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The number one question amateur bloggers ask is:

How Much Can a Beginner Blogger Earn?

The average earnings of a beginner blogger (someone who is in their first year of blogging) can be anywhere between $200 – $1000 per month.

Having said that, most amateur bloggers roughly earn under $300 a month, and there are many reasons why.

First, a new blog takes time to start ranking on Google, usually between 3-6 months. 

Second, blogging is not simply writing and publishing content. There is a lot more work that goes into it, like keyword research.

But once you have a clear understanding of the basics, blogging will be a lot easier and a great way to earn passive income.

The majority of the learning process takes place in the first year, making it a slow but progressing monetization process.

In this post we list out 27 key amateur blogging tips and tools to help grow your blog successfully.

AMATEUR BLOGGER WITH A LAPTOP.

27 Amateur Blogging Tips

1. First thing to do is research a profitable niche and one that you are passionate about. Some successful blog niche ideas are: parenting, weight loss, finance, pets, recipes and personal development.

2. Get your blog self-hosted on WordPress right from the start. If you are serious about making money from your blog, its best to set a strong foundation and opt for a paid WordPress platform – not the free version.

3. In my opinion, there is no need to “launch” a blog. Launching a blog means creating and drafting out blog posts and getting it ready to be published on a set date.

I started my blog with just 2 posts published and absolutely no audience, and managed to grow it to over 100,000 views a month in 2 years.

What I am trying to say is, you can start your blog with nothing and slowly build it. There is no need to worry about setting up a blog with a bunch of ready-t0-publish blog posts.

4. First thing to do when starting a blog is to think of a blog name and register your domain right away.

Try and get your blog self-hosted as soon as you decide you want to start a blog. Aged domains do well on Google. So the longer your domain is active, it will allow you to rank faster on Google.

5. Now we get to blog design. Try using a clear font for your text. Some easy to read free fonts are Poppins, Lato, Open Sans, Montserrat, Hind and Muli. 

6. As for text size, a good font size would be between 16px-24px. WhatFont is a desktop browser extension that will show you what fonts are being used on other blogs you follow. So if you like the look of a font on a particular blog, use the Whatfont browser extension to find out which font they are using.

7. Don’t waste time on branding and logo. Many bloggers, including myself, spend a lot of time creating the perfect logo design. While logo’s are important, you can always start out with something simple and change this later on. 

8. Label all your images with a description. This means when you upload any image to your site – in the featured image section or within the blog post, it needs to have a description.

For example, food bloggers may describe their image as, a plate on a white background with noodles and a bowl of salad. 

If an image is a decorative flat lay or a stock photo, a description of the photo is required. Like a bunch of roses on a yellow solid background.

9. Moving on to the theme. A theme needs to be lightweight to increase page speed. One of the best free themes is Astra. If there is a blog theme you like, but not sure what theme they use, you can insert their URL in this theme finder application.

10. Word count – How much should you write? This varies and depends on your topic.

If it is an in-depth tutorial, it can average 2000-3000 words. Or if it’s an answer to a question you can just write up to 800 words. On average a minimum of 1000-1500 words can be considered a good number.

11. Next let’s talk about plugins. Amateur bloggers often worry about what plugins their site needs. Having too many of them can slow down your site. 

Here are some plugins to consider.

12. Brainstorm content ideas. Sometimes not knowing what to write is the hardest part. Here are some blog topics to consider:

  • Tutorial based articles
  • Listicles – list based topics
  • Reviews on products
  • Answer a question in a blog post
  • Latest trends
  • Seasonal posts
  • Lifestyle tips – pregnancy, parenting, travelling, student life
  • Coaching tips

13. Researching keywords and making your posts optimized will help rank well on Google. Here is a post on cheap SEO tools for new bloggers. Other cheap keyword tools to consider are Keysearch and Uber Suggest.

14. Gaining backlinks are essential for domain authority. What this means is that websites have scores between 0-100 which show domain authority(DA). The higher the domain, the higher the quality of the site. 

You can use a free domain authority checker online like MOZ, to view your site’s score. 

15. The DA score increases as other high ranking websites link to your site. It can be an initial struggle for amateur blogs to increase their DA. To help with this there are sites like HARO that can help with link building.

HARO is free to sign up and you will receive regular emails requesting information about a particular topic.

Once your submitted response is considered, you may get a link back to your site. Sometimes you might just get a mention without a link back. In such cases, you can request to see if a linkback can be provided.

16. Apart from ad income and affiliate marketing, there are a number of other different ways to make money blogging, so make sure to try them all!

17. Email list – yay or nay? This is a tricky one.

Because the vast majority of bloggers consider having an email list to grow subscribers to sell affiliate products. While this is a good long term strategy I have personally never had much luck here. But it is definitely something to consider.

18. Make sure your site speed is up to mark. Insert your site’s URL in PageSpeed Insights to check your speed. There are many contributing factors that slow down your site.

Plugins such as WP Rocket can help improve site speed if it is not up to mark.

19. Legal pages such as the disclosure page, privacy policy page, terms and conditions page and accessibility pages are all essential legal documents that your blog needs – no matter how small your blog is. 

While I am not one for investing money a lot of money on my blog, this is one investment that is worth the money. Amira Law sells some easy to use legal templates, that you can simply copy and paste on to your site. Check out her legal bundles here.

20. As blogging is a self employed business, so make sure you save money to pay taxes. Best way to do this is to keep money aside each month, based on your blog income.

21. There is always a misconception that a blog with less traffic cannot make a lot of money. The truth is if you have a strong affiliate marketing strategy, you can certainly make money with a small blog. 

The way you can do this is by promoting high ticket affiliate programs on your site. So if you promote an online course for $500 and earn a 50% affiliate commission, you make an instant $250 in income. Selling just 4 courses a month will give you $1,000 in monthly income. 

So yes, amateur bloggers can make money with the right strategy.

22. As your blog grows, you can certainly get help with blog related tasks. Having a virtual assistant can help free up your time. Here are some jobs you can outsource:

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  • Freelance writing
  • Email marketing
  • Social media promotion
  • Search engine optimization
  • Video/photo editing
  • Proofreading blog posts

23. Concentrate more on ranking your blog on Google rather than focussing all your energy on social media promotion. I did that mistake as an amateur blogger and felt exhausted with social media marketing. 

SEO is a solid source of traffic and definitely the best option for bloggers. One of my favourite all-in-one SEO courses for amateur bloggers is Stupid Simple SEO.

While SEO takes time to work, its good in the long run.

24. Don’t waste money buying too many blog related courses. One, you may not end up going through all of them, and secondly, you may end up getting the same information you already know.

Choose one course to help set up your blog, one for social media promotion and one for SEO. 

In my opinion, these are the only three required for an amateur blogger. You can also consider courses in email marketing and affiliate marketing if you feel driven towards them.

25. Treat your blog like a business right from day one.

26. Equip blog that is ready to sell – Write less about yourself, avoid using names in URL, and reduce the amount of personal stories you write.

Like any other business, you can also sell your blog for 30/40 times the monthly income. 

Many bloggers consider blog flipping as a side hustle. So if you plan to sell your blog in the future, make sure you have nothing personal attached to the blog content.

It’s also tricky to sell a blog that has a lot of personal experience or stories attached to it.

27. Finally, have a blogging buddy, this certainly helps to stay motivated, and be updated on latest trends and algorithm updates. Blogging is a 100% remote and solo business – if you are doing it on your own. Having someone along this journey can help you stay focussed and motivated.

 

Is Blogging Still Profitable in 2022?

With 77% of people regularly reading online blogs, and 61% of online users in the US buying something after reading a blog post, and 67% of bloggers who post daily saying their blog is a success, blogging is still profitable in 2022.

According to First Site Guide, the audience for blog content is huge, making up 77% of the internet’s users.

They also mention that 20 billion WordPress blogs are viewed monthly by a staggering 409 million user audience.

Problogger did a survey of 1500 of their bloggers and found that 10% of new bloggers made $0.00, while a large amount, 63%, to be exact, made anywhere between $0.01 and $99 per month.

What is even better news is that 37% of the bloggers made over $100 a month, and 13% of the bloggers made at least $10,000 a year, and 4% made at least $100,000 a year. 

For inspiration, Raelytan gives examples of how much a successful blog can make.

Survival Life makes $1,000,000 per month, Easy Baby Life makes $4000 to $7000 per month, and Making Sense of Cents makes $100,000 a month.

 

How to Diversify Your Income as Blogger

Apart from blogging, if you are considering an additional side job to diversify you income, here are some business ideas to consider:

Conclusion on Amateur Blogging

The blogging market is growing as most of the internet is reading blogs on a growing scale.

The best time to create a blog is now, as there is opportunity in every niche with users of all types with different interests.

Even a brand new amateur blog can earn great results in its first year.