How to Start a Blog in 2021: The Free Beginner’s Guide

This is my easy, step-by-step blueprint on how to start a blog in 2021 and make money from it. I have been blogging for about 2 years now and making money online. I have covered each and every step I used in past and by far is the best way to start blogging to make money from your blog.

Why Should You Start A Blog in 2020?

Blogging offers you the immense potential to express yourself to the right audience. It gives you the immense potential for –

• Platform to Express Your Ideas – Blogging gives you a platform to express your ideas to the people
• Making Money Online – You can generate a ton of income online if you follow the right advice. (Can Be Million Dollars If Done Right)
• Create A Fanbase By Helping People – You can help people and add them to your fanbase by solving their problems.

In this detailed step by step guide, you will learn how to start a blog in just 15 minutes with this definitive blogging guide. Click here to jump to step #1 and start making your website/blog today

Follow these easy 10 steps to start a blog and make money online

How To Start A Blog In 2021 From Scratch [Step By Step Guide]

The Ultimate Guide to Start a Blog and Make Money Online

• Step 1: Select A Perfect Niche For Your Blog
• Step 2: Choose SEO Optimized Domain Name
• Step 3: Purchase The Best Hosting In The Industry
• Step 4: Connect Domain To Hosting
• Step 5: Install WordPress On Your Blog
• Step 6: Choose The Best Theme In The Market
• Step 7: Installing Must Have Plugins For Your Blog
• Step 8: Change Permalink Structure
• Step 9: Setup RankMath SEO Plugin
• Step 10: Publish Your First Blog Post

Disclosure: Please do note that some of the links below are affiliate links. When you purchase hosting using my NameHero affiliate link, they give me a small commission “at no additional cost to you“, I’ll earn a commission. Know that I only recommend products I’ve personally use and trust.

Benefits Of Reading This Blog Post –

1. You will be able to create your own blog in 15 minutes
2. Get a fast web hosting provider for you (60% Discount)
3. Know where to register your domain
4. Mistakes you need to avoid 
5. Must Have Plugins For Your Blog

Follow These 10 steps to start your blog today and make money online

If you are an action taker and want to to start your own business then stick around to learn how to start a money making blog that make money

1. Select A Perfect Niche For Your Blog

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Selecting the right niche is the founding stone of your blog. If you do this step wrong then you will always be 1 step behind from your competitor or your blog might fail as well.

What is a blog niche?

A specific area of a market that focuses mainly on just one product or one type of product. It is a specialized content rather than a broad topic.

I get asked this question a lot “What Is The Best Blogging Niche“, let me just simplify this for you.

You have look for some properties of a niche if you want to work on it.

1. How Popular is the topic :- You can use free tools like google trends to find out the popularity of the topic. E.g if you pick a topic like “fidget spinner” which was a huge trend last year but this year just crickets. Nobody talks about them anymore. So bloggers who invested their time and effort that niche is in vain now.
2. Competition :- I personally don’t consider this important but its good to check the overall competition of the topic that you are selecting.
3. Check for affiliate products that you can promote in the future :- If you choose a topic that has almost zero products to promote as an affiliate you might rely only on google ads for your blog revenue.

These are some of the major things that you need to consider before selecting your perfect niche.

I have been doing blogging for many years now and I have come up with a list of niche ideas that are less competitive and high search volume with high monetization potential.

Here is a list of the most popular niche ideas that you can consider to be your next blog topic.

• Weight loss (High Competition)
• Hosting & VPN (Super Competitive)
• Muscle & Bodybuilding (Super Competitive)
• Finance (Highly Competitive But Most Profit)
• Male Enhancement (Personal Branding Related)
• Survival (Need To Establish Authority)
• Casino/Gambling (Limited Monetization But Profitable)
• Pets (High Competition You Need Quality & Researched Content)
• CBD (New Niche Low Competition)

Here is a good resource to check if your blog topic idea is profitable or not.

How ever a niche is not limited to a small list, it can be anything from your daily life.

One more question I frequently get asked is “How Much This Niche Can Earn“, so I just give a simple example to these guys as follows.

There is no limit to earning from blogging. In fact, some of the top Bloggers Earning in million from their blog every single month.

Here are earning proofs of a very small niche oriented micro niche blog SucculentAndSunshine which earns over $200000/Year just from this simple blog.

Now you can imagine the earnings of top bloggers like Neil Patel, Brian Dean, Shoutmeloud, etc. They earn millions per month.

I personally have earned thousands of dollars from my blog in the last few months.

So now you know the potential of Blogging & “your niche“. Now its time to register your domain name.

2. Choose SEO Optimized Domain Name

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Selecting an attractive domain like BloggingCapital is extremely important because your domain will represent your business in future.

However, Google does not give preference to exact match domains as it used to be but it is still worth it to include your keywords in your domain name.

But finding a perfect domain name is very hard, so you can use some domain name generators from Shopify.

First thing you need to make sure that you have all the usernames available on social media (e.g I own @bloggingcapital on all social media)

This helps in your SEO approach. If you search “bloggingcapital” on google then you will find my website & all my social media handles ranked on the first page. So you need to make sure you own every domain.

Bonus Tip – If you are having a problem finding usernames on different websites to see if they are available to register or not.

Go to www.namechk.com and type in the domain name tat you selecting after using the above methods to generate a unique username that is available on other sites.

Steps – Go to Namechk.com and search your username and see if they are available on different social media sites then select your domain name.

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Similarly, check for available usernames on different social media below.

These little extra steps will make a larger impact on the SEO of your website in the long run.

When you have selected your domain name I suggest you register your domain name from Namecheap (Best Domain Registrar)

I use Godaddy and NameCheap both for domain name registration. But don’t buy hosting from them. Believe me, their hosting is not that good.

I recommend them for domains because they provide domains at a very low cost and they are a very popular domain registrar.

You can directly search for your available domain name from below –

Remember We Only Suggest You The Resources We Only Use. So Any Suggestion We Make Here Is Tested By Our Team For Months Before Recommending It To You

3. Purchase The Best Hosting In The Industry (Discounted Price)

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Having a good web hosting is must if you are serious about starting a blog today then I recommend you purchase a good hosting like SiteGround.

—–> Click here to head over to SiteGround and hit the orange “Get Started” Button To Get 70% Discount On Your Purchase.

Note: Many other bloggers will tell you to choose Bluehost or any other host because they are cheap. Let me tell you frankly that even the siteground increased their prices they still are the best option because their speed is excellent and excellent support which nobody matches in the industry. I fell this is my duty to tell you the exact truth about the best hosting as Bluehost gives $65 for a referral and the siteground gives just $50 but still, I promote the siteground because I know they are the best than anyone in the market. (Nobody tells this to viewers but I do)

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Siteground is the industry leading shared web hosting provider that we and many other bloggers recommend.

I am doing Blogging for about 2 years now. On my early blogs, I tried so many cheap hosting like GoDaddy, Bluehost, HostGator but the load times I got are much better with the siteground.

So I recommend you get a siteground offer today from the link above. Here is what top bloggers have to say about SiteGround.

These were the views of industry leading bloggers about SiteGround. So take action and get your hosting registered with our 70% off exclusive offer with SiteGround.

If you are stuck with the steps on how to purchase hosting from SiteGround, then here is a step by step guide to follow

How To Purchase Hosting From Siteground –

1. Go to SiteGround.com From this Magical Link

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2. Now Select Any Plan According To Your Budget And Click On Get Plan – I Personally Use GoGeek Plan, You Can Choose According To Your Budget

I recommend you go with at least GrowBig Plan Initially

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3. Now Enter Your Domain You Earlier Registered With NameCheap

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4. Enter All Your Details And Put Your Payment Info, If You Want To Pay With Paypal Use “?Sales Chat” button On Top Of The Page

Note:- Prices might vary according to your plan and date you are purchasing the web hosting.

Use the sales chat button to talk to a sales representative and tell him to pay via PayPal if you don’t want to pay via credit or debit card.

After you complete your purchase you will get a sales receipt in your email.

Here are some questions asked frequently about hosting

Best Alternatives Of Siteground Hosting

Here are some of the best alternatives to siteground hosting after price hikes –

1. GreenGeeks:-

GreenGeeks is the number 1 alternative of siteground and much cheaper also. With Their Highest tier plan, they also offer dedicated IP addresses and they use Litespeed technology which is much faster than Nginx used by the siteground.

—–> Click here to head over to GreenGeeks and hit the green “Get Started Now” Button Or Browse Their Plans

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2. NameHero:

NameHero is by far one of the best alternatives to siteground. They have competitive pricing to SiteGround. Namehero is powered by NVME ssd storage type which no other hosting provider offers and the ssd’s are secured by raid 0 technology.

—–> Click here to head over to NameHero and hit the green “Get Started” button

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3. Bluehost :-

The second best alternative to siteground hosting is Bluehost which is most used by beginners and the good thing is they do provide you a free domain also for 1 year if you get an annual plan from them.

—–> Click here to head over to Bluehost and hit the Green “Get Started” Button

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4. A2Hosting :-

A2 hosting is also another very popular siteground alternative and is used by many beginners. Their speed is awesome and support is decent. They are known for their speed as they also use Litespeed technology for their hosting. They use Nvme storage type with a turbo plan so speed will never be a concern for your website anymore after you get this hosting.

—–> Click here to head over to A2Hosting and hit the orange “Get Started” Button

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4. DreamHost :-

The third alternative to siteground hosting is dreamhost and speed focused web host here you can also pay monthly if you don’t want to pay yearly at once because you are not sure about blogging then you can choose this hosting. The most amazing thing about dreamhost is that they offer a true pay per month plan that allows you to pay your hosting bill on a per month basis.

—–> Click here to head over to DreamHost and hit the blue “Get Started” Button

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6. Kinsta :-

If you can invest a high amount on hosting per month and you are extremely serious about hosting and speed and don’t want to share your server with anyone then kinsta in the best option for you. They are extremely fast and excellent support.

—–> Click here to head over to Kinsta and hit the orange “Get Started” Button

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Bonus : If you purchase any of these hostings from my link then I will design your website completely for free and also give you all premium plugins you need for starting and setting up your blog. Get hosting today to get free website design from me and you also qualify for free entry to premium blogging course coming very soon (Worth $500)

4. Connect Domain To Hosting

This is the step which takes usually 5 minutes to complete but it may take up to 24 hours to propagate internationally. But usually it gets completed within 5 minutes.

In this step, you need to connect your domain to the web host you just purchased from any of the above links.

To complete this step go to your domain registrar and go to your domain and click on DNS management and add the nameservers which you will find on your siteground dashboard or any other host will provide your the nameservers on the dashboard.

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Once you complete this step wait for some time for nameservers to reflect. After you can access your website from your domain you are ready for next steps in this guide.

Bonus – Select Perfect CMS/ Platform For Your Blog

Well, it is indeed the most debated topic among bloggers should I use blogger vs WordPress.com vs WordPress.org vs Wix (Which One Is Best)

All right, let me say this to you if you are serious about blogging then go with wordpress.org (Don’t Use WordPress.com – More On This Later On)

Blogging Statistics For Blogging Platforms –

WordPress	96.02%
Blogger	2.78%
Tumblr	0.81%
Custom Blog	0.1%

Blogger: If you want to use blogger I highly suggest stay away from it because you simply don’t own anything and you will regret later if you want to upgrade. But if you still don’t want to invest on your blog I highly suggest you use your own domain name so that you can shift later on and do remember to change permalinks for every post manually and don’t use date and year on your blog post URL. This will help you in SEO when you, later on, switch to WordPress or even your custom coded website. I still want to say to you stay away from Blogger.com (Recently google lost Blogspot.in domain and now millions of blog pages are broken because google did not renew their domain on time (Haha sham right 🙂 Well free comes with great disadvantages.

Wix: It is a great platform or website builder for your personal blog and portfolio blogs and just a few pages blog for a business blog. If you want to create a blog for such small business purposes just as a presentation of a project or your result etc then don’t invest heavily and six will be the perfect match for you. But if you want to earn money like this blog and have a professional look then Wix is not for you.

WordPress: It is the ultimate choice of most of the bloggers and it is free from their end. There are two versions of wordpress

1. WordPress.com
2. WordPress.org

It one simple sentence that don’t use wordpress.com at all. It might seem free to you but to have a nice theme on your website you need to pay for theme which are heavily priced and are simply not up to the mark. The amount you spend on the theme the same amount you can use get a professional hosting from my link above and create multiple websites for you and here you control everything.

On the other hand, WordPress.Org gives you full control, and you can design your blog to any extent and just like any other professional website by just drag and drop method.

Difference between WordPress.Com Vs WordPress.Org

WordPress.Com

1. It’s Free But With Heavily Restricted Environment
2. Not for selling your own ads and AdSense approval is tough also
3. No custom or third party plugins or themes
4. Limited and overpriced themes and plugins in the repository
5. Only premium domains support custom domains So technically not free at all.
6. You have to use a subdomain like bloggingcapital.wordpress.com
7. No SEO & Analytics options
   

WordPress.Org

1. Complete Control Of The Website
2. Professional unlimited plugins and themes
3. Dedicated plugins for SEO purpose
4. Plugin for every feature
5. Ecommerce Friendly (Woocommerce)
6. Require a hosting and domain for setup ($50/Year)

Now I don’t want to force you to choose this or that CMS. It’s your personal choice. My opinion may or may not matter for you but let me still tell you to use the only WordPress.Org as your CMS which I am also using on this blog.

5. Install WordPress On Your Blog

Now Go To SiteGround Dashboard To Install WordPress On Your Website

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Now add your desired username password in the fields after clicking Select

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After that click install and your website is now live with WordPress installed on it.

Bonus- WordPress.com VS WordPress.org

Which one is best .com or .org (Verdict:- .org)

.Org requires custom host and domain but it gives much more flexibility than wordpress.com

6. Choose The Best Theme In The Market (Free & Paid Both Versions)

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Now its time to choose the best industry leading theme for your website. Let me ask you a question do you like this theme on my website.

If you are just starting out free version is simply the best choice but if you have a budget to invest another $50 then you can simply get the premium version. (If you buy hosting from my link I will give you the premium theme with key for free for lifetime)

Well, I use the world’s most optimized and No. 1 theme. It clean and superfast.

I recommend you use the GeneratePress theme for your blog just like me. Your website will skyrocket after installing this theme.

This theme has both free and paid versions. I am using the paid one but you can use the free version also.

If you have a budget to purchase a theme I highly recommend you use the paid version.

GeneratePress is an industry leading theme and with the premium version, you will get the premium support as well.

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As you can see my account there because I am also using the premium version.

I can save some of your money on this. So get generatepress from my link below.

I have listed the best theme up there and it’s used by most of the bloggers out there who are earning millions per year from there blogs.

However, there are many themes that perform neck to neck with each other and may differ with each other according to the users need.

Recently Kinsta did a study about the fastest WordPress theme and tested the WordPress themes all on the same server with default WordPress installation.

Here are the top themes that ranked in Kinsta Study –

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Opinion – I have an opinion on the study that however the study was done on top resourced servers but it was done on a default WordPress installation. Hello, the theme has nothing on default WordPress installation while other themes have a good chunk of content on the default installation. It would have been better to do a study with the same exact website on different themes and then checking the speed of the WordPress theme.

Select theme whatever you like most of these themes is exactly the same. Its your personal choice. I recommend GeneratePress Theme for you.

—–> Click here to head over to GeneratePress and hit the “Add To Cart” Button And Purchase

Note: If you don’t have the budget then you can skip premium version and just use the free version also.

I can understand you sometimes don’t have any extra money to invest in a theme and you don’t have the technical knowledge to design your website.

Well, I can do all this work for you for free. I sell my WordPress design service on Fiverr for about $300 but you can get your website designed from me for free. So Here Is My Offer To You.

A good blog design is key for people reading your blog. A reader can decide in a fraction of seconds after visiting your blog whether to read your blog or just leave.

A recent study by Google also proves this that any reader will judge your blogs in just a few seconds after visiting your blog and Hallo Effects proves that the effect will be the same for your whole website. So reader will judge your whole website by just visiting your one page.

7. Installing Must Have Plugins For Your Blog

Now it’s time to install some important plugins on your WordPress blog. Well on blogging for almost 2 years now on my fitness blog.

I have tried a lot of plugins and now come up with a list of important plugins that I am personally using on this blog today.

Here is the list of most important must have WordPress plugins for your blog –

1. Elementor (Pro Version)
2. Thrive Architect (For Landing Pages)
3. RankMath SEO Plugin (Free SEO Plugin)
4. Site Kit By Google (Add Analytics, Console, Adsense to Blog)
5. Thrive Leads (For Lead Generation)
6. Titan AntiSpam(Blocking Spam On Blog)
7. WpRocket(Speed Up Your Website)
8. Q2W3 Fixed Widget (For Fixing A Widget)
9. Atomic Blocks(Free Gutenberg Blocks)
10. Social Snap(Social Media Plugin)
11. UpdraftPlus(Backup Plugin)

These are some of the major plugins that are necessary for your blog to function properly.

Bonus – Use Cloudflare For Speeding Up Website And Integrate It With WpRocket + Use Shortpixel Plugin

8. Change Permalink Structure

These are my personal tips for starting a blog as no other how to start a blog will teach you such minor things.

Using the default WordPress permalink structure is the worst mistake of your life if you are using them.

If you are using year and date in your URL’s that would be a disaster for your blog’s SEO efforts.

So before you write your first blog post you need to set up your permalink structure that looks much neat and clean.

Follow these steps to change your permalink structure –

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After you have completed the above step by changing our permalink structure you are now ready for the next step

9. Setup RankMath SEO Plugin

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This is also a very important step for setting up your SEO Plugin. There are two major SEO plugins in the market

1. Yoast SEO
2. RankMath

I suggest RankMath because it’s free and comes with a lot more features than Yoast SEO.

If you use the Yoast SEO plugin you have to purchase it and further for adding Schema in your blog post which you have to some moment, you have to buy another schema plugin. That costs around $100

But RankMath offers much greater support and has all Yoast features and it’s also compatible with Elementor.

RankMath comes with inbuilt schema options and it gives you all the schema types that a premium plugin like “All In One Schema Pro” offers for so much money.

If you are using Yoast on some other blog you can simply transfer all the data to RankMath and just delete Yoast.

It’s that easy. Migration from Yoast is just a piece of cake.

Checkout all the rankmath features here RankMath Features

Now lets install and setup RankMath Plugin For Your Blog –

10. Publish Your First Blog Post

Now it’s time to create your first blog post. To do so follow these simple steps below –

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Now a new window will open on your blog where you will write your content

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Click the publish button after you have written the complete blog post.

Now to add featured image in your blog post follow the instructions as follows

Click on documents on the post tab where you were editing your blog post and scroll down and look for featured image

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This is how you set featured image for a blog post that appears in your social shares and your blog also.

Bonus:- Best Ways To Make Money From Your Blog

There are many methods for monetizing a blog. You can select on your own choice

1. Google Adsense – This is the most famous method for monetization. Here you just add a simple AdSense code to your blog and you are done. I don’t use ads personally
2. Affiliate Marketing – This is how I earn money from this blog. You don’t need high traffic for this, you only need targeted persons who are interested in the blog post.
3. Email Marketing – This is more advance where you send targeted emails to your newsletter subscribers and monetize your emails through affiliate marketing
4. Sponsorship – Many websites like Flyout sponsor your blog to add their blog posts to your blog and they pay you in return to that.
5. Start A Youtube Channel – You can also start a youtube channel for your blog where you make videos related to your blog posts so you can also earn through youtube also.

I always teach you how to start a blog business. You will find awesome tips for setting up your blog just like the plugins list you got above which took me trying o man plugins to test then I came up with this list.

FAQ Related To How To Start A Blog In 2021

Here are some FAQ’s related to How To Start A Blog In 2021

Conclusion – Starting a blog is very easy but maintaining it for years is very hard. So never say tomorrow and be an action taker. Start your bog today and start earning a passive income today. So this is my overall tips on how to start a blog in no time.

Many people ask how to start blogging using blogger but I must tell you don’t use blogger because you don’t have control over your data. Invest to start a blog and level up your business with little money.

So this was my How to start a blog & make money with a blog for beginner’s guide and tell me ho was this blog post in the comment section.

Share Your Success Story In Comment Section

Cheers

Shivam