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How to Start a Successful Blog

Anyone can start a blog and make money.

At least that’s what they say.

But you’ll very rarely read in a post that you may not make money.

I mean a sentence like that doesn’t sell. 

Some even post, I get this many visitors a month and make over a million in revenue but never say, that doesn’t mean you will. 

I was researching one very well-known successful blogger, that makes a lot of revenue and gets a lot of visitors.

And I wanted to find out facts about this site; this blog was started over 20 years ago and after finding that out that’s all I needed to know. 

How can someone say; you can do this and this and be like me creating revenue like that, when doing something like blogging was way easier to do and rank way back when?

How can someone say, you can make a profit like me, even though you can’t afford to pay a team like I can, to continuously crank out content for you, if you do what I say? 

How can someone say, you can make money like me when they have authority and you don’t, and when their niche is something you probably have no business trying to blog about?

But you want to be a blogger and you’re determined to be a blogger, and we’re going to figure this blogging thing out together so that we can have successful blogs that make revenue and profit. 

So, my question is:

How can you start a successful blog that makes a profit in 2023?

    Let’s see what it takes.

    Principles Behind Starting a Blog

    1. Know the desired result. If you’re starting a blog, know why? What is it that you want to achieve from blogging? Sure, you’re blogging for other people but there’s a reason you’re doing it. Know what your goals are so that reach them. 
    1. Know what you’re doing. Create plans of action, for daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly goals. Know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it to achieve the success you want from blogging. Take your blog seriously!
    1. Create actionable steps. You’re going to have to do the work, and you really need to be consistent about it. If you want a successful blog that makes money, you’re going to have to make it a successful blog that makes a profit. 
    1. Choosing a niche that you can do a lot with. You want to pick a niche that is big enough to have a lot of content but not small enough to keep you from growing. 
    1. Solve a Problem. Your blog has to solve a problem, it has to help someone, it has to meet someone’s needs. When someone’s searching, they’re searching for a reason; they want something. Can you give it to them? 
    1. Blog on other platforms. Join platforms where you can publish posts, network, and link back to your site.
    1. Think outside the box. Not doing what everyone else is doing will help you to stand out, be a leader and not a follower.  
    1. Content is king. You’ll hear that a lot, but if your content is useless, it isn’t going to do you any good. Your content has to be worth the time someone takes to read it and you’re going to need to have a lot of it and it needs to have value. 
    1. Write Content that is always needed. Evergreen content is year-round content, it can be updated but it’s always needed. 
    1. Keeping it fresh. When it’s not evergreen, keep your content up to date. 
    1. Use your headlines wisely. Users skim posts for what they need. If you don’t have it or they can’t find it, they’ll bounce. Use your headlines and your first paragraph to let the reader know what they can expect from reading your post.  
    1. Blogging takes time. If you’re set on starting a blog, being a successful blogger, and making money, your going to have to give it time. If you can’t commit to more than 2 years to help it get started and more than 3 years to see results, you’re wasting your time.
    1. You should know how to do keyword research. You always want to write for the readers, they’re the top priority, but search engines need to understand your content to show it to these readers. Back in the day keyword research was very important, today it’s just needed. Search engines are very smart now and will understand what your content is about, so don’t go all keyword overload here. If it’s valuable, Google will serve it. 
    1. If you can monetize, do it. There’s not a time frame to trying to monetize your blog, if you can monetize, then do it, don’t wait. 
    1. Use your voice. You are the voice of your blog. You want readers to know you, the real you. Just be yourself. 
    1. Promote your content.  You spent time writing and creating for readers, if no one can find it, it’s useless. Put yourself out there, and promote your blog, your products, and your content. You can’t build authority if no one knows about you. 
    1. Don’t overshare. Readers want to know you and you want to be relatable, but if they don’t need to know it, then you don’t need to share it. Keep your personal business to yourself. 
    1. Respond to your readers. No matter what platform you’re on or using, always respond to each and every user that has reached out to you or commented. 
    1. Always improve yourself. You want to be a better blogger for your audience, and there’s always something you can improve on. A lot of things change over the years sometimes even over a week, keep up with what’s going on in your niche. 
    1. Create a Calendar. If you’re a blogger teaching a how-to, you’re giving someone some kind of a roadmap or guide to follow; do this, then this, then this and they do it. You’re no different, even a teacher follows the lesson plan. Create a calendar of some type and follow it.  
    1. Tell your reader what to do. You have someone who went through one of your posts, well what’s next? Tell them what to do, they may not know that you have a post related to the same topic they just read, they may not know you give free resources for joining your email list, and they may not know you’ve written an eBook. Tell them what to do next. 
    1. Create multiple streams of Income. There is more than one way to make money blogging, you can use your blog to set up social media, create and sell products, offer services that other bloggers hire out for, add affiliate marketing to the list, and a whole lot of other things you can do with a little research. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, create multiple streams of income. 

    Now that you’ve got some principles under your belt as to what it takes to start a successful blog. 

    It’s time to get started on it. 

    I’m not going to give you a whole list of starting a blog steps here, because you need those steps regardless and the only thing about doing them is that you successfully started a blog. 

    But, I am going to share one thing with you, that as a beginner blogger: is your beginning, middle, and end. 

    Finding and Building Your Audience 

    Did you know that when you’re a beginner, your main focus should be your audience?

    Why?

    Because you have nothing else to work with.

    You’re starting from scratch, the bottom, from nothing, nada, zero.  

    Without an audience, you just have a blog; a plain old ordinary blog, that will probably just sit there and become a dust bunny. 

    Your audience has a lot of power.

    They are the ones you’re going to write for, they are the ones that are going to give you inspiration, they are the ones you’re going to cater to.

    And they are the ones that are going to build you up. 

    Let me give you an extremely short version of blogging.

    • Start a blog
    • Find your audience
    • Find out what your audience wants
    • Create content that your audience needs
    • Continuously create content that your audience needs
    • Keep continuously creating content your audience needs
    • And create more content

    See, all throughout blogging, it’s about content. 

    Even when you have 558 other things to do in your blog, it comes back to content. 

    So, how do you find an audience?

    You start with your niche and narrow it down.  

    A niche is the topic of your blog, the main focus. 

    Narrow it down. Take your main topic and make it smaller. 

    Then take that smaller topic and find out who needs it, by doing research. 

    For a blog to be successful, it has to know who it’s trying to reach, who it wants to talk to, who needs what it has to offer, and why? 

    So ask yourself:

    • What niche am I going with?
    • Can I narrow this down to a more specific topic?
    • Who would need to do a search for this specific topic?
    • What is the problem they need answers to?

    Figure your audience and work up from there. 

    But is that all it takes to have a successful blog?

    Heck no!

    There’s a ton more to starting and having a successful blog.

    And again, I’ve got one thing for you.

    What Makes a Blog Successful? 

    YOU!

    You are responsible for your blog.

    You are the one that will carry it the entire way, as far as you want it to go. 

    Who will start it, create it, build it, grow it, monetize it, and makes sure it keeps going? 

    YOU!

    If you stop, your blog stops, if you quit, your blog quits, if you give up, your blog gives up.

    Who is responsible for all that?

    Still YOU!

    So, how do you start and have a successful blog?

    You start with you.

    What you put into your blog, is what you’re going to get out of it. 

    • If you start to slack, don’t expect much.
    • If you start to get discouraged and would rather whine about it than do something about it, don’t expect much.
    • If you start it and don’t add anything to it for days, weeks, months, or years, don’t expect much. 

    You are what it takes to start and have a successful blog.

    Your blog is only going to go as far as you take it.

    How do you accomplish the goal of having a successful blog?

    You start with you.

    You hold yourself accountable and you do what you have to do to achieve your goal of having a successful blog. 

    And that is how you start a successful blog.

    So now, I want to know if you’ve thought about starting a blog for a while now, what has held you up? 

    If you’ve just started a blog have you set your goals yet?

    And if you’re stuck somewhere in your blogging journey, what’s the problem?

    And if you need help, what can I do?

    Send me a comment.

    And if you’ve got it all figured out and you’re ready to start, head on over to “how to start a blog for beginners in 21 steps“, that’s right 21.

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