Blogging Guide: How to Start a Blog and Make Money for Beginners in 2025

Blogging is one way you can make money online as a content creator. With a blog, you write articles that provide helpful information on a specific topic. In this guide, I will show you how to start your own blog and make money blogging. Even if you are a complete beginner.

A blog is a website that contains articles you create and update regularly. So, in this guide, you will learn how to start a website. Then, you will learn how to pick a niche to focus on and a brand for your blog. After that, you will learn to use Bluehost and WordPress to manage your blog. You will learn how to write content and get visitors to your blog. Finally, you will learn all the different ways you can make money with your blog.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this blogging guide:

• How to pick a niche that’s right for you
• Steps to start your blog from scratch
• How to use WordPress to manage your blog
• How to set up a content strategy
• Steps to increase traffic to your blog
• Ways to make money with your blog
• Frequently asked questions about blogging

Feel free to bookmark this page for reference so you can return to this article easily.

There will be a lot to cover in this blogging guide, so if there is a specific section you’d like to read, you can use the table of contents below. With that said, let’s get started.

Step 1: Pick a Niche

Before you start a blog, it’s important to think about what kind of content you will create.

Many people blog about their personal lives like an online diary. The problem is that most people are not going to be searching for you or your life (unless you’re a celebrity or VIP). So, to get people to find your blog, you need to pick topics that people are searching for.

To help you think of topics for your blog, start by picking a niche. A niche is an area of life that people are interested in, such as food, money, spirituality, fitness, cooking, dancing, and travel. The goal is to turn your blog into a place where people can search for topics in your niche.

Here are some tips to help you pick the right niche for your blog:

• Pick a niche that makes you curious to learn more. If you pick a boring niche, you won’t feel like blogging and it will be easy to give up.
• Pick a niche that is always relevant. The best way to figure that out is to see if your niche is in an evergreen market: health, wealth, or relationships. For example, the fitness niche is in the health market and the personal finance niche is in the wealth market.
• Pick a niche that makes money. Try to think of a few products that are related to your niche. If you can’t think of at least three products, chances are that niche isn’t making a lot of money.
• Pick only one niche. If you try to do more than one niche, your blog might end up being all over the place and your audience might not see you as an authority.

Step 2: Name Your Blog

Every blog has a name. This is how your readers will identify your blog. There are two ways you can name your blog:

1. You can pick a brand name for your blog that is related to your niche. For example, a blogger named Tim who loves solving tech problems might name his blog “Tim’s Tech Fixes.”
2. You can name your blog after yourself. Ryan Robinson, Emily Luxton, and Martha Stewart are examples of self-named blogs.

If you cannot think of a good name for your blog on your own, you can try an AI-powered website name generator like Namelix.

Step 3: Find a Hosting Provider

Now that you have a niche and a name for your blog, it’s time to start your blog from scratch.

The first step is to find a web hosting provider. This is a company that will sell you access to a web server where you can host your blog on the Internet. Whatever company you choose, I recommend selecting their basic plan because it is affordable and is simple enough to host one website.

There are many web hosting providers to choose from. Below, I made a table with five web hosting providers so you can compare their basic plans and figure out what’s best for you.

Hosting Provider Comparison (as of 2025)

Bluehost	DreamHost	A2 Hosting	AccuWeb	Hostinger
Recommended by WordPress	Recommended by WordPress	Recommended by PCMag	Recommended by PCMag	Recommended by WordPress
Basic Hosting	Shared Starter / WordPress Starter	Ignite / Shared Hosting	WordPress Startup++	Premium Hosting
$2.95/month for 1st year, then $11.99/month for 1-year term	$2.95/month for 1st year, then $5.99/month for 1-year term	$1.75/month for 1st year, then $12.99/month for 1-year term	$4.49/month for 1st year, then $7.49/month for 1-year term	$1.95/month for first 2 years, then $7.99/month for 2-year term
Free domain for 1st year	Free domain for 1st year	No free domains	No free domain in the basic plan	Free domain for 1st year
No free backups in the basic plan	Only automatic backups	Only WordPress core automatic backups	Backups included	Only weekly backups
10 GB storage	50 GB storage	10 GB storage	50 GB storage	100 GB storage
Automatic Cloudflare setup	A manual Cloudflare setup required	A manual Cloudflare setup required	No free CDN in the basic plan	No free CDN in the basic plan
Email addresses included	No free emails in the basic plan	Email addresses included	Email addresses included	Email addresses included
Priority support	Low priority support	Priority support	Priority support	Low priority support
Rated 4.2/5 on Trustpilot	Rated 4.7/5 on Trustpilot	Rated 4.6/5 on Trustpilot	Rated 3.9/5 on Trustpilot	Rated 4.7/5 on Trustpilot
Bluehost	DreamHost	A2 Hosting	AccuWeb	Hostinger

How to Pick a Hosting Provider

1. Using the table above, compare the hosting providers.
2. Once you pick a provider, look near the top of the table for the name of their basic plan, such as Basic Hosting or Shared Hosting.
3. Use the link above to go to the provider’s website.
4. Find the name of their basic plan on the website and select it.
5. Understand the provider’s payment plan. Usually, this means you pay a discounted price for your first year. After one year, you will need to pay their more expensive standard rate to renew your blog.

Whatever you choose, be sure to pick the basic hosting plan. This type of plan is the most affordable for you as a beginner. Later on, once you get a lot of blog traffic, you might want to consider upgrading to a higher plan to improve the speed and reliability of your blog.

Don’t process your payment yet. Before doing that, move on to step 4 below.

Can I Use Free Hosting?

There are free blog hosting services like Blogger and Weebly that can host a blog. These free services are great for casual bloggers and hobbyists. However, free blog hosting isn’t the best way to make money from a blog. And here’s why:

• You get a subdomain that mentions the name of your free hosting service, which looks ugly and unprofessional for your brand (such as web-cents.blogspot.com).
• Free hosting services are not always reliable and do not offer a lot of customer support.
• It will be hard to customize your blog and gain authority with a free hosting service.

Step 4: Pick a Domain Name

Next, you need a domain name. This is the URL (web address) that people will type into their browser to get to your blog.

Where to Get a Domain

Depending on your hosting provider, your plan may or may not come with a domain name. In the table above, you might have noticed that I added whether you get a domain for each hosting provider’s plan:

• Bluehost: Free domain for 1st year
• Dreamhost: Free domain for 1st year
• A2 Hosting: No free domains
• Accuweb: No free domains in the basic plan
• Hostinger: Free domain for 1st year

If your provider’s basic plan comes with a free domain for your first year, select the basic plan. Eventually, you should see a screen asking for a domain name.

If your provider’s basic plan does not come with a domain name, you’ll have to buy one in addition to your hosting. You can buy a domain from your hosting provider or from a registrar (a website that sells domains) like GoDaddy or Namecheap.

How to Select a Domain

Once you’re on the domain name selection screen on your hosting or registrar, follow these steps:

1. Take your blog’s name (from step 2) and see if it’s available as a “.com” domain. The “.com” is considered professional in online business, so go for a “.com” if possible.
2. If your blog’s name plus “.com” is not available, try to change your blog’s name a little bit to make the “.com” domain work.
3. If you’re running out of name ideas, try an alternative to “.com,” such as “.net” or “.blog.” If you want to target the whole world, avoid using a country-code domain like “.co.uk” (for the United Kingdom) or “.ca” (for Canada).

Step 5: Pay for Your Domain and Hosting

Now is the time to finish processing your payment to your hosting provider (and your domain registrar if you’re using one). Follow these steps for each scenario:

If You Have a Free Domain or Buy a Domain with Hosting

1. Select a domain name for your blog.
2. Understand the pricing plan. Usually, while you have a free domain for your first year, you will have to pay a fee every year after that to keep your domain.
3. If your provider tries to sell you add-ons, you don’t need to buy any of them. However, if you have extra money and it is available, I suggest buying Domain Privacy Protection to keep information about your domain private.
4. Enter your personal and payment information and submit.

If You Are Buying a Domain with a Registrar

1. Select a domain name for your blog on the registrar.
2. Understand the pricing plan before selecting your domain on that registrar. If you’re not sure, pick a different registrar.
3. If your registrar offers Domain Privacy Protection, I suggest buying it to keep information about your domain private.
4. Enter your personal and payment information and submit.
5. Go back to your hosting provider’s basic plan.
6. If your hosting provider tries to sell you add-ons, you can skip them.
7. Enter your personal and payment information and submit.
8. Consult your hosting provider’s help page or customer support so you can connect your domain to your new website.

Step 6: Set Up Your Blog

Now that you paid for your domain and hosting, you can now set up your blog. You will need a CMS (content management software) to help you design and write articles for your blog.

Introduction to WordPress

The most popular CMS is WordPress. There are a few reasons why 43% of websites are using WordPress, and you should too:

• It is very user-friendly and anyone can learn how to use it.
• It gives you a lot of control over your blog’s appearance, plugins, and articles.
• It does not require any knowledge of coding.

Most hosting providers give you the option to install WordPress in just a few clicks. Some may have WordPress already installed for you. If you’re not sure, or if you don’t see an option to install WordPress, check your hosting provider’s help center.

How to Navigate WordPress

Once you install WordPress, your dashboard should look something like this.

You can access your WordPress dashboard at any time by typing in your domain name and adding /wp-admin at the end. You can bookmark it to your browser so you can get there with just one click.

WordPress offers many features for your blog. These features are worth exploring to help you make your blog the way you want it. Here are some features you should know about:

• Themes are design templates for your blog. You can choose from thousands of WordPress themes.
• Plugins are WordPress extensions that add elements or functionality to your website. Like with themes, you can choose from thousands of WordPress plugins.

If you want to learn more about navigating WordPress, check out WPBeginner. They have all sorts of tutorials and help articles related to WordPress.

One more thing: WordPress lets you make two types of pages: blog posts and static pages. Blog posts are articles that are updated regularly. Static pages do not need to be updated as often. To write a blog post for your blog, go to the Posts section of your WordPress. To write a static page, go to the Pages section.

6. Write Content for Your Blog

At this point, your blog should now be set up and ready to go. The next step is to write content for your blog. But, before you start, I recommend following this strategy to give you an idea of what exactly you need to write:

1. Find keywords in your niche.
2. Research and take notes.
3. Prepare an outline.
4. Write your post.
5. Publish your post.
6. Rinse and repeat.

Content Strategy Step 1: Find Keywords in Your Niche

Earlier, you selected a niche for your blog, so you need to think about the keywords in your niche that people are asking about. The easiest way to find these keywords is by going to a website called Answer the Public. Just type in your niche and Answer the Public will give you topic ideas. Select one topic idea (one keyword) to write a post on.

Content Strategy Step 2: Research and Take Notes

Next, you need to learn more about the answer to the keyword you will be writing about. Even if you already know the answer, you should still research to make sure your knowledge is accurate.

Just search the keyword on Google or YouTube and get some ideas on the best way to explain the topic. As you learn, take down some notes, either on Post-it sticky notes or on a text file.

Content Strategy Step 3: Prepare an Outline

With the notes that you have, see if you can create an outline for your post. This way, you will know how you need to structure your post. You can write this outline on another piece of paper or include it in your computer’s text file, whichever works for you.

If you’re not good with outlines, you can use a free AI tool like Akkio to help you create one.

Content Strategy Step 4: Write Your Post

In the Posts section of your WordPress, click Add New Post to write your first post. You will see WordPress’ block editor, which lets you add paragraphs, images, and other content to your post using blocks. You can learn how to use the WordPress block editor here.

Now, all you need to do is write using the outline you made in the previous step. Don’t worry if you need to change your outline a bit as you go.

Here are some tips to help you out as you write:

1. Include your keyword in the title and first paragraph of your post. This will make sure Google and your readers know exactly what topic your article is about.
2. Use simple and clear language. As a rule of thumb, write your post as if it were for a high school student. This keeps your choice of words strong, but not too intimidating.
3. Keep paragraphs short. That way, your readers can easily skim through your post.
4. Add visuals to your post, like images, illustrations, or a video. Also, make sure to add a featured image to your article. These help make your post more appealing and easier to read.
5. Include links to other websites and other posts on your blog. For topics in your post that need more explanation, add links to places that can address that topic. Links also help Google determine if your article should rank high in search results.

If at any point you need a break from writing, click Save as Draft at the top. That way, you can save your unfinished work without it being online.

Once you’re done writing, make sure to skim through your post and check for spelling, punctuation, and capitalization errors. You can use Grammarly to help you out with this.

Content Strategy Step 5: Publish Your Post

You should now have an article ready to go. Click the Publish button at the top. You can choose to publish it immediately or set it to publish at a certain time in the future. Once it’s published, your article will be online for your blog visitors to read.

Content Strategy Step 6: Rinse and Repeat

Now, obviously, you need more than just one blog post, so you should plan on writing more. This is why this content strategy can really help you. All you need to do is repeat these steps: find another topic, research it, write an outline, write your post, and publish it.

I recommend you write a new blog post at least once a month. However, if you want quick results with your blog, definitely go for at least once a week.

Keep going until you are satisfied with the amount of content you have. There’s no magic number of blog posts. Just write as many posts as you can before moving on to the next step below.

7. Get Traffic to Your Blog

How Do Bloggers Make Money?

Ways to Make Money Blogging

So what ways do bloggers use to make money? RankIQ did a blogging study in 2021. In that study, they found that the majority of bloggers made money using any of these four strategies:

• Running ads. A blog allows an ad network like Google to show ads based on a visitor’s interests. Every time a visitor clicks or buys through an ad, Google pays you as the blogger.
• Affiliate marketing. An affiliate blog contains special links to products sold by other people or companies. When someone clicks and buys something through an affiliate link, the seller pays the blogger a commission for the sale.
• Selling courses. A blog might sell courses that teach topics in an organized and clearer way. Courses act as information hubs compared to a blog where the same information can be scattered across different articles.
• Sponsored posts. Some bloggers reach out to other companies and brands for sponsorship. Companies can pay bloggers to write articles on their blogs to help promote their brand.

Most of the blogs that are making money discuss topics that are very important to people’s lives. In the same study by RankIQ, blogs that are in the food, finance, lifestyle, and travel niches are the top four types of high-paying blogs.

Blog Income Reports (How Much You Can Make)

And, if you’re wondering exactly how much bloggers make, that’s not an easy question to answer. Some bloggers make more money than others. The best way to get an idea of how much you could earn from a blog is by looking at income proofs from different blogs. Here are five worth checking out:

• Making Sense of Cents – over $159,000 in November 2018
• Create and Go – almost $400,000 in 2022
• Cassie Scroggins – $10,000 in January 2023
• Get on My Plate – almost $25,000 in October 2022
• Ryan Robinson – $35,000 in March 2021

And there are many more blog income reports out there. You might be able to google for some of them. Scott Max also has a list of popular blog income reports.

How to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

We’ve come to the next step on how to start a blog that makes money. Before your blog can make you money, you need readers. As a new blogger, you can’t expect people (or traffic) to find your blog on their own, so you need to advertise your blog.

In this section, I’ll go over each of these well-known strategies to drive traffic to your blog.

1. Search engine optimization (SEO)
2. Social media marketing
3. YouTube channel

Some bloggers also use paid methods like paid ads and sponsorships to drive traffic. However, I won’t go over those because I do not recommend this for beginners as they tend to be risky.

1. Search engine optimization (SEO)

SEO is a strategy to optimize your blog and its articles to be ranked on Google. Many bloggers use SEO to drive traffic to their blogs.

Earlier, I showed you how to do keyword research, which is an important step in SEO. Not only does keyword research keep you on topic, but it helps give you a chance to rank on Google.

Besides keyword research, here are some other things you can do to work on your blog’s SEO:

• Write a good meta description for each article; SEO plugins like Yoast can help
• Mention your keyword in the title, meta description, and a few times across your article
• Link to other articles on your blog and other websites outside your blog
• Improve your blog’s loading speed by compressing your images with a plugin like Smush and by having your blog cached with a plugin like W3 Total Cache

For more information about how SEO works and what you can do to improve your SEO, check out Yoast SEO‘s website. There, you can download their WordPress plugin and sign up for their SEO newsletter. You can also enroll in their SEO academy which has hundreds of videos that teach you WordPress and all things SEO.

2. Social media marketing

With social media marketing, you will be using your brand’s social media profiles to engage with social media users in your niche. Here are some social media marketing strategies you can use to promote your blog:

• Facebook: Create a Facebook page for your brand and post snippets of your articles on the page. You can also join a Facebook group in your niche using your Facebook page. There, you can interact in the group’s comments and discuss topics while mentioning your blog articles as references.
• X (Twitter): Create an X profile for your brand and post snippets of your articles on your profile. You can also comment on tweets that talk about your niche. You can find these tweets by following brands or influencers that are in your niche.
• Pinterest: Create a Pinterest account and upload pins that use stunning visuals to entice people to read your blog.
• Reddit: Create a Reddit account and follow subreddits in your niche. If there is a thread that addresses a topic in your blog, join the conversation and mention a relevant blog article.
• Quora: Create a Quora account and find questions that relate to a topic on your blog. Make sure to give a good answer and mention your blog article so people can get more information.

3. YouTube channel

YouTube is a big traffic goldmine. As the second most active website on the Internet, YouTube allows you to send traffic to your blog. Follow these steps to get YouTube traffic:

1. Create a YouTube channel for your blog’s brand.
2. Pick a topic from your niche and film a video about it.
3. Mention in your video you have a blog article viewers can read for more info. (Use the video to summarize your article and encourage viewers to read your blog to get more details.)
4. Post informative video content on your channel relating to your niche.
5. Include a link to your blog article in your video description.

You might also want to do YouTube SEO to make sure your videos can be found on YouTube for your topics. VidIQ has an article on YouTube SEO so you can learn more. VidIQ also has a browser extension that you can use to help optimize your YouTube videos for SEO.

How to Make Money with Your Blog

This article is called “How to Start a Blog and Make Money.” So we started a blog. Now, let’s talk about how you can make money with your blog.

In a previous section, I mentioned the four different ways bloggers commonly use to make money. I’ve listed them below:

• Running ads
• Affiliate marketing
• Selling courses
• Sponsored posts

I don’t recommend trying to do all four of these. Just pick one or two ways for your blog to make money that interest you the most.

How to Run Ads

Running ads is the most popular way to make money as a blogger. By running ads, you allow ad networks like Google to show ads to your visitors based on their interests. These ad networks will then pay you for every visitor who clicks or buys something through an ad.

First, sign up for an ad network. Then, once approved, you will receive a tracking code that you will need to insert into your blog’s HTML. But don’t worry: the ad network should show you how to do this. And that’s it. Your blog is now running ads.

Here are some popular ad networks. Pick only one to sign up and start running ads:

• Google AdSense
• Adsterra
• Propeller Ads

How to Do Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the practice of selling products from others and earning a commission for every sale you make. This is my favorite way to make money as a blogger.

Many big brands like Amazon, Weight Watchers, and Newegg have affiliate sign-up pages. If you love any of these brands and they have a product in your niche, sign up as an affiliate!

There are also affiliate networks where you can find different brands and services to promote, all in one place. Here is a list of some good affiliate networks:

• Impact Radius
• ShareASale
• ClickBank
• CJ (Commission Junction)
• JVZoo

If you’d like to learn more about affiliate marketing, check out my complete affiliate marketing guide to help you learn everything you need to become a successful affiliate marketer.

How to Sell Online Courses

Unlike a blog which has information scattered across articles, an online course bundles all that knowledge together. This is convenient for visitors who want to know everything, all on one page.

Just sign up for an online course service and create modules around a topic using videos and text. I personally like Teachable because it looks similar to WordPress. Teachable has a lot of tools and a clean workspace to help you easily put together an online course.

Here are some other online course services to choose from. Just pick one and get started:

• Udemy
• Skillshare
• Thinkific

How to Write Sponsored Posts

Sponsored posts are articles you write on your blog in exchange for a sponsor paying you to write for them. This can be a great way for the sponsor to get customers and you to make some money.

Start by selecting a brand or influencer in your niche. Then, reach out to them via email and let them know you are interested in writing sponsored posts for them on your blog. If you get yourself a fair deal, start writing. And as long as you maintain the sponsorship, you can keep making money while adding to your blog.

Blogging for Beginners FAQs

Here are a few questions you might be asking about blogging to make money as a beginner.

In Conclusion

And that’s it for my complete guide on how to start a blog and make money as a beginner. I know there are many things that I discussed here, so feel free to bookmark this page so you can review it again later.

Let’s summarize what you learned from this article:

• [List of important points.]

Here are the tools that I covered in this article to help you make money with blogging as a beginner. You can look over these tools below.

• [List of tools and what each one does.]

Thanks for reading and happy earning!

Further Reading

In conclusion, let me recommend some resources to help you improve your blogging skills:

• Yoast SEO Academy: this is the best way to learn how to write blog articles that show up on Google. This academy will teach you how to use WordPress, how to write well, and how to optimize for Google. Yoast SEO Academy is mostly free. There are a few courses that require a paid subscription.
• WPBeginner: this website has a lot of useful information about using WordPress.
• Google Search Central: this website run by Google gives you up-to-date information about how to make your website appear well in the Google search engine.
• ProBlogger: since 2004, this site has been providing great tips and advice around blogging.

And that’s it. It’s time to start a blog and make some money.