like will not only massively impact the design of your blog but more importantly your chances to monetize it.

For instance, if you’re a hobby blogger, which I don’t think you are if you’ve come this far, then it’s ok to display your latest blog post only.

Why Do I Need a Static Homepage for My Blog?

However, if you want to monetize your blog you should make your home page a static page.

Because from your static page, you can link to your affiliate posts, reviews, or your about me page where you can use affiliate links that make you money.

For example, my homepage for AnyMommyCanMakeMoney is static because I want to display my widgets that take my readers to my “money-making” posts.

But before you can select your homepage as a static page or posts page, you need to create a homepage and a blog page first.

How To Create a Home Page for Your Blog

To create any new page go to Pages/ Add New and give your homepage a name.

For example, you can call yours “Home”, “Hompage” or “frontpage” as it doesn’t matter. That’s because this name is only for you internally so that you know which page is your homepage amongst other pages in your dashboard.

For instance, I called my homepage “AnyMommyCanMakeMoney – Helping Moms Make Money Online”, which is way too long, but again, it doesn’t matter.

Note: By default, WordPress will display the title of your page on the actual page itself. But of course, you don’t want your titles to show up on your homepage. To hide mine I’m using a plugin called “Hide Title” (But I’ll explain what plugins are and which ones you need in detail here).

Next, you want to hit “Update” to save it.

How To Design Your Widegts

To design my widgets I use Canva (free version). Then, once you’ve got your widgets designed you need to upload them as images to your homepage under pages. And don’t forget to add links to your widgets to point to the right post.

Good to know: To exit out and return to your dashboard, click on the WordPress logo top left corner.

Why Do I Need Widgets on My Blogs Homepage

Without going into too much SEO but your homepage gets the highest “link juice” from Google. That means the majority of people will land on your homepage. Because of that, it makes sense to direct your visitors from your homepage straight to your most valuable content, without them having to search for it.

That’s why you need to think of your widgets as shortcuts to your most profitable posts. But don’t stress if you don’t know exactly what your widgets are going to be when you’re at the beginning of your blogging journey as you can always adjust your homepage.

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How To Create a Blog Page for Your Blog That Makes Money

To create your blog, you need to set up a blog page first to let WordPress know where you want all your blog posts to sit.

To do that, go to Pages/ Add New and call it “BLOG”.

Then hit “Update” to save it.

That means from now on, WordPress will now automatically add all of your blog posts to this blog page that you just created.

Then hit “Save Changes” and “Update” to save your changes.

Now that you’ve set up your homepage and blog page, you need to go back to your Settings/ Reading.

That’s because now you need to let WordPress know which page you want to display as your “static page” and which as your “blog page”. To do so select your homepage and your posts page that you’ve just created so that WordPress knows which pages to show.

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STEP 17. Set Up Your Main Menu Navigation

Next, you need to set up the menu for your blog.

Remember when you started thinking about your menu in Step 3? By now, you should have an idea of what you want on your menu.

That means all that’s left to do now, is to set up your actual menu for your blog that makes money.

To do so, go to Appearance/ Menus and select your Main (Header Menu).

Then, select the pages, money-making posts, or categories you want to add to your main menu and hit “Add to Menu”.

Next, you want to hit “Save Menu” to save your changes.

From here, you can add any new page, post, or category to your blog menu.

How To Edit Footer in WordPress

In addition to your main menu, you need to set up and edit your footer menu in the same way.

Note: How your footer menu shows depends on your theme. For example, in Genesis Sample, which is what I’m using for AnyMommyCanMakeMoney, you can set up footer widgets as well.

First, select “Footer” as the menu you want to edit.

Next, add the pages, posts, or categories to your menu and hit “Save Menu”.

In particular, good pages and links to have in your footer are:

• About me
• Contact
• Privacy Policy
• TnC’s
• Popular posts
• Social share icons

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How To Edit Footer Widget in WordPress

If your theme supports footer widgets, like the Genesis Framework, for example, you can add useful widgets to your footer.

For instance, the Genesis Framework supports 3 footer columns that you can allocate shortcuts to like to your most popular posts, your social media accounts, or even collect email addresses of new subscribers.

1. To add widgets to your footer go to Appearance/ Widgets.
2. Select the widget you’d like to add.
3. From the dropdown menu select which footer column you’d like to add it to.
4. Hit “Add Widget”.

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STEP 18: Plugins

What Is a Plugin and Why Do I Need Them?

A plugin is a piece of software that plugs into your WordPress website. That means, they can extend functionality or add new features to customize your WordPress blog. Because WordPress plugins contain code and integrate seamlessly with WordPress.

This means you can add unlimited features to your blog simply by uploading a specific plugin without having to know how to code. Pretty cool huh?

And best of all, plugins are usually FREE.

And there are large communities out there of coders for WordPress plugins that are always happy to help if you have questions.

What Is an Example of a WordPress Plugin?

Have you heard of the Yoast SEO plugin? Because this is a good example of a must-have plugin for your WordPress blog.

Which Plugins Do I Need for My WordPress Blog?

There are thousands of plugins to choose from. And quickly you start wondering which ones you really need. Because you don’t just want to download any plugins as they might slow your blog down.

So I’ve put together the plugins for you that I found the most helpful when I started my blog AnyMommyCanMakeMoney.

Best Plugin for SEO – Yoast SEO

Yoast is the #1 WordPress SEO plugin. This plugin is designed to help you write better posts that improve your ranking on Google. Once installed on your blog it helps you improve the readability of your blog, it checks keyword density, lets you write your meta description (the snippet that readers see in Google before they click on your post), if you used too much passive voice, it tells you if your post is too short and much more.

Below your post, you can add your meta description that you want to show up in Google to Yoast.

And the free version gives you everything you need to improve the SEO of your posts and start a blog and make money.

Best Plugin to Hide Title – Hide Page and Post Title

When you set up pages in WordPress, you have to give them a name, like “blog” or “homepage”. By default, WordPress displays the page or post title on that specific page for visitors to see. But on certain pages or posts, you might not want your visitors to see it.

For example, it would be odd if your homepage said “homepage” on top, right?

That’s why this plugin lets you hide the title of a particular page or post.

Can you see how my page title shows up on my page in the screengrab I’ve provided? For example, if I didn’t tick “Hide the title” the title (which is usually your page name) would show up on my homepage. But because I’m using this plugin I’m able to hide my title for that particular page on how to start a blog and make money.

Best Font Plugin – Use any font

With this plugin, you can upload any custom fonts to your blog without touching your CSS file.

(CSS is a stylesheet file required for every WordPress theme. It controls the visual design and layout of your blog.)

But thanks to this plugin, you can upload any font to your blog with one click.

BONUS TIP: And if you want to find out what font your favorite blog is using, get the WhatFont Chrome extension, which lets you “spy” on other blogs’ fonts.

Best Social Share Plugin – Grow Social by Mediavine

You want to make it easy for your readers to share your content. That’s why you need this plugin because it has the best-looking share buttons and it is one of the easiest to use social sharing plugins available.

For now, when you’re just starting your blog, the free version offers everything you need but once you make money you might want to upgrade.

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STEP 19. Write Your First EPIC Post in WordPress

With the setup of your blog out of the way, it’s time to start writing your first post. Because this is really what blogging is all about.

Are you excited?

How To Start a Blog Post

To start writing your first piece of content for your blog strategically (rather than randomly), start by looking at your spreadsheet and then pick your first topic to write about based on the keyword you identified.

Next, write the BEST, the most EPIC post out there a reader could find. And I mean it mommy, that’s why I’m sharing with you my strategy of how to write content that ranks.

How To Write an EPIC Blog Post

1. Look at competitors posts in Google’s top search results and see what topics, H2 and H3 they cover.
2. Write an outline for your post that answers your readers’ problem better than your competition.
3. Find long tail keywords with high search volumes that are relevant to your post and add them to your post outline.
4. Format your epic post so that it’s easy to read.
5. Optimize your post for SEO.
6. Hit publish.
7. Promote your post on social media or to your list.

Remember, Google wants to show content that answers a problem the best.

That means the more strategic you are with your topics and keywords the more targeted content you can create in less time.

This is how I manage to write my posts between naptimes and nappy changes, regardless of how little time I have available.

That’s the secret, mommy.

But now that you know how to start your blog and make money by writing epic content it begs the question “How much content do you need before you launch your blog?” That’s what we’re going to look into next.

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How Much Content Should I Have Before I Launch My Blog?

When you hit publish to launch your blog is entirely up to you.

And it is common for bloggers to wait to publish their blog until they have composed five to ten blog posts.

My preference, however, is to publish my new blog IMMEDIATELY and concentrate on content and customizations later. 

Here’s why.

Because getting your blog indexed by Google and appearing in its search results takes some time. And until your blog is indexed, it won’t appear organically in search results.

How Long Does It Take for a Website To Show Up on Google?

It can take as little as 4 days and up to 6 months for a blog to be crawled and indexed by Google.

As a result, when you have zero or little traffic, you really don’t need to worry about setting everything up perfectly at the beginning. Because the sooner it starts propagating your blog, the sooner it will appear in search results. 

So, while you’re waiting for your blog to get indexed by Google you can focus on creating more content or customizing your blog further.

For example, I started AnyMommyCanMakeMoney with 1 post.

However, you do you, mommy boo.

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STEP 20. Google Your Keyword

Next, google the keyword you want your post to rank for and pay attention to what comes up on Google’s first 10 searches.

Because Google is actually telling you what type of content it is expecting to see.

For my example keyword “how to start a blog and make money” I can see that all ranking posts are “How to…” posts, do you see what I mean?

Without checking Google’s results I could have ended up writing “10 Steps to set up your blog and make money” or “5 killer strategies to start a blog and make money”. But Google has figured out that people want to read “How-to” content for that specific keyword. Hence the top ten search results are pretty much ALL how-to posts.

In fact, this is called user intent and it’s what your audience actually types into Google.

And nailing user intent is not only important for your blog’s SEO but ultimately for your chances to make money from your blog.

What Is User Intent?

User intent, or known as query intent or search intent, is identifying what a user online intended to find when they typed their search terms into an online web search engine.

So, in other words, what is it that the user is really looking for when they turn to Google?

Understanding the user intent of your audience is key to creating relevant content that answers their questions. In addition, the better your content fits with your user intent the more likely search engines are to rank your post highly.

To learn more about user intent, check out this free webinar.

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STEP 21. Download MOZ Chrome Extension

From my screenshot above, you may notice that my Google results differ slightly from yours. Because my search results have a grey bar under the actual search results, can you see it? 

That’s because of a free extension called Moz bar that I use to “spy” on my competitor’s DA, which stands for Domain Authority.

What Is a DA and Why Is It Important

A Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how likely a website is to rank in search engine result pages (SERPs). And a DA score ranges from 1 – 100.

Mama blogger, stay with me because it is important that you know this metric, even if you aren’t tech-savvy, and here’s why.

In short, your aim is for your posts to rank on Google’s first-page result, which means you must get amongst the first 1-10 articles.

Because, how often do you go past the first page? EXACTLY! 

That’s why to get as many readers to click on your post as possible, it needs to appear on page one as well. However, there are already posts ranking on the first page. That means, to compete for a position, you need to be strategic and focus on keywords with a low Domain Authority. 

What DA Should You Aim For?

It’s perfectly normal that when you start your blog, your DA is usually 0 or 1. But don’t worry, because this is where every blogger starts, even the ones you see being very successful now.

However, even if your DA is only a 1, technically you can still compete with blogs that have a DA below 25.

And, as your DA rises, for example, you now have a DA 10, you’ll be able to compete with blogs that have a DA under 39. However, when your DA is only 1, it’s not likely that you can compete with a blog that has a DA of 75+. Do you know what I mean?

DA 0 – 1	DA 5+	DA 40+
compete with DA 25 and less	compete with DA 39 and less	compete with DA 75 and less

To sum it up, you basically want to avoid competing with high DA (40+) keywords, as it’s unlikely that your post will outrank them on page 1.

So for example you want to write a blog post on “how to lose weight”. And when you google your keyword you see that all 10 posts on Google’s first page have a high DA of 65+, which tells you that it is hard for your blog posts to compete with. But then you discover that the long tail keyword on “how to lose weight on a keto diet” only has a DA of 35. Because of that, you decide to target that more specific keyword instead and over time your post ranks on page 1.

How Do I Find My Domain Authority?

To find out what your Domain Authority for your blog is, you can use this free domain SEO analysis tool by MOZ.
After you enter your domain, the Moz bar will show you top competitive SEO metrics like your Domain Authority (DA), top pages, ranking keywords, and more.

But, there is a limit of three searches per day with the free version, however, you’ll get unlimited searches with the paid version.

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STEP 22. Install Google Analytics

You might be wondering, do I really need Google Analytics for my blog, even when I’m just starting out?

And the answer is yes!

Because Google Analytics provides you with data about how readers use your blog as soon as your content gets traffic.

And knowing where your readers spend most of their time helps you shape the strategies for your blog. In fact, you probably discover things you never knew about your visitors. And the better you understand the behavior of your visitors the better you can monetize your content.

How To Set Up Google Analytics

So, if you have never used Google Analytics before you’ll need to set up a free account here.

Connect Google Analytics to WordPress

Next, you want to connect your Google Analytics account to WordPress.

To help you do that you can use MonsterInsights, which is the most popular Google Analytics plugin for WordPress.

Initially, MonsterInsights Lite is free and all I’ve ever been using. And honestly, you can stick to the free version for now and save some cents. Otherwise, if you want to unlock more features you can upgrade to PRO.

How To Connect Monsterinsights to Google Analytics

To connect your Google Analytics account to your MonsterInsights you need to go to the MonsterInsights tab in your WordPress dashboard and then click on “Launch Setup Wizard”. From there you need to follow the instructions to get set up.

But don’t be alarmed if you don’t see data straight away because it takes up to 48 hours for data to show.

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STEP 23. Set Blogging Goals

Regardless of what your blog goals are, it is important to write them down. That means don’t just keep them inside your head.

Why Should You Write Down Goals for Your Blog?

Because when you write down your goals you start visualizing what you want your future to look like, which is why I’m a huge fan of writing them down.

But don’t set vague goals like, “I want more traffic to my blog” or, “I want to make more money with my blog” or, “I want to post more often”.

Be as specific as possible.

How To Write Down Goals

1. Start by writing down your long-term vision for your blog.
2. Break your long-term vision down into smaller monthly, weekly and daily goals: How much more traffic do you want and what are you doing to get more traffic? How much more money do you want and what are you going to do to mak more money? How often do you want to post and what are you going to do to post more?
3. Set deadlines for each goal and add them to your calendar.
4. Review your goals monthly, weekly and daily to stay on track of your tasks.
5. Revisit your goals at the end of the year to see how far you’ve come.

Set Aside Time To Work on Your Blog

As a mom, I understand that setting time aside for yourself can be really challenging. However, if you’re serious about blogging, you can’t let things happen by chance.

That’s why you should set a fixed time/day WHEN you will sit down to work on your blog and commit to it.

But above all, make sure your partner and children know when you will be working on your blog, in order to get their support.

As an example, you could say to your family, “I commit to writing my blog Monday-Friday 11-12 pm and 1-2 pm.”.

Because when you don’t commit to it and set aside time for it, it’s very easy to lose motivation. In no time at all, the chores start piling up, your kids start swimming lessons and you have to take them, and suddenly it becomes impossible to sit down and blog. 

When I Sit Down To Write My Blog

While my baby is down for her second-morning nap, I prefer to write on my blog because I know she needs all of my attention the rest of the day. Even though I would love to sit down in front of my computer at night after she goes to sleep, I make a conscious effort not to. Because my night could be cut short without me knowing it. In this case, I won’t be able to look after her or my blog the next day.

In order to stay on top of things, I try to sleep when my baby sleeps and do housework before I work on my blog. But of course, as a blogger, I would love to spend as much time as possible working on my blog. But I keep reminding myself that my baby and my partner are my first priority.

When Are You Going To Work on Your Blog?

So, over to you now, mommy. What time and day are you committing to actually going to sit down to write your blog?

What Should You Work on First?

Now that you have found time to sit down and blog, the big question is: Where should you put your efforts? Since you want to start your blog to make money, you should strive to write “money-making” blog posts.

But what are money-making blog posts?

“Money-making” posts are blog posts that contain your affiliate links or that you get paid to write for example:

• affiliate posts
• sponsored posts
• reviews
• tutorials
• list posts

But we’ll look closer into some of them in the next section when we talk about how you can monetize your blog.

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STEP 24. Monetize Your Blog

How Do Bloggers Make Money?

The good thing is that there are many ways you can monetize your blog. But that also means that you should look into which options you like the most before you try to monetize your blog.

But regardless of what you sell on your blog, you must focus on two things in order to make money:

Audience + Trust = Money

Firstly, to make money from your blog you need to know who your audience is that you’re selling to. What is their problem? What are they interested in? Why are they reading your blog? How are you going to talk to them?

Secondly, in order to build trust with your audience, you must create quality content.

Ultimately if people don’t trust your blog, they won’t click on your links to buy from you, no matter how good your affiliate links are.

That’s why your ability to make money from the methods I share with you below will all depend on how well your audience trusts your blog.

1. How To Make Money as a Blogger – With Affiliate Marketing

In the beginning, I told you that I was going to share with you an easier way to make money, especially as a new blogger. And that is with affiliate marketing.

Because affiliate marketing is great for you if you’re just starting your blog and don’t have your own products to sell.

You’ve probably heard of affiliate marketing before and in this section, we’re going to look at what it is or how you can make it work.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Firstly, affiliate marketing is when you promote someone else’s product or service to your readers through your blog content. That means, every time someone buys through your affiliate link, you’ll earn a commission.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

As an affiliate, you receive a unique link that tells the company or person the visitor came from your blog.

Some links have a lifespan of 24 hours, meaning you’ll only earn a commission if the person buys through your link within 24 hours. There are links, however, that last forever. Therefore, when someone buys via the link years after you created it, you still earn a commission.

Is Affiliate Marketing Worth It?

However, how much commission you earn depends on your affiliate partner and what terms you agreed to but commission rates are usually as high as 40-60%.

That means you can earn passive income from your affiliate links for years to come, which I personally love.

Pretty cool, huh?

How To Start Affiliate Marketing With No Money

The great thing about affiliate marketing is that you can start with no money.

In fact, there are two ways for you to start affiliate marketing, even when you don’t have money, so let’s look at them one by one.

Promote the Products of Others

The first way to get started with affiliate marketing, even if you have no money, is to promote your favorite ebook, course, or program from your favorite blogger on your blog.

And for every sale you make you get a commission.

For example, let’s say you’re promoting a course that costs $100 and your commission is 40%. That means you’ll earn $40 every time someone buys through your link. After you’ve made a sale, your affiliate partner will pay you out instantly to your bank account or to the Paypal email you provided.

Promote a Company or Service

The second way to earn affiliate income is by promoting the software or companies you use for your blog, like your hosting company.

For instance, with Bluehost, you can earn $65 when someone buys hosting with your affiliate link. But you need to make at least two sales before you can request a payout.

How To Start Affiliate Marketing

By now you might be curious how you can get started with affiliate marketing on your blog, even if you’re a beginner, right? So, let me take you through the exact steps you need to take.

Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

Here are ten steps on how to start with affiliate marketing as a beginner blogger.

1. Pick your niche.
2. Set up your blog (choose your name and hosting).
3. Research products and services you want to promote in your niche.
4. Find out if they have an affiliate program.
5. Apply to become an affiliate partner.
6. Get your unique affiliate links.
7. Create valuable content around your affiliate products and services.
8. Add your affiliate links to your relevant blog posts.
9. Promote your content on social media or to your mail list.
10. Earn a commission for every sale you make.

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Tip: Remember when we talked about what to focus on when you sit down to write? Because when your goal is to make affiliate sales, then make sure you are writing promotional content as your priority. 

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What Is an Affiliate Widget?

Affiliate widgets are one of my favorite ways of affiliate marketing.

That’s because instead of adding links to your content, you can place banner ads anywhere on your blog. And the benefit of that is that your banner ads are visible to your readers most of the time.

Also, banner widgets don’t look spammy or are annoying like some ads are.

But you don’t even have to create the banner widgets yourself.

Bluehost, for example, provides you with different banner sizes that can be placed in your blog’s sidebar, above or below your post’s content, for instance. And because each widget contains your own unique trackable affiliate link, Bluehost will know exactly when someone coming from your blog clicked through.

That means Bluehost will pay you a commission, every time someone clicks and buys through your banner widget.

And if your affiliate partner doesn’t provide you with banners you can design your own widgets in Canva and add them to your sidebar. But don’t forget to add your affiliate link to your widgets so that your reader can click through.

The Following Questions Might Also Interest You About Affiliate Marketing:

• How much does it cost to start affiliate marketing? Usually nothing. There are, however, some networks that charge a fee up front to join. But, I’ve only joint free ones so far.
• Is affiliate marketing easy? Yes, it is easy in the sense that you don’t have to create your own products to start your blog and make money. And it’s easy to find a profitable niche with the help I’ve provided above. But creating valuable content, learning about SEO, and driving your blog to the right audience are difficult tasks. It’s not impossible, however.
• Can you start affiliate marketing with no money? Yes. Because the only costs you have are paying for your hosting or your theme for your blog. But other than that there are no additional costs for you to becoming an affiliate.
• How do affiliates get paid? How you get paid depends on your affiliate partner and the terms you have agreed on. Most pay you directly to your bank account or to your Paypal email address whereas some offer cheques. But personally I only opt for bank transfers or Paypal.

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2. How To Make Money as a Blogger – With Ads

Displaying ads on your blog is another passive way to generate income as a blogger.

BUT you need A LOT of traffic to earn a decent income.

That’s why in this section, I will only mention the two main ad networks since you will not have much traffic just yet when you’re starting your blog.

Mediavine requires your blog to get at least 50,000 sessions/month to get you approved with their ad partners (they are asking for sessions, not page views). And you must be using Google analytics to prove how many sessions you’ve had in the last 30 days in order for your application to be processed.

How To Apply to Mediavine

1. Submit your application with your blog’s URL.
2. They check your traffic to make sure you had 50,000 sessions in the previous 30 days (per Google Analytics).
3. You need to be in good standing with Google AdSense.
4. Create original content (remember, you must create original content in ANY category if you have a lifestyle blog).
5. Keep creating in-depth, engaging content.

Google AdSense works by matching ads to your blog based on your content and visitors. That means all you need to do is to add one piece of code to your blog to automatically show ads tailored to your blog’s layout.

Also, Google AdSense optimizes the size of your ad units to automatically fit desktop or mobile, meaning there’s more chance they’ll be seen and clicked. Because for you to get paid, people have to click on your ads.

How To Apply to Google AdSense

Google AdSense doesn’t specifically say how many page views you require to apply but to give you an idea when you use their revenue calculator it starts at 50,000 as the lowest.

How To Earn From AdSense?

1. Apply to Google AdSense with your blog’s URL.
2. Add a piece of code to your blog.
3. Google AdSense automatically displays the highest paying ads on your blog.
4. You get paid according to how many people click on your ads.

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3. How To Make Money as a Blogger – With Sponsored Posts

What is a sponsored post? A sponsored blog post is when a brand pays you to feature their product or service in your blog post.

Unlike affiliate marketing where you earn a commission for every sale, for sponsored content you usually get paid a set fee upfront.

How Do I Get Sponsors for My Blog?

There are two ways to get sponsored posts for your blog.

The first way you can get sponsorships for your blog is either by reaching out to brands yourself or the second way is by brands reaching out to you.

10 Steps How To Get Sponsored Posts for Your Blog

1. Set up a sponsor page (media kit) on your blog.
2. Describe what you do and what’s your mission with your blog.
3. Outline the benefits of working with you. Why should brands care?
4. Describe your readers. Who exactly reads your blog? What are they interested in?
5. Outline what you’re going to deliver. Include samples if you have.
6. Negotiate a price you feel comfortable with. Don’t be shy to ask for money, because remember that you’re doing the work. So don’t sell yourself short. (And if you have questions about how much you should ask for email me and I’ll help you negotiate)
7. Create valuable content that is relevant to brands you want to work with.
8. Find brands you want to work with and pitch a sponsored post idea to them.
9. Look at other blogs in your niche to see which brands are sponsoring them.
10. Build relationships with brands to get more sponsored posts and increase your income.

However, ultimately the best way to get sponsored posts is by you being proactive. That means if you really like to work with a brand, reach out to them and let them know instead of waiting for them to reach out to you.

To keep track of the brands you’ve reached out to and those you want to work with, create a spreadsheet listing all the brands you would like to work with.

How Much Money Do Sponsors Pay?

How much money you get paid with your sponsored post depends on the following:

• the brand you want to work with
• your niche
• the level of your expertise
• your audience size
• the age of your blog
• and how much traffic you are getting per month.

But as a general guideline when you’re just starting your blog with no audience aim for $20-$100 per post.

Then, when you have a bigger audience and are getting more page views aim for $200+ per post.

And if you have a very large audience and tens of thousands of page views you can ask for $1000+ per post and more easily!

How Do You Disclose a Sponsored Blog Post?

I am glad you’ve asked this question, because by law, you are required to disclose in your post who you are working with and that you get paid to do this review.

To comply with Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations make it very clear at the beginning and at the end of your post when it’s a sponsored post.

In addition, you can also add that although the company is paying you to write this post, you choose to review this product because you really like it and want to share it with your readers.

Because, if you fail to disclose your sponsored posts, you could get your blog fined or shut down.

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4. How To Make Money as a Blogger – Sell EBooks

An ebook can be a passive way to earn income from your blog.

And the great thing about creating your own ebook is that you only have to create it once, however, you can sell it again and again.

But the challenge with creating a profitable ebook is that you need to know exactly what your audience wants help with which can be difficult if you’re only starting your blog.

That means you’ve got to be prepared to experiment around with a few ebook ideas before you find the one your readers buy.

For example, I created my ebook after I gained my first 500 followers on Instagram. And to really understand what they wanted I asked my audience a lot of questions. But I also looked at the competition and how much they were selling their ebooks to help me price mine to ensure I wasn’t selling it too expensive or too cheap. And after promoting it on social media I was able to make $2K+ from selling it on my blog.

How To Create an Ebook

So, how can you create your own ebook to sell on your blog? Here are the 11 steps to help you.

1. Choose a topic you know your audience is interested in.
2. Decide on a price how much you want to sell it for.
3. Check out what other bloggers in your niche are offering.
4. Create an outline of your chapter.
5. Provide a solution to your readers problem.
6. Create your ebook using free software like Canva or Google Docs.
7. Match the design of your ebook matches with your blogs design (but don’t stress about it too much).
8. Include valuable links to content on your blog or affiliate links.
9. Create content around your ebook topic to sell it.
10. Promote your content to drive more traffic to your ebook.
11. Collaborate with other bloggers to get the word out about your ebook.

How Much Does It Cost To Sell an Ebook?

Although it doesn’t cost you anything to create an ebook, there are, however, costs for the platform you’re selling it with that you need to be aware of.

The most popular platform to sell your ebook, and the one I used to sell my e-books, is Sendowl. The price for the standard package starts at $15/ mo. But, with this package, you can sell up to 3 digital products at the same time. And they also offer a free 30-day trial so you can test selling your ebook with Sendowl before your commit to a paid package.

How To Sell Someone Else’s Ebook

Earlier, when discussing affiliate marketing, I mentioned that you could become an affiliate of your favorite ebook and sell that on your blog instead.

Because when you’re just starting out or have a small budget, becoming an affiliate and selling your favorite e-book by a blogger you admire to your audience on your blog is by far the fastest option because you don’t have to create anything.

People love it when you share the tools that helped you reach your success with them. That’s why promoting someone else’s product works so well. In the end, they are going to buy what you bought so they can see the same results. 

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5. How To Make Money as a Blogger – Sell Courses

Before we dive in, let me ask you a question.

Have you ever taken a course that got you great results?

You have?

Then why not recommend it to your audience and earn a commission for every sale?

Because just as you can become an affiliate and sell other bloggers’ ebooks, you can also become an affiliate of your favorite course and sell it through your blog.

How To Sell a Course Online As An Affiliate

1. Make a list of courses you’d like to sell.
2. Next, check if the course creator offers an affiliate program.
3. And if you haven’t bought the course yourself yet, consider purchasing it before applying as an affiliate.
4. Apply to become an affiliate.
5. Create valuable content for your blog to promote the course.
6. Add your unique affiliate link to content.

Why You Shouldn’t Build Your Own Course as a New Blogger

Creating a course is time-intensive and it costs money to host it (One of the best online course platforms is called Teachable and prices start at $39/ mo, for example).

In the beginning, I jump into creating my own course a bit too soon and ended up out of pocket $39/mo for Teachable even when I had no sales in the beginning.

That’s why I don’t recommend you create your own course right away.

Instead, invest your time to get to understand your audience and their struggles first, before you create a course.

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6. How To Make Money as a Blogger – Sell Digital Products

One of the most popular digital products you can sell on your blog are Printables.

But what are Printables?

Simply put, Printables are prints you create digitally and that your audience can download online and print out themselves, for example at home.

And if you want to meet a busy mom who’s making $1000/month selling Etsy Printables check out my interview with Julie. Julie even shares her secrets in her FREE ebook which you can download for a limited time only.

What Printables Sell the Best?

Creating Etsy Printables is an excellent way to provide your readers with value and to earn some extra money. However, which Printables sell best on your blog will depend on what niche you’re in. To help you decide, here are some popular printable ideas you can create and then sell: 

• Color in templates for kids
• Budget planners for frugal moms
• Goal-setting charts for blogger moms
• Games for kids
• Homeschooling templates for parents
• Party invitations
• Gift tags
• Work-out charts
• Weekly chore charts
• (check out this post for one secret tip on which Etsy Printables sell like hot cakes)

As I mentioned, selling Printables can be a fun way to start making money from your blog. But the key to making money from Printables is to create Printables people want to use as Julie talks more about in this post.

It is therefore important to do your research and validate your Printable’s idea with your audience before you create it.

How Do I Make My Own Printables?

1. Brainstorm ideas for Printables that solve your readers problem.
2. Make sure the Printable is a size that your audience can easily print at home.
3. Pick a pre-made Printable template, or design your own in Canva.
4. Add in your content, images, elements, text.
5. Add your affiliate links to your content where relevant.
6. Brand your Printable to match the design of your blog.
7. Add in a footer and header with your logo, copyright and year.
8. Export your Printable as a PDF.
9. Create content around your Printables to help sell it.
10. Create an online store to sell your Printables on your blog (optional).
11. Promote your content and drive traffic to your blog (store).

How Do I Start Selling Printables?

There are a few online platforms for you to sell your Printables. So let’s take a look at what they are and how much they cost.

Sendowl – With Sendowl you can sell Printables directly on your blog. To do that you only need to do two things. The first thing is to upload your design to Sendowl and the second thing is to enter your price and select how you want to get paid. Because Sendowl also handles the payment gateways for you. And, with the standard package, you can sell up to 3 different printables at a time. Lastly, prices for the standard package start at $15/mo.

Etsy – Alternatively, you can set up your own Etsy store to sell your Printables. Because the benefit of Etsy is that they already have a large community that is flogging to Etsy to buy digital products like Printables. To list your Etsy Printables, Etsy charges you a listing fee of $0.20 per item as well as a transaction fee of 5% for every sold item.

Creative Market – Another platform to sell your designs and reach millions of buyers or promote other artists as an affiliate and earn cash, is Creative Market. Opening your shop is free, however, Creative Market keeps 30% of each sale you make. But still, you should check it out.

Fiverr – To be fair, Fiverr is NOT your typical platform to sell Printables. Nevertheless, I’d like to include them here is because Fiverr could work great for you to sell Printables if it’s relevant to your niche. To get started with Fiverr, you can sign up for free and set up your gig. Then, upload your work to their global audience and when you receive an order, you will be notified in the app or by email. Also, Fiverr handles taking the payment for you and you get to keep 80% of each transaction.

And personally, I’ve earned thousands of dollars with Fiverr, so I have a soft spot for them.

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7. How To Make Money as a Blogger – Offer Coaching Services

If you like working with one on one clients then coaching could be a lucrative way to make money from your blog.

For example, I signed my first $3K coaching client after announcing my coaching service to my audience. And from there I started signing $5K clients consistently. But, in order to get clients, I spent (a lot) of time on Facebook groups as well as I built my own Facebook group with over 2000 members. And I also used content on my blog to demonstrate my expertise and then invited people to join my free Facebook group.

How Much Does It Cost To Start a Coaching Business?

Despite the fact that Facebook groups are typically free or charged, working as a coach has its costs.

Because you may need to invest in software so that clients can schedule appointments online, payment gateways like Stripe or Paypal who take a fee, or a webcam so that you can speak to clients online.

If you like the idea of coaching clients then here are high-ticket coaching services you can offer:

• Pinterest VA (Virtual Assistant)
• Virtual assistant (VA)
• Copy writing coach
• Social media coach
• Content creation coach
• Fitness coach
• Relationship coach
• Money coach
• Business coach
• Weight loss coach
• Sleep coach
• Health coach

How Do I Sell Myself as a Coach on My Blog?

Now that we looked at different coaching options you might be wondering how to get started to sell yourself as a coach on your blog. So here are the six major steps you need to consider if you want to offer coaching services on your blog.

1. Pick a niche.
2. Find out what your audience is struggling with.
3. Decide what you will offer your audience to solve their problem.
4. Create your coaching packages (1-3) at different price points.
5. Enable a payment system on your blog so that you can accept payments.
6. Promote your services on your blog and on social media.

Regardless of whatever coaching service you provide, the key to success is understanding what challenges your audience faces and creating a service that addresses those challenges.

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The Fastest Way To Make Money With Your Blog

In the last paragraph, we went over proven methods of how you can start a blog and make money from it. And I bet you are itching to dive in but maybe you’re wondering which method will work best for you?

So, in closing, I’d like to add, you can make any method work if you make it work!

By that, I mean you shouldn’t compare your blog to those of other bloggers, thinking you have to do exactly what they are doing.

How fast you can make money, however, from your blog depends on these three things:

• Your ability to keyword research
• How well you’re building an audience for your blog
• The amount of traffic you’re driving to your blog

As traffic is such an important factor in how successfully you can monetize your blog, let’s take a look at the next paragraph for some key lessons.

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The Challenges That Come With Monetizing

The challenge you’re facing when monetizing your blog is that you need traffic. 

And not just any traffic because in order to make money from your blog, you’ll need a great deal of traffic.

Furthermore, you need the right traffic of people that are interested to buy what you have to offer on your blog.

But how do you drive traffic to your brand new blog so that you can start monetizing?

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STEP 25. How To Get Blog Traffic

Now it’s time to turn your focus on how to drive traffic to your blog because your traffic is the lifeline of your blog. In fact, all of the monetization techniques I have shown you before won’t work without traffic since the money comes from your traffic. 

Traffic = Money

That means, to make money from your blog, you need to focus on how to drive traffic first before you worry about monetizing it.

For instance, it doesn’t matter whether your blog has the best-written content if no one visits your blog and clicks on your posts, right?

Simply put, the more traffic you drive to your blog, the more money you can make. That’s why the most important skill you must master as a new blogger is how to drive traffic.

In order to assist you, I’ve compiled the most effective ways to boost traffic to your blog. Let’s look at them now!

Facebook Traffic – How To Use Facebook Groups To Drive More Traffic to Your Site

Using Facebook groups is a great way to increase traffic to your blog. Because almost all groups offer daily threads for you to participate in, like daily promotion threads.

The reason why promotion threads can help you boost traffic to your blog is that the group owner lets you promote your blog, a blog post, your freebie, or your product to their audience for free.

But be selective about which groups you join because not all traffic is necessarily the right traffic. That means you want to focus on groups that help you build the right audience for your blog.

Another benefit of Facebook groups is that you can participate in link-building challenges.

What Is Link Building?

Building links is one of the most powerful tactics you can do to get more traffic to your blog.

Link building simply means getting other blogs to link back to your blog.

Why is link building important?

It’s important because the more people link to your blog, the more “votes” your blog gets. That means the more quality links your blog gets the higher your blog ranks in Google.

Is link building hard?

Link building is not hard, and seriously, it is the most effective way to increase visibility on Google.

Because links are at the core of Google’s search algorithm and without link building, you might be struggling to improve your ranking on Google, no matter how good your content is.

Honestly, when I heard it for the first time I thought “This is not for me. I’m not doing that. I’m sure there are ways to get around it,” but building backlinks has proven to be one of the best decisions I’ve made for my blog. Because despite not working on my blog during the last months of my pregnancy, I was able to grow my DA (Domain Authority).

Link Building Strategies – How To Link Build

So, how do you use Facebook groups to link build? That’s why here are the steps to build backlinks to your blog with Facebook groups:

1. Find the right Facebook group for link building in your niche.
2. Put a post up and ask for an opportunity to build a link, stating your blog niche, your DA (Domain Autorithy) and who your audience is you’re serving.
3. Also, look for group members posts offeringto to link build by linking from their blog to yours.
4. But be selective about who you’re building links with. And make sure the blog is in the same niche and has a higher DA than yours.
5. And if you’re link building to someone elses blog, add a link to their blog to your relevant content.
6. Then keep link building, because ideally you want to aim for 1-2 links per week.

Link Building Facebook Groups

If you are a parenting, lifestyle, or health blogger, Sharon Gourlay from Digital Nomad Wannabe has special link-building groups just for your niches where you can get links, so check them out.

• Parenting bloggers, join here
• Lifestyle bloggers, join here
• Health bloggers, join here

How To Get Your Blog Featured

Have you ever wondered how bloggers get featured in Forbes, The Huffington Post, or Business Insider? Then keep on reading as I show you how you can get your blog featured too.

Being featured in magazines adds huge credibility to your blog and it builds trust with your readers. The good news is, you can get featured too. In the next section, I’ll show you how.

The best way to get your blog featured is with HARO.

What Is HARO?

HARO stands for Help A Reporter Out and connects journalists seeking expert advice with content creators such as bloggers.

In short, HARO enables your blog to collaborate with journalists from famous publications, and in return, you’re helping them out by providing expert content.

How Does HARO Work?

1. Join HARO for free.
2. You’ll receive three emails a day, with requests from reporters and media outlets worldwide.
3. Scan the emails, and if you’re knowledgeable about any of the topics, answer the reporter directly through the anonymous @helpareporter.net email address provided at the beginning of the source request.
4. Send your own, unique responses when replying to journalist requests.
5. Include a short bio and your contact information.
6. If the reporter likes your article, you’ll get featured and receive the credits.

In a similar way to submitting content to help a reporter out, you can guest post to another blog. In the next section, I’ll show you how.

What Is a Guest Post?

Guest posting, or “guest blogging,” is writing content on someone else’s blog that is related to your niche. To connect with a new audience and drive traffic back to their blog, guest bloggers usually write for similar blogs within their niche.

That means you should guest post for blogs that are relevant to your niche but not super competitive at the same time.

How To Write a Guest Post

1. Make sure you read the rules of your guest blog host. Most likely, your host has a dedicated page for that on their blog. (For example, most bloggers want guest posts to be exclusive, so read the rules first and make sure you are okay with it.)
2. Get familiar with their content to see if yours fits.
3. Provide them with two to three topics you’d like to write about for them. Don’t forget to include title ideas.
4. Prior to writing your post, talk to your host about which keyword to target.
5. Agree on a deadline for when you will submit your post and when it will go live.
6. You need to check if links to your content are allowed.
7. Ask your blogger if you can include affiliate links (some will allow it, while others will not!).
8. Write your post according to the guest blogging host’s rules (most bloggers insist on a minimum word count, a picture or no picture, proper formatting with H2s and H3s).
9. Whenever you are allowed to link to your blog, make sure you add a link to your homepage as well as a link to your “money making” post.
10. If possible, please include internal links to your blog host’s content as a thank-you.
11. Include a short bio and a photo of yourself.

Now that you know how to write a guest post, you may be wondering how you even locate them? To answer that question, let me share with you my favorite method.

How To Find Guest Post Opportunities

There are different ways to find guest posting opportunities. But the one I prefer is to look for them in Facebook groups.

Guest Posting Sites: Find Guest Bloggers or Blogs Accepting Guest Posts on Facebook

• Look for guest blogging opportunities related to your niche.
• Become a member of specific Facebook groups that are solely focused on guest posts.
• You can also look for guest posting opportunities within the groups you are in.
• Alternatively, post your own post asking for a guest post opportunity.
• Most blog owners want to know your DA (Domain Authority), which is likely to be 0 or 1 when you’re just starting out. Just tell them that you’re just getting started but that you’d love the opportunity to guest post for them.
• Tell them who your audience is and what topics you cover.
• It’s important to make sure that the blog you’re posting on doesn’t have a DA higher than 39.

You should definitely give it a shot, mommy. Because you’ll be surprised at how many people will let you guest post even if you’re a new blogger.

The good news is that I was accepted for a guest post even when I was new in the field. Additionally, I write posts in Facebook groups asking for guest post opportunities and provide information about my DA, audience, and topics covered.

But what about Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog? Do you still think Pinterest is a good traffic source after all the recent algorithm changes? You’ll find out next.

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Pinterest Traffic

You might have heard mixed messages from other bloggers about Pinterest.

So, the big question is “Is Pinterest worth your time when you’re just starting out blogging?”

And the answer is yes, it absolutely is!

However, Pinterest only works, if you follow the same strategy that you use when researching keywords for your blog posts, but with a twist.

In this section, I explain and show you the twist.

But first, let’s clarify what Pinterest is and why it’s important for your blog traffic.

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a visual search engine, like Google, but with images or “pins”.

This means, the same way people go to Google for answers, they go to Pinterest for information about a particular topic. And if your pin provides an answer to this problem, then people will click on it. And the more people click, the more targeted traffic you’ll get to your blog.

What Is Pinterest Used For?

Like I mentioned above, Pinterest is a visual discovery engine people use to find ideas like:

• recipes
• home and decor
• fashion inspiration
• DIY tips
• but also money saving tips
• blogging tips
• business tips
• parenting tips
• travel inspiration
• templates like Printables
• budget planner
• weight loss tips
• and more!

This is why Pinterest is a great source of traffic for your blog.

But here’s the twist…

Because Pinterest SEO (search engine optimization) differs from Google SEO in that on Pinterest, for example, you could pin about Keto diets, money-making tips, and the best crockery patterns under one profile and still increase traffic to your profile. 

Whereas Google prefers blogs specializing in one area of expertise or category (which is known as a niche blog as we discussed earlier).

That means, on Pinterest, you should go wide and create as many boards strategically as you can.

Pinterest Board Ideas

Let me give you an example and let’s say you’re teaching moms how to start a blog and make money, then you could name your boards as followed:

• Board 1: “How to start a blog”
• Board 2: “Blogging tips”
• Board 3: “How to start a blog and make money”
• Board 4: “Money making tips”
• Board 5: “How to start a mom blog”
• Board 6: “How to start a mom blog and make money”
• Board 7: “Mom bloggers”
• and so on!

How To Use Pinterest for Your Blog

1. Create as many boards as you can related to your blogging niche.
2. Use keywords to name your boards strategically.
3. Join group boards relevant to your niche to get your pins seen by more people.
4. Optimize your pin description for SEO (search engine optimization).

As a mom, I know how valuable your time is. But with a little knowledge of SEO and some strategic planning, you can make your little time go a long way. 

STEP 26. Learn SEO

I know what you’re thinking right now, mama “Hell no, SEO can wait!” because that’s exactly what I was thinking. But learning about SEO is so important, especially since you want to monetize your blog.

I’ve learned everything I know from watching Mike’s free SEO training and Stupid Simple SEO is the only SEO course I recommend. Before I bought Mike’s course I had no idea about SEO but I knew I no longer only wanted to rely on Pinterest only.

Why You Cant Rely on Pinterest for Blog Traffic Only

While Pinterest once helped me drive 350K+ page views/month, now it’s so time-consuming that it’s no longer sustainable for me to keep up with my little one. Like many others, when Pinterest introduced “fresh pins”, I was constantly designing and pinning pins. And I felt like it was a full-time job. Crazy!

The turning point for me however was when I saw my favorite Pinterest marketing expert pivot her entire business AWAY from Pinterest. Because Pinterest’s latest algorithm change cost her all the traffic she had worked so hard to build.

Then, I read a post in a Facebook group of someone who applied to Mediavine but was rejected because most of her traffic came from Pinterest.

The bottom line is you can’t rely solely on platforms like Pinterest for traffic. This is because if Pinterest changes its algorithm, your entire traffic could be at risk just like that famous Pinterest expert example I gave you just now.

Because Pinterest traffic is no longer considered to be equally valuable as Google traffic.

So, how do you improve your SEO and increase your traffic from Google for your blog?

Best SEO Course for Bloggers – Stupid Simple SEO

The only course I would recommend to help you with your SEO is called Stupid Simple SEO. And it really is wonderfully simple as Mike explains SEO in such a simple way that it is actually fun to follow and implement.

But honestly, I’d recommend you start with Mike’s free SEO training first to get the hang of it.

But what I loved learning about the most in the Stupid Simple SEO course was how to find the right keywords BEFORE I write my post and how to structure my post for SEO (this was mindblowing and helped me put some real structure behind my blog).

My Results After Stupid Simple SEO

In the last weeks of my pregnancy, I was too exhausted to work on my blog. Up until this point, I was promoting my blog daily to drive traffic, without SEO. And because of that, I was worried about what would happen to my traffic if I stopped promoting it daily. But to my surprise, when I opened up my laptop 4 weeks after my baby was born, my traffic had doubled thanks to a few tweaks after watching Mike’s free training from Stupid Simple SEO.

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STEP 27. Promote Your Blog

Writing an EPIC blog post is one thing but promoting it another.

While you wait for Google to index your blog there are a few things you can do to promote your blog posts manually.

How To Promote a Post on Facebook

1. Join Facebook groups and make use of promo threads.
2. Add Facebook groups to your browser so you can access them all in one click.
3. Add important promo threads to your calendar so you don’t miss participating at the right dates.

How To Create a Promotion Plan

The most important thing you can do to help you promote your content is to make a promotion plan of how you’re intending to market your content exactly.

After you’ve promoted your content on Facebook think about where else you could promote your content. Here are a few questions to help you brainstorm.

• Where do your ideal readers hang out?
• What can you do to get in front of those readers?
• How are you planning to promote your blog post outside Facebook?

Write down ideas and create a marketing plan to promote your posts. And then keep repeating your marketing plan for every post you want to promote.

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STEP 28. Build a Lead Magnet

Next, let’s talk about your lead magnet.

But before we do I just want to say that by no means do you need to have all of this done in your first month of blogging.

However, after you’ve got a few posts up you do want to think about a lead magnet.

What Is a Lead Magnet?

A lead magnet is a piece of free content or service that you offer your audience in exchange for their email address.

Why Do You Need a Lead Magnet?

A lead magnet is very important because it helps you to get people on your email list.

And, with the right lead magnet, you can not only build an audience for your blog but you’re also setting the tone of what your audience can expect from your blog.

That means, if your lead magnet is great you’re teaching your audience to open your emails.

But if your lead magnet isn’t great your audience is less likely to open another email from you.

Lead Magnet Examples

Here are examples of the most popular lead magnets for bloggers.

• Sample E-books – Give away the first chapter of your E-book for free.
• Checklists – Printable checklists.
• Workbooks – Giver your audience printable worksheets to fill out step-by step.
• Guides – Like a resource guide where you share your blogging tools that contain affiliate links (my favourite). To see how I structure my resources guide you can check it out here.
• Bonus – This could be bonus pack of templates.
• Free consultation.
• Mini assessments.

Your lead magnet is great to attract your audience.

However, it is your email list where you convert your leads and make sales.

Therefore, when you build your audience, you should also build an email list. And in the next section, I’ll show you how to start your email list for free.

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STEP 29. Build Your Email List

Email list = Money

You’ve probably heard it before “The money is in the list.”

And it’s TRUE!

That’s why you should think about starting your email list from day one. And I’ll show you how without paying a cent.

Why Is an Email List Important?

Your email list is one of the best ways to build relationships with your audience. Because this is where you get to demonstrate how you can help your readers, generate leads, and ultimately, make sales.

That’s why I’m including these tips here because the money really is in the list.

Best Email Marketing Platform

With ConvertKit you can get your first 1000 subscribers for free, which is great if you’re just starting out and you want to build your list slowly alongside your blog.

The downside with this free plan, however, is that you can’t send email sequences automatically to new subscribers.

Eventually, if you want to send out emails automatically when someone new joins your list, you need to upgrade to a paid plan which costs $29/mo.

But first things first, mommy.

Because you should first drive traffic to your blog, then you should build an email list and then you should monetize your list.

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How To Start a Blog With No Money

Can you start a blog with no money?

And the answer is yes, you can start a blog with no money, grow an audience, become an expert at writing content, and master the art of creating graphics. 

However… the moment you want to monetize your blog you have to switch over to a self-hosted platform. Because, I can’t stress this enough, but unless you self-host your blog, you don’t own it.

But if you want to start your blog on a free platform, check out these free blogger sites.

Free Blogger Sites

• Blogger
• Tumblr
• WordPress.com (but you need WordPress.org if you want to monetize your blog)
• Medium
• Bloglovin

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Summary

I know how you’re feeling mommy…

… because all of this might sound a bit technical and confusing, and I get it. 

But remember how I said in the beginning that bloggers who make money do things differently? THIS is the difference between a blog that makes money and a hobby blog.

And if you’re taking one thing away from this post I hope it’s that if you want your blog to be profitable, you need to write for your readers versus “I think I want to write about…”.

Thus, to summarize this post, setting up your blog as a money-making machine requires you to: 

• Think strategically about your topics.
• Research your keywords before you write your post.
• And invest in SEO (I’m sharing this course with you since my blog was going nowhere and with my newborn baby I couldn’t afford to not to get serious about monetizing my blog).

How To Start a Blog and Make Money – Closing Thoughts

If you want to make money from your blog you’ve got to think of it as a business.

And all you have to do is figure out what your niche wants and give it to them. That’s why you don’t have to be an expert in the niche you’re blogging about – you just have to know what your audience is looking for and then write about it.

So, don’t be the person saying in Facebook groups: “I just started a blog. I think I want to write about…”. 

I hope that my post has given you some insight into how you can take the guesswork out of starting a profitable blog and figure out exactly what people want before you even start it. And if you’ve already started your blog but are not getting the traffic or conversions then it’s not too late to give it some focus by optimizing old blog posts for SEO. 

Steps on How To Start a Blog and Make Money

Just start and take one step at a time mama blogger and you’ll be able to start a blog and make money in no time. You’ve got this!

STEP 1. Pick A Niche

STEP 2. Research Your Niche

STEP 3. Think Through Your Menu

STEP 4. Research Keywords For Your Blog Content

STEP 5. Decide On Your Blog Name

STEP 6. Get Started With WordPress.org and Bluehost

STEP 7. Select Your Plan

STEP 8. Set Up Your Domain

STEP 9. Pick Your Theme

STEP 10. Install WordPress

STEP 11. Go to Your WordPress Dashboard for the First Time

STEP 12. Change Your Permalinks

STEP 13. Upload Your Theme Framework

STEP 14. Install Your Child Theme

STEP 15. Customize Your Child Theme

STEP 16. Set Up Your Home Page

STEP 17. Set Up Your Main Menu Navigation

STEP 18: Plugins

STEP 19. Write Your First EPIC Post in WordPress

STEP 20. Google Your Keyword

STEP 21. Download MOZ Chrome Extension

STEP 22. Install Google Analytics

STEP 23. Set Blogging Goals

STEP 24. Monetize Your Blog

STEP 25. How To Get Blog Traffic

STEP 26. Learn SEO

STEP 27. Promote Your Blog

STEP 28. Build a Lead Magnet

STEP 29. Build Your Email List

I would love to hear from you, mommy! So first, let me know in the comments if you found this post was helpful to you to start your blog and make money. Also, do you have any questions? Feel free to leave me a comment below, and I’ll personally respond.