How to start a blog and make money from it in Nigeria - Startuppreneur
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How to start a blog and make money from it in Nigeria

Out of the online business that is available to Nigerian, blogging is one of the most lucrative and require low capital with #5000 to #50,000 you will make yourself a blog and start earning online

What is blogging?

Blogging is the act of publishing content on web pages; it was coin during the creation of blogger a web app which was later sold to google.

Before there were only two platforms or software to publish content but now we have a lot to choose from but yet only two dominate which are WordPress and Blogger much detail on them will be in the subsequent chapter

To make money blogging is hard do not listen to hearsay, also it does not relies on talent only while talent can help you start it, it won’t keep you going imagine creating content every day, it takes discipline.

To reduce the difficulties that come with blogging and how to make money from it in Nigeria we have written this well reached article for you.

Before we dive into it I want you to note the following

Advantages of blogging to other online business in Nigeria

Low startup cost

To start blogging business is not costly in fact there are some platform you can start for free though not advisable unlike other online business that require huge amount of money to start.

Control/ownership

Blogging comes with 90% control you have a say on how you want your blogging to look like or how you want to make money from it

Different monetization method

Making money is the sole purpose of starting a business, with blogging you have different way to make money with your blog such as direct ad, eBook selling, affiliate etc.

Selling your business

At some point you might want to move into a more profitable business, blogging give you opportunity to do it as it is easy to sell compare to other online business

Passive income

Blogging business is passive you can be sleeping and earning money from your previously written article once you have many articles you don’t have to do it every day anymore.

Freedom

With blogging you are not limited to any physical place you can write article anywhere as long as you are with your phone or laptop.

Equipment needed for blogging in Nigeria

  • Phone or laptop (or both)
  • Subscription
  • Time
  • Good writing skill and editing

Blogging platform in Nigeria

WordPress

WordPress is free once you pay for you domain name and hosting. You have total control with WordPress and you can monetize it as you want I will advise you to choose this platform in fact it is the platform we will be using as an example in this article.

Beware of wordprss.com it is a paid platform and it is not good like wordpress.org

Blogger

With blogger you don’t need hosting and domain name is also free unless you want a custom domain name. The normal domain name will look like this your site.bblogspot.com.

Do you like it? I bet you don’t, change the domain name, you can buy it from domain seller in Nigeria at price (between #1000 and #10,000) per year, you will still enjoy the free hosting blogger provide.

Others are paid platform and they are

  • Worpdress.com
  • Wix
  • Squarespace
  • Weebly
  • Tumblr
  • Gator
  • Substck
  • Joomla

How to start blogging business in Nigeria

How to start blogging and make money in Nigeria

 

Before you start blogging it will be good to answer the following question this will enable you to know the best platform to choose for your blog and how to start it

Do you intend to make money from it?

If you want to make money from your blog use wordpress.org and buy domain name

How do you want to make money from it?

You can make money with your blog through affiliate marketing, ads, and selling your own product, whatever channel you choose will determine the amount of traffic you will need to break even and what traffic channel to use (Facebook, twitter, google)

Are you going to hire more hands?

If you are going to hire more hands I will advise you to write at least 20 blog post by yourself this will let you know what type of content your reader want.

What is your income expectation from it?

Your income expectation will determine the monetization channel to use, if you are looking to make millions form your blog, you need to combine as many monetization methods as possible

Do you have intent of selling the blog?

If you will alter sell your blog, treat it as business form the beginning, do not be too attach to it. For instance instead of using your name as the user you can use your website name

You will be able to answer the question correctly after reading the section below

Set up domain and hosting

No 1 step to start blogging is to buy domain name and hosting usually it won’t cost you more than #5,000 to #30, 0000 depending on your hosting provider

What is domain name and hosting?
Domain is the name of your site that comes with .com, .net or .com.ng. It is the address to your site. Domain name have different price depend on it popularity

.com.ng goes for #1000 to #4000 in Nigeria, the ng signify Nigeria

.ng goes for #4000 to #8000 in Nigeria

Hosting is where you will host your WordPress, it is like a storage that store your content and process the incoming and outgoing traffic

Nigeria hosting is between #4000 and #50,000 while foreign host is between #10,000 to #100,000

Deference between Nigeria hosting and foreign host

They are the same thing, but Nigeria hosting is known to have a lot of downtime which means your blog may go off at any time in the day or night, usually for some minute depending on your hosting provider

Free hosting and domain name
For start you can chose free domain name and hosting with platform like blogger and wordpres.com but not advisable because you will not be able to monetize it and difficult to move to wordpress.org

Buy SSL certificate

This goes for #1500 you can buy it from your host provider. It function is to make your blog secure such that you can collect visitors data for bad intention.

It will also make your site look trustworthy, please make sure you buy it if you want your blog to be feasible on google.

If you don’t google will show insecure whenever people try to access your site.

Install WordPress

The next step is to install WordPress. To install WordPress do the following

Locate and click Cpannel from your hosting account

Scroll to WordPress manager and click it

Click on install WordPress, it will bring out some pages as follow

Https —— chose https//your domaindotcom

Input your password and user name

In the directory clear the wp then click install

You can choose a free theme or wait till you get to WordPress dashboard

Setting up WordPress for blogging

After installing WordPress click on login it will take you to WordPress dashboard
install your prefer theme, to do that go to appearance and select theme it will bring out different theme click on one and install it.

If you want to use premium theme click on upload then upload your theme file.

Premium themes are not free and you can’t download them on WordPress

Install plugging

To blog effectively you will need to install the following plugin

  • Classic editor for writing
  • Yoast seo for SEO

To install plugin go to plugin on your WordPress dashboard click on plugin it will bring out free plugin and you can search for one you need on the search surface. If you want to upload premium plugin click on upload and install it.

Writing your first blog post

Your first content will be hello word and you need to delete it, to do that head over to post section on your WordPress dashboard, click on all post you will see it there with the name “hello word” click trash below the post.

To publish a post click on add new it will bring out a surface that look like Microsoft word you can write or paste your article there.

To add picture to your article, click on add media at the top it will take you to interface where you can upload your picture. To add feature picture scroll down and click “add feature picture” it will take you to interface where you can upload the picture you want to use.

Feature picture is picture that will be displayed in your blog home page and inside post

Normal picture are picture that will be displayed only inside your blog post
Once you are done click publish button

SEO optimization

To make your post available on google you need to make some steps

Locate the yoast seo plugin you install earlier click on general then feature

Scroll down to sitemap click on the question mark, click on “show sitemap”

It will bring out your sitemap, copy it somewhere it is usually 4 or 5 links

Head over to google search console, click it and register our site it will request for your blog/website information fil it

On the google search console locate sitemap and copy the link you copy form yoast seo earlier into it one by one.

It will show success if not something is wrong you can check the step again

Go to your WordPress dashboard click on plugin search for google site kit install it and on the site kit connect your site with search console.

To track your website visitor i.e. the number of people coming to your site daily or monthly search for google analytic on goggle and fill you site detail , go back to WordPress and search for site kit on your WordPress, install and activate it .

Indexing and ranking

After publishing a post goggle bot will crawl your site and index it to check if google as index your post topic copy the url and post it to google it will bring out your post topic and snippet if it has index it.

After indexing, it will take two to six month before google will rank your post depending on the number of that particular topic/keyword on the google index. If your post is good you should see it in page 1 or 2 after 3 to 6 month.

How to make money with blogging in Nigeria

There are deferent ways to make money form blogging in Nigeria but before we go into it, I will like you to take note of the following

Thing you need to do before making money with bogging in Nigeria

Chose your niche

This should be your first step before starting your blog in Nigeria, but I intentionally pend it to this time because some might just want to create blog for their existing business.

If your purpose is to make money form blogging you need to choose a lucrative niche that have high traffic remember blogging as business is providing information that people are searching for some of the lucrative niches are

  • Personal finance
  • Business
  • Health
  • Relationship
  • Tech

To prevent writers block or frustration that might lead to quitting because it will take about 6 month to 2 years before you will start making money from your blog imagine writing for 1 year without income that is why you need to choose a niche that you like and that people are searching for.

Find that intersection and you will enjoy blogging

Write a quality article

Do you want to make serious money from blogging write a quality article that will help people, do not copy and paste it will end in tears if you do, do the hard work it will alter pay.

Always share your article

To increase indexing rate share your article to social media like Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.

Be consistent

Do not think 20 or 50 articles will bring you dollar per month you need to write more and be consistent with your writing

How to make money form blogging in Nigeria

Ad platform

You can apply to ad platform to place add on your site while you receive money for any clicks and impression. So far the best ad platform in Nigeria are google AdSense and Ezoic, to apply write 15 to 30 post on your blog make sure it is not duplicate content .

Also set up the following page; privacy policy, contact us, about us, before you apply.

How much to make on google AdSense in Nigeria

Depending on your niche you should be able to get $1 for 1000 page view in Nigeria. If your target is foreigner you will get more than that.

Sell space

Instead of applying to ad network you can sell an ad space directly to advertiser for a fee this is good since you will deal directly with advertiser but not advisable for newbie because it might take you away from writing unless you have a lot of employee.

Subscription

If your content is scarce such that it is hardly found anywhere, you can block you content such that when people click on it on google it will take them to a page where they will pay before accessing the content.

It could be per month or par year. This is not advisable for newbie

Donation

You can ask your visitor for donation at each end of every post you can complement it with ad.

Newsletter

You can ask your visitor to subscribe to your newsletter for a fee. To do this place newsletter sign up at the end of your post or make it pop up.

Sell email

This is not good but if your visitors accept it you can sell their email to company in Nigeria.

To get your visitor’s consent do this
At the end of your newsletter pop put a pox with a short paragraph on what you can use their email for once they tick it you are good to go.

Guest post

If you have blog with high traffic, you can make money through guest posting; people will pay to post on your website while they put their website link on the post.

Affiliate marketing

If your blog is affiliate worthy you can apply to affiliate program in Nigeria, affiliate program like Jumia, konga to promote their product on your website with a commission.

It is a good way of monetizing your blog if it is affiliate worthy

Ecommerce

Instead of promoting people’s product why don’t you sell your own product that complement your blog like eBook for how to blog, laptop and phone accessories for tech blog. Your blog theme should be able to perform ecommerce function.

Challenges of blogging in Nigeria

Power supply

If you are in an area with poor power supply blogging will frustrate you and you might want to quit

Solution
Have a power bank to charge your phone or move to an area with good power supply.

Data cost

Blogging consume a lot of data before researching, downloading, reading and writing you will spend a lot of data, make sure you add it when calculating the cost of stating blog in Nigeria; at least you will spend #2,000 on data per month.

Time

From researching to writing to editing to proof reading and then publishing it require a lot of time if you are engage in one basins or job already I will advise you to run away from news blog that will require daily posting.

Bad hosting

If you chose bad hosting provider you will quit easily because your downtime will be high which means less traffic. Some hosting especially Nigeria hosting are bad, to save cost they will switch off their service in the night which means nobody will be able to access your blog in the night.

Avoid bad hosting provider!

Monetization problem

Do not rejoice too much on the thought of having deferent monetization method to play with in blogging, the most common one in Nigeria is AdSense and Ezoic and it takes time before they will accept you.

Cost of blogging in Nigeria

As I stated above cost of blogging depend on the domain name, hosing platform, blogging platform and data cost

All in all you should budget between #15,000 and #50,000 for stating and at least #2,000 data sub per month.

How lucrative is blogging in Nigeria

Profitability of blogging depends on niche, monetization, traffic source and quality. After 2 years if everything is well and you write consistently you should be able to earn at least #100,000 per month.

To create you blog with WordPress you can contact us

For content that will drive traffic to your site you can contact us.

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