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
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.
