How to Start a Blog and Make Money Online – The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide

Hey, have you ever thought of having a blog? Have you ever wondered what it takes not only to start your own blog but also to make money from it or generate a passive income? Firstly, making money out of blogging in Kenya is not a myth. Many people write Blogs but do not actually generate revenue from it. Therefore, if you are ready to make your move and learn how to start a blog in Kenya that will make you money, then let’s get into it.

What do you need to start blogging in Kenya?

To start a blog in Kenya, here are some of the essential things you need;

1. Pick a Topic or theme you will be writing about
2. Pick your Blog Name
3. Select the platform for your Blog
4. Pick your domain name
5. Pick a Good Web Hosting Company
6. Set up WordPress and Install a free Blog theme
7. Publish Your Content
8. Optimize your Blog for Search Engines
9. Build traffic to your Blog
10. Monetize your Content

1. Pick a Topic or theme you will be writing about

First thing is to pick your niche, a topic you will be writing about. It could be tech news, politics, travel blog, reviews, food blogs, Health and fitness, Lifestyle, Fashion, Photography, Personal blogs etc. The content you are going to be writing about needs to be current and relate well to your audience. One way to know how to blog is to check out what other bloggers write about for you to start blogging. In Kenya, there are several localised blogs you can borrow from.

2. Pick your Blog Name

With the topic identified, now you can pick a name for your blog. The name is informed by the niche you choose. Including a word or two in the Blog, the name helps signal what your content is all about (Come with me on a budget, crypto in afrika). 

3. Select the platform for your Blog

With the Blog name in place, now you need to select where your blog will be hosted. There are numerous options depending on your budget and preference. You can choose micro-blogging platforms like Medium, NewsBreak, Blogger.com, tumbir etc However, if you really want to maximize your blogging efforts, you’d want to go with a self-hosted WordPress. Even though you can set up a blog at WordPress.com with a subdomain such as blog.wordpress.com, a self-hosted domain will yield more traction.

4. Pick your domain name

A Custom domain name is important if you are serious about using the blog to make money. When selecting the domain name, you need also to consider Search Engine Optimization (Read more about SEO here). To help your Blog achieve better rankings on Google, consider the following:

• Use top-level domains eg .com or .net
• Avoid hyphens since most are associated with spammers
• Keep your domain short (15 characters max)
• Include your blog topic or a word related to the niche in your domain name

5. Pick a Good Web Hosting Company

There are several options for hosting out there. However, the most important thing is to pick one that is suitable for your budget and guarantees up-time. A Managed WordPress solution would be a good place to start. Bluehost is the host most bloggers use. Check out our VPS hosting solutions here which guarantee reliability, uptime and scalability.

6. Set up WordPress and Install a free Blog theme

WordPress is an open-source CMS and is the most popular in the world for blogging, used by millions of bloggers (including me). Once you have set up your hosting, install and set up WordPress to your domain host. The next step is to install a WordPress theme to your Blog. If you are a WordPress newbie, don’t buy a theme yet. Once your website has gained some traction then you can buy a premium blog theme. 

The priority now is to bring readers to your Blog. There are several theme options available to choose from. Therefore, choose one that you like. When you are logged in to your WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance > Themes > Add New Theme > Popular.

Good designs are simple, clear and easy to read. Therefore, your Blog design is really important. A good blog design helps build trust. Generally in web design, design has an impact on the behaviour of the website users.

7. Publish Your Content

With the design ready, now you can start posting your content. Blog content is really important because readers read content because they care about what the content talks about. Good content is therefore what will bring you visits to your Blog. Moreover, it will eventually help you to make money blogging.

8. Optimize your Blog for Search Engines

Once you begin publishing your content, you need to keep track of content monetization on your website. Therefore we need to set up three things: SEO Plugin on your website (Yoast), Google Analytics and Google Search console. Google Analytics is a platform that helps you track your website traffic, source of traffic, and user behaviour on your website to help you with search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing purposes. Search Console is a platform that helps you measure your website’s search traffic and performance, and help optimize it to achieve the best results on google search engines. 

Related: What is SEO and How does it Work?

9. Build traffic to your Blog

Organic traffic is crucial to making money from your Blog. This is mainly generated from search engines like Google. What makes organic traffic important is the intention of the user. If a user is searching for a “Web development tutorial ”, it is clear that he is looking for a web development course for a beginner. If you align your content to that search with comprehensive course materials, your blog posts will eventually rank high on Google and you will start directing targeted organic traffic to your blog. In order to direct traffic to your Blog, you need to do the following:

• Create good content aligned with what users search for.
• Technical SEO
• On-Page SEO
• Email marketing
• Get Social by sharing and engaging with others on social media

Related: Why my website is not showing on Google Seacrh

10. Monetize your Content

As you optimize your blog to get traffic, do not expect to get rich overnight. However, you can leverage certain options to monetize some of your content along the way. A good option is Google Adsense. Google AdSense is a program that provides a way for publishers to run ads on their website/blog to earn money from their online content. AdSense is a reputable way to earn money from your blog. In order to set it up follow these steps:

1. Sign up for Google AdSense here
2. Generate the manual ads code
3. Place the manual ads code into the WordPress
4. Generate the auto-ads code
5. Place the auto-ads code into the WordPress

Learn more about setting up AdSense 

You can also make money by selling your own products or services.