WordPress is a blog hosting service provider that is powered by the WordPress CMS. There are a few major differences between the two, such as differences in customization and monetization.

In this article, we will be checking out how you can create a blog with WordPress and what some options are for monetizing it. So, if you want to learn how to create a free blog without paying for hosting, then stick around.

These are some simple steps that you can take towards starting a WordPress blog and gradually earning money through it.

Starting a Blog with WordPress

Register at WordPress.com

The first step you need to take is to go to WordPress.com and create an account. The process is very simple. You just need to click on the “Get Started” button and the website will guide you on how to make an account.

You need to provide an email address, a username, and a secure password. Once this information has been collected, your account will be ready.

Now, you should create a name for your blog and a tagline. You can set them both from the “Settings” tab. This name and tagline should reflect what your blog is about.

At this stage, you can ignore choosing a custom domain name, and any paid plans that are on offer. For the first time, simply choose the free plan, and the free WordPress.com subdomain.

Choose a Theme

The second step is to select a theme for your blog. There are plenty of free themes available, but they have one caveat. You cannot customise individual parts of a theme. So, carefully choose a theme that you like and that fits your needs as well.

The theme determines how your blog looks, so make sure it is an attractive one. Beautiful blogs usually attract people by catching their eye and appealing to their aesthetic sense.

Create a Site Navigation Menu

You need to go to the “Appearance” setting and choose “Editor”. Then, you need to add a “navigation block.” This block should contain links to your home page, About Us page, Contact Us page, categories of your posts, and even direct links to some of your top posts.

This menu is necessary because, without it, your readers will not be able to find any of your posts and pages. To facilitate their user experience, be sure to make a nice navigation menu.

Create and Categorize Posts

Now that your blog is ready to go, you need to populate it with some posts. To create a post, you need to go into your dashboard menu and select “Add a new post.” A text editor will show up and then you can use it to write your content, and add images or links as well.

You need to create a bunch of these posts and then put them into categories. You can also use a “Blog Posts Block” to show these posts on your pages. You can choose what kind of formation they show up in such as a grid format, or a horizontal list.

You can also categorize the posts according to their subject matter and show each category instead of individual posts.

Few Precautions to Take Before Monetization

Blog monetization can be done in a few ways. But here are a few things you need to take care of to ensure that monetization is successful.

Ensure There Is No Plagiarism in Your Posts

Blogs can be monetized very easily, but they can be demonetized just as easily too. One reason for that is plagiarized content. Blogs need a certain amount of traffic before they can be monetized. However, due to plagiarized content, your blog will not be able to rank very high and as a result, it will not get much traffic, thereby making it ineligible for monetization.

So, you have to run a plagiarism check on all of the content on your blog. If you find any duplication, then you need to remove or edit it.

By conducting a plagiarism check, you can prevent your blog from getting a lower rank in the search engine results pages. This can be easily done using plagiarism checkers since they can scan the entire content in a matter of minutes.

It also helps in retaining a good audience because people like to consume unique content.

Make Sure All Your Posts Are Readable

You need to make sure that all your blog posts are readable. The reason relates to the blog’s traffic because without sufficient traffic, monetizing is not suitable.

A difficult-to-read post makes the reader leave the content rather than consume it till the end. This kind of behavior where visitors leave without engaging with the content results in a rank demotion which reduces the number of people visiting the site.

This can be easily rectified with the help of some paraphrasing during the editing process.

That’s why, with a sentence rephraser you should ensure that everything is easy to read. Remove any difficult vocabulary and wordy sentences.

By keeping everything short and readable, and rephrasing all the difficult parts you can improve the site traffic. As we already know, higher traffic is better for monetization because you cannot start earning money from a blog before it has a set amount of regular traffic.

Readability also helps in retaining a regular audience because people like to read easy-to-understand content.

How to Monetize your Blog?

Here are some ways in which you can earn money from your WordPress blog.

Place Ads on Your Blog

This is a feature that is not available to free users. To earn money from ad revenue, you need to have a premium package. You are also limited to only using the Word Ads advertisement network.

If you are using a free package, then WordPress will keep all of the ad revenue. But, if you are using a premium version, then you will get a share as well.

Offer Memberships and Exclusive Content

Once you have a solid following, you can start offering memberships. To become a member, your audience will need to pay a certain fee.

To make memberships appealing, you need to offer exclusive content only available to members. This will put some pressure on you because you will have to create both free and paid content—effectively doubling your workload.

Advertise Your Products and Services

If you are using your blog as a marketing tool, then it’s a good place to advertise your products/services.

There are several digital marketing tools were there but PiPiAds is different than others. It's best for AdSpy.

To boost sales, you can offer exclusive deals on your merchandise such as a discount for users who buy through the link placed on the blog.

You can even make entire posts about new products that you are launching, and how they are better than the old ones.

Setup a Donation System

You can also ask your audience to leave tips or donations if they liked your content. Many bloggers use platforms such as Patreon and Ko-fi that let people donate money to them.

You can also offer exclusive content to donors so that more people are willing to pay you.

Conclusion

And this was a step-by-step guide for creating a WordPress.com blog and monetizing it.

We also looked at a few precautions that you need to take before trying to monetize a blog. Things like plagiarism and high readability of the content become a source of dissatisfaction and bad PR (public relations) if they aren’t taken care of.

Finally, we checked out some ways in which you can earn money from your blog in 2022.