Last Update 10th May, 2017.
In this post I'm going to show you how to start a blog for free and make money online. No gimmicks or tricks – just the simple how-to.
I'll show you the exact step by step formula I use to start blogs for free and make money. The good news is it's easier than you think.
Thank God the days you need to write code or be a nerdy programming expert to start a blog are far behind us.
Now even normal people like you can have a beautiful website up and running in the next few minutes, and I'll show you how.
But more than knowing how to start a blog – if you've got any chance to make serious to build your blog into a money making platform, you need to learn a few things before you quit your full-time job.
Things like; knowing how to write useful, compelling content that will help you to build a loyal and growing readership, you need to learn how to get ranked on the first page of Google, and of course, how to actually make money with your blog.
Let me show you the methods, tools and resources I use to make over $6,000 a month from just one website alone.
1. Choose a Blog Topic
What do you want to start your blog about? Choose a topic that interests you.
Weightlifting, gardening, keeping tropical fish as pets, learning guitar… and the list goes on! It could be anything.
What really gets you going? What do you know a lot about?
There are millions of potential blogging topics you could start writing about to build an audience and make money. Here's a few blog niche ideas that will do well going into 2017.
2. Start a Blog
With Wealthy Affiliate this is super simple and takes less than 3 minutes to create a beautiful (and free) blog.
Pick a domain, choose a template and click create!
If you prefer, you can start a blog on your own domain here (recommended).
3. Get Rankings and Visitors To Your Blog
Your next step in starting a blog and making money is learning how to attract blog readers.
Wealthy Affiliate will teach you how to use social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+, to gain website traffic through good keyword research.
You'll also learn how to get ranked at the top of Google, Bing and Yahoo search results. Without readers you have no business so this is a critical stage.
4. Earn Revenue
My favourite bit!
Now that you've got a steady stream of traffic coming to your website daily, you can start promoting relevant products or services to your users that you think they'll find helpful and useful and get paid if they take you up on this offer.
Companies like Nike, Walmart, Microsoft, Amazon, Samsung, to name a few all have affiliate programs which are free to join.
Some affiliate programs will pay as much as 75% for referrals you send to their site.
People click on your unique link and when they purchase anything, you get paid a commission.
Simple right? No storage. No shipping.
If I can do it, maybe you can too!
Absolutely everything you need to start a blog for free and learn how to make money is included at Wealthy Affiliate.
It's not just training, it's a whole community of people from all over the world supporting and helping one another. As soon as you join you'll get a warm welcome and you can ask them questions whenever you need to.
And best of all, it is completely FREE to get your business rolling. This includes access to our famous “Getting Started” training course, TWO beautiful websites with hosting, live help and support, and access to 10,000’s of community discussions.
Here's my 4,880 word Wealthy Affiliate full review.
Does this sound like something you are interested in being part of?
The reality of it is… if you can follow directions, you can start a money making blog with any passion or interest you have.
No different than following a recipe; you take the ingredients, put them together in a specific way and you create yourself a beautiful meal.
Well, Wealthy Affiliate does the exact same thing but with starting blogs and making money with them.
You will have instant access to all the tools and training you need to succeed… not to mention you have access to some of the most successful bloggers who are already making money within the Wealthy Affiliate community (that you can ask directly for help).
Myself included!
So, today, I want to give you a personal strategy for success:
1. Join Wealthy Affiliate and complete your profile (again, it’s FREE)
2. Start your first training course – the interactive lessons and modules will take you through every single step on how to build a successful online business from scratch.
3. Complete every action step at the end of each lesson before moving onto the next. Applying what you're learning is more important than what you're learning!
4. Reach out whenever you're unsure or have a question – there's a whole community of like-minded people like you just ready and willing to help. You can also contact me direct any time and I'll be more than happy to give a helping hand however I can.
That’s it.
Follow these 4 steps and it it won't be long before you start to see your business take shape.
It’s exciting, it’s fun, and it's an awesome feeling to know you're progressing through the course, increasing your knowledge and learning new skills.
As with anything in life, you'll have to put the work in before you'll see results but it's worth it!
See you inside the member's area! 🙂
Simon Crowe is on a mission to help as many people as possible kiss their bosses goodbye.
Take the free Wealthy Affiliate test drive to discover how to smash your online income goals and make your dream business a reality.
I was very fearful of blogging until about 6 months ago when I joined Wealthy Affiliate. Your description is excellent in explaining how simple it is to blog and actually make money.
I love the analogy description comparing ‘following directions’ to a simple ‘recipe’. It really is as simple as one, two, three!
Your writing is inspirational, motivational and describes WA perfectly.
Thank you!! ~ Diane
Thanks Diane, I appreciate that! It is simple! Super simple!
Of course it takes work, dedication and preservation to start and build your blog business (like any business), you have to learn a lot and then actually apply what you’ve learned, but just keep going through the Wealthy Affiliate training and you’ll start to see sales coming through within the first month.
All the best!
Simon
You break it down so it actually seems doable for most people. I’m glad to hear the days of writing code to build a website are over – I dabbled in it a few times and it was super complicated. Like learning a new language. How long did it take for you to earn a sustainable income online through your website to quit your job?
There is so much talk of blogging and making money online these days. Anyone interested in them will find information in this article. I like that you explain the process of how to start a blog for free and make money online. You provide all the information to do both. I fully agree with you that the platform which is Wealthy Affiliate (WA) will help folks make money. Thanks for this article. Are you finding WA working out for you?
I was very fearful of blogging until about 6 months ago when I joined Wealthy Affiliate. Your description is excellent in explaining how simple it is to blog and actually make money.
I love the analogy description comparing ‘following directions’ to a simple ‘recipe’. It really is as simple as one, two, three!
Your writing is inspirational, motivational and describes WA perfectly.
Thank you!! ~ Diane
I was very fearful of blogging until about 6 months ago when I joined Wealthy Affiliate. Your description is excellent in explaining how simple it is to blog and actually make money.
I love the analogy description comparing ‘following directions’ to a simple ‘recipe’. It really is as simple as one, two, three!
Your writing is inspirational, motivational and describes WA perfectly.
Thank you!! ~ Diane
Great article. I like how you walk the reader through how this works. I have to say that I have learned so much from Wealthy Affiliate and am so glad that I found it. I love working on my site and look forward to continuing to develop it! My only complaint is not having the time to do more with it : )
Keep going Ilyssa and it won’t be long before you’ll have all the time in the world to do whatever you want! : )
It’s great to hear your enjoying everything that Wealthy Affiliate has to offer! Keep going, you’ll get there! Let me know if I can help in way.
It sounds really simple to get started with a blog. I always wanted to get into blogging myself years ago, but it sounded too daunting in the past.
I found wealthy affiliate nearly a year ago and used the wealthy Affiliate platform to build my website, and as you say, it takes seconds. Truly amazing. If I had known how easy it was I would have done this yonks ago!
I hope this article inspires some people to take action
Thanks Ruth. It’s true; we can read and research, get access to all of the best tools, resources and community – but the key thing is to TAKE ACTION and get started.