How to Make Money Blogging in 2024
An easy-to-read guide for beginners.
In this blog post, I will show you the 7 steps you will need to learn on how to make money blogging in 2024. This is an easy-to-follow guide that includes information on which tools to use and platforms, and also on how to grow your blog so that you can scale it and monetize it.
- Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I would use myself; all opinions expressed here are mine. In addition, I may earn a small commission.
Table of Contents
· Blogging is Different in 2024 Than 20 Years Ago
· How to Start a Blog in 2024: It’s a Science and Not a Creative Art
· 7 Steps to Follow on How to Make Money Blogging in 2024
∘ 1. Research your Topic or Niche
· 2. Choose a Platform
· 3. Use Keyword Research Tools
∘ Top Keyword Research Tools to Use:
∘ FREE:
∘ Affordable:
· 4. Write Your First Blog Post
· 5. Learn SEO (On-Page and Off-Page)
∘ How to Monetize Your Blog
· 6. How to Promote Your Blog
· 7. Grow Your Blog Through HARO and Backlinks
· Free WordPress Plugins I Highly Recommend:
· Tools You Can Use for Growing Your Email List:
· A Must-Have Before You Launch Your Blog
· Conclusion
Blogging is Different in 2024 Than 20 Years Ago
I started blogging on and off in 2012. I didn’t understand, back then, the concept of blogging. I started for the main purpose of promoting my then-husband his culinary arts portfolio.
In 2015, I was taking courses on how to be a freelance writer and the concept of blogging came to me right in front of my face. So, I started searching online about how to start a blog.
At first, I found Blogger. I didn’t like it much. Same with Tumblr. It seemed to me very juvenile. Again, I was not familiar with the concept of blogging. I just knew I wanted to write online.
And, those two platforms were not for me and my end goals.
Then, I found a blogger who was writing about making money online with blogging and other side hustles. She is a great blogger in the personal finance niche.
Her name is Michelle and she owns the blog Making Sense of Cents. Wonderful blogger.
It was because of her, that I bought a domain and created a website on Wix. Then I moved to WordPress.com and then eventually moved to WordPress.org through BlueHost.
So, my blogging journey had many ups and downs. Many mistakes I made in the last few years. Still making them. As you know, I am human. And here I am to guide you on where and how to start if you’re interested in starting a blog in 2024.
And, in case you’re wondering if blogging is dead. The answer is no. It’s getting stronger and the proof of that is the recent constant updates that Google makes on the algorithm to make the search engine better than before for human readers.
Mark Twain — “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
How to Start a Blog in 2024: It’s a Science and Not a Creative Art
It’s April 2024, and so much has changed in these last 20 years in the digital atmosphere. Especially in the blogging world.
We now have AI taking over the globe. Many AI tools are appearing in the market every minute.
Some people embrace it and some hate it. I use it sometimes for my blog to help me write ideas, topics, and parts of my blog.
So much work is involved with a blog including starting a blog, launching it, and growing it. Most of the work is done before starting a blog phase. Which I will talk about later in more detail in the post.
From finding the niche or topic to finding the right platform for your blog, and tools you will need for your blog. Tools such as social marketing tools to promote your blog and also your keyword research tools.
I recommend Systeme.io for this because is affordable and you can use the freemium account to get started.
Starting a blog today is not the same as it was in 2012. It’s no longer about just making it look cute and writing about life. Unless, of course, you want it to treat your blog like a journal.
If your end goal is to make it as a professional blogger and make money from it then keep reading because this will save you time and money on how to get started.
Speaking of making money blogging, you have to decide which monetization model you will choose for your blog. It depends on your preferences and your end goals. You will have many options to choose from.
From ads, affiliate marketing, sponsorships, writing gigs, and much more. Even selling your products.
7 Steps to Follow on How to Make Money Blogging in 2024
Here are your easy-to-follow steps to guide you on how to make money blogging in 2024.
1. Research your Topic or Niche
The very first step you must do is to find the topic or niche you want your blog to be about. I know you might have seen this before on other blogs and might seem repetitive to you at some point, but understand that this is what can make your blog make it or be doomed to fail.
Three things you must keep in mind when choosing the topic or niche.
- Profitability
- Experience
- Interest
Profitability: The topic/niche you choose must be on demand and with low competition. Must showcase a higher chance of profitability. Must also have potential growth, so that you can later scale your blog or even sell it if you choose to.
Experience: You must have some sort of experience with your topic or niche of choice. This will help you showcase some type of authority to search engines and humans to help you gain their trust.
Interest: It must be enjoyable for you. Otherwise, you will get bored easily.
2. Choose a Platform
The platform of choice for millions of bloggers around the world is WordPress.org and for this, you must acquire your domain and hosting. There are many options in the market for hosting.
Hosting options to choose from will depend on your blogging needs and budget. Also, some hosting plans offer a free domain for the first year to new customers.
Hosting Options:
For my first blog, I bought a domain with GoDaddy and for hosting I used BlueHost. I later canceled BlueHost because it can get expensive if you only choose the one-year plan. From 2019, I didn’t have a blog for years.
I later went to another platform that was a less costly option for me. I chose Hostinger and bought the 4-year plan instead of the one-year plan to avoid the same mistake I made on BlueHost.
So, do your research before choosing a hosting platform.
3. Use Keyword Research Tools
Keywords and long-tail phrases are key for your blog posts to be found on search engines. Knowing what exactly the keywords or phrases people are looking for is crucial to know ahead before writing your blog posts.
Writing blog posts just to write is never a good idea. I made this type of mistake repetitively and it’s one of the reasons why my blog failed.
Top Keyword Research Tools to Use:
FREE:
Ahrefs Free Keyword Generator Tool
Google Keyword Planner
Affordable:
Keywords Everywhere
Ubersuggest: You can get the freemium account to try it.
Keysearch
4. Write Your First Blog Post
After you have done your research and have selected your platform with domain and hosting, then you’re ready to write your first blog post.
Some website builders have AI which makes it easier to design your blog for you and write your blog posts too. Website builders such as Elementor and Hostinger are great for this. Both are affordable to start and easy to use.
If you prefer to write your blog post, you can do that too. Just make sure to follow proper On-Page SEO to help your blog post rank and for that, I highly recommend getting this plugin: RankMath and Surfer SEO.
Examples of Blog Posts You Can Write:
- Reviews of Products
- Tutorials and Guides (How’s to)
- Comparison ( X vs. Y)
- Listicles (Top 10…)
- Informational articles
5. Learn SEO (On-Page and Off-Page)
For your page to rank on Google, your website must be human-friendly as well as search engine-friendly. I learned this the hard way. It is not a nice pill to swallow.
You will need to learn SEO because it will help you get organic traffic to your blog. And with website traffic, you can rank and monetize your blog.
You can learn this for free through a course from HubSpot Academy SEO Certification course. You don’t have to take the exam if you don’t want to get certified.
All of the courses from HubSpot Academy are 100% free including the exams.
I highly recommend taking the exam and applying what you learn for your new website. The entire course is free including the exam.
And, who knows maybe you can monetize your new SEO skills through freelancing or consulting business in the future.
How to Monetize Your Blog
You can monetize your blog if you get consistent traffic in multiple ways.
- Affiliate Marketing: My favorite way. You promote products and services through a referral link and get paid whenever someone buys through your link. An example would be, the link of a laptop (or any other product) that you see on a blog post. Those links are probably from Amazon or any other company such as Best Buy. I took a course in 2021 to learn Affiliate Marketing and SEO and that helped me earn my first affiliate sale in 2022. Thankfully, I continue to earn income with my affiliate links. Not always because not every click is a conversion and conversion is key to earning money.
- Ads: Ads are perfect for informational posts. You get paid for views on your blog. You can apply through Google AdSense or any other Ads Media website such as MediaVine. Certain restrictions and requirements must be met before getting approved for ad placements on your blog.
- Sponsorships: You get paid by brands and companies to promote products and services. It was how I got started getting paid when I started blogging. My first $50 online was through a sponsored post. Some brands pay more. It was my first one, so I accepted the offer.
- Selling your products (physical or digital): You can sell products such as courses, merchandise, paid subscriptions, workshops, and much more. Once you’re established with loyal readers and have an email list, you can sell products to your audience.
6. How to Promote Your Blog
You can promote your blog in the beginning to gain traction using social media such as Pinterest, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
Create your image assets free on Canva for your blog posts and then post them with your blog post description and add your blog post link on Pinterest and Instagram.
Tailwind is a great tool to promote your social media posts on Instagram and Pinterest. You can schedule your posts and it will do it automatically.
You can use a link-in bio app for free such as Beacons.AI and add your links (blog posts, affiliate links, website, etc.) and promote your link-in bio on social media such as TikTok and Instagram.
Check out my link-in bio that I created on Beacons.AI:
https://beacons.ai/theworkathomeblogger
Using an RSS feed of your website and submitting on a site such as Feedly can allow you to obtain readers too.
7. Grow Your Blog Through HARO and Backlinks
HARO (Help a Reporter Out) is known as the main source for obtaining valuable backlinks that will eventually help you grow your blog and establish yourself as a reliable source.
Connectively (the new website for HARO) is the site you go to apply for connecting with journalists and sources and get mentioned in media sites as a reliable source.
The results will be obtaining backlinks and ranking on Google. Which in the end means more traffic for you. So, consistently work on getting backlinks for your blog.
You can also look for guest posting opportunities from other high-domain websites that can allow you to promote your blog content on other blogs.
By leveraging other blog audiences, you can gain more traction and with traction, you get more traffic to your website. This will also result in getting backlinks for your site.
Free WordPress Plugins I Highly Recommend:
Lasso SimpleURL for WordPress: I love this plugin. I use it on my website for all my product displays.
It’s a free plugin you can use for your affiliate links to create beautiful product displays instead of text links for your blog posts. You can get a paid plan to enjoy the advanced features, but it will be worth it when your website is being monetized with your affiliate links.
Product displays make it more visually appealing for your readers to see your recommendations and can make them more intrigued to click.
The screenshot below is from my website. You can see how beautiful the product displays showcasing my affiliate links.
RankMath: This is also a free plugin that I recommend and personally use. This plugin helps your blog posts with On-Page SEO that will help you rank on search engines. Just make sure your score is 89 or above before you hit publish.
SurferSEO: Another tool I recommend for On-Page SEO is SurferSEO. It’s easy to use and it makes it easy to know how to optimize your blog posts and pages. Similar to RankMath with the easy user interface. However, it costs more than RankMath. You can try SurferSEO for 7 days and see for yourself.
SurferSEO also has a free WordPress plugin, but you will need a paid account to use it.
Astra Theme: This theme I use for my website. It makes my blog look clean, easy to navigate, and mobile responsive. I tried many themes before and I like this one. Another option would be Elementor, but from my experience, if you have no tech background and have a hard time creating your website, then I recommend Astra.
Tools You Can Use for Growing Your Email List:
Systeme.io: This is an all-in-one marketing platform in which you can create sales pages, funnels, opt-ins, pop-up forms, and much more. You can start with the freemium account to try it and if you love it you can upgrade to a paid plan, and yes, all of them are affordable.
A Must-Have Before You Launch Your Blog
I highly recommend getting legal templates for your blog or website. At least the three main ones which are Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policy, and Disclaimer. You can easily customize the templates to your blog and these are constantly updated.
The site I use is called A Self Guru and you can get them at an affordable price if you buy the bundle.
Conclusion
Starting a blog and maintaining a blog is a lot of work. That’s the reality. Google is constantly making changes. And, with this, it means we have to constantly adapt to the changes for our benefit and the readers.
Making money blogging in 2024 is not impossible either.
You can make money blogging in 2024, you just need to do your research to know what content strategy you will need, your audience, and what problems you can solve using your skills and expertise.
It’s not easy to get started but not impossible. You can start a blog in 2024 and grow from there. It will take time to grow it. It’s not an overnight thing.
A blog is like a plant, the more you water it and care for it, the more it will grow.
So, my final thought is that I hope you found this blog post helpful. I hope to help you at least get started in some way, shape, or form.
Thanks for reading!
Hey there, I’m Ana. My family calls me Anita. I am a passionate blogger who turned a love for writing into a profitable work-from-home venture. As the founder of THE WORK AT HOME BLOGGER, I’m on a mission to empower aspiring bloggers like you to thrive in the digital world.
