How to make money online working from home (part 1)
Start a blog
Ever heard of the old saying? That, when you do what you love you won’t have to work a day? There is that one thing that you are really good at and love doing. You can set up a blog and write about it. To be successful at blogging, you need loads of passion, discipline, research skills and patience. To reap any financial gains from your blog, you need to learn how to attract traffic to your site and build a loyal fan base.Â
 Here is a brief guideline on how to start and earn money from a blog.
- Decide on the topic you want to write on.
- Buy a domain for your blog. The domain name should describe what the blog is about, for example if, you plan to write about wedding planning, you can have co.ke. as your domain name. (A domain name is the text that you type on a browser (such as Mozilla or Crome) to access a certain online resource. For example, if you want to access the how to website, you will type www.howto.co.ke on your browser’s address bar). A Domain name will cost you at least USD 10 or Kshs. 1000. This is renewable annually.
- Setup/design the blog if have the skills yourself or get a web designer to do it for you. This will cost you at least 100 or Kshs. 10,000 for a professional design. This is a one of cost with minor maintenance cost when need be.
- Get a service provider to host your blog online. Hosting means transferring your blog website to the web so that readers can access it online. For this, you will have to part with at least USD 15 or Kshs. 1500 depending on the provider. This is renewable annually.
- Start publishing articles to the blog. Make sure your content is original, avoid copy pasting from the web. Publishing is pretty easy and requires no technical skills; you can have your web designer start you off.
- Promote your blog: Create social media profiles for your blog on all the popular social media channels and always share your articles to these channels. Eg. on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and others.
- Learn some SEO skills. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a set of skills that make your content easier to find on search engines (Such as Google or Bing). You can also get someone to train you or do it for you but it will be better if you can do it yourself.
- Sign up to Google AdSense and connect your blog to it. Google AdSense is an advertising network that helps businesses and individuals advertise online. Remember there are certain minimums that you will have to meet to be accepted. This should not be hard as long as your content is original, of value and you post regularly.
- Once you have been accepted, Google AdSense will start placing adverts (Commonly referred to as ads) on your blog. You will earn a certain amount every time a reader clicks on an ad on your blog.
10. Sell on your blog: You can implement a shopping cart and sell or charge businesses to sell merchandise that will appeal to your readers. For example, if your blog is about weddings, you can sell wedding flowers and wedding cakes.
11. Offer consultancies: The fact that you are blogging about it means you are an expert in it. For example, if your blog is about weddings, you can offer consultancies in wedding planning, venue selection etc.
12. Join affiliate marketing channels. You can read more about affiliate marketing here
13. You can also sell banner ads or ad spaces directly to businesses and individuals in your line of businesses.
Remember the key to successful blogging is the amount of traffic you can pull to your blog. Â Always make sure your content is original, informative and interesting to readers so they keep coming back for more. Remember to also always share your content widely on social networks and other platforms. Â
These are just a few of ways of monetizing your blog. You can contact us via outreach@howto.co.ke for more information on this topic.
Do you have any news or article you would like us to publish? Kindly reach us via outreach@t4d.co.ke or howtodoafrica@gmail.com.
