Quickest 10-step guide to starting a profitable blog

Ready to start making money from a blog? This is one of the quickest guides I’ve created that will walk you through every step of the process, from coming up with the idea, to creating your profitable blog and website.

Step 1 – Brainstorm Twenty Possible Niches

Carry a notebook with you. You’ll probably come up with ideas when you’re in the least likely places.

Look online for inspiration. Look in Facebook Groups you’re in for the things people talk about or search Google Trends see what’s hot nd trending right now. Browse bookstores, Amazon, or any other site you follow (like Pinterest) for more inspiration.

Step 2 – Research Each Niche Idea You Come Up With

Do some basic traffic research. How much traffic is in each market? How much competition is there?

Cut out the clearly bad ideas and start to narrow down your list.

The quickest way to research traffic in each market is by doing a search for a website that blog about that niche and see what their traffic trends have been. You can use sites like SimilarWeb to do some of this searching for free.

Step 3 – Pick the Best Niche From Your Research

Pick one niche market to tackle. The market should have adequate traffic and low to moderate competition. Furthermore, the market needs to be passionate or desperate about solving the problem. Customers need to be willing to spend money, preferably repeatedly.

Step 4 – Learn the Market Inside Out

Start reading the blogs. Start reading the Facebook Group conversations. Get to know their language, what they talk about, get to know their problems, and get to know what your competition is offering. Become an expert on the topic you want to build a blog business around.

Step 5 – Pick a Domain and Install the Framework

Choose a domain that’s either catchy and memorable or keyword rich. Try to keep it short and not too long. You can find a complete guide for buying a domain name and hosting here in this complete guide. 

Install Google Analytics and set up the basic framework for your website (i.e. WordPress if you’re using it.) Make sure you have a site map, about us, terms of service and privacy policy page, which is recommended for SEO and required for AdSense.

Step 6 – Create a Killer Product

Create a product that fills a gap in the market. Make sure that whatever you create is as close to 100% unique and completely unlike anything else out there. Part of the reason I create Stock Photos for bloggers is that no one can truly duplicate my photography style.

You can get a list of 65 different ideas for things you can offer for free here.

Step 7 – Create A Killer Sales Process

Create a fantastic looking landing page for your products. Make sure that your landing pages are written to the needs and emotions of your audience. Get them to really feel the pain of the problem and feel genuinely excited about getting the solution from you.

It’s usually best to gather email subscribers first by offering a free product. This will validate that you have an idea that’s worth creating a larger paid product for.

Step 8 – Write at Least Ten High-Quality Articles to Start

Write at least ten high-quality articles, which are at least 1000 words in length. This is both to prove to users that you know what you’re talking about, as well as to help get your site ranked in Google.

Step 9 – Set Up Your Email Provider and Automated Messages

Get a subscription from the autoresponder of your choice. I use Seva (formerly Convert Kit). Write your welcome message, along with the first five or so emails to send out through your autoresponder to new subscribers.

Relate Article: How to get your first 100 Subscribers

Step 10 – Pick a Traffic Strategy and Execute

Pick one or two traffic strategies and put all your energy into executing on those strategies. I personally focus on Seach Engine Optimization and Pinterest. You could focus on Instagram and Email Marketing. Either way, do one or two strategies really well, rather than try to take on too many at once. Once one is working, then and only then add another.

Use these clever strategies to get started with Pinterest.

This ten-step quick-start guide will take you from the beginning of not having anything to having a profitable site in as little as a month or two. The rest is up to you!