We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.

So, you want to be a blogger? As glamorous and exciting as blogging sounds today, (that is why you are reading this guide to blogging, right?!) …the activity which is now a primary source of income for several people didn’t have such a bright beginning. Its over two decades journey has been one of evolution from just keeping web entries of technical data to running profitable online businesses. Do you know that there are many types of blogs that make money? If you’re looking for an easy guide to blogging, read on. And if at the end of it all, you’re still struggling to figure out how back linking, long-tail keywords, and meta data can help you – then consider hiring a search engine optimization specialist. At the very least they can get you set up and pointing in the right direction.

Before you quit your job, and choose to make a living through blogging, you’d do well to read guides on blogging that covers the basic A-Z, how to find a Website builder, how to make money through your blog, and much more. This includes high demand blog topics! You can toggle the contents to go to the areas that interest you the most. There are a lot of people out there who are interested in blogging but aren’t sure where to begin, luckily there are places like the blogging buddha who might be able to stop them on their blogging dream.

Choosing a Blog Type

Now that you’ve decided to blog, you’ve got to decide what type of blog you should opt for. There are many types of blogs that make money. You just need to pick high demand blog topics to make a good start.

In choosing, you should consider some factors like what interests you, a topic with a large audience or gradually growing audience, and a profitable blog. After all, that’s the bottom line for the blogging business, and what every easy essential guide to blogging advices.

Keep in mind that your blogging goal would determine what type of blogger you want to be. I have listed them alphabetically, and not necessarily because one is superior to the other.

1. Affiliate Blogs

Determined to know how to make money through blogging this 2019? For most people, when they consider making money via blogging, they go with affiliate blogs. These are blogs created for the sole purpose of gaining affiliate commissions for promoting other people’s products. Some promote different products on their blog, or dedicate one blog to similar products. Affiliate blogs go heavy on SEO as ranking first is vital to gaining affiliate commissions. So, if your goal is to learn how to start a blog, and make money you should consider affiliate blogging to begin with.

2. Business Blogs

When a business goes online by setting up a website, most people decide to get customers through inbound marketing. Blogging is the most popular inbound marketing strategy used today. These types of blogs typically cover topics that their target customers would be searching for online. You can see this in every easy guide to blogging for money article. A business blog features more client-focused articles, and less of personal content (unless it’s a case study!)

3. Freelance Bloggers

Are you offering freelance services? If you are an expert on something, you might want to consider this freelance easy guide to blogging option. Those who offer freelance services typically have a blog where they share information they wish their prospective clients to have. Another choice is maintaining a blog where they can showcase their expertise in their specific niche.

4. Media Blogs

How to make money through blogging this 2019? During the early days, blogging used mostly text content, with some images, audio and video. Now, we have blogs which lost their content mostly through media. Those who use videos, are usually called vloggers. This is very common among young people. If you love taking videos of your everyday routine, and is in search of high demand blog topics, you can explore this one.

5. Niche Blogs

Every easy guide to blogging would advice you to look into creating niche blogs. These are blogs that focus on a particular topic. A blogger blogging about healthy food recipes for toddlers for busy moms is a niche blogger. This is an excellent way to monetize a passion or a hobby this 2019. Are you looking for an easy guide to blogging for money? Well, you shouldn’t miss this. Niche blogging is a great way if your goal is to learn how to start a blog, and make money.

6. Personal Blogs

These are the first set of blogs that were known when blogging started a couple of decades ago. Just consider personal blogs as records of online journal entries. Bloggers with this type of blog typically blog about a wide range of topics that interest them, although some may choose to blog more about a particular area. A perfect idea if you want to express your thoughts on high demand blog topics.

7. Professional Blogs

Those who blog with the primary aim of making money online are professional bloggers. Most times they run more than one blog. All easy essential guide to blogging articles mentions this! Many people pick a profitable niche and generate traffic around the niche. What matters in a professional blog are the monetization strategies. This includes selling digital products, promoting other people’s products, or placing ads on their blogs. This is the blogging I recommend if you are looking to learn how to blog and make money.

8. Reverse Blogs

You could call these type of blogs advanced forum posting. Reverse blogs aggregate content from different writers, and make it available to a wider audience. So, while the owner would also create content, other contents belong to other writers. A good example of a reverse blog is Medium.

Choosing Domain and Hosting

The number one rule of thumb when choosing a domain name is to try as much as possible to include a keyword in your blogging niche. While brainstorming on domain names, just enter “suggested-domain-name.com” (without the quotes) in the search bar to help you know if it’s available. Other things to note in choosing a domain name include a short name that’s easy to remember and pronounce, going with dot com and avoiding a domain name with hyphens or repeated letters.

Using a free domain name is not advisable for branding purposes and future expansion. Although, most web hosting solutions would give you a free domain name when you purchase hosting. That brings us to hosting.

First of all, please resist the temptation to use free hosting. You would be hindered by several limitations which probably won’t be an issue when starting out. You can get hosting from places like Bluehost, HostGator, Dreamhost and several others. Factors you should consider choosing a domain name are security, quality of service, customer support, and whether shared hosting, dedicated hosting, or VPS.

Get access to “Cheatsheet: Essential Guide to Blogging” by joining our Free Resource Library, just CLICK BELOW!

Managing Your Time as a Blogger

At one time or the other, everyone must have wished there was a way to increase our 24-hour days to say 50 hours. There is always so much to do. Running a blog is equally time-consuming, especially if this is not a full-time venture. Most bloggers are their own SEO doctor, keyword researcher, promoter, and don’t forget, they still have to write the actual posts! Improper time management could affect productivity and limit the success of the blog. That is why it is so important to read a fabulous blog guide like this so that you know what to expect when you delve into the world of blogging.

Easy Essential Guide to Blogging: Here are some blogging tips for time management:

1. Set priorities and stick to them. A maximum of three priorities at once is ideal.
2. Throwaway your To-Do list and take up meditation instead. Spending time in quiet deep reflection can help you achieve greater focus that gets things done faster.
3. For those with an emotional attachment to To-Do lists, ditch the long-tailed To-Do list. Try this instead. Write out just ONE thing on your list. ONLY after getting that ONE thing done should you consider replacing it with the next priority task.
4. Utilize those unscheduled free time. Say an appointment at your 9 to 5 was canceled? Now you’ve got 40 minutes of free time? Great, you could use that to work on an email, write a new blog post, or schedule social media posts.
5. Double spending time is also a great way to manage time. Are you driving? You could record an audio of a post which you could type out later or listen to podcasts for inspiration when driving.
6. Batch your tasks. You could set Mondays for creating content for social media updates, Tuesdays for scheduling content and so on. It saves you time. You could come up with 20 social media content in an hour, rather than spending two hours thinking up one everyday.
7. Be consistent with whatever process you adopt.

Easy guide to blogging hint: These are my some of the best blogging tips, I could ever give you! (especially if you are blogging for money ;-))!!

The first question in every easy guide to blogging: Is blogging right for you?

It’s easy to get carried away with promises of a rich lifestyle, living on a beach and still earning money, always on the go, yet business travels with you, and other things you stand to gain from blogging. However, before you even get started, you must first determine if blogging is right for you. That is why it is important to read items like beginners guide to blogging for money like this and by asking yourself the following questions. If your answer is no, then you might want to reconsider venturing into the blogging business.

Do you like writing?

I’m yet to see a blogger who doesn’t write. Even if you happen to be a vlogger or a podcaster, you would still need to do some writing. (yup – this is blogging for beginners 101 – must be willing to write)

Do you have a passion for what you blog about?

It shouldn’t just be about the money, if a topic doesn’t interest you, then you have no business with it. #truth! A lot of really popular blogs started this way – born from passion!

Do you like spending time researching online?

Unless you’re an encyclopedia, you would need to research your blog posts.

Do you like spending time in front of a computer?

Bloggers practically live online. The only thing they don’t do online is poop and eat?

Are you disciplined and determined?

Remember, passion gets you started but discipline keeps you going. It’s only through determination you can break the one post jinx yoke and achieve a successful blog. Wondering what one post jinx is? It’s that getting all fired up to start a blog, successfully sending out the first blog post, and then suddenly going AWOL. Um, yah! Even writing this kickass blogging guide I wanted to throw in the towel a few times….it isn’t for the faint hard. But hey I have heard more than once that I am a type A personality!

Are you flexible and fast learner?

This trait is especially important when starting out and bootstrapping.

Are you able to handle the stress?

Don’t be deceived by images of some blogger on a beach with a glass of cocktail in one hand, telling you blogging is paradise. It is actually 80% work, yeah you still get to have fun.

That’s why managing your health is crucial, after all, you won’t be able to blog if you’re unwell! As we all know, most people, including me sometimes, ignore health care until they, well…collapse.

Don’t be such a blogger, maintain your health using these 9 tips on how to be a healthy and well relaxed blogger. Learn how to have some occasional “me” time. Keep to routines that help you stay productive and never cheat mother nature! Give sleep it’s due.

Common Blogging Mistakes to Avoid

When you learn from those who have gone before you, it makes your path smoother. Whether you’re a beginner or not, please note these blogging mistakes to avoid. (hehe, don’t you just love all these amazing, easy essential guides to blogging, and blogging tips?!)

1. Going broad rather than niching down.

This mistake would allow you to blog about random things that come to mind. Unless your blog is a personal one, please do not have a general focus.

2. Writing self-focused instead of audience-focused posts.

Your audience is not interested in what you ate last night unless of course, you’re a celebrity which isn’t usually the case when’re starting out. Let your blogs be about what your audience would find beneficial.

3. Plagiarizing other people’s work.

Not only is this bad for your SEO, but your audience also wouldn’t attach any respect to your blog. Fabulous tip for those who wants to learn how to start a blog and make money.

4. Writing blogs like a PhD thesis.

C’mon, online readers don’t like anything boring, make your blogs engaging and captivating. Another amazing blogging tip by good ol me!

5. Using blurry images.

In another section in this article, you’ll find resources on where to get quality copyright-free images.

6. Not optimizing content for SEO.

Optimize each blog post for relevant keywords in your niche.

7. Not backing up statements with facts and statistics.

Yah you should do this.

8. Delaying publishing until the post is perfect.

Nike says, Just Do It! This is important if you are really blogging for money & is a must KNOW strategy if you are in the blogging for beginners category.

9. Not promoting blog content.

How else is your audience supposed to know some awesome content exists somewhere? Duh?! For the newbie blogger – it is a blogging tip you can’t afford to miss!

10. Blogging occasionally.

You can only afford to do that when you’ve gained a large audience and are amongst the really popular blogs. Setup an editorial calendar to help you blog consistently.

11. Focusing on analytics in the beginning.

You’re likely not going to have impressive analytics when starting out. Cut yourself some slack and just focus on writing good content.

12. Awkwardly introducing yourself with a bland

“I’m a blogger.” Check out a better way here.

Setting Up Your Blog

Purchasing a domain name and hosting is akin to buying the gas and pots to cook your meal. You would still need the ingredients and then the actual cooking. These ingredients include your theme, format of blog posts, pages, minimum word count, SEO, and others we would consider.

When setting up your blog, remember to avoid the mistake of delaying the launch until it’s all perfect or you will never make really be blogging for money. You can provide the basics and then move on from there. Your blog’s theme depends on the type of blog you choose. There are free and paid themes which you can choose from. Most are grouped in categories so you can easily select one that matches your blog type. For instance, a news blog would probably use a magazine theme. Your blog theme’s color should also mirror the blog type, for example, a blog focusing on depression shouldn’t have black as a dominant theme color.

For new blogs that wish to rank fast in SEO, a minimum word count of 2000 words is ideal.

Although to pass Yoast on word count, the threshold is 300, however, that would make ranking happen later than desired. To optimize blog posts for SEO, do your keyword research and pick keywords with average or low competition, keywords density should be 1%, included in the title and subheadings if possible.

Install plugins that would help your blog function well. A must-have are social media share buttons that make it easier for your audience to share your work. Also, keep your comments section open, it’s a way for your audience to engage with you on each post. This is a blogging tip that newbies often forget.

Remember your legal aspects like privacy policy, terms of service, disclaimer, and any other appropriate one that protects you. This is especially important if you offer digital products or collect visitors’ information.

Easy Guide to Blogging for Money: Blogging Business as a Profession

Like we said when we started this easy guide to blogging article, there are people who falling into the category of blogging business as a profession. For them, it’s not a side gig or a hobby, but a means of income which they are committed to full time. That’s not demeaning those who start blogging as a hobby or side gig. If you fall into that category, you can check out our 10 ways to go from blogger to business owner.

Rather than spending years “snailish” trying to make money from your blog through AdSense or affiliate links, take the reins with other faster methods that instantly translate you from blogger to business owner. Hehe, then you will never be one of the ones who as “what is a blog?”

Some of these methods include creating consulting packages, digital products or courses, offering one-on-one coaching programs, setting up paid membership groups and hosting workshops/boot camps.

Even after deciding to take up blogging as a profession, many still don’t treat their blogs as their source of income.

They still remain unprofessional as though it’s a hobby. You can learn how to change that mindset and treat your blog like a business. Simple steps like picking a niche, setting SMART goals and focusing on developing a brand around your blog will put you on a business level. And if you are ever in doubt than reread this blogging guide.

Before we round up this segment of blogging business as a profession, we’ll touch a bit on how you should introduce yourself when asked that dreaded question “what do you do?” We have a post that discusses great creative ways you can introduce yourself as a blogger. When introducing yourself anywhere, always choose value over whatever fancy title that’s in vogue. A simple statement that captures how you help your audience and help them achieve the results they desire is sufficient. And the truth of the matter is that simple is better. People will then start referring you to other bloggers and you may get asked that good ol’ question “How to start a blog for free?”

Blog Content

*the king of my guide to blogging*

How to make money through blogging this 2019? What do you think are those types of blogs that make money? Your blog visitors are there because of your blog’s content. How should you craft your content in a way that keeps your audience glued to your blog? First of all, you want a catchy headline, one that is either controversial or induces desire to click. Then, your blog post itself should be fun to read, not necessarily full of humor, but interesting enough to keep the reader’s attention.

Apart from not doing what’s been said above, there are other reasons why no one is reading your blog. It’s important that first and foremost, your blog’s content should be useful, after all, that’s why your visitors would come there in the first place. Also, you shouldn’t blog about random things and should brand your blog properly. As you do the right things, stay consistent. And ALL blogging guides that are any good will tell you content is king!

Easy guide to blogging for money tip: Adding a content upgrade to your content most times increases readership.

We have a detailed post on different content upgrades you can spin from one piece of content. A blog post could grow to produce a cheat sheet, an ebook, an e-course or even a webinar. So long as it’s something that gives your audience more value. And you can create these content upgrades with readily available free tools.

Basically, there is nothing new under the sun, what we have is just everyone saying what has been said before in their own words. But there are times someone else has expressed what you have in mind in a better way. In that case, ensure due credit is given. Whatever it is, be it images, videos, text, or GIFs, for which you are not the author, give credit to whom credit is due. Although, as we would list in our resources section for this post, there are some sites that have a collection of free images and videos which are copyright free that you can use on your blog and save yourself extra time and funds creating one.

To diversify content and readership, you should consider opening your blog to guest bloggers.

While there are pros and cons of doing these, it could help you generate new content.

Using video as your blog content or in addition to text helps drive more traffic to it by over 80 percent. Isn’t that crazy?! And you can tell your other blogger networks that you learned that here in this amazing blog guide! Ensure your video content aligns with your brand, client needs, and usefulness. You can theme your videos around feelings of inspiration, happiness, humor, excitement, and amazement. There are other emotional themes, but these five do well compared with others. The ideal video should not be above 5 minutes maximum, it’s hard to sustain the viewer’s interest after one minute. Remember to share your video on every social media platform, especially Facebook.

Still talking about videos, did you know you could use Facebook video to work less and earn more?

As we saw in the previous paragraph, internet users love relating more with video content compared to the video. Considering the high ROI you can expect, it’s a great idea to promote your blog’s content using Facebook video. Facebook even allows you to boost your videos (after creating a business page) for 2 cents per view! How cool is that?

Your blog’s content is the fuel that powers your blog’s engine.

Who goes to visit an empty blog? No one! After a brainstorming session coming up with interesting blog post ideas, there remains the task of writing and then publishing the blog posts. To achieve your end goal for each blog post you send out, there are certain actions you should do before and after publishing a blog post. These range from optimizing for SEO, adding catchy titles, subtitles and images, putting together a content upgrade, promote post widely and of course monitor your analytics.

Finding time to do all the endless tasks that comes with running a blog can cause burnout. It is thus smart to outsource some of these tasks from SEO to WordPress posting, email design, or even writing of the blog posts.

Marketing Your Blog Content

As we’ve mentioned earlier in this article, creating your blog content is just one aspect of blogging, for people to know such blog content exists, you need to spend more effort marketing it. Research on high demand blog topics, and those types of blogs that make money.

Funny enough, those who opt for blogging to promote their business through content marketing, always focus only on the content and ignore the second part which is marketing. We have a more detailed post of almost 20 ways you can promote your blog. I’ll mention a few of some of those ways and other ways not mentioned, here.

1. Social media

Of course, this is the first on the list. Most blog contents are shared on social media, either through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Quora, LinkedIn and several others too numerous to mention. You can automate social media sharing, so don’t get freaked out at the long list.

2. Guest posting on other blogs

This allows you a byline and a backlink to your own blog. Don’t just guest post anywhere that catches your fancy. Ideally, the blog you guest post on should be more popular than yours.

3. Commenting on other people’s blogs

Usually when you do this, your signature has a link to your blog and visitors to that site who come across your comment would see any latest blog post you’ve published. Smart right?! This is perfect for people wanting to get more traffic and become one of the popular blogs.

4. Being active on forums

Stylishly drop links to your blog posts in response to questions or when making contributions. Only do this where it is allowed though.

5. Republishing your blog posts

Some big sites like Medium, Forbes, and others allow this. Just be careful to set the canonical link to your site, so Google search bots know where it was first published.

If content is king, then traffic is queen.

You need both if you want to rule your blog castle. Good thing we have available top resources for driving terrific traffic to your blog. The number one resource is social media, if utilized efficiently, you would see your traffic double and triple. Other resources for driving terrific traffic include branding your blog into an authority, sharing content, relevant and consistent.

Building Your Blog’s Mailing List

This is an essential tool which could triple your blog’s income later in the future when you have a digital product to sell. Some ways you can build your list include creating a content upgrade and asking readers to download for future reference. For bloggers who love speaking in front of a camera, you could do a webinar for a particular topic and invite people to register for your webinar. Webinars themselves could be a content upgrade or just an independent content that also has a content upgrade. To register for your webinar or get the webinar’s content upgrade, they would have to drop their email, that helps grow your list.

Social media sharing can also help build your list.

Simply sharing a helpful content in say a Facebook group and telling members if the group to subscribe to your list in order to receive other helpful content, is one simple way to grow a list via social media. This shouldn’t obscure the fact that your list’s opt in form should be on your blog posts itself.

Monetizing Your Blog

I know, you’ve been waiting for this section since you started reading. You probably even jumped here first from the table of contents. There are dozens of ways to monetize your blog and we’ve extensively covered that in a previous article.

For those who would prefer something short and succinct, I’ll just discuss briefly some top tips to earn money blogging. Affiliate marketing is the reason more than half of the blogs we have today were started in the first place. Here, people start a blog that focuses on selling a particular product or several products and when readers buy through their affiliate links, they get a commission. The more commissions, the merrier. To make things easier, most bloggers work with Ads Network which are just middlemen between bloggers and businesses who wish to place ads. But of course, they get their own affiliate commission. You’ll find a long list of reputable ads network here.

Blogs with a large following can afford to monetize through ad networks or even sponsorship of products or events.

Their clients are paying for the awareness they hope to get from the large following.

Selling info products on blogs appears to be the most popular method at the moment. It works well though, for those with an already established presence, thus if you’re just starting out, you might want to consider building credibility first.

Like every other business, to monetize your blog, you need clients. Paying clients. This is especially crucial for those monetizing through info products, paid membership, one-on-one coaching or workshops, and anything other than affiliates and ads.

Okay, so, you got your first 10 clients and then it suddenly seems your client well has gone dry!

There are ways to get more clients and keep them showing up. The first thing to get right here is mastering your audience, i.e. knowing who you’re selling to. Unless it’s oxygen, you can’t sell the same product to every human on the planet.

Master the skill of following up with potential clients who have shown interest, asking for referrals from past satisfied clients, and of course exuding professionalism in selling your products or delivering your services. We have a detailed post on these points, complete with sample emails to adopt for different occasions.

Managing Blogging Finance

Unless you’re a mathematician or in the finance profession, you probably hate anything that has to do with calculations. Nevertheless, as you start making money from, and of course, spending money on your blog, it’s important you keep healthy financial records. If you are really hoping to learn how to make money through blogging this 2019, you need to manage your finances well. This is critical for those who are blogging for money.

As a beginner and even when your blog grows big, you should always consider blogging on the cheap or for entrepreneur bloggers, bootstrapping. That means, trying to find the cheapest professional solutions. For instance, instead of paying $$ for some graphics for a blog post, you could simply take a clear picture with your smartphone that relates to your blog post. And if you want a super affordable but stylish place to get images, I highly recommend hautestock.co.

Utilizing accounting software to manage your finances is not only smart, it saves a ton of time and gray hairs!

You have some free options like Microsoft’s excel sheets, and paid options like Freshbooks, QuickBooks, Less Accounting, and Outright.

In managing your blogging finance, bear in mind these few tips. Enter in transactions immediately (and accurately) rather than letting them pile up. Always keep a percentage for tax, reinvestment and emergencies. It’s wise to keep your blog’s account separate from your personal account.

Outsourcing Blogging Tasks

*one of my secrets in my guide to blogging*

If you recall, one of our easy essential guide to blogging tips for time management is to outsource some of your blogging tasks. This could range from social media management to finance management or even writing blog posts. It frees up your time and lets you focus on top priorities like meeting one-on-one client needs, networking at events, or expanding the blog.

I’m sure you’re wondering, what exactly should I outsource? The first rule of thumb here is, you can outsource those tasks that do not need to be personally done by you. For instance, designing an infographic or ebook for a content upgrade does not need to be personally done by you, so that can be outsourced. However, recording a webinar or podcast is not something that can be outsourced, but of course, you could outsource the transcription.

You probably would not need to shell out huge cash, depending on the expertise needed for the task being outsourced.

Freelance markets like Upwork, Fiverr and Freelancer, offer most of the tasks you wish to outsource at cheap rates. However, ensure you find someone who is a fit for the particular task. If used properly, you can also outsource through LinkedIn and Facebook groups.

Blogging Resources To Help You Scale

An easy guide to blogging for money is useless if it fails to recommended reliable tools for blog management. Humans made tools for the basic reason of making their work easier. Blogging is actually a tedious job, although the income can make it fun sometimes, fortunately, there are available resources you can always fall back on to save the day and make blogging more fun.

Blogging Platforms

Once you’ve made the decision to blog, you’ve got to decide what type of blogging platform you should opt for. In choosing, you should consider some factors like a flexible platform that allows room for growth, one that allows monetization and of course, one that’s easy to migrate out of. As a beginner, you would obviously want an easy to use platform, however, it would be disastrous if as your blog grows, you get stuck in a platform that no longer meets you and your audience’s needs.

Here is a list with a brief about each platform. Your aim of blogging would determine what kind of blogging platform to use. I have listed them alphabetically and not necessarily because one is superior to the other.

1. Blogger: Provided by Google and let’s people set up a blog without technical knowledge.
2. Blot: A platform that let’s you blog through Dropbox, all you have to do is create a folder and whatever you add to the folder is published as a blog.
3. Exposure: As the name implies, it’s a platform for blogging photo stories.
4. Ghost: A JavaScript based platform that offers basic blogging features.
5. Joomla: The best WordPress alternative out there.
6. Known: A social blogging platform that let’s one share notes, pictures, songs and other interests.
7. Medium: A content aggregation site that allows people to blog to a ready audience.
8. Postach.io: A platform from Evernote that let’s you turn your notes on Evernote to awesome ready made blogs.
9. RebelMouse: A top content managing system used for storytelling.
10. Squarespace: Drag and drop blog building platform for a fanciful website.

More and more blogging platforms to choose from!

1. Silvrback: An unconventional blogging platform that let’s you share your story, your view.
2. Soup: a creative blogging platform that works partly like Tumblr and let’s people blog short text, images and video content.
3. Strikingly: This platform promises you a strikingly beautiful website in couple of minutes! Best part? No coding skills required.
4. Tumblr: Social media blogging platform.
5. TypePad: Publishers here can customize their pages and share their content with a wide audience.
6. Virb: They offer a one-stop shop for creative websites which can be built in minutes without touching code. Lots of themes and web hosting available.
7. Weebly: Set up a blog in minutes by just dragging and dropping text and images.
8. Wix: Drag and drop blogging platform for beginners.
9. WordPress.com: Offers free hosting and domain for blogging
10. WordPress.org: Most popular blogging platform that also supports forums, ecommerce store and other advanced features.

Blogging Domain and Hosting

As mentioned earlier in this article, stay away from free domain and hosting. You are addressed the way your blog is dressed (domain and hosting). Check out these options:

• Bluehost: Most popular with bloggers and even recommended by WordPress. First timers are usually given a free domain and subsidized hosting.
• Blogginger: A free web hosting platform for blogs. It promises large space, beautiful themes and mobile responsive, among others.
• GoDaddy: Offers affordable hosting services ranging from web hosting servers, domain names, website builder, SSL certificates and a host of other services you need to get your blog idea online.
• DreamHost: From newbie to pro, this hosting platform and meet all needs. It’s also affordable, with a free trial version and money back guarantee in place. It’s a favorite for many due to its offer of unlimited data transfer and numerous security features.
• NameCheap: Largest site to get domain names for cheap. They have whatever TLD you’re looking for. Best part is, they will always have one promo or the other running, so be sure you can take advantage of one promo.

More blog hosting and domain options!

• Page.ly: A dedicated WordPress hosting service that has been around for over a decade. It offers better services compared with other shared hosting solutions. It’s automatic updates feature endears it to many. Always saving the day when things suddenly goes wrong.
• Postagon: Another minimalist blogging platform that offers hosting to those looking for a simple to manage blog. It helps take care of things like images or design.
• Posthaven: A service that lets people blog using email. Members pay a small fee monthly to use the service.
• WordPress.com: This is actually different from the WordPress software at WordPress.org. This is a hosting platform. They have a basic free plan and paid options to migrate and unlock advanced features.
• WP Engine: A web hosting service dedicated to the WordPress blogging platform.

Plugins for Blogs

1. All in one SEO: This is probably the first plugin a newbie would be told to get. It can also serve pro bloggers and even has API for developers. Complete solution for all your blog’s SEO needs.
2. Audio Player: There are several audio player plugins. They help you play your uploaded audio files directly on your blog. It helps to increase time visitors spend on your blog.
3. Anti-spam – free: Used to block out spam comments on your blog from bots or some soulless account from the ‘like factory’.
4. CformsII: A free plugin for adding forms to your blog. The forms can be as simple as a couple of fields or as advanced as adding attachments. You can use this to create forms that seek to collate some information or give away lead magnets.
5. Contact Form 7: Traditional contact form found on contact page. It’s customizable.
6. CommentLuv: Manages comments on your blog which you can integrate with social media like faces or Twitter. It also manages backlinks for commenters and helps blog owner do things like set ‘Top Commenter’ or eliminate spam comments.

Do you have a lot of high demand blog topics in mind? There are many types of blogs that make money, and these plugins can also help you manage everything.

1. Disqus Comment System: This plugin sets up the popular Disqus comment system. Makes managing of your blog comments easier. Imagine comments ranking on Google? That’s what this plugin can help you achieve.
2. Google Analytics Dashboard: This free plugin is where you manage all data related to your blog. Once setup, you’re given a unique tracking code to place on your website. It’s from the dashboard you’ll analyze all the statistics collected by the tracking code. Applying data to your blog’s strategy means you’ll spend more time doing what works and improve on what’s not working well.
3. Google XML Sitemaps: A free plugin which helps search engine crawler bots to properly index your blog when they are able to properly map out the blog, correctly placing the blog’s content in appropriate places.
4. SEO Scribe: A paid plugin that helps in detailed research on keywords.
5. VaultPress: For $5/month, you can back up your blog in real time. This security scanning and backup service plugin is from one of the best: Automatic.
6. Widget Context: Used to manage and customize widgets on your blog.
7. Widget Logic: Advanced widget control. Allows you choose specific pages for your widgets to appear on your blog.
8. Wordfence: free and paid, top enterprise-class security plugin that protects your blog from threats, hacks and malware.

WordPress Everything (hehe I adore WordPress)

1. Wordfence: free and paid, top enterprise-class security plugin that protects your blog from threats, hacks and malware
2. WordPress Database Backup: paid, Used to restore database backup with just a click. There are manual and automatic options.
3. WP Editorial Calendar: Used to map out content strategies, schedule posts and also let’s you take a look at your overall content structure.
4. WP Optimize: free, several options available to optimize images and other features of your blog.
5. Yet Another Related Posts: Good for internal link building. YARPP links related posts, media and content for your readers to keep them on your blog longer.
6. WP Touch: A must have plugin to optimize your blog for mobile views. This can help reduce high bounce rates.
7. Yoast (WordPress SEO): free, most popular and frequently used SEO plugins. To show how useful, they’ve said the plugin can help your blog reach for the stars.

Images

1. Pixabay:
2. Flickr
3. Adobe Illustrator: Must undergo professional training to be able to use.
4. Photoshop: A bit complicated, but easy to learn.
5. Canva: perfect for a newbie. No technical knowledge needed.
6. Squareready
7. FreePik
8. Snapsee
9. Inkscape
10. Skitch

Infographics PiktoChart Videos

1. Lumens for video creation – Free and Paid.
2. Viper’s Video Quicktag
3. Animoto for video editing
4. Magisto
5. Nutshell
6. Videoshop
7. Photo Dropper
8. iMovie App for iPhones and Macs for video editing.
9. YouTube for video sharing and live streaming.
10. Snapchat for video sharing and live streamin
11. Instagram for video sharing and live streaming
12. Periscope for streaming

E-mail Marketing

1. MailChimp – free and paid
2. AWeber – paid
3. Feedburner – free
4. Feedblitz – paid

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Landing Pages

1. InfusionSoft
2. Unbounce
3. Leadpagees
4. Clickfunne
5. Instapages
6. 5 Second test
7. Userfriendly
8. Launchrock
9. Crazy Egg
10. Optimizel
11. Olark
12. Browsershots
13. Visual Website Optimizer (VWO)

Social Media + Automation

1. Facebook
2. Twitter
3. Instagram
4. LinkedI
5. Reddit
6. Telegram
7. Quora
8. FBLike Button
9. Sexy Bookmarks
10. Twitter Tools for WordPress
11. Tweetmeme Retweet Button
12. CoSchedule
13. Buffer
14. Hubspot
15. Hootsuite
16. Sprout social

Chatbots

1. Hubspot offers this for free as part of their CRM services.

Outsourcing

1. Fiverr: Huge market for your outsourced tasks. Rates start from as low as $5, that’s why it’s called Fiverr
2. Upwork: Formerly oDesk, they’ve got a large freelance marketplace for services ranging from eBook writing and design, proofreading, technical SEO, social media and so on
3. Freelancer: Another popular place to find cheap services for your outsourced tasks.
4. LinkedIn: You can get professionals to give ad hoc tasks to by posting about your needs. Usually, it’s best to include hashtags relating to your specific requests. When you receive applications, you can save time by only reaching out to those whose profile display the level of experience you’re searching for.
5. Facebook Groups: So, far such posts are allowed, you can advertise your need for freelancers in Facebook groups you belong to.

Project and Time Management

1. Asana: Perfect for monitoring tasks when working on a huge project like your blog
2. Evernot
3. GSuite
4. Google Drive
5. Focus Booster
6. Google Calendar
7. Google Docs: Awesome collaboration tool when working with an external or internal person to produce content
8. Microsoft Excel

Writing

1. Grammarly for editing
2. Copyscape for checking plagiarism
3. Small SEO Tool’s plagiarism checker
4. Zen Writer
5. Scriven
6. Hemingway App
7. WriteRoom
8. MarsEdit
9. Windows Live Writer
10. Focus Writerr
11. Swayy
12. Flipboard
13. Spoken.ly and Recite

Keywords/Research

1. Google keyword planne
2. KW Finder
3. Hubspot
4. SERP Tool
5. Keyword Tool
6. Moz Keyword Explorer
7. SEMrush
8. Tweak Your Biz blog title generato
9. SEOpressor blog title generator
10. Portent Content Idea Generator

Analytics

1. Google Analytics – free
2. Clicky –
3. Crazy Egg
4. Momently – free and paid (from $9)
5. Sumo Heat Map
6. Sumo Content Analytics
7. Blog tracker
8. Mint
9. Performancing Metrics
10. FeedBurner

Others

1. Editorial Calendar
2. LastPass for managing passwords.
3. Google Authenticator: for secure access.

This is the ultimate, easy essential guide to blogging.

Do you want to learn how to make money through blogging this 2019? Well, there are many high demand blog topics that you can explore, and many types of blogs that make money. You can do it! Why don’t you share this article to your friends? Let’s help each other grow in the online world, one post at a time.

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