Are you still wondering about this question as a beginner, “How to start a blog in India for free and make money in 2020?” If your answer is “Yes”, then you are already in the right place.
Today I am going to walk you through each and every step you need to start a blog and make money out of it. But before this, the first question is, Why to start a blog.
Why you need to start a blog?
There are many answers to this question. Some of them are as:
- The world has digitalized and the number of internet users has increased a lot in the past few years. So writing a blog is the best way to provide content to the users.
- If you are good at writing skills, then you can share your views on any topic you are interested in through blogs.
- Blogging helps you to increase your brand awareness among the people in the long run. For example, Neil Patel is widely known through neilpatel.com.
- Blogging is one of the best ways to generate an online passive income. You can make Blogging a full-time career and earn a huge amount of money to make a luxurious living. You can live a Boss-Free life and work for your own self.
There are many Indian Bloggers who earn about Rs 20-30 Lakhs/month as a full-time blogger. Some of them are Harsh Agrawal, Pritam Nagrale, and many more.
I hope now you are clear about the reason why you need to start a blog. Now let us dive into our main topic which is “How To Start A Blog in India And Make Money For Free”.
Here is the complete guide to getting started:
Step 1: Choosing a Niche
The most important thing which will make you successful in the field of Blogging is Deciding a Niche (topic in which you are interested to talk or write about). Now the question arises: “How to decide a niche?”.
Here are a few things that will help you in selecting a niche:
- The first step is to find a topic which you know very well and also have a keen interest in that particular topic.
- The next is to ask yourself, “Can I write articles on this topic for my blog for a longer period of time?” This is necessary so that you don’t run out of content after writing a few articles(blog posts) for a few days.
- I suggest you, select a topic that you read every day or usually. This may ensure that you are passionate about the topic.
- If you are still not sure how to decide a niche for your blog, then you can research the topics you are interested in and find the best one that fits you.
I hope now you are clear about the topic you must decide to write about.
Choosing a perfect niche that you are passionate about is the most important step for starting a blog.
Step 2: Choosing a Blogging Platform
There are many blogging platforms like WordPress, Wix, Blogger, Joomla, etc. If you are starting everything from scratch, I would prefer you to go with Blogger as it is completely free of cost. After you gain some experience you can move to WordPress.
Remember that to make a decent amount of income from blogging, you need to invest some amount.
But for now, if you are a complete beginner you can start at a very low cost with Blogger which I will be discussing below.
Now, let me make you understand about WordPress.
WordPress is the best platform for every blogger and almost all bloggers around the world use it to manage their websites. But for a beginner, WordPress would be expensive as you need hosting( to store your content and files) which will cost you around $2 – $4 per month depending on the hosting company.
Now, let’s talk about Blogger.
Blogger is a free platform by Google where you can create your blog and share your content. You can start your blogging journey from here at zero cost.
- The disadvantage with a free blog is that its domain name (a unique name that identifies your blog) is lengthy (blogname.blogspot.com). That is, it comes with a subdomain blogspot.com which makes the URL look ugly.
- The next disadvantage is that .blogspot.com is difficult to rank in Google and when it comes to monetization it becomes harder to get approval from Google Adsense.
So, I recommend you purchase a top-level domain name (with extensions like .com, in, .org, .xyz, .net) from GoDaddy or NameCheap or any other source you know. This will also help you in ranking your posts in search engines as top-level domains are always ranked higher.
If you want to try a free blog then you can go with blogspot.com to understand the basics of blogging and later on purchase a domain and Connect to Blogger.
Let’s get into some practicality.
Step 3: Getting Started on Blogger
I will now discuss how to get started on Blogger.
1.Sign-Up:
First of all, visit Blogger.com and sign up using your Google Account. This is how the Sign-Up Page looks like.
- Click on Create Your Blog.
- Sign In using Google Account.
- Enter your Display Profile.
Next, you will see something like this:
- Enter the Blog Name that you have decided during niche selection.
- Type the address(domain) that you want to have for your blog. It should be related to your niche. Check if it is available or not. If already taken, try another one.
- Select the theme. This is the layout of your blog(design).
- Click on create blog!
You are done!!!
You have successfully created your blog.
Step 4: Writing Your First Blog Post
Here comes the real part.
Few tips to write a great article:
- Cover all the aspects of the topic thoroughly that you are writing about.
- Use proper Headings and Sub-Headings.
- Make sure your article is about 1000 words or more. This will help you to rank better.
- Use images from sites like Unsplash, Pixaby, and Pexels.
- You can also embed YouTube videos in your post.
- Learn about SEO and implement it to write the best article.
I hope these tips will help you to write your first blog post.
After these learn about Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track your site.
Step 5: Getting Traffic to Your Blog
You can start sharing your blog post on your social platform. This is one of the best ways to get initial traffic to your blog.
The next biggest source of traffic is Google. If you really want to have a great result, then organic traffic from Google is a must. For this, you must learn about Search Engine Optimization(SEO). You will find about this on Google and YouTube.
Step 6: Monetizing Your Blog
If you want to monetize a blog, then you can’t expect to do with a free blog. So I recommend you to get a custom domain and connect to Blogger or if you have the amount to invest then you can move to WordPress.
There are various ways to monetize your blog:
Google Adsense: It is the best Ad-Network to monetize your site by placing ads on it. You can apply for Adsense after writing 15-20 unique posts. Make sure you follow the Google Adsense Policies.
Affiliate Marketing: It is a way to promote other people’s products on your blog. For example: If your blog is about Sports, then you can find related products on Amazon or other stores and promote in your blog. This will give you a percentage of commission on every sold product.
Your own product: If you have your own product(physical or digital), then you can sell those through your blog.
It depends on you how would you like to monetize it.
I hope now you have got an idea on how to start a blog in India for free and make money.
Final words
You should think of Blogging as a long-term game. You can’t expect to get results within 1 or 2 months. You need Consistency and Patience to succeed in this field. If you work for a few months with full dedication, I am sure you will make your earnings and make it a full-time career.
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If you have any queries, please leave a comment below.