This blogpost is for newbie internet marketers. If you’re already acquainted with blogging, and looking for some tips to improve your blog, click here to read the next blog post.

The fact that anyone can start a blog with little or no capital, the availability of a plethora of free tools, the ease with which one can get started and equal access to the audience ensures only the best would win. The competition has never been this stiff.

But can you win? Do you have it in you to win at this difficult game?

A blog needs to be monetized to generate revenue.

Any blog can be monetized but there may be no revenue.

It should be a successful blog with a growing base of subscribers to keep generating revenue. Only then would you have a profitable blog.

Any blog can have some revenue but only consistent and sustainable revenue over a period of time will ensure profit.

Although these may make it sound like blogging is an impossible task, we bring you a sequence of steps to follow, to make blogging a successful career.

Choosing a Niche


There are bloggers who want to write on everything, almost. There are bloggers who focus on a niche. Both can work and both can fail. It depends on the expertise of the blogger. Not the writing expertise but knowledge.

If you are alone or have a very small team, then it is best to focus on a niche. Trying to write about too many things will not only be bafflingly challenging but it will also confuse your potential audience. Readers like specificity. You too would be perplexed as to whom you wish to target. If you check out the popular blogs or even the video bloggers who have amassed millions with their channels on YouTube, all of them are focusing on a niche that is well sorted. 

How to choose a niche:

1. Sign up to google’s keywords tool and enter the keywords in your niche. For example, if your niche is baseball training, you can type in ‘How to swing the bat’ or something like that. I am not an expert in baseball training, but you get the idea. You will find the number of people who searched for this keyword locally as well as globally. These are the people who are your potential customers. If there are more than 1000 monthly searches, and you can find several keywords in this niche, then this is a great niche.
2. Go to google search and type in this keyword. The number of pages that turn up in your search is the number of competitors you will have. If the number of pages that turn up is less than 1 million, then it is a good niche.

Domain Name Registration


Once you have chosen a niche, the next step to take is to buy a domain name. A domain name is the name of your website.

You can go to sites like Bluehost, GoDaddy, Namecheap or iPage for registering your domain. The domain registration charges for a .com registration ranges from around 12$ to 30$ for initial registration and renewal charges differ from site to site.

There are many domain registration companies in the market but look for key features like 24/7 technical support, security, pricing, and renewal procedure to select the best site for registering your domain. Some of these websites also offer hosting services and it is better to buy your domain and hosting from the same site.

Web Hosting

Web hosting is a term used for buying a virtual storage space for your domain. Many companies offer different hosting plans for different needs.

You need to understand your requirement first before jumping on to a hosting plan. If you are a beginner, you can go for a cheap hosting plan which does not offer many features but is good for a small website. As your blog or website begins to grow and attract more traffic, your need for getting a better hosting plan and company increases.

Shared hosting plan or reseller hosting plan?

If you plan to set up a single site for personal or business use, you can take up a shared hosting plan, wherein you have a single Cpanel. A Cpanel helps you to control your website from a web design interface. 

If you need many IP addresses or SSL certificates or plan to build websites for your clients, choose a reseller hosting plan. Also, reseller hosting account offers Web Host Manager (WHM), DNS control and anywhere between 10 and 250 Cpanels.

Go for Bluehost, Hostgator or iPage for hosting your website as these companies offer the best services at a genuine price. You can get a good hosting server for around 5$ per month on these websites. If you are looking for a premium WordPress hosting website, go for WPEngine which is known for its technology, expertise, and advanced features. 

Install wordpress

Once you have purchased Web Hosting and have a Cpanel, you can install wordpress. WordPress is the platform from where you can install themes and plugins to make your website appealing and attractive to your readers.

Once you have installed wordpress, it is time to go to the next step

There are good blogs and then there are great blogs. Blogs which are appealing in terms of presentation, ease of use, and navigation. There are some basic tools that every blogger should use in order to make his or her blog the best in the genre.

• What are these tools?
• Are they free or paid?
• What difference will they bring to your blog?

Read more by clicking here.

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