One of the best ways to make money online is by starting a blog and writing what you’re passionate about. The blog gives you a platform to sell advertising and affiliate products. But starting a blog can be difficult for someone that isn’t sure how to do it. So I’ve outlined exactly what you need, step by step, to get a blog up and going.

Build a Background

Before you start uploading files and writing content for your blog, it needs a good back story. Answering a few questions will help you figure out the direction you want to take your blog.

What are you going to write about?
The answer to this should be a topic that you’re passionate about, and willing to write about on a daily basis.

What is your blog name?
Think of something easy to remember, but also describes what your site is about. If you can’t think of something, you can also do a brandable name instead, like boingboing or shoemoney.

What style of writing are you going to use?
Will your blog be funny, serious, or quirky? The answer will help you decide how to theme your blog and logo.

Who is your demographic?
What kind of people are you going to target? Is it a big enough nice to make your blog popular?

Do Your Research

You know what you’re going to write about, so let’s figure out what’s already being done in the field.

Who else is writing about the topic you are?
Is the market already saturated with “experts”? This will make your entrance into the niche more difficult. It’s also important to know who’s in your neighborhood to ask for advice and to make new friends.

How will you monetize your site?
Take the time to find the right ad network and affiliate program for your blog. If you’re considering selling direct advertising, you’ll have to figure out how much you’ll charge.

Find A Domain Name

Once you’ve answered all the question to your liking, it’s time to find a domain name to register. This will a lot of brainstorming. It’s highly suggested that your blog name and URL be the same.

Want to see what’s available? Check out DomainsBot, or considering buying a domain already registered, but for sale, from Sedo.com.

Register Your Domain Name

When you find a domain name that is easily to remember, is short, and most importantly, one you like, you should register it right away. I use for my domain registrations, they offer a lot of options and good customer service. Their domain panel is nice also.

Setup Hosting for your Blog

Now you’ll have to find a place to hose your website. This means finding a company that has servers specifically to make your site accessible on the Internet.

This site is hosted by HostGator. Their plans are extremely cheap, and give a lot of benefits. Also, for only $2 a month extra, you can get your own dedicated IP address (a boon to make your site rank better in search engines).

Setup The Name Servers

The next thing you’ll have to do is link your hosting, and domain name.

You do this by setting the domain name server on the domain panel, to the one specified in the welcome email sent to you by your host.

Upload and Install Wordpress

At this point, when you access your url, you shouldn’t see much, only what your host already had uploaded to your account. To change this, we’ll have to upload the Wordpress files, and install them.

I won’t put detailed steps here because there’s already so many places that explain how to install Wordpress.

Find or Design a Wordpress Theme

Now you’re blog should be installed, but it will still show the default Wordpress theme, along with a welcome post and comment.

If you want people to take your blog seriously you’ll need to design a custom theme and logo. All you need is basic photoshop, CSS and html skills to make a good design.

Here are a few theme already built to give you some inspiration:
Top Wordpress Themes
100 Excellent Wordpress Themes
The Best Minimalist Wordpress Themes

Want a custom theme and willing to pay for it? Verve Development does great work.

Blog Search Engine Optimization

One of the best ways people will find your blog is through search engines.

That’s why it’s so important that you make sure it’s easy for Google and other search engines to find your blog, and read the data. This is called Search Engine Optimization.

The Ultimate Wordpress SEO Guide can be on Yoast.

Post 5 Pillar Articles

Now your blog is ready to go and all it needs is content.

I suggest writing five in depth articles to help it get going. This gives your readers a taste of what they can expect from your blog. They should convince your readers to come back and follow your writing.