People reading my blog and many of my followers on social media have been asking me this question – “Chirag! How do I start my Blog” or “How to make money from Blog” or How to get a domain” etc. Let me answer all of you today in steps including How, Why, and What.

• First Ask yourself – Why do you want to start a Blog

Do you like writing Or Do you have stories to tell or Do you want to follow the old bandwagon of ‘Everyone should have a blog’? Ask yourself these questions before starting a blog because Self – Awareness is the key before we start anything. Maybe you are good at the camera instead of writing or Maybe you are good at graphics instead of writing. First, check what you really like and what you are good at because with the time things get boring and monotonous and once your audience is built up – they won’t care about anything except your quality content. From my personal example – I tried making videos but that was very ‘forced’ activity for me, that’s why to share my knowledge I chose to write blogs. And I am getting a good response so far. Writing comes very easy to me. Next thing I am going to try is Podcasting. It fascinates me a lot.

When you are done with asking yourself such questions and everything, proceed to next step.

• Let’s start writing

Now to start a blog – First thing you need is ‘content’ in forms of articles or pictures or videos for your blog. Start typing/writing things. Start clicking explanatory pictures and all whatever content you want to publish. Put them in a word file and send it to your close friends who can review the writing style, grammar and usefulness of content itself. I always do this before publishing any article. It helps me to understand the view point of others and people who are close are very open to criticize you which is helpful in the long term. You can also use Grammarly.com like services also for grammar and spell check.

• Where to Publish the Blog

1. MEDIUM.COM – This is my go to advice, always publish your initial articles on medium.com. Reasons being – The site is very reader friendly which helps you to sustain your audience (whoever they are – maybe close friends, family, or your social media followers). Also this site has many great writers as well, reading them can help you to improve your writing and you never know they may come across your content and connect with you for something big.
2. PERSONAL DOMAIN- After publishing few articles on medium.com and after building up an audience, you can get a domain and start writing on it. I am using Godaddy and WordPress. You can use anything you want, there are tons of services available. Do no wait for people to teach you or something – Just youtube “How to get a domain or How to start a WordPress site” You will get thousands of videos in every language with proper instructions on same.
3. INSTAGRAM, TWITTER and OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS – Do not miss out on social media at all. It is where you will get new audience for your blog. It is where people going to share your work with their friends and followers. As per my opinion – Instagram and Twitter should be your main focus. Instagram helps you to advertise and promote your content easily and twitter helps you to meet like minded people and the character limit helps you to improve your writing. Facebook is great if you are regular with it. Now-days even WhatsApp stories are getting very interactive.

• How to make money through your blog

Okay so this is the biggest mistake people do when they start something new in terms of generating content – They think about money first before providing value to the audience. Very big mistake. If you are starting a blog or something similar (like a youtube channel or twitch gaming account) – Please stay away from ‘money making mind’ for at least a year. First generate content in terms of quality and quantity so that the person visiting your blog or channel doesn’t have to feel like “Oh, he is going to sell me something or he is doing all this for money’ – They will never come back. Please understand that you are not a celeb or a big company like Amazon or Tesla, why are people going to buy your product?

“But Chirag I am not selling anything – I am just going to run ads” – DON’T. I did this mistake, learn from me. No one likes pop up/banner ads. You yourself won’t click on such ads, why others would? Provide value for free. People will automatically start paying you for your services.

Do’s and Don’ts

• Never force someone to read or watch your content. It is as similar as door to door marketing which we hate. If your content is worthy enough, you will get the audience by word of mouth. Do not be like one of those people who bombard WhatsApp’s broadcast lists and DM everyone with links to their content. It won’t bring audience, in fact they will go away.
• Always write which is not ‘saturated’ in the market. For example, if you are writing on – 10 ways to find a soulmate – High probability is people won’t read it because it is already a very saturated topic.
• There is no need to focus on SEO and other similar things in initial articles. Focus on your topics and writing first.
• Do not be ‘inactive’ on social media. Use Social Media as a tool so that you don’t need a ‘detox’
• Write what you have experienced (talking in terms of non fictional writing). Do not write about your friend’s experience or the story you heard or read on reddit. It will affect your writing style and people will come to know very easily. Do not hide behind such things.
• Be open to criticism in terms of Grammar and Content. That’s the only way to improve yourself
• Polarize your audience if you want to gain good following. No one like neutral people.
• Always be thankful to your audience for reading and sharing your content.
• Be regular with your posts. No one is going to give heed to a blogger who writes once a month.

Got more doubts on same topic? You can DM me on my Instagram.