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*This post may contain affiliate links. You can read my affiliate disclosure here.
The Ultimate Step by Step Guide to Creating A Profitable Blog in 2019
Blogging is an amazing way to make extra money. Here’s why:
● You get to work from home and choose your own hours. ● You get to write about things you love. ● You get to teach others what you know, and make money doing it. ● You can create passive income that works while you sleep, travel, eat breakfast, etc.
If you’d like to earn some extra money each month to help payoff debt or pad your emergency fund a bit more, maybe it’s time for you to start a blog!
On top of that, many bloggers decide to go full time, meaning that they make a solid living from their blogs.
Are you working a job you don’t really love? Wishing you could spend more time at home with your kids?
Becoming a full time blogger is totally doable, and I’m here to help you get started.
Let’s dive in!
1. Start Your Blog
If working from home writing about things that inspire you sounds like the
business plan for you, it's time to start a blog!
Blogging is an incredible way to share your ideas with the world and make
money doing it. On top of that, the start-up costs are extremely low. You
can expect to spend less than $300 to start your business off on the right
foot.
Your first step is to choose a niche. I absolutely recommend writing about
something that you truly love and are knowledgeable about. It's simply too
difficult and time-consuming to do otherwise.
Here are a few profitable niches to consider:
● Travel
● Food
● Personal finance
● Business
● Side hustles
● Green living
● Parenting
● Pregnancy and motherhood
● Christian Living
● Language learning
● Gardening and homesteading
● Fashion
● Food lifestyles (vegan, keto, paleo, etc)
● Marriage and relationships
● Health and Wellness
Keep in mind that there are dozens of sub niches for each of the topics
above. Spend some time brainstorming a list of things you love reading
about and doing in day-to-day life.
Once you've chosen your blog topic, it's time to start your blog! You can
read my complete tutorial to starting your blog in less than 15 minutes
here.
Go on, get it set up now! The rest of this post will make a lot more sense
once you do.
2. Choose A Blog Template
If you followed step one above, you now have a basic blog set up on a free
template. Your next step is to choose a solid blog template that will help
make your blog a business.
Here's why I don't recommend using free blog templates if you're serious
about making money from your blog:
● Free templates glitch frequently and could cause downtime on your
site.
● Free templates are not SEO optimized and will likely prevent you from
ranking well in Google
● Free templates almost never have much in the way of support, so if
something breaks you will be on your own.
● Many of the WordPress plugins you need to run your business won't
integrate well with a free template.
I use the Thrive Minus theme and the Thrive Architect drag and drop
builder. I've tried a number of different themes over the years, but this one
is by far my favorite. It is clean, simple, and Architect makes it so easy to
build pages exactly the way you want them.
Plus, Thrive offers a number of other super useful web building products
like their quiz builder, opt in builder, and comments.
Here's how to install your new theme and Architect builder.
1. Install the Thrive Product Manager.
2. Install and activate your theme.
3. Install and activate Thrive Architect.
Drag and drop the building block you want to use onto any part of your
post.
3. Track Your Stats with Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free service provided by Google that tracks tons of
data regarding your website and visitors. It's an absolute must-have tool
that every successful blogger uses.
And thankfully, it's really not hard to set up!
Google Analytics will show you how many visitors are coming to your blog
each day, where they're coming from, your most popular posts, and a ton
more.
This is information you will need down the road to figure out what kind of
content your visitors really love, which pins and traffic sources are bringing
most of your visitors, what percentage of them convert into email
subscribers and buyers, and other important metrics.
Here's a simple tutorial on how to install Google analytics tracking.
4. Write Your Pillar Posts
Now that your blog is set up and ready to rock, it's time to put some of
your ideas out there! I recommend sitting down and brainstorming a few
pillar post ideas.
What the heck is a pillar post?
A pillar post is a big, thorough post that guides your reader to a certain
outcome. Pillar posts are called that because the content creates a pillar or
backbone of your business.
If you aren't sure what to write, think of the three biggest topics you want
to talk about on your blog, and then create a pillar post for each of them.
For example, a travel blog might create a pillar post called “The Ultimate
Guide to Travel Hacking with Airline Miles”.
The point is that for each of the subtopics on your blog, it's a great idea to
have a big pillar post that serves as the backbone of that subtopic. Once
you've written your pillar content, all of your other blog posts should
interlink nicely with your pillar posts.
For example, here are the pillar posts for this blog. You can see them on the
nav bar as well as in my blog reel:
Epic List of Money Saving Tips I Love
50 Ways to Make Extra Money in Your Free Time
FI Road Map (that's this post!)
These posts are long and thorough and set the stage for the rest of my blog
posts. They also easily interlink with my other posts, making navigation
easier for my readers.
I recommend writing your first two or three pillar posts first and then
branching out into other related content.
5. Set Up Your Pinterest Account
Learning how to use Pinterest is by far the fastest and easiest way to get
traffic to your blog.
To this day it is still my number one source of traffic. Pinterest is perfect
for new bloggers because it gives you the chance to get your blog posts out
in front of thousands of new people instantly.
Here's how to start getting traffic right away.
A) Set up your business account.
You'll need to become a business account before you can apply to rich pins
(step 2).
Creating a business account is easy. If you started with a personal account,
you can convert it by clicking on the three dots in the top right corner and
then clicking the "Upgrade Now" button.
If you are completely new to Pinterest, you can start off by creating a
business account from the very beginning.
Once you've created your business account, you'll need to verify your
website. Read this tutorial on claiming your website here.
B) Enable rich pins.
Follow this tutorial to enable rich pins on your Pinterest account.
Enabling rich pins is a critical step to making sure your account looks
professional, and you get the most traffic possible.
Once you apply for rich pins and are accepted, all of your pins will
automatically feature your name and the correlated board name below the
pin.
C) Add 5-10 boards about topics you plan to write about.
The next step is to create boards that relate to your blog topic. You can see
below that I have a number of different boards that all tie into personal
finance.
I recommend starting with 5-10 boards in the beginning. After that, make
sure to add a couple of boards per year to keep your Pinterest account
fresh and thorough.
You'll also want to make sure to use keywords in your board titles and
description. Keywords help Pinterest know what your boards and pins are
all about. When Pinterest understands your topics, you'll start to see traffic
flowing in easily.
D) Fill your boards with 25-50 pins per board.
Now you want to give Pinterest a little help in figuring out what your
boards are all about. Spend a couple hours and add 25-50 high quality and
related pins to each of the boards you've created.
You can find pins in your home feed, or you can search for them in the
search bar at the top of Pinterest.
Adding related pins will help Pinterest identify your topics and see them as
a valuable resource for other pinners.
E) Create 3 pins for each of your blog posts.
You'll probably notice that on each of my posts you see one pin image for
my readers to save. But that doesn't mean it's the only one!
Not only do I add one pin image directly onto each of my blog posts, I also
create two more and upload them directly to Pinterest. Not only is this a
best practice for maximizing how much traffic you get per post, Pinterest
has come out and encouraged everyone to create multiple pins per post!
F) Add your pins to every board that is relevant to that topic.
Once I've created a pin, the next step is to add it to every board I have that
is relevant.
For example, my pin for this blog post will be added to the following
boards:
● How to Start A Blog
● Business Tips + Blogging
● Make Money Blogging
● Blog Promotion + Marketing
● Blog Traffic + Audience Growth
● Women Entrepreneurs + Girl Bosses
On top of that, I'll also add it to all of my business and blogging related
group boards. This will help get my pin in front of as many eyes as possible.
G) Add your pins to Tailwind Tribes.
If you only do one task on Pinterest, make it this one! Adding my pins to
Tribes really helped my blog get off the ground, and I still see residual
traffic from them today.
So what are Tribes?
Tribes are a feature of Tailwind that allow a group of contributors to share
their pins with each other and quickly get repins (which leads to traffic!) At
first blush Tribes might sound like group boards, but they are better.
Tribes requires everyone to repin other people's content with a 1:1 ratio for
posting their own. So that means that for every one of your own pins you
add to Tribes, you must repin another person's pin.
This is a great feature to have, because it ensures that contributors are
actually saving other people's pins, rather than just dropping their own and
then leaving.
If you want to start getting eyes on your pins and people clicking through
to your site, I highly recommend signing up for a Tailwind account and
joining some Tribes.
Want to learn more about how I get thousands of visitors from Pinterest
every month? Check out my best strategies for winning on Pinterest here.
6. Start Collecting Emails
This next step is absolutely key to making money with your blog. You need
an email list!
An email list is a group of people who love your blog and want to hear more
from you. This is where you deepen the relationship with these readers by
offering extra information and occasional promotional materials.
If you've never heard of an email list before or are unsure how to start one,
don't worry. It's really not that complicated.
But please, please don't skip this step!
The number one mistake new bloggers make over and over again is not
starting an email list at the very beginning.
Even if you don't have anything to sell right now, you should still start
building your email list right away.
Here's how to build an email list that is primed and ready for when you DO
have something to sell.
A) Sign up for Convertkit and write your welcome email.
First things first. You'll need to sign up for a free trial of Convertkit. I've
used a number of email automation software providers over the years, but I
love Convertkit for a number of reasons:
It's reliable. Emails get delivered without issue, and my open rates are
much higher than with free services like Mailchimp.
It was designed for bloggers. Convertkit was actually created by a blogger
who couldn't find an email provider that had all the features he needed, so
he created his own!
It's got alllll the features! Convertkit allows you to create different
sequences with automated emails that go out in scheduled intervals. It also
allows you to create segments of readers based on tons of different
demographics, as well as "tag" readers who do certain things (like buy your
products, click certain links, open certain emails, etc)
It's pretty intuitive. Honestly, I really can't stand complicated software. I
don't have time to put 25 hours into learning how to use a new interface.
Thankfully, I've found Convertkit to be pretty intuitive, and their how-to
guides are useful and thorough.
As much as I love using Convertkit, there is one drawback I've had to work
around:
Their forms are ugly. Like really, really ugly. Thankfully, I've found a way
around this. I now use Thrive Leads and Thrive Lightbox (which comes with
Leads) to create beautiful forms that then connect to my Convertkit
sequences. Connecting the two is easy- Thrive Leads integrates with
Convertkit so you don't have to do anything.
You can see below how I connect my Thrive opt-ins to Convertkit.
Once you have a Convertkit account, you'll need to set up a form and a
sequence to be in business.
Simply click on the "Sequences" tab at the very top of the page, and then
click on the red "New Sequence" button to create your sequence and write
your first welcome email. This email will be automatically sent out to
everyone who signs up through your form.
And now for the sign up form...
If you'd rather create your own beautiful form with Thrive Leads, then just
choose any plain form with Convertkit. (Nobody will see it, it will just serve
to move subscribers onto your sequence.)
When you create your form, it will ask you which sequence to connect it to.
Go to the settings tab, and you'll see at the bottom of the Main Settings
area that you can choose which sequence you'd like the subscribers of that
form to be placed on.
B) Create an opt-in freebie.
The next step to building your email list is to create a freebie! This could be
any type of digital file that you think would really help your readers: a PDF,
audio MP3 file, an ebook, a report, a webinar, a video, whatever fits your
audience!
My Profitable Blogging Blueprint is an interactive, clickable checklist that
puts all of the business building steps in order to help other bloggers create
profitable online businesses.
I made this freebie first as a PDF. Then I imported it into Adobe Illustrator
and added all of the clickable and fillable areas to make it a more
interactive experience.
C) Create your opt-in form to gather email addresses.
Since I've decided that Convertkit forms are too ugly for me to use (what
can I say? I'm picky!), I created the form above using Thrive Lead's fun
feature, Lightboxes.
Creating simple and attractive forms is super easy, because the whole thing
is drag and drop!
You can see in the image below how I simply choose which feature I want
to use, and then drag it onto the part of the opt-in form I want it to be.
Once you've created your opt-in form with Thrive Leads, you'll be able to
use that exact form on any page or post you want.
You can set it to be a static form (like the one above), or you can have it
automatically slide in after a certain number of seconds. This is the best
way I have found so far to naturally build my email list.
D) Place opt-ins all around your blog for people to find.
It's important to make sure that you place your opt-in in enough places
around your blog to make sure that people notice it.
I recommend finding at least 3 spots on your blog for your opt-in form to
live. Of course, you don't want to annoy your readers so don't go
overboard. Keep it natural and helpful.
On this blog, you'll see that I have opt ins in the following places:
● My Start Here nav bar page
● The "Free Tools" section of my homepage
● As a pop up on popular blog posts
● As a static form at the bottom of all blog posts
● Linked to my pink notification bar (appears after 30 secs on page)
E) Keep in touch with your subscribers.
You've done all the work to get set up, and you've written your welcome
sequence.
By the way, your welcome series can be single email or it can be a handful of
emails- up to you!
The last step to creating a profitable blog using your email list is to keep in
touch with your subscribers! After all, you don't want them to forget who
you are.
If you're short on time, just send a short email once every few weeks. You
can always send more down the road.
And trust me, when it comes time to launch your own product or promote
your affiliate products, you'll be SO GLAD you took the time to set up your
email list. These things take time to build, so it's best to start as soon as
possible.
7. Get Traffic to Your Blog
Traffic is the lifeblood of your business. Without traffic, it's really difficult
to make sales unless you have an email list. (One more reason I absolutely
recommend starting your email list today!)
For me, traffic has really come down to using Pinterest properly. There are
a lot of ways to generate traffic to a blog, but for many of us Pinterest is the
80/20.
It's the 20% of effort that gets us 80% of the results.
When I got serious about making a living from my blog, I decided to invest
in a well-reviewed Pinterest course and ended up purchasing Pinterest
Traffic Avalanche. And I'm so glad I did!
My traffic doubled just a week after I started implementing the strategies in
PTA. Alex and Lauren are the creators of Pinterest Traffic Avalanche, and
they really walk the walk.
If you check out their Pinterest profile (CreateandGo), you will see that
they receive millions of monthly views and make more than $150,000 per
month (yes, month!) from their blog.
They've really got this Pinterest thing figured out and I was so grateful to
learn from them. If you're serious about making money from your blog, I
highly recommend giving Pinterest Traffic Avalanche a chance.
8. Pick Your Monetization Strategies
Steps 1-7 are really the backbone of your whole blogging system. They are
the parts that bring the traffic, sign up the email subscribers, and track the
data.
Once you've done these things, it's time to make some money! Hopefully
you've thought a little bit about how you will plan to make money with your
blog, but if you haven't, that's okay too.
There are tons of different ways that bloggers make money with their
blogs, and yours is no exception. I recommend reading my post How
Bloggers Really Make Money and choose 2-4 monetization strategies that
sound like they would be a good fit for your blog.
Now, that's not to say that you should start trying to implement all of the
strategies at once. It's a much better idea to pick just one right off the bat
and thoroughly implement it and tweak and test until it is working well
before you move on to other strategies.
Related Content-
The 3 Blogging Courses That Turned My Passion Project Into A Money
Making Blog
9. Create Content that Sells
At this point you're blogging system is set up, you're seeing a trickle of
income coming in, and you're blogging your little heart out.
This is the time for growth.
One of the most important lessons I learned in Alex and Lauren's Six-Figure
Blogger course was that successful bloggers create content that sells.
It's too easy to just write for the sake of getting a blog post up there. That
won't grow your income however. It's so important to create content that
both helps your reader and helps you move closer to your income goals.
How do you make money with your blog? What monetization methods are
you using successfully?
Every blog post you put out there should help support these goals.
I highly recommend checking out Alex and Lauren Six-Figure Blogger
course for a complete step-by-step action plan to creating a blog that
earns you more than $100,000 per year.
They currently make $150,000 per month from their blog, which is why I
found their knowledge so invaluable.