10 Steps to Start a Blog and Make over $2,000 Per Month in 18 Months

In this training [How to Start a Blog and make over $2,000 Per Month in 18 Months. Here, I will show you how you how to start a blog and grow it to $2,000 per month in 18 months. I tried this strategy and it worked for me.

There are many articles on this topic on the internet. This one has promised to be different and straight to the point.

Here are what you will learn from this article. At the end of this article, you will be able to;

1. find a very lucrative blogging niche
2. find the best domain name related to your niche
3. register a domain name
4. host your blog
5. chose a good theme
6. find or develop contents in the niche
7. optimize your blog to show up in search engine
8. perform basic email marketing
9. Monetize your blog
10. Maintain and Protect your Blog

Related: How to Create a Blog in Nigeria Using Your Phone, iPad, Laptop or Desktop Computer

I did not know that blogging is a good business until I ventured into it in 2012. I started my first blog without having anybody to guide me. I had to do a lot of trial and errors. Thanks to God that I finally found the secrete to make money from blogging here in Nigeria. Today, I make at least $2500 per month consistently. With the current dollar to naira conversion, this is about NGN490,000

So if you will like to learn how to start a blog and grow it to at least $2000 per month, follow me.

Let’s start…

1. How to Start a Blog > Find a Lucrative blogging Niche

I rightly said to a lot of my students that blogging is like poetry. You will need a lot of brain-work to come up with something that really works.

Blogging niche is a topic that you want to write about on your blog

It’s worthy of note that not all blogging niches are lucrative. Most of the blogging topics are over flogged, thereby posing unnecessary competition.

In this training, my case study will be fashion niche.

Fashion niche is my favorite blogging niche. This is because fashion is always trending. Again, the most bought products ever are in fashion industry.

So, In this training, I will teach you how you can start a fashion blog and grow it to at least $2,000 dollars every month. Read more on how to find the profitable blogging niche

2. How to Start a Blog >Find the Best fashion domain

If you have resolved to blog on fashion niche, you will need to find fashion related domain. There are various tool you can use to find domain names.

For my students, I will strongly suggest that you use a deleted domain with Google Page rank and backlinks. You can find deleted domain here. Once you are there, simply insert your keyword e.g “fashion” and click search. After that, click on the PR to filter the page rank.

you will take your time to see the best domain for your business.

A good domain name are always short, easy to pronounce, and must contain the focused keyword.

At the end of you search, if you can find a domain name that is at least 2PR, that’s good to start a niche blog like fashion.

Another Domain Search Tool…

There is another domain search tool, if you need a fresh domain. Of course, there are many of them.

My favorite remains leandomainsearch.com.

When you open it up, simply type in your keyword e.g “fashion” and click “SEARCH DOMAINS”.

After clicking the search button, you will see a pool of domains related to your keyword. As seen on the picture below;

There you have it.

You can even filter the domain according to “length”, “starting with the keyword” or “ending with the keyword“.

All the domain names there are available. Simply click on any of them to find out more about the domain name.

Things to note while buying domain name:

• it must be as short as possible
• Signup for cheap web hosting from Bluehost with FREE Domain name and more…

Do you now see you favorite domain name? If yes, go ahead and register it.

3. How to Start a Blog >Register Your Domain Name

After finding the perfect domain for your blog, go ahead to register it before any other person snap it from you.

Where to Register domain name

I have my favourites when it comes to domain name registration.

Signup for cheap hosting package from Bluehost with FREE Domain name and more…

4. How to Start a Blog >Hosting

After a buying a good domain, you can proceed to host your blog.

Caution! It’s not always advisable to buy your domain name at where you are hosting it.  There are reasons for this. You will not have any restriction if you decide to move your domain to another hosting company.

Instead, buy the domain elsewhere, change the nameservers and host it in another hosting company.

My Favorite Hosting Companies 

There are many hosting companies out there, but see  the best web hosting company for new bloggers

5. How to Start a Blog >Chose a Good Theme

Blogging themes are very important. For instance, if you are creating a fashion blog as in our case study, you will need premium theme that does the work very well.

You can get a fashion affiliate them here >>  REHub Affiliate premium theme from Themeforest.

It’s important for you to have a premium theme on your blog.

Premium theme will make your blog to stand out from many other blogs.

Where to Get Premium Themes

There are very many ppremium themes, but I recommend Themeforest. Their themes are light weight, responsive on mobile devices and cheap too.

6. How to Start a Blog >Find or Develop Contents

You now have your domain name, hosting and a premium theme. What you need to do now is to customize the theme and start publishing content.

Content development is the real art of blogging. Develop or buy at least 50 articles. Publish 30 on the blog and publish 20 on other blog in the form of guest posting.

The guest posting will give you more exposure if you are just starting.

If you are creating a fashion blog, endeavor to publish fashion tips. Also, create and separate a shop page from blog.

If you cannot write articles or you don’t have much time, you can pay people to write articles for you. You can find writers from various freelancer or you can order articles from me at a very cheap rate to start your blog.

But if you can write article, try  to optimize it to rank in search engine.

Read Also: How to Make Money Online Without Any Investment with a FREE Blog

7. How to Start a Blog > Optimize your blog to show up in search engines

You have gone far before you reach this level. You have found a lucrative blogging niche, you have bought your domain name, you have hosted your blog and you have published SEO ready articles.

Now, what you need is to optimize your blog so that it will rank well in search engine such as Google, Yahoo or Bing.

Of course, your blog need to rank well in search engine to get more blog traffic unless  you have a huge budget to advertise.

There are basic WordPress SEO tips you will have to implement on your blog now.

(1) Use Google Keyword Tools to discover what people are searching on the niche.

With Keyword Tool, you will be able to discover the full search terms and the estimated number of searches per month.

After discovering the keywords, build your articles on those keywords.

(2) Install Yoast SEO Plugin and set it up. Setup the title and meta description. Verify your Blog in Google Search Console.

Build your sitemap using Yoast SEO plugin and submit it to Google for indexing.

8. How to Start a Blog > Perform Basic Email Marketing

It’s very important to build your email list. Email marketing involves giving your readers the opportunity to subscribe to newsletter, training or promotions.

With a working email list, you will have an  alternative traffic source to your blog without waiting solely  for search engine traffic.

This is because, you will email your subscribers every time you have new contents.

A good email list is also regarded as a good tool for lead generation. People in your email list are your potential buyers.

My Favourite Email Marketing software > Mailerlite

I have tried several email software. At last, I discovered Mailerlite. It’s the email software I use over time and it’s perfect for me.

Mailerlite is forever free for the first 1000 subscribers, easy to use if even if you don’t have any coding experience. It has drag and drop rich text editor with robust customer services.

Try Mailerlite Here

Importantly, the email is message are  responsive in mobile devices and delivers into GMail inbox (not caught in spam).

With all these advantages, you are rest assured that your emails will be read considering the growing numbers of android OS users.

9. How to Start a Blog >Monetize Your Blog

Make money from blogging is difficult for so many bloggers, especially new ones.

Many bloggers are still finding it difficult to make money from their blog.

This does not supposed to be so if you are properly guided. Some bloggers advises that you focus on content development before you talk about monetization.

But, I will advise that you start your blog with good monetization strategies.

Write down your three main strategies to make money from your blog.

There are many ways you can make money from your blog. These are’

(1) Advertising – Pay per Click: A typical example is Google AdSense. Many bloggers, including me, make money from Google AdSense. If you are new to blogging, considering getting an AdSense Account, it will help you.

See: How to Get Google AdSense Approval Fast with a New Blog [FULL LESSON]

(2) Advertising – Selling Ads Space: If you have a targeted traffic that interest others, they can buy ad spaces to advertise on your blog. This has proven to be so profitable these days. All you need is to learn how to invite advertiser to your blog.

(3) Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate marketing is my favorite way of making money online. A typical example is this blog. This blog makes at least $2,500 monthly from affiliate marketing. This money is still small compared to what others are making.

Again this blog shopdirect.ng makes at least NGN5,000 from Konga and Jumia affiliate.

So, start your blog with good monetization strategies. These strategies will act as a guiding plan to your blogging is business.

10. How to Start a Blog >Manage, Maintain and Protect it

Now you have built a blogging business power house. You can use your blog to make money more any working job ever.

So, it’s a goal mine. Other people and hackers know about it. So, try as much to protect it from hackers or crashing.

Here are my favourite checklists I use to manage, maintain and protect blog

1. Remember to furnish your readers with new post every time
2. Always update your WordPress core
3. Always update all plugins
4. Always have a backup of your blog (at 3 months interval)
5. Always change your blog password regularly (at least every month)
6. To prevent necessary hacking attempt, you can buy SiteLock and set it up.
7. To prevent spam comments, download and install Akismet now
8. Make sure you clear your blog cache regularly to maintain the speed
9. Do not have more than one blog for now so that you can concentrate in developing it.
10. Monitor your domain and hosting expiration date and renew them accordingly.

Those are the basic things to do if you want to manage, maintain and protect your blog.

The End…

Congratulations! You  have finished the training on “How to Start a Blog and Grow it to $2,000 Per Month in 18 Months” You have made it to the end but unfortunately, there is no END in blogging.

You will always want to find more ideas, tips and tricks to skyrocket your blogging business. We provide those guidance here for free.

So, subscribe to our mailing list now. You will be the first to receive fresh ideas once we publish them.

Your thoughts!

Do you have any question on this topic? Do you have additional ideas to add?  Do you have a “thank you” feedback for us?

Have you noticed points we should make corrections? Advise us (we will not publish it)?

If yes, kindly use the comments section below, let’s hear you out.