Are Blogs Hard To Start | 7 Powerful Reasons To Start A Blog
So are blogs hard to start? And can just anyone create one?
Starting a blog can be one of the most rewarding business ventures you can initiate.
It can also be one of the most nerve-racking and painfully slow processes you’ll ever encounter.
The fact of the matter is, starting a blog is simple. Note how I said “start”.
Oh yes, starting a blog can be simple. However, getting traffic and making money with your blog is a whole other story.
With that said, I don’t want to discourage you from starting your blog.
Nevertheless, you do need to be aware of the amount of time and energy it will take to create a successful and profitable blog.
So here is a quick bulleted list of what I believe is the top 7 reasons to start a blog today…
- A blog can be started with very little investment or even free
- There is no shortage of YouTube video tutorials and how-to articles to learn from
- A blog could be considered digital-real-estate. An online asset you can monetize and maybe even sell
- You can reach targeted people with your message
- Your blog website can be monetized with ads for eventual monthly passive income
- If you create the content yourself its’s free. At least monetarily, you will be trading your time
- A blog can be a great way to discover and utilize your passion. Maybe it’s art, crafts, or animals
What Is A blog?
A blog is a type of website that is usually owned by a single person.
They will regularly create new written or video content on a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule.
This type of website is great for anyone who wants to share their passion with the rest of the world.
Furthermore, when you create a blog you’ll have full control over the information you publish.
If you want to sell the crafts you create, or have a digital teaching course to share, you can promote them to your heart’s content.
That is why I compare owning your website to owning real estate.
This is because you can easily monetize your blog after the fact by selling it once it has grown with web traffic and sales.
Popular Blog Examples
I could go on and on and try to give examples of some popular blogs.
However, Anya Skrba over at First Site Guide just wrote an amazing article about this very topic.
So make sure to check out their website regularly. Here is just a small list of popular blog examples.
What do all of these blogs have in common? First of all. they are all based around topics that the owner is passionate about.
If you love what you do, it’s much easier to continue working on your blog.
This is especially true in the beginning when you have no traffic and are earning no money.
And second, they did NOT give up. They kept grinding it out until they saw success.
And when they were finally successful, they doubled down and worked even harder.
Make sure to visit these blogs to get a better idea about the quality of the website and its content.
This will ensure you’ll have a better chance of success yourself.
Popular Blogging Platforms
A blogging platform is where you will be building out your website’s look and where you will be writing your content.
There are several to choose from. It may be a bit overwhelming when choosing the right platform for your specific needs.
That is why I created a list of my top 5 blogging platforms.
This list comes from WP Beginner and their list of the top 10 blogging platforms.
So make some time to visit their article, it goes much more in-depth on the topic. Here are my top 5 picks.
So what is my #1 recommended blogging platform? I use and highly recommend, WordPress.org.
I love WordPress.org for a few reasons.
First off, WordPress.org allows you to purchase your very own domain name( This is your public website address name).
Then, you purchase website hosting. This is where all of your website data lives.
Which allows anyone from around the world to visit your site no matter what time of night it is.
Finally, WordPress’ is already set up to be SEO friendly in Google’s eyes.
This means you’ll have the best chance of getting recognized by the search engines right from the start.
How Do Beginner Blogs Make Money?
Affiliate Marketing
- Make money by selling products other people have created
- First, find a product or software you want to promote
- Then, sign up as an affiliate for that product or software and receive your affiliate link
- Next, create content around the product or software you are promoting
- Insert your affiliate links into your content
- Finally, once a visitor clicks on your link and purchases, you will receive a commission from that sale
Display Ad Services
- Place ads on your blog from ad services such as Google Adsense
- These advertisements can be placed throughout your content and site
- Once a visitor clicks on one of the ads, you will receive a small commission
- However, this will add up to mere pennies unless you receive a ton of web traffic
Creating A Digital Product To Sell
- Create an online teaching course, video training, or an eBook
- Set up a payment processor to accept payments from the sale of your product
- Place links within your content, on your website sidebar, or in your site’s header promoting your product
- The customer will purchase through your links
- Seling your product, especially a digital one, can be incredibly profitable
Selling A Service
- Offer house cleaning services, Facebook Ads management to local businesses, or a dog walking service
- Create blog articles that target certain keywords to attract customers to your site
- Capture customer information such as name and phone number
- Get into contact with the customer to complete the service and get paid
Create An Email List
- Sign up with an email autoresponder company like GetResponse
- Create a weekly or monthly newsletter visitors can sign up to
- Add a call-to-action button and links to your website that gets visitors to sign up for your newsletter
- Send emails to your list once a month that promotes an affiliate product or even your own
- Subscribers on your list purchase the products you promote, about 2% will convert to sales
So how do bloggers get paid? Once you have enough traffic and make quality content, the money will follow.
This is with the understanding that you want to monetize your blog.
You might not even want to make money with your website, or the niche topic you chose for your site is hard to monetize.
However, if your niche allows for it, I would consider monetizing your blog as soon as you have enough traffic.
You can start at around 1,000 unique visitors per month.
Just don’t let profit be the main focus of your blog.
Visitors to your website can tell you don’t care about the reader when your website looks spammy and full of affiliate links.
How Do You Start A Profitable Blog?
There is a huge difference between starting a blog and starting a profitable blog.
First and foremost, once you learn the technical steps to set up a blog, you will have more skills than 85% of people out there.
And you don’t have to just start a blog either. You can create a baking website or an eCommerce website.
You can even start a photography website. The sky is the limit.
So where do you start? Well it just so happens I created an in-depth guide on starting a blog and you can read it by clicking here.
This guide will take you step-by-step through the blog creation process from beginning to end.
Here are some of the key steps you will learn.
- How to purchase a domain name
- How To Purchase Web Hosting
- Install WordPress
- Installing Plugins
- Setting Up Your Site
As you can see, this article will teach you the fundamentals of how to start a blog website.
There are loads of step-by-step images to guide you through the process smoothly
So what are you waiting for? Click here to read the article and get started on your blog today.
The sooner you start the faster you could see results.
How Do You Start A Blog For Free?
The question you may be asking yourself is, can I start a blog for free? And the answer is.
If don’t have the money for a domain name and hosting, then it’s better to get started for free than not at all.
There are some drawbacks to creating a free website, however. For one, you don’t own the domain name.
The blogging platform company does. Which puts you at a disadvantage.
The second issue is that free platforms offer many features and add-ons for your website.
However, they still pale in comparison to the number of themes and plugins offered by a WordPress.org site.
However, if it gets you started, a free option is still a viable solution, even if it is temporary.
So, what are some free blogging platforms you can get started with? Here are just a few of the top contenders.
- WordPress.com
- Wix
- Weebly
- Tumblr
- Blogger
You really can’t go wrong with any of these options, however, if I were to choose, I would either go with WordPress.com or Wix.
Both of these options offer a plethora of options, settings, and add-ons for your site.
And best of all, they’re free. Just be aware that these platforms have to make money somehow.
And they will add display ads to your website and you have no control where they place them and which as they place.
So that’s a major downside. However, getting started is the most important step you can take.
The Downsides Of Starting A Blog
- Getting ranked by Google can take a long time, think 6 months to a year at least, if at all.
- You will need to write consistently, perhaps even daily at least until you have 30 to 60 articles. I can not stress how much work you will need to put in to be successful.
- Income and traffic are never guaranteed, like most things in life, the more you put in the more you get out.
I do NOT want to sugarcoat the topic of starting a blog. The days will be long and drawn out.
To realistically get a foothold when starting, you’ll need to post a blog article every day if possible.
Maybe YouTube Is For You
If you don’t think you could post 30 articles a month, then you might want to look into starting a YouTube channel.
Video content is the future after all.
The number of people who would rather watch a TuTube video than read an article grows by the day.
Starting a YouTube channel based on your niche topic or passion can be a great way to accelerate your success.
Plus, recording a 15-minute video takes a lot less time than writing a 2,000-word article.
I would highly recommend that you combine the two if at all possible.
You could create a video for every article you post, then link back to your website from your Youtube channel.
Google owns YouTube, so they prioritize quality video content that can easily show up in the Google search results.
Just make sure you can enjoy yourself while you create content, whether it’s written or video.
So, Are Blogs Hard To Start?
Maintaining a blog takes a lot of work.
And when you start writing, it will be a ghost town. You will be writing to no one at first.
However, if you create helpful content that answers people’s questions, then you will be several steps ahead of most.
With that said, thank you very much for your time, and have a great day.