How do bloggers start a blog? How do you all keep it going? What tools/website do you all use to maintain the blog?

I use blogspot because it’s free. My blog is to generate a second source of income, so I’m reluctant to fork out money for it.

I applied for Google Adsense (and realised that blogging is hard work). So what fuels me is seeing my pool of money grow slightly from day to day. But I don’t think i will get rich anytime soon from blogging. Yesterday, I earned nothing. The most profit I generated so far was 68 cents in a day. I need to accumulate $150 before I can cash it out, so who knows how many years I will take. Haha.

before starting my blog, I already had a habit of posting on IG and FB. So what I do is post first on my FB and then copy paste onto my blog lor. Also, Seedly allows me to be an Opinions Writer. So I will post an opinion on Seedly first before replicating it on my blog.

Without further ado, my humble blog : https://diaperfinancingfund.blogspot.com/2021/0...

to be a Seedly Opinions Writer: https://seedly.sg/c/seedly-opinions

Step 1. Choose a publishing platform

A good place to start is always Wordpress. It powers 33% of all websites in the world! Once you've setup your Wordpress site, you can always syndicate your articles on alternative sites like Medium.

Step 2. Pick a topic, or topics + perform keyword research

You'll find that you have much more to write about if you're discussing your own interests, or a field of knowledge that you have experience in. Write about interesting topics that you think will attract repeat readership.

For instance, here are some sample posts from a business-oriented site, covering:

1. How much you need to open a cafe in Singapore?

2. What are the best books to read before you start a business?

3. An essential guide to liability protection for small businesses

Step 3. Set weekly accountability goals

Many writers will start off with a great spurt of energy, but then get tired of writing or distracted by other responsibilities or interests. Make sure you set weekly article/word count goals, and stick to them.

Step 4. Consider monetisation

As you grow your readership, consider using your blog to generate a source of income. If you want to monetise your blog, you'll have to be pretty focused with doing what's called keyword research. This is a process where you find keywords that people are typing into search engines, and then picking keywords that you think your blog and articles can rank well for. When you first start a blog, you want to write pieces that will have a good chance of ranking on page 1 of Google (when was the last time you clicked beyond page 1?).

Use a tool like SEMRush (USD 99/month - https://www.semrush.com) or LongTailPro (USD 37/month - https://longtailpro.com/) to do this. There's little point writing articles for monetisation if you can't get those articles in front of people's faces.

To generate revenue, consider using your blog to do things like:

• Product reviews (earn commissions via Amazon Affliates @ https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/)

• Selling your own products via drop shipping (see here for a guide: https://www.shopify.com/blog/dropshipping-guide)

• Earning affliate marketing commissions with businesses that you select

Above all, spill lots of ink, have fun, and grow your writing skills as much as you can.​​​