The short version: Starting a blog takes about a weekend of focused work, roughly $50 to $100 for your first year, and a clear decision on what you are writing about and for whom. The blogs that earn money are not the ones that launched perfectly, they are the ones that stayed consistent for at least twelve months.
I started my first blog in 2009. I had no idea what I was doing. I picked a free WordPress.com subdomain, wrote about whatever was on my mind that week, and wondered why nobody was reading it. Three years later I was on the Forbes list of top influencers and I had figured out what I did wrong at the start.
What I did wrong was simple: I had no strategy, no niche, no understanding of who I was writing for, and I had not spent fifteen minutes thinking about how a blog makes money. I just thought writing was enough.
It is not. But the fix is not complicated either.
Here is everything I know about how to start a blog, in the order you should do it.
Step one: Pick a niche you can defend
This is where most people stall. They either go so broad ("a lifestyle blog") that they attract nobody, or they go so narrow ("gluten-free baking for left-handed people in Northampton") that there is no audience to speak of.
The sweet spot is a topic where three things overlap: you have real knowledge or lived experience, there is a searchable audience already looking for that content, and there are products or services people in that audience buy.
A few examples of niches that work right now:
- Personal finance for UK freelancers
- AI tools for small business owners
- Career change advice for people over 40
- Home organisation on a budget
- Marketing for independent food businesses
Notice those are specific without being suffocating. You can write 200 posts in any of those niches and still have ideas left over.
My honest advice: write down three topics you know something about. Then Google each one and look at what comes up. If there are already blogs, media sites, and products in that space, that is a good sign. Competition means there is money there.
Step two: Choose your platform (this is not the complicated bit people make it)
WordPress.org is still the right answer for almost everyone who wants to build a serious blog. It is not a website builder, it is software you install on your own hosting. You own your content, you can monetise it however you want, and you are not at the mercy of a platform that can change its rules overnight.
For hosting, I point beginners toward SiteGround or Hostinger. SiteGround costs around $3.99 to $6.99 per month on their starter plan and their customer support is excellent when things go sideways. Hostinger is cheaper (around $2.99 per month on their Business plan) and fine if you are price-sensitive at the start.
Squarespace is a reasonable second choice if the technical side of WordPress puts you off. It costs $16 to $23 per month depending on the plan and it looks polished out of the box. The trade-off is less flexibility and slightly weaker SEO tooling.
Do not start on Blogger. Do not start on Wix. Do not start on Medium as your primary home. Medium can be a distribution channel later, it should not be your foundation.
Step three: Set up the basics before you write a word
Most new bloggers write five posts and then wonder why they have no traffic. The reason is usually that they skipped the technical setup that tells Google the site exists and is worth indexing.
Before you publish your first post, do these things:
- Install the Yoast SEO plugin (free version is fine to start) and fill in your site name and meta description
- Connect your site to Google Search Console, it is free and it is how Google learns your site is live
- Install Google Analytics 4 or a privacy-friendly alternative like Plausible (around $9 per month and far easier to read)
- Write an About page that is specific about who you are and who the blog is for, not vague, not modest, specific
- Pick a clean, fast theme, GeneratePress (free tier available, Pro is $59 one-off) is what I recommend because it loads quickly and that matters for rankings
This setup takes a Saturday afternoon. Do it once and do it right.
Step four: Write posts that are built to rank
Here is what separates blogs that get traffic from blogs that do not: keyword intent. Every post you write should start with a question or phrase a real person types into Google. Not the topic you want to write about, the question they are already asking.
Use a free tool like Ubersuggest, AnswerThePublic, or the free tier of Semrush to find those questions. Look for keywords with a monthly search volume above 300 and a difficulty score below 40 if you are brand new.
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Your post structure should answer the question in the first paragraph, then go deep. Google currently rewards posts that cover a topic thoroughly, include real examples, and are written by someone who demonstrably knows what they are talking about. That last part matters more than it did three years ago, Google's E-E-A-T update (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust) is not abstract, it is the reason blogs written by real practitioners outrank blogs written by content mills.
Aim for 1,200 to 2,000 words on most posts. Not because longer is always better, but because a thorough answer to a real question tends to need that much space.
Step five: Have a monetisation plan before you need one
The blogs that never earn money are the ones that "figure out monetisation later." Later never comes. Know from day one which of these routes you are pursuing:
- Display advertising: Google AdSense is the entry point (requires no minimum traffic) but pays poorly, around $1 to $5 per 1,000 pageviews. Mediavine requires 50,000 sessions per month and pays $15 to $35 per 1,000 views. Raptive (formerly AdThrive) requires 100,000 monthly pageviews. Plan your traffic goals accordingly.
- Affiliate marketing: You recommend products and earn commission when someone buys. Amazon Associates pays 1% to 4% depending on category, low rates but high trust. Specialist affiliate programmes through networks like Awin, ShareASale, or Impact often pay 10% to 30%. A blog about AI tools recommending software on annual subscriptions can earn serious money this way.
- Selling your own products or services: This is where the real money is if you have expertise. A $97 mini-course, a $500 consulting call, a $27 per month newsletter subscription. The blog is the top of the funnel. This is the model I use.
- Sponsored content: Brands pay you to write about them. Rates vary wildly, a new blog with 5,000 monthly readers might get $150 to $300 per post, a blog with 100,000 readers can charge $1,500 to $5,000.
What the top-ranking guides on this topic will not tell you
Most "how to start a blog" posts are written to rank for that keyword and sell you hosting via affiliate links. They tell you the technical steps and skip the hard truth.
The hard truth is this: most blogs fail not because the writer picked the wrong theme or the wrong hosting. They fail because the writer stopped publishing after three months when the traffic did not materialise.
New blogs do not get serious Google traffic for six to twelve months. That is not a problem you can solve with better SEO. It is just how the Google sandbox works for new domains. The bloggers who succeed are the ones who understand this going in and commit to publishing consistently anyway.
I publish on a schedule. I track my traffic in a spreadsheet. I note which posts pick up search traffic after six months and I write more posts on similar topics. That is the strategy. It is not glamorous but it is what works.
Set a publishing schedule you can keep. One high-quality post per week beats three rushed posts followed by three weeks of nothing.
The actual costs for year one
- Hosting: $36 to $84 depending on provider
- Domain name: $10 to $15 per year
- Theme (optional): $0 to $59 one-off
- Email marketing (Mailchimp free tier covers you to 500 subscribers): $0 to start
- Total minimum: around $50 to $100
Anyone telling you that you need $500 or a professional designer to start is either selling something or overthinking it. You need a clean site, good writing, and time.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to start a blog from scratch?
You can have a blog set up on WordPress.org with a theme, your first post, and Google Search Console connected in a single weekend. Buying a domain and hosting takes about fifteen minutes. The technical setup takes another two to three hours. Writing your first three posts is the real time investment.
Do you need to know how to code to start a blog?
No. WordPress with a theme like GeneratePress and a page builder like Kadence requires zero coding knowledge. Most bloggers who earn a full-time income from their blogs have never written a line of code. Basic HTML for formatting posts is useful but you can learn that in an afternoon.
How many posts do you need before you launch?
Three to five posts is enough to launch. You want enough content that a visitor who arrives at your site does not find a single orphaned post and nothing else. Write your three best posts first, posts that answer specific questions your target reader is already searching for, and publish them on the same day you go live.
How long before a new blog makes money?
Realistically, six to twelve months before you see meaningful traffic from Google, and twelve to eighteen months before most blogs earn anything worth noting from display ads or affiliate income. Blogs that sell services or products directly can earn much sooner because you do not need high traffic, you need the right traffic. Focus on one monetisation method from the start and build toward it.
For the bigger picture, see my full guide to content marketing.
Related reading: How to Stop AI Writing from Sounding Like AI and AI Lead Generation Workflows for Service Businesses: What Works (and What Doesn't).
