8 Easy Steps To Blogging For Passive Income: Your Ultimate Guide to Start a Blog

Learn the easy steps needed to start a blog and tap into the world of making money online with our ultimate beginner’s guide to blogging for passive income.

Reading Time: 8 mins

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Learning how to monetize your blog is a great way to create an authoritative website that ranks well in search engines and builds your personal brand.

Starting a blog can be a lucrative way to generate income and establish yourself as an authority in your niche. By learning how to monetize your blog, you can leverage the power of search engines to boost your online presence.

Blogging is also a great way to generate passive income streams, such as affiliate marketing, paid advertising, and product sales. Keep in mind, success requires more than just creating content.

The most important thing about making money with blogging is learning how to get website traffic.

While you might not necessarily make millions of dollars overnight blogging for extra income, you can steadily build your blog’s revenue to 7-figures and beyond with the right blogging strategy for beginners. 

Blogging for passive income is a long-term game

Ready to know the secret of how to make passive income from blogging? The truth is, blogging for passive income is a long-term process.

With the right blog strategies, you can attract more readers, increase your blog engagement, boost your website’s search engine ranking, start blogging as a full-time job, generate more sales and clients, and earn passive income with your blog.

However, keep in mind that blogging for passive income takes time and effort, and there is no magic formula or quick fix for success. But with persistence and hard work, you can achieve your goals and build a successful passive income stream through blogging.

Easy Steps to Start Blogging for Passive Income: 

1. Niche Down
2. Get a domain and web hosting
3. Download a website template
4. Focus on Keywords
5. Promote your blog
6. Get backlinks blogging
7. Engage with your community
8. Monetize your blog

What is the first step when you want to start blogging for passive income?

The first thing you should do when you want to start a blog is niche down.

How do I choose the right niche for my blog?

Finding the right blog niche can be on any subject matter.

The reality is, the best way to choose the right blog niche is to learn how to start a blog and make money writing about your passions.

Not only will you be more likely to stay committed to the blog’s success if it’s about a topic you’re passionate about. Blogging about your hobby for passive income sounds fun. Plus, you can attract a dedicated audience of readers who are interested in that blogging niche, and find significant value in the content you provide.

With all of that said, the best blogging niche is one that makes money.

• It’s great to write about your hobbies or interests. But if you want to blog as a career then you need to consider topics that are profitable.
  
• When picking a blog niche, it’s important to aim for a category that aligns with your interests and skills while also addressing a specific need or problem within that niche.
  
• Aim to improve someone’s health, wealth, or relationships because those core categories address some of the basic needs and desires that people have and are searching for online.

How to find your blogging niche?

The easiest way to find your niche (and ensure it’s a profitable one) is to do a little research.

First, find out what you’re interested in. Are you a music buff? A sports enthusiast? An avid digital marketer? All the above?

Next, do some research and look for content that inspires you or you would want to emulate. Search for other bloggers like you who are trying to make their mark and learn from them!

A lot of people start by emulating someone else’s work that they admire and putting their own spin on it. Remember, being original is key. Don’t try and be someone else. But if you have a few people you know you want to emulate, that can be enough inspiration to get started.

Once you have a few muses in mind, identify their best-performing content and look for ways to improve upon it. It might be as simple as changing up the writing style, going more in-depth on topics, or repositioning the way something is presented.

If your goal is to make money blogging, then you need to find an original angle for your niche. Remember, there are hundreds of blogs out there like yours. So if you want to get noticed and make money blogging, you have to do something different.

Tips on finding your blogging niche

Learning how to find your blog niche is one of the most common issues most people let get in their way when learning how to monetize your blog. Here are some tips on how to find your niche or how to niche down your blog.

Blog Niche Selection Tips:

1. First identify your interests

To attract a quality audience, your blog should focus on topics that you know a lot about or are interested in.

If you’re passionate about technology, sports, finance, or other topics, think about how to write about these topics in unique ways.

For example, if you’re interested in technology, don’t only create a tech blog because everyone else has one. Instead, figure out how to talk about technology in an original way that others haven’t already covered.

To narrow down your blog niche, ask yourself what are the content gaps in your niche. What do you wish there was more content that you could create? 

2. Identify your target audience

Before starting your blog, determine who your target audience is going to be. Do this by thinking of the people who would be reading your content. Chances are, they’re very similar to you.

Ask yourself:

1. Who are they?
2. Where do spend their time online?
3. What issues or information would solve their problems
4. What content cap is missing related to your subject matter?
5. How can you bring a unique or fresh perspective to this subject matter?

When finding a blog niche that suits you, it’s important not only to identify your target audience but also to understand their wants and needs. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. It’s better to focus on one specific niche, understand that audience very well, and talk directly to them.

Creating content for your target audience is key. This is important because it will help define the content of your blog posts. As well as allow people searching for information in that niche to find your blog and get them to actually read your blog too.

Finding the perfect blog niche will help to inform a content strategy for niche blog content ideas for your blog. This will give you so many long-tail keyword opportunities to target key search queries in the customer search journey.

3. Validate your blogging niche

When choosing a niche for your blog, it’s important to make sure that it’s something people are actually interested in.

You want to choose a profitable niche that people want to read about and already show they’re engaged in.

Look to your competitors or other bloggers you’d like to emulate. If someone else is successful in a subject matter area, you have a valid market idea and it means blogging success in that niche is possible for you too.

Get a domain and web hosting for your blog

A domain name is what people will use to find your blog, so it should be something short, easy to pronounce, reflect your topic or primary keyword and be memorable.

• You can use Domain.com to buy a cheap domain. If you can, use a keyword for your domain. This can drastically improve your chances of being found online and makes your website a lot more searchable.

Next, you’ll need a web hosting provider.

What is a web hosting provider?

A hosting service like Bluehost or Hostgator is a server that makes your website available for viewing online. These web hosting providers have an excellent reputation on the internet and offer fantastic deals for new bloggers.

Get a website template for your blog [Instant Download!]

If you’re ready to start making money with a blog, you need a blog-optimized website! 

The TOP TIER x Showit website templates is designed specifically for people who are creating their first website and are a great starting point if you’re looking to get your site up quickly. Without spending too much money.

If you:

• Don’t have any idea or interest in building a website but want one that reflects the quality of your brand
• Don’t want to spend a huge amount of money on a custom website design because a website template is everything you need.

These website templates are affordable, already designed for you, and completely customizable to you and your brand.

Plus, Showit offers best-in-class 24/7 support, is SEO-friendly, and is stunning on every device. You’ll get a predesigned blog layout (with options) already done for you. Further, website hosting comes included with every Showit plan. Which is one less monthly expense for you! 

Focus on keywords for your blog

Keywords are king.

When you start blogging, you need to find the right keywords to target.

• Perform keyword research, target long tail keywords, get backlinks, analyze your competition and create content with keyword clusters.

Learning how to create viral blog posts and structuring the perfect blog post isn’t luck, it’s strategy.

You need to structure your blog posts for search engines and create content for the keywords that your target audience is searching for.

Keywords matter because your income will depend on how much website traffic (i.e.: customers) you get.

The more content you can create and keywords you can rank for, the better chance you have at ranking for the keywords your ideal target audience is searching for.

Targeted content (read: keywords) read by the right audience = passive income from blogging.

• If you target high-volume keywords then it will take longer for your site to get traffic.
• Instead, focus on low volume, low competition keywords if you’re starting a blog from zero followers and have the intent of starting a blog for a steady stream of passive income, because it’s money on autopilot.

There are a lot of different tools to help you with keyword research.

Best keyword research tools when blogging for passive income:

1. Google Keyword Planner
2. Longtail Pro
3. Keywords Everywhere (Google Chrome Extension)
4. SEMrush 
5. Searchmetrics

Keyword research will help you get targeted traffic when blogging for passive income right off the bat. You can also simply use Google Search for keyword ideas.

Keyword Research Tips — Blogging for Passive Income:

• Use the suggested searches that are populated for keyword ideas.
• You can also apply this same strategy via social media searches, Etsy search results, and Amazon’s suggested searches by typing in a few words and taking note of the keywords that populate.

• Next, take a look at the “People Also Asked” section on Google. Use these keyword terms as your headers. This strategy will help get your content ranking for featured snippets.
  • Optimizing your content for featured snippets is one of the best ways to rank your website fast. Incorporate these ‘People Also Asked’ questions and related keywords as the headers. This strategy will make your post search engine optimized for optimal online discoverability.
    
• Remember, you need to write your content based on what people are searching for. Keywords
  help to ensure your content is valuable and searchable so people can find it, share it, and come back for more.
  • Think about the content gaps that you feel are missing on the topics you love or what are the areas you’d love to do a deep dive in? Think about natural search queries you use to describe your product, service, or blog topic, and then use the above tools to generate more keyword ideas.

It can be hard to get people to visit your blog at first. But if your goal is to make money from blogging, then having a strong keyword focus is a must.

Promote your blog

Promoting your blog is the most important part to make money as a blogger.

There are a lot of different ways to make passive income with your blog, and you don’t want to solely rely on search engines to promote your blog for you.

A lot of people think if they create great content and it’s optimized for SEO, search engines will do all the work. This is lucky thinking, instead of relying on a strategy. There are more reliable ways to make money blogging.

In fact, search engines look to see if other blogs and websites are already linking to your site before they’ll even rank your site on a search engine listing. This is the harsh truth about SEO. If there’s only one thing you take away from this post, it’s that promoting your blog is 80% of becoming a successful blogger.

The reality is, getting your blog ranked on search engine listings takes a lot of hard work, research, and time. And even then, it’s not guaranteed. If you want to see your hard work pay off and increase your blog traffic, you need to promote your blog in several ways.

What is the best way to increase your blog traffic?

The answer is to combine organic search engine optimization (SEO) with promotional marketing strategies. Incorporate search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing (SMM), guest blogging, and email marketing. It usually takes a combination of these techniques to get the website traffic you need.

Remember, there are tons of other blogs out there competing for attention. To stand out from the crowd, you need to create an effective blogging plan that includes all these promotional elements.

Get backlinks to your blog

Be aware that backlinks are very important.

As in, it’s almost impossible to get any traffic without backlinks. While there are marketing strategies to get blog traffic without backlinks, aim to build as strong of a backlink profile for your website as possible in order to rank your blog well.

What is a backlink?

In short, a backlink is a link from another website that links back to yours.

One of the best ways to get website traffic includes getting other websites to link out to your website.

You know how social media metrics are likes and followers? SEO’s version of that is backlinks.

When another website gives you a backlink, (for example: links to your post or product) it acts as a vote of confidence for your website and its content. This helps search algorithms to use other websites to help determine what’s quality content and worth sharing.

• Just like social media metrics that use likes and followers to indicate the popularity of your content on social media, backlinks help signal to search engines that your website is a credible and authoritative source in your niche.

When another website links to your content, it is essentially endorsing your content, and this endorsement can improve your search engine rankings. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the better your chances of ranking higher in search engine result pages.

So learning how to get backlinks to your website is ultra-important.

• Link out to other blogs in your niche whenever possible so they can link back to yours when appropriate.
• Leverage social media platforms to share your content and use those links as social signals for search engines.

Remember, if you don’t have any backlinks pointing back to your blog, then no one will find you or your content.

Engage with your community

Blogging is more than creating viral blog posts. If you want to succeed, then interact with your readers and engage with other bloggers in your niche too!

 For instance, building your community can involve:

1. Running giveaways or contest
2. Increasing your email sign-ups
3. Engaging with your audience in the comments
4. Reposting user-generated content
5. Cross-promoting your content on other platforms

The point is to engage with your community in a way that makes them feel seen, acknowledged and valued.

Your community is your support system. Without them, you wouldn’t have a successful blog in the first place. Your audience should be your main focus at all times. Serving them with valuable content should always be top-of-mind.

Learn how to monetize your blog

You can monetize your blog in many ways. Learn affiliate marketing, create sponsored posts, sell products or services, or sell digital ads with AdSense.

Monetizing your blog takes time, but there are many ways to make money from your blog.

Making money with a blog step-by-step:

1. Sell products. If you have a product that people want or need, then you can sell it right on your blog.
2. Sell services. You can sell services on your blog like coaching, consulting or design services. You can either charge hourly or set up packages for different levels.
3. Monetize through AdSense and other advertising programs. You can make money with Google AdSense by selling ads on your site. With AdSense, clicks on the ads will generate revenue instead of just impressions (views).
4. Promote other people’s products. Affiliate marketing is another great way to monetize your blog because they take care of everything in selling and delivering the product for you. While you earn a commission based on sales generated from your content.
5. Sponsored posts involve collaborating with brands to create dedicated content for their products or services. You can charge flat fees for sponsored content as well as a commission for any sales generated. You can also charge usage rights if the brand wants to repurpose your content for its own platform.

Blogging for passive income

If you want to learn how to start blogging for passive income, you can’t expect results overnight.

The truth is that it will take some time and effort for people to find your blog and start reading it. Blogging for extra cash is not a get-rich-fast scheme. 

However, you can turn your blog into passive income. It simply requires strategy and consistency to be a successful blogger.

You need to set aside time every day or week to write quality content and scale your promotional efforts. It takes dedication and consistency if you want to build a loyal community.

Blogging as a side hustle

If you don’t have time for blogging, then this might not be the best career idea or side hustle for you.

The good news is that once you start seeing traffic with your blog, you’ll have a passive income stream generating recurring monthly income for you on autopilot.

Plus, your ability to earn passive income through blogging will grow more and more over time (assuming you keep creating and promoting great blog content) that is! Want to start a blog and make money on the side? Download our free SEO checklist to start implementing the SEO basics and learn how to turn your blog into a passive income machine.