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How to Start a Blog and Make Money

Yes, you will find tons of articles/guides to assist you in starting a blog. <br>But they only explain few general terms like hosting, domain and wordpress installation. <br>This e-book explain each and every step with explaination that covers begginer to advance level guidlines.<br>Major contents of this E-book:<br>- How to Choose the profitable and best topic?<br>- How to buy domain and hosting from a reliable provider?<br>- How to Install WordPress, Plugins and configurations?<br>- How to Index your blog in search engine?<br>- How to do keyword research (Tools Ways) ?<br>- Search engine optimization?<br>- How to get visitor?<br>- Ways to earn money?<br>And continues...

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How to Start a Blog and Make Money

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  1. Table of Contents [BEGINNER LEVEL] CHAPTER 1 ............................................................................................................................. 3 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 3 WHY YOU NEED TO BUILD A BLOG OR WEBSITE? ....................................................................... 4 WHAT ARE BLOG AND WEBSITES? ........................................................................................... 4 WHAT TO BLOG ABOUT? ......................................................................................................... 5 HOW TO CHOOSE THE PROFITABLE TOPIC ................................................................................. 5 CHAPTER 2 .............................................................................................................................. 6 DOMAIN NAME &WEB HOSTING ....................................................................................... 6 WHAT IS DOMAIN NAME? ..................................................................................................... 6 TYPES/EXTENSIONS OF DOMAIN NAME .................................................................................... 6 WHY YOU NEED A DOMAIN NAME? .......................................................................................... 7 QUALITIES THAT A DOMAIN NAME SHOULD HAVE OR TRY TO INCLUDE .......................................... 7 DOMAIN ADD-ON -WHOISGUARD .......................................................................................... 8 WHICH TLD EXTENSION/DOMAIN NAME YOU SHOULD PURCHASE? .............................................. 8 WHAT IS WEB HOSTING? ....................................................................................................... 9 MOST COMMON TERMS USED IN WEB HOSTING ....................................................................... 9 TYPES OF HOSTING ............................................................................................................. 11 WHICH TYPE OF HOSTING SUITS YOUR BLOG? ......................................................................... 12 CHOOSE THE WEB HOSTING COMPANY .................................................................................. 12 HOW TO PURCHASE A DOMAIN NAME AND WEB HOSTING ACCOUNT? ........................................ 13 [MEDIOCRE LEVEL] CHAPTER 3 ............................................................................................................................ 15 WORDPRESS &PLUGINS ................................................................................................. 15 WORDPRESS INSTALLATION .................................................................................................. 15 IMPORTANT SETTINGS TO DO AFTER INSTALLING WORDPRESS.................................................... 16

  2. Make Money by Starting a Blog 1 ESSENTIAL WORDPRESS PLUGINS YOU MUST INSTALL ............................................................... 19 YOAST SEOINSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION .................................................. 19 AKISMET INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION ...................................................... 27 ITHEMES SECURITY INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION ......................................... 27 W3TOTAL CACHE INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION ......................................... 30 JETPACK BY WORDPRESS.COM INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION ......................... 31 GOOGLE ANALYTICS DASHBOARD FOR WPINSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION ......... 31 UPDRAFTPLUS WORDPRESS BACKUP PLUGIN INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION ..... 32 REL NOFOLLOW CHECKBOX INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION ............................. 35 CHAPTER 4 ................................................................................................................... 36 WEBSITE/BLOG APPEARANCES ......................................................................................... 36 WEBSITE THEMES/APPEARANCES ......................................................................................... 36 SELECTING WORDPRESS THEME/TEMPLATE ............................................................................ 36 FREE THEMES ..................................................................................................... 36 THEME CUSTOMIZATION ...................................................................................................... 38 PREMIUM THEMES .............................................................................................. 38 CATEGORIES AND NAVIGATION BAR ....................................................................................... 39 HOW TO ADD CATEGORIES AND CREATE MENU ........................................................................ 39 CHAPTER 5 ................................................................................................................... 42 INDEXING .................................................................................................................... 42 BLOG INDEXING IN SEARCH ENGINES (GOOGLE) ....................................................................... 42 [ADVANCE LEVEL] CHAPTER 6 ................................................................................................................... 47 KEYWORD RESEARCH ...................................................................................................... 47 KEYWORD RESEARCH? ......................................................................................................... 47 WHAT IS KEYWORD? ........................................................................................................... 47 WHAT ARE LONGTAIL KEYWORDS? ........................................................................................ 48 FREE TOOLS TO FIND THE LONG TAIL KEYWORDS ........................................................................ 48 WAYS TO FIND THE KEYWORDS ............................................................................................. 48 WHAT IS SEARCH VOLUME AND HOW TO FIND IT? .................................................................... 50 AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  3. Make Money by Starting a Blog 2 KEYWORD COMPETITION...................................................................................................... 50 TOOLS TO FIND THE COMPETITION –COMPETITOR ANALYSIS ...................................................... 51 CHAPTER 7 ................................................................................................................... 52 SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION ........................................................................................ 52 WHAT IS SEO? .................................................................................................................. 52 GUIDELINES FOR SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION...................................................................... 52 READABILITY ...................................................................................................................... 58 CHAPTER 8 ................................................................................................................... 61 WAYS TO DRIVE THE TRAFFIC TO A BLOG ............................................................................. 61 WHAT IS TRAFFIC/VISITOR? ................................................................................................. 61 HOW TO DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR BLOG? ............................................................................... 61 [WAYS TO EARN] CHAPTER 9 ................................................................................................................... 65 WAYS TO EARN MONEY .................................................................................................. 65 ADVERTISEMENTS (GOOGLE ADSENSE) ................................................................................... 65 AFFILIATE MARKETING ......................................................................................................... 66 SELL OWN PRODUCTS ......................................................................................................... 68 SOMETHING ABOUT BLOGGING ............................................................................................. 69 QUOTATION ...................................................................................................................... 70 AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  4. Make Money by Starting a Blog 3 BEGINNER LEVEL Chapter 1 Introduction So, you want to start a blog and make money online but don't have any idea how to start, where to start and in which niche/topic you start blogging? Well, we know the hurdle, and it's really hard for beginners to get start. So, to come up this hurdle and make things easily, we spent 2 weeks to create this huge "How to Start a Blog” guide for you. In this A-Z guide, you'll learn how to choose niche/topic of your website, domain and hosting buying tutorial as well as keyword research. Driving visitors to your newly created website is also discussed and some unique ways to make money online. We hope this article will help you take the first step to your blogging journey. This was originally published at HostingSprout on February 6, 2017. The aim of this eBook is to guide the peoples especially newbies from buying a domain(basic) to the publishing 1st post including the installation of useful plugins as we will make a website using WordPress platform. Yes, you can learn each and everything including essentials SEO tricks. Internet is the great way to earn money and share your thoughts with the online world. But the problem is many people doesn’t know where to start? How to start? So, they step down. Here we think if we have the knowledge, then it’s our responsibility to spread it as far as possible so others can take benefits from it. We strive hard to guide you step-by-step and in a proper order. We guide you regarding buying a domain to web hosting account and from where you can purchase AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  5. Make Money by Starting a Blog 4 them. We will also try to explain each and every term related to blogging in simple words to help understand in a simple way. Why You Need to Build a Blog or Website? Well there are many reasons here are the few ones For the online existence of your business: A blog or a website helps the businesses to expand their market. By managing your products online the customers can view them and order online without visiting your physical shop. Make money by selling other products (Affiliate Marketing): Nowadays blogging is the popular way of earning. You just need to create a website and then publish the other’s products details/reviews. When a customer purchases a product through your website, then you will earn handsome commissions. Just for Writing: Some want to share their ideas and thoughts to the online world, and some have the passion for writing. The great way to do this is to create a blog and get global exposure. What are Blog and Website? Generally, a Blog and website are similar there is a minor difference between them. A website is a professional web page where the company maintains their products details. A website usually contains static pages like FAQ’s, feedback, etc. While a Blog contains informational posts/pages where webmasters/bloggers share contents on a regular basis. A blog usually has a commenting system to get more interaction with readers to build readership. In simple words, both are almost same and just remember the main difference that the blog is an informal way of communication while the website usually related to some business or product and formal (Static information). That's enough let's get to the topic. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  6. Make Money by Starting a Blog 5 What to Blog about? By question what to Blog about, we mean on which topic you should create a Blog? In the case of a business website, it is easy to determine. But when you want to create a personal blog for earning money or something else then it is the most crucial thing. Don’t ever select the topic; you don’t have the knowledge about or passionate about. So before selecting a topic remember following things  Select your interesting topic  Select a topic about which you have plenty of knowledge If you select a topic about which you don’t have the enough knowledge and enthusiasm, then learning about the new topic will take more time and soon you may get abandoned. Also, you will go out of the ideas soon. So it is very necessary to select the topic that is interesting for you or try to develop the interest in the topic you haven’t interested yet and start a blog on that. How to Choose the Profitable Topic By now we hope, you will understand in which topic you should start blogging. But here is another question, how you’ll know which topic/niche is profitable. Is it worth blogging? Or it will make any money for you? Well, if you want to make money by promoting other people's products (affiliate marketing) then first check whether there are any products available related to your niche in the market to promote? If yes, then go for that topic/niche. To make money through advertisements, you must choose the topic having high CPC/CPM rates. You can find about CPC and CPM here. The purpose is to validate whether the niche you’re going to start blogging will make any money for you or not. It is very important especially when you want to make money through blogging. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  7. Make Money by Starting a Blog 6 Chapter 2 Domain Name & Web Hosting What is Domain Name? Domain name is the way to access the IP Address. But IP Address is difficult to remember for example 89.92.831.263. So the solution is the Domain Name which is easy to speak and remember. Now if you want to tell someone about your website then instead of giving IP Address just tell him the Domain Name like our domain name is www.hostingsprout.com. Click on this or write down in the web browser address bar to visit. Recommended Read:Top 10 Best Domain Name Registrars for Buying Domains Types/Extensions of Domain Name A decade ago there were few types of domain extensions, but now there are tons of extensions available to register. You can choose which is familiar to your website topic e.g. for commercial purpose always choose .com TLD if possible instead of .net, or .org AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  8. Make Money by Starting a Blog 7 Some Famous and Most Common Domain Extensions .com for commercial – profit making websites (If you want to build a website or blog then choose this) .net for network .org for non-profit organization .gov for government websites .edu for college, school or university Why You Need a Domain Name? The answer is simple, without a domain name no one gets access to your website. So you need a domain name so that people can get access to your site and read articles or buy something whichever you are presenting. Let me explain; it is just like a plot (real estate) you buy to construct a building. Without buying plot how can you build a house or whatever you want to build? Same goes to a domain and web hosting. We bought a domain name and then web hosting, the domain can be referred as a plot and site contents as a building which you want to build. Pretty simple, Isn't it? Qualities That a Domain Name Should Have or Try to Include  Short – It should be short if possible  Easy to tell someone – easily speakable  Easy to write  Use correct spell –don’t ever use misleading words like hostngsprout.com, or facbook.com type words Now we think you clearly understand what a domain name is? And why you need it? AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  9. Make Money by Starting a Blog 8 WhoisGuard WhoisGuard is an addon which you should purchase along with the domain name? When you purchase a domain, you put your personal information in the checkout process like emails address, phone number, and physical address, etc. The spammer or hackers can use this information’s to send you malicious emails. So you need to protect these information. For hiding the information companies offer WhoisGuard. Here note that Different companies offer WhoisGuard at different prices. Which TLD extension/Domain Name You Should Purchase A domain name should include keyword relevant to their main topic. For example made a blog on “cooking” then you can include “kitchen” in your domain name. Additionally, a domain name help the user to decide that what your blog is about? So try to include one of your keywords in the domain name. But it is not a thumb rule, always try to pick the name relevant to your topics or business. The purpose is to help the user understand about your business/blog when they see your domain name. However, you can use the irrelevant domain name as well; it totally depends on your choice. For a further guide to learn that how to pick the right domain name, Moz has shared a great article here. Along with the domain name you also need a web hosting account to get website online. So let’s understand that. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  10. Make Money by Starting a Blog 9 Web Hosting Guide for Beginners What is Web Hosting? A website won't get online until you have both domain and a web hosting account. As we already describe Domain so now let us explain hosting. A web hosting is a place which enables you to store your website contents like pictures, articles, and videos, etc., etc. The web hosting also includes many other elements like the bandwidth. Bandwidth is also known as the traffic or visitors allowed. Some companies offer unlimited bandwidth, but some allowed the limited number of visitors. For more details of web hosting and its elements you may read this What is web hosting? Selecting a web hosting is very complex these days. Because there are numerous companies offering hosting services, which may or may not be compatible. And there are many things you need to know before the selection. So, what are those things/elements/factors? Most Common Terms Used in Web Hosting Uptime: Uptime is the period during which your site is online. By online we mean the visitors can view your site. The higher the uptime, the better for your site. Downtime: Downtime is the period during which the people cannot access your site. The lower the downtime, the better for your website. Let’s take an example for better explanation. If you select the unreliable hosting provider having low uptime, it means your website will go offline frequently. During downtime, the visitor/customer cannot view your products or articles. So the customer may visit another site, and you lost a customer. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  11. Make Money by Starting a Blog 10 Page Load time: The hosting companies using different technologies which may help the pages of the website to load faster. Your website should be load faster because if a website load slowly then the customer got frustrated and left your site never to come back. The page load time is also the ranking factor in the Google search engine. So select a hosting using advanced technologies and keep your site optimize. Content Management System: CMS is a web application which allows the users to manage their websites like publishing articles, adding users, etc. An example of CMS is the WordPress. CMS consist of two parts which are backend and frontend. Backend user includes the administrative rights while frontend part is what the visitors see when they visit your website i.e. interface of the website. There most common CMS’s are WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, etc. The choice of CMS is very important when you are going to start a Blog. We suggest you select the WordPress because it is user and search engine friendly. It also allows easy customization. Moreover, there are many hosting companies offer WordPress friendly hosting. Here look at the Best WordPress hosting providers 2017. Bandwidth Bandwidth is also termed as the number of visitors. If a company say 5000 visits/mo. in its plan, then it means that your website can open 5000 times during a month. So try to select the hosting offering unlimited bandwidth or the sufficient number of visits. Having a bit know how with the terms is good for you as these will help you to understand your blog needs in the future. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  12. Make Money by Starting a Blog 11 Types of Web Hosting Shared Hosting In shared hosting, the services are provided to the multiple websites by the company i.e hosting resources are divided among the multiple users, but each website has its unique domain name. This is the least expensive type of hosting and is considers the best option for starting a new website/blog. VPS Hosting The VPS Hosting provide more access to the users on the servers as compared to the shared hosting. And there are a few customers on every server. Cloud Hosting/ Cloud Computing Cloud Hosting is designed behind the concept of maximum availability of services. In this numerous servers are connected to act as one single system. When a server goes down, then the other server automatically deliver the website contents. Dedicated Hosting In dedicated hosting, the company allocates an entire server to the client. That’s why it is the most expensive type of hosting and mostly used by the companies and website having very large amount of traffic. Managed WordPress/ Joomla Hosting The managed hosting is designed for specific web platforms like Managed WordPress Hosting and Joomla Managed Hosting. These are automatically optimized for a web platform by the company, so you don’t need to be worried about optimization. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  13. Make Money by Starting a Blog 12 Which Type of Hosting Suits Your Blog? Shared Hosting is the least expensive type of web hosting and is considers as the best option for starting a new website/blog. Because a new Blog did not need too much storage, bandwidth, and other resources instantly. So, selecting a shared hosting for a new Blog will be wise. We already shared some the best web hosting provider for WordPress here. We recommend BlueHost, their servers are pretty fast, secure, and they claim to deliver 99.99% uptime. BlueHost offer live chat support 24/7; you can also contact via phone. Choose the Web Hosting Company That’s enough of the introduction to the hosting elements; now it’s time to select the hosting. There are many companies in the industry which make it difficult to pick the best one. So, if you have enough budget and want to start a blog professionally, then we would recommend following best web hosting services for reliable and trusted hosting. Many people did not able to start the blog due insufficient of funds. So don’t worry there are many companies offering affordable hosting plans. The question is can we rely on the cheap hosting? Yes, you can but just for a start. You can also use cheap hosting for the blogs having a limited amount of traffic. We recommend you to transfer to the well-reputed company immediately when your site traffic is increasing. So what are the best cheap hosting providers? Here look at these companies Cheap WordPress Web Hosting 2017: Find the Best and Low-Cost Host These are well known and best providers for cheap hosting which are reliable to some extent. So if you are in search of cheap hosting, you may choose from companies mentioned in the list. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  14. Make Money by Starting a Blog 13 How to Purchase a Domain Name and Web Hosting Account? There are many web hosting and domain selling companies out there; any reliable provider will be preferable. So which one is Good? We recommend BlueHost as they deliver high speed, maximum uptime, free domain name, friendly and quick support team. Mostly importantly their services best suits to new blogs requirements. This is Why We Recommend BlueHost:  Free domain name  Low Pricing  Standard hosting control panel (Cpanel)  30 days full refund period  Live Chat, Phone, and Ticketing system for support  Fast and Secure hosting servers  99.9% server uptime Getting subscription is a very simple process let’s do it. 1. Go to BlueHost and then select "Shared Hosting" and after that select a plan. Here we select "basic" plan because it suits best for a new blog. 2. Now they will ask to put the new domain name which is totally free. Then hit the Next button. 3. After that put the account information like name, country, city, and zip code etc. 4. Then select the package information. We suggest you to select the 3-years duration as it will lower down the overall cost. Moreover, you can uncheck the Domain privacy as it is not necessary, Site Backup pro because there are services available for creating free backup and Site lock. These can save your little money. And whenever you have enough budget then you can activate these type of services. 5. Then scroll down further and fill the credit card details AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  15. Make Money by Starting a Blog 14 6. In the next page they show up upgrade option. None of them are necessary. Scroll down and press “Complete” button. 7. After that you will see a congratulation page. Also they allow you to create the password for your account. Go ahead and create the password. 8. Congratulation! It’s done. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  16. Make Money by Starting a Blog 15 MEDIOCRE LEVEL Chapter 3 WordPress & Plugins WordPress Installation After getting the hosting and domain, it’s time to install the web application like WordPress. We love WordPress because it is user-friendly and easy to use. Moreover, it’s totally a free application. Just follow these steps for the Installation  Login to your hosting control panel and then click on the “cPanel” icon.  Now, Login to cPanel.  Either find the “WordPress” icon or find through the cPanel search bar.  Click on the “WordPress” icon  A window will show up. Here you need to configure some setting.  Choose a protocol: http://  Change the Site Name  Enter the Site Description AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  17. Make Money by Starting a Blog 16 Write down the “Admin Username”. Remember that a complex username is difficult to hack. After that write the “Admin Password”. The password should be a mixture of numbers, symbols, capital and small words. Click on “Install” and wait till the installation is over. When the installation completed, they provide you the “Administrative URL” just save that URL in the notepad.  Congratulations you have successfully completed installation now, it’s time to configuring its settings. Important Settings to Do After Installing WordPress After completing the WordPress installation the next step in starting a blog is the WordPress setting. Now click on the administrative URL the page will show asking for login.  Now write down the Username and Password which you make during the WordPress Installation and hit “Login In” button. This will take you to the WordPress Dashboard. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  18. Make Money by Starting a Blog 17  After you logged in you will see WordPress dashboard. After Installing WordPress, you have to do the following Settings: First of all, you need to change the General setting. At the Sidebar of the dashboard find Setting, then hover the mouse cursor over it and click on General. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  19. Make Money by Starting a Blog 18 After clicking on the General setting, now write down the following  Website Title (The name of your Website)  Tagline ( a bit of your site description) Now click on the “Permalinks” which is at the end of the menu as shown in the above image. Now in “Permalinks” select the “Post name” as shown below. After that follow the below guidelines to delete the default contents  Click on the “Posts” in the Sidebar and then “All Posts”.  Now click on the “Trash” to delete the “Hello world!” post AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  20. Make Money by Starting a Blog 19  After that click on the “Pages” in the Sidebar and then click on “All Pages”.  Click on the “Trash” to delete the “Sample Page”. That’s all for now let’s install some helpful plugins. Essential WordPress Plugins You Must Install You need to install the basic plugins. These plugins help you in security, making your blog speedy, control the spamming and make your blog search engine friendly (Search Engine Optimization), etc. At the side bar click on the “Plugins” and then “Add new ” 1. Yoast SEO The very first plugin you need to install for starting a blog is the“Yoast SEO”. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Good SEO helps your articles to rank higher in the search engines like Google and Bing etc. So it is the most important thing in the journey of making money by starting a blog. If an article is not friendly to a search engine, then your site will receive NO or very small amount of visitors. Generally, Visitors/Customers mostly visit those sites having a position on the first page of Google. And yes it is true that people mostly found on the first page what they are looking for. So now you can understand, how crucial the SEO for your site? AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  21. Make Money by Starting a Blog 20 Why Yoast SEO is very important  Yoast SEO is a great tool to optimize your blog contents.  It helps to increase the readability score of your articles by providing suggestions.  It allows quick indexing/de-indexing as well as follow/nofollow functionality.  You can preview how posts and pages title/meta description will appear in search engines.  You can also check site wide errors, indexing issues, and 404 pages.  It includes various other features like Google Search console, linking social pages, etc. etc. As SEO is much much important, so we write down in-depth Yoast SEO configuration guide. Yoast SEO Plugin Setting Guide Titles & Metas: Now click on the “Titles & Metas” at the sidebar under the SEO. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  22. Make Money by Starting a Blog 21 “Titles & Metas” contain the following configuration. Here views at the setting  In the “Homepage” tab write down the description of your website. For example here is our description.  In “Post Types” tab scroll down and select the “Meta Robots” to “noindex” in the “Media” section. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  23. Make Money by Starting a Blog 22 AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  24. Make Money by Starting a Blog 23  The next is the “Taxonomies”. In this tab change the setting as we did below. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  25. Make Money by Starting a Blog 24  In the “Archives” tab disable the “Author Archive” as well as “Date archives”. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  26. Make Money by Starting a Blog 25  The last tab named as “Other”, just “noindex” the “Subpages of archives” as we did in below image. Note that after you made the changes in each tab don’t forget to press “Save Changes” button. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  27. Make Money by Starting a Blog 26 Social Profile Settings in Yoast: Due to the extensive use of Social Media, it is very necessary that every Blog and Website should maintain its existence on the Social Media. The most common used social media platforms are FaceBook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter, etc. You can drive a great amount of visitors from these sites. So you must maintain social profiles of your website and share your posts over there. You can create your social media pages under the name of your blog and link them to your blog by using Yoast SEO.  After setting up the Titles & Metas click on the “Social” in the sidebar. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  28. Make Money by Starting a Blog 27 2. Akismet The next plugin is the Akismet. It is an anti-spam plugin. This plugin helps the users to protect their blogs against spamming like spam comments. By activating Akismet, you can focus on the other things instead of filtering the spam comments. Settings:  Getting start is very simple just sign up an account and get you API key.  After that, it will ask what to do with the spam? Select “put in spam folder” and then hit “Save Changes”. That’s all. Congratulations you activated the layer against spamming to protect your blog. 3. iThemes Security As the name shows, this plugin is for securing your site. This is one of the best security plugins for WordPress. This plugin provides protection against brute force attacks and helps you to block the specific addresses. It also helps to build the strong passwords and alter you in the case of any unexpected changes. iThemes protects your site by 30+ factors.  After installing and activating click on the “Security” in the sidebar and run the Security Check. It will automatically enable some certain recommended options to secure your site. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  29. Make Money by Starting a Blog 28 Another important thing is to change the login URL because it will improve your Blog security. If you keep the default URL, then it may be targeted by the hackers. So, you must change it. See the below image to understand what is login URL. Change Login URL Here follow these steps  At the sidebar of the WordPress dashboard click on the “Security”. This option will show only after installing the “iThemes Security” plugin. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  30. Make Money by Starting a Blog 29  Click on the "Advanced” and then configure the "Hide Backend" setting just like the below picture.  Now tick the box "Enable the backend feature".  Type new login URL address in front of "Login Slug". You must copy the new URL in notepad. Next time when you want to login to your WordPress dashboard then use this new URL. Note: Don't be lazy when it comes to the Blog security. Here read the Ultimate Guide to Secure WordPress Site from all aspects because a hacker can spoil your work within no time. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  31. Make Money by Starting a Blog 30 4. W3 Total Cache You need to increase your site speed because it is a search engine ranking factor(Google). W3 Total Cache increase your site performance tremendously. It helps to run your site smoothly and swiftly. W3 Total Cache increase the speed of your site and so that decrease the page load time by caching the contents. So you must install it. After its installation now at the sidebar find “Performance” and then click on the “General Settings”. Configuration: At General Setting “Enable” the following features Page Cache: Enabling pages cache helps to improve the site load time. It makes cache on the server. When visitors visit the same page then instead of delivering the contents from the database, it loads the contents from the server. So resulting in improve speed. Database Cache: Making caching of the most search queries of your site. So that next time to load the queries quickly. Object Cache: Making cache of the common operation. It’s very good feature for the dynamic type websites. Browser Cache: Helps to cache the contents in the visitor’s browsers so that to reduce the loading time whenever they visit your site again. CDN (Content Delivery Network): It cache's the static contents of your site like images, CSS, JS scripts, etc. It helps to deliver the cached contents from the nearest CDN servers. Now click on “Save all settings”. Note: Speed is considered as a ranking factor in Google, and W3 total cache can surely improve your site speed so make use of it. You can keep track the speed and load time of site using Site Monitoring Tools. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  32. Make Money by Starting a Blog 31 5. Jetpack by WordPress.com Here is another essential WordPress plugin. Jetpack is designed behind the concept of easy management of WordPress blog. This plugin keeps many factors under consideration like traffic insights, security, optimize the images, etc. etc. It also sends a report on every downtime. It is one of the crucial plugins that you must install and provides a lot of functionalities under one roof. 6. Google Analytics Dashboard for WP A great plugin for in-depth traffic statistics of your website. It provides the details like the number of organic searches, visitors, and page views, etc. After installing it hit the activate button. Without authorization, this plugin won't show any information. So you need to authorize it first. How to Authorize the Plugin Open the Google Analytics in new browser tab. Create an account. After that head back to the WordPress dashboard and hover the cursor on “Google Analytics” at the sidebar and then click on the “General setting”.  Now click on the “Authorize Plugin” and then “Get Access Code”. It will ask you for permission, hit the “Allow” button get the code and paste it in the “Access Code” field. (Note: You have to add your site in Google Analytics first to make this plugin workable.) AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  33. Make Money by Starting a Blog 32 7. UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin What if you messed up with your site? You need to secure your website files and database with a backup plugin. If you setup a backup plugin and when something messed up, the quick way to get everything right is to restore the files. UpdraftPlus is a free backup plugin to make backups of your whole site. After installing, activate the plugin and then go to the plugin settings. See below Configuring Updradftplus:  After clicking the UpdraftPlus, a panel will come in front of you, then click on the “Settings” tab. 1. At First, Select the duration after which the plugin should make a backup of site contents and database 2. At number two you can select the number of retained copies of backup 3. After that select the location where you want to store the backup. In our example, we select “DropBox” because it is very easy to integrate it with Updraft. See the below image (A) for visual assistance AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  34. Make Money by Starting a Blog 33 4. Select all the things like Plugins, Themes, Uploads, etc. to make the whole site backup (image B) 5. Check the box in front of “Email”. This will help you to send the various reports like backup, restoration to your email address. 6. Don’t forget to hit the “Save Changes”. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  35. Make Money by Starting a Blog 34 7. After saving changes click on the “Current Status” and hit the “Backup Now” button. That’s all. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  36. Make Money by Starting a Blog 35 8. And when you want to restore then just click the “Restore” and then a box will appear like below 9. Now tick the all if you want to restore the whole site and then click on “Restore”that’s all. If still something unclear to you regarding creating backup then you may read How to Create the Complete WordPress Site Backup – Guide with Pics Note: We strongly recommend to create site backup regularly because you spent a lot of time on the Blog which should not be wasted because of hacker or ant valunerability. 8. Rel Nofollow Checkbox This plugin adds a checkbox where you can tick the box by just a click. Sometimes you add some links to your post like affiliate links; these links should be nofollow. So this plugin helps you at that time. So these are the some very crucial plugins that a blog must have. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  37. Make Money by Starting a Blog 36 Chapter 4 Website/Blog Appearances Website Themes/ Appearances It’s time to work on the website themes. A good looking and seamless theme provide the users an excellent experience. So along with quality contents, you need to apply some eye-catching template on your website. Moreover, you need to apply a template which should be mobile friendly and responsive. As smartphone usage increases, it is very necessary for you to apply a theme which looks good on mobiles and tablets as well. Selecting WordPress Theme/Template There are two ways either to use a Free or Premium theme, so let's discuss both of them. Let’s start with Free Themes  To apply a theme, you need to hover your mouse over the “Appearances” at the sidebar of your WordPress dashboard and then click on “Themes”.  Now click on “Add New”. After that, you will see a page like in the image given below. Here you can switch between different tabs likes Featured, Popular, and Latest, etc. You can also apply “Filters” to find the desired theme easily. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  38. Make Money by Starting a Blog 37 For applying the filters, you just need to click on the “Feature Filter”. Just tick the feature that you want in your Blog theme and then click on “Apply Filters”.  After applying filters, the resulted themes will show on your screen. Now pick anyone. You can also “Preview” the theme before applying on your blog.  After previewing if you like the theme then click on “Install” and then “Save & Activate”. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  39. Make Money by Starting a Blog 38 Theme Customization Just applying the theme on your blog isn't enough, you must customize it for a unique design. Now hit the “Customize” button. You will see a panel like below. Here are the guidelines for essential customization  By clicking on the site identity, you can upload the “Logo” and “Site Icon”. Here you can also set the “Site Title” and “Tagline”.  In “Colors” section you can change the Background and links colors etc.  If you want to set an image as your site background, then upload the image from “Background Image” section.  The other important thing that a newbie must understand is the “Widgets”. You can put the widgets in different locations like in the sidebar or footer. These widgets are used to show the Recent Posts, Search Bar, Social icons, and Categories, etc. So this is how to apply Free Theme and customize it. Premium Themes Providers If you did not find the desired template design from the Free themes, then there are many developers where you can find it. Here are some well-known theme sellers.  Thrive Theme  ThemeForest  MyThemeShop  Elegant Themes Visit their websites, browse the themes and hope so you can find the best one. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  40. Make Money by Starting a Blog 39 Add Categories and Navigation Bar The Categories and Navigation Bar also plays a significant role in site appearance. The Categories help you to categorize the articles like if you created a category named as “Operating Systems” then by just a click, you could add the related article into that Category as well as in the menu. Almost every website/blog have a menu which is mostly shown at the top of the website. Visit our website or look at the screenshot With the help of the Menu, a visitor can easily find the information related to a specific category. For example, a visitors want to learn about WordPress then he/she click on the "WordPress" given in the menu where only the related information was shown. So, you must create a menu for your Blog. How to add Categories and Create Menu? At the sidebar hover your mouse on the “Posts” and then click on the “Categories”. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  41. Make Money by Starting a Blog 40 After clicking, you will see the page like below Now just type the “Category Name” and then hit the “Add New Category” button. For example, we add categories like Computer Tips, Android Tips, and Life Hacks. Now click on the “Menu” by following the below image. After that, a menu creation page will open. Now follow these steps 1. First of all type the “Menu Name”. Types any name you want like Menu or Menu1 etc. Then click on the “Create Menu” button. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  42. Make Money by Starting a Blog 41 2. After that click on the “Categories” to expand the menu, then click on the “View All” and tick the categories you want to add. You can also include custom links. 3. Hit the “Add to Menu” button. 4. Select the menu location. This depend on the theme you activated because some themes only have primary location while some have both primary and secondary locations. 5. At the end hit the “Save Menu” button. After saving the menu visit your website. You can see the menu there. Now let’s discuss the next topic. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  43. Make Money by Starting a Blog 42 Chapter 5 Indexing Blog Indexing in Search Engines (Google) Indexing is submitting your site to search engines so that to show it in search results. Like someone seeking information related to your niche by typing it into a search engine such as Google, then indexing enables your site to be shown in search results. Search engines are a great source of traffic so you must index your site.  Click on the Yoast SEO at the sidebar of the WordPress dashboard. Yoast have different settings as you can see in the below image like General, Info and "Webmaster Tools" etc. Yoast have different settings as you can see in the below image like General, Info and Webmaster Tools etc. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  44. Make Money by Starting a Blog 43  Click on “Your Info” tab and write down the website name. After that select, if you are a company or a person. If you are an individual, then select “Person” and then type your name. And then save the changes.  The next is the “Webmaster Tools” that allow you to index your site at different search engines. The indexing makes it quicker for your website to be visible on search engines or get indexed. Here look at how to do it in Google Follow the procedure for indexing your site in Google.  Click on the “Google Search Console”.  A browser window will show asking for a sign-in. Here use your “Gmail” account for sign-in.  After sign in it will automatically redirect you to the “Google Webmaster Central” page.  Now click on “Add a Property” and type your website name. Keep in mind, http and https protocol.  To verify your website, you have to inserter some information provided by Google search console. We’ll verify our site using HTML Tag, so click on “Alternate Methods” and then click on the “HTML tag”. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  45. Make Money by Starting a Blog 44  Now Copy the alpha-numeric combination as shown in the below image. And note that copy these without the inverted commas. Just copy those which we encircled and don’t close the tab.  Now Paste this code in front of “Google Search Console” in the Yoast webmaster tab and then click on “Save Changes”.  Now return to Google Search Console, and click on the “Verify” button shown in the “Webmaster Central”. That’s it, we’ve done. Now let’s submit the “XML Sitemap”. It is the map of your posts, pages, and other important things and by submitting it, Google can know how many posts, pages your site have.  At the sidebar hover your mouse cursor over the SEO icon and then click on “XML Sitemaps”. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  46. Make Money by Starting a Blog 45  After clicking you will see the XML Sitemaps settings. Now in the “General” tab then click on the “XML Sitemap”. After that, you can grab your site's sitemap by clicking on “XML Sitemap” link as highlighted above.  By clicking, XML Sitemap open in the browser tab just copy the text appear after your website URL. In simple words copy everything that comes after “.com/”. You can see in below image. Now open a new tab in your web browser and go to the Google Search Console. Then click on your Website. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  47. Make Money by Starting a Blog 46  Find and click on “Crawl” in the sidebar and then “Sitemaps”.  At the right side of the screen, you will see "HIT/TEST SITEMAP" just Paste the copied text which is “sitemap_index.xml” in our case and then click on the “Submit”.  Refresh the page, and it’s done.  You must index your website in Bing and Yandex as well. The procedure is quite same as Google. AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  48. Make Money by Starting a Blog 47 ADVANCE LEVEL Chapter 6 Keyword Research Keyword Research You have successfully completed all the essential installations and settings. Now it's time to work on the topic for which you build the blog. But you can't just start writing. You need to find keywords with low competition and high search volume on which you should write the post. So let's find out that how to do it? What is Keyword? The keyword is the topic on which you want to write the article/post. Like in our example “best wireless routers” is our keywords/focus keyword. Keyword finding is the most time consuming and the most crucial part of blogging. Choosing a topic and then writing an article is not as simple as speaking. You need to find a keyword along with competition and search volume to guess whether it's possible to rank for that keyword or not and how much traffic you can drive? Times are gone when Google keyword planner was best and ultimate tool to find the keywords. But now Google impose some restrictions and make it a premium tool for showing the reliable results. So, let’s discuss what search volume, competition, and Long Tail keywords are? AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

  49. Make Money by Starting a Blog 48 What are LongTail Keywords? It is very difficult for new blogs to rank on single or broad words. For example “Wireless Routers” is a keyword having very high competition. When you search in Google by typing wireless routers, you will find the website having high Domain Authority. You can find domain authority of any website by using Moz site explorer. It is very difficult to outrank those websites. So, bloggers use long tail keywords like “Best Wireless Routers under 50 dollar”. Free tools to find the long tail keywords  Answerthepublic is one of the best tools to find long tail keywords. It provides tons of keyword suggestions.  Keywordtool.io is another tool. Before writing you may find your keywords there.  Soolve provides keyword suggestions from the search quarries of Google, Amazon, Ask, etc. for free. Ways to Find the Keywords 1. Google Suggestions: Along with these tools, there are some tricks where you can find keywords suggestions. Just write down the topic name in Google then scroll down to the bottom to find the related keywords. Here see what Google shows for “Best wireless routers.” AUTHOR: HOSTINGSPROUT.COM TEAM

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