5 Easy Steps How to Start a Blog (and Make Money) in 2023

An Easy Free Step-By-Step Beginner’s 
Guide How to Start a Blog In 10 Minutes

I am getting often messages from people asking questions about how to start a blog so I decided to write an article here explaining how you can easily create a blog and start making money in 10 min.

Did you ever want to:

• Create something meaningful?
• Tell your story or share something interesting?
• Travel around the world to the most beautiful destinations and also get paid for that?
• Quit your job one day and get paid for just blogging?

Why not become a Blogger then? You don’t need to quit your job right now but you can learn how to start a blog today and make some extra money. It is up to you how much time you want to spend blogging.

What kind of Blogger are you?

Creating this website with the Blog was one of the best decisions I ever made. There are many different bloggers: Fashion, Travel, Lifestyle, Food, Sport, Music, and so on. There are Bloggers and there are Influencers (What is the difference between a Blogger and an Influencer?). All people have their interests. Why not share yours with others? You don’t need to be a hardcore super master dude to learn how to start a blog. Just start it and now you will learn on the way! And more important, it’s how you will add value to other people’s lives.

Where to start?

So you’re thinking about starting a blog, but you don’t have any idea where to start, right? Guess what—neither I had! But I started it and now you are reading it. Some day someone will read your blog too.

Before I started it I was overwhelmed with options. Clueless, confused, and confounded with choices, I had no idea how to start a blog or how to be a blogger. When should I start? But good news: it turns out that starting a blog is much easier than you think. Luckily it is all behind now and I will share everything with you so you can start your blog right now. This article contains affiliate links to different good services and web hosts.

I understand you have many questions and thoughts right now but just keep reading and most of them will get answered.

1. Choosing your Channels

First of all, before you ask how to start a blog you need to decide what channels you are going to use. Are you only going to use your Blog or combine it with similar media for example? What are your interests? Taking images? Videos? Writing articles? Ask yourself these questions.

Instagram and Youtube are some of the most popular channels today. But one thing you absolutely must have to be a professional blogger and show everyone that you are serious – your own website.

Any social network can disappear or become unpopular or you can simply get banned for some reason and then you are going to lose everything! But you can’t lose your website. Because you own it! It is the place where you can post articles, link to products, collect subscribers, sell your products, show more info about you, have a real serious email address with your own domain name in it, start a webshop, and so on.

Trust me it is NOT hard to learn how to start a blog! Anyone can make it in 10 min. I will explain how soon.

Step 1: Write down what you want to do, post, or show in your blog, and then choose your channels

2. Choosing a Name

Now you need to choose a name for your channels and the website. Try to have the same name for both. For example, my Instagram account is @alexfarawayland and my website is www.alexfaraway.com. You can go to GoDaddy and check if the domain name is available and then check if the name is available on other channels that you want to use too.

Don’t think too much! It is better to learn how to start a blog and run today than keep thinking about “the best name”. Trust me, many people never started their blog only because they were going around thinking too much about the best name and then decided not to start anything… You can always get a new domain and change the name later. I changed my many times.

Step 2: Choose your name for your website as well as social channels

3. Finding the Web Hosting

Web hosting is the place where your website is installed and all the files are kept. It is needed if you want to start a real professional blog. BlueHost is probably the most popular and recommended by many bloggers because it starts from just 2,95$/month for shared hosting and it gives you a free domain name for 1 year, free SSL certificate and 1-Click WordPress Installation but there are also other alternatives.

• Domain name = unique URL for your blog for example like I have “alexfaraway.com”
• SSL certificate = protected connection also knows as “https”
• 1-Click WordPress Installation = you simply click one time and your blog is installed automatically (no coding)

Popular Web Hosting:

• GoDaddy
• DreamHost
• SiteGround
• BlueHost – Popular & cheap
• WP Engine – Powerful but not cheap

Web hosting vs Free blog vs Visual editing blog

1. Free blog. If you want a blog for FREE but with limited functions then you can sign up for WordPress.com but I do not recommend it because you will be limited and you will not be able to create a professional blog. If you decide one day to upgrade then all those upgrades will be very expensive. Buying good web hosting which has no limitations and you can do whatever you want from the beginning for just 3$/month is a much better solution.

2. Visual editing blog. You can also sign up for a visual editing blog (also known as WYSIWYG – “what you see is what you get”) like Strikingly. Basically you just need to click on some element and edit it very easy. No coding is needed. You can create a good looking blog in just 20 min. But all those comfortable features come with the price. Visual editing blogs usually cost starting from 10$/month and they also have some limited functions.

3. Web hosting. It has no limitations and you have full control over your blog and can do whatever you want. BlueHost is a good web hosting and probably the most popular. You get a domain name and SSL for free there! SiteGround is another alternative that is slightly more expensive. WP Engine focuses totally on Blogs and is perfect for bloggers. You get everything you need in one place but more expensive because it has very powerful servers.

Another good choice is DreamHost but it is a little bit more expensive as well. It also has more powerful choices for example “Dreampress Starter” which has more storage and free SSL. DreamHost also offers a free Website Builder.

So choose the one you like, all of them are good. My personal choice is shared hosting at BlueHost for just 2,95$/month.

Step 3: Get the Web Hosting for your blog and register your website name there too

4. Installing your Blog

It is time to install your blog now. The most popular tool for blogs is WordPress. Over 55% of all sites in the world are built in it. My site too. All web hosting from the previous step has WordPress pre-installed or installed with one 1-click so you don’t need to thinks about how to start a blog. Just login into your web hosting panel and look for WordPress.

When you are done installing WordPress, find a nice theme that you like and install it. WordPress is just a tool for your blog. It is like a structure of a building while the theme is its appearance.

You can use the standard one coming with the WordPress installation or choose any other.

Popular sites for themes (both free and premium):

• Publisher – I use it. It has over 95 different blog templates.
• TemplateMonster
• Athemes
• ThriveThemes
• CreativeMarket

There are many premium and free themes (you get a free one installed in fact as soon as you install the WordPress but it is super simple and it is better to change it).

Here are some nice themes if you want to become a Fashion Blogger and here are some for Travel Bloggers. And here are some free themes for all kinds of bloggers (I am using Publisher).

Step 4: Install the blog and the theme

5. Start Making Money

First of all, before you start with this step you need to fill your site with content (Startpage, About, Contact, and at least 3 articles is enough).

There are several ways to make money as a blogger. You can place banners on your page, you can recommend products, you can sell links, and many more. But the best way to really make some good money is to connect to affiliate networks and join partnerships with brands.

Popular networks:

• Awin
• ShareASale
• Skimlinks

Do you recognize any of these brands: Booking.com, TripAdvisor, Hotels.com, Apple, Microsoft, Swarovski, Nelly? All of them are a part of affiliate networks or have their own program. There are over 15 000 brands in different networks. What happens is every time you recommend some product, link to it and someone goes and buys it through your link you get 5-20% commission. Nice, isn’t it? The best part is that your article and links stay forever and you generate sales all the time! Passive income.

Before you start posting links your blog needs to get accepted to the affiliate network. Then you can begin connecting to brands and start linking to their products from your blog.

Let’s say you are a Fashion Blogger and you bought some nice shirts from Nelly. You put a link to this shirt in your article and when someone clicks and buys it – you get paid a commission for it. Same thing if you are a Travel Blogger, connected to Booking.com, and recommend a hotel. Someone stays a night and pays – you get a commission.

You can join as many programs as you want. So go ahead and fill your blog with some content and then register on these networks:

• Awin
• ShareASale
• Skimlinks

Step 5: Fill your site with content (Startpage, About, Contact, and at least 3 articles) and register on affiliate networks above.

In the next article Part 2: Passive Income I will tell you more about affiliate networks.