Create your own website or use free to use blogging platforms?

You don’t have to create your website in order to start blogging. Most bloggers use platforms like Medium, Quora and LinkedIn to reach big audiences without going through the hassle of setting up their own website. Free platforms can be great to build your audience and drive traffic to your original website, although if you want to drive sales or promote your brand, creating your website is a must.

If you want to start posting blogs as a hobby, free platforms like LinkedIn, Quora and Medium will be suitable for you. As a beginner, we would suggest you use free blogging platforms like LinkedIn, Quora and Medium. These platforms are highly professional and readers on these platforms truly value quality content.

• Quora  is a community-driven platform, where users interact with each other by giving thoughtful responses to each other's questions. On Quora, you can select the areas of your interest and be a part of the rich community.
• Medium  is a niche driven platform where writers create high-quality content for the medium community. It has 100 million+ monthly active users that are eager to engage and interact with your content. Other than being free to use you can share your experiences and interact with your audience in real-time. Views and click through rates are amazing but nothing beats seeing Likes, comments and Badges and their reactions.
•  LinkedIn  is a profession driven platform, you can become part of communities that you find interesting. It is an ideal platform to build your personal brand, most of the freelancers in the content writing domain are quite active and gaining thousands of followers each week.
  It is a unique platform because it segregates people according to their profession which is a feature that is not available on other platforms. You can find the right people to connect with. You can write about things that you find interesting and build an audience around them 
• Yoo.rs - Yoors is a human to human platform where people from all parts of the world can share their stories and get paid for it. Yoors is a unique social media platform where content creators are rewarded for creating quality content by the Yoors community. A lot of content creators are making upto 350$ per month on this platform by blogging about things that they find interesting. 

How much money can you earn by blogging?

Bloggers earn by placing ads on their website via Google. They are paid by the number of impressions made on the blogs. In short, the more people read your blogs the more a blogger will earn.

Applying for Google Ads is easier than it sounds, you just have to sign in to Google AdWords with your Gmail account and apply for approval. The approval process usually takes a few weeks after which you’ll have your own AdWords account. Google AdWords gives you features to customize your ads. You can select the sections where you want your blog to appear.

Although you don’t have to see blogging as an opportunity to earn. The majority of bloggers casually start their blogging website and document their ideas about the niche of your interest. If done right, this hobby can start earning them thousands of dollars.

You can see your blogging website as your own digital library on the internet, through which your ideas can reach the masses. Starting a blog website around your area of interest is one of the best approaches to building a successful blogging website. In the age of the internet, It will help you reach millions of readers.

Can you earn money by blogging?

You can earn a handsome amount of money from blogging. Although blogging is not a get rich quick scheme, it takes time, effort and patience to see the results of your work. Nonetheless, with the right directions, you can start earning from your blogging website as soon as one month of your starting.

How much money can you earn from blogging?

Bloggers earn anywhere in between $100-$10000 depending on the time and efforts they put in. This includes ad revenue, affiliate marketing, guest posting and promotions. On average, a blogger earns $300-$400 per month which is a significant amount of money.

Earning through Affiliate Marketing

You can sign up for the affiliate programs of various offline or online products. Following are the most lucrative affiliate marketing programs -

How to grow traffic to your blogging website?

• Guest posting - Guest posting is an ideal way to tap into a new audience and expand your already existing user base. Get your brand’s name in front of people that are interested in your niche. Guest posting is similar to the collaboration between two brands that belong to the same niche. It can help you grow your community and tap into newer audiences.

• Website audit - Perform a website audit it will show the various parameters that might be affecting the traffic to your website. Moreover, it will help you find issues that are usually overlooked by an untrained eye. Ahrefs, Uber Suggest and Semrush  provide reliable and premium SEO website audit services for blogging websites.

• Keyword Research and right SEO practices - Ensure that you are Implementing SEO within each blog. Using proper SEO practices will make sure that your content will be seen by your target audience. SEO is crucial for every blogging website.
• Initially, you must perform keyword research and target the keywords that are less competitive but have decent search volume. Targeting keywords with high search volume and low competition is ideal to increase traffic coming to your blogging website. If you don’t want to spend a great deal of money, you can sign up to Google AdWords (Link) and use the “Google Keyword Planner” tool to perform keyword research for absolutely free.

• Google Search Console- Register your website on Google Search Console to ensure that each blog that you post is getting indexed in Google. It is crucial for each and every blogging website. With Google Search Console you can make sure that your blogs are getting indexed in the Google rankings. This is one of the mistakes that most beginners make at the start of their blogging journey. 

What are the best On-page SEO practices for website growth?

Include your primary keywords in the blog title, meta description and within H2 and H3 headings. Also for a blogging website you need to maintain a 2-3% keyword density throughout the blog. In addition, target a few other secondary keywords that are related to the primary keyword.

What are the best Off-page SEO practices?

Measure the loading time using Google PageSpeed Insights (add links), it will give you insights into your website’s loading time within various countries across the globe. Following is the list of premium services that you use to measure the parameters of your blogging website -

1. Pingdom
2. WebPageTest
3. GTMetrix
4. Chrome's developer tool

5) How do I host my website?

You can search for a domain name that suits your business or personality, if the domain name is available you can register your blogging website’s domain at GoogleDomains.com.
While selecting the domain name for your blogging website keep these things in mind -

1. Domain extensions with .com should be preferred.
2. Keep the domain name easy to remember
3. The shorter, the better (But avoid short forms)
4. Don’t be too short-sighted, think about the long term vision of your website

Top Web Hosting Providers for Blogging website 

1. Bluehost - Best web hosting overall for blogging websites, the basic version starts from $2.75/month.
2. Hostinger - Best cloud web hosting is one of the cheapest hosting services while starting a blogging website, single shared hosting starts from $1.39/month.
3. Hostgator - The best-shared web hosting service that is ideal for any blogging website, the basic plan starts at @2.08/month.
4. Inmotion Hosting - Best reseller web hosting service for blogging, the best deal starts from $2.79/month.
5. GreenGeeks - Best green hosting service, lite plan starts from $2.49/month.
6. GoDaddy - Best multilingual support web host, their starter plan starts from $2.66/month.
7. Domain.com - Best shared hosting provider, it costs around $3.75/month when billed annually.
8. WPengine.com - Easy WordPress hosting service for blogging and eCommerce solutions, the start-up plan starts from 25$/month.

How to host your website for free?

Did you know that you can host your website for free? You simply need to hire a website developer in case you are not familiar with the programming and host your website for free through GitHub. Although you would have to pay for the domain name. It can be a good option for people that have recently started their blogging website. 

We hope that this blog covers all your queries related to blogging. If we missed anything feels free to mention it in the comments below, we will revise it in the next edit. Happy Blogging!