This is a complete Guide on how to start a blog in Nigeria.
By the end of this Post:
- You will be able to create a blog that makes $2000/month
- Actionable tactics on how you get traffic to your blog.
- Case studies of how I went from zero to 10k in 12 months.
But wait??
Why Should You Listen To Me?
My name is Nick Dams, and I was like you 4 years ago figuring out how to start a successful blog.
So I launched my first blog online in 2020 which ended up being a huge failure.
It struggled to get traffic and even make my penny.
And that was when my quest for knowledge on how to run a successful blog started….
I read all the blogging advice I could find, and while some of it worked, some things didn’t.
So, I decided to experiment on my own and eventually found success.
My blog started ranking on Google..
And I began to see an increase in traffic.
Even though the earnings were modest, with just 400 page views per month, I was still on the right track.
This success led me to ask a crucial question:
“Could this strategy work for others too?”
With that in mind, I secured a job as an SEO specialist for a six-figure forex education company.
Today, I’m proud to say that we’ve taken their blog from ground zero to an impressive 10,000 pageviews in just one year, all with the publication of only 30 blog posts.
And you are taking home, my 4 years’ worth of blogging experience for free.
Let’s dive right in.
Choose Your Niche:
If You missed this part then you will end up ().
This it’s crucial for your success in blogging because your niche is what determines the outcome of your efforts.
So, what exactly is a niche?
A niche is a specific, well-defined topic or area of interest that a blogger concentrates on in their content.
For example, if you’re a Nigerian chef, you’d want to create content related to…
- Best meals for Nigeria
- Best food Nigeria
- Famous Nigeria Meals
- easy way to make Nigerian food
As a niche site owner, it’s important to create interconnected content clusters to establish topical authority (we’ll discuss this in more detail later).
But here’s the thing, out of the 101+ niches available, believe me, not all niches are equally profitable.
Some niches have the potential to generate millions of dollars, some thousands, and others may not offer significant monetization opportunities.
What You Should Look Out For When Choosing a Niche?
- Profitability
- Interest
- Expertise
This Video helps:
Note: When picking a niche, remember that it’s not just about profitability; it’s vital to choose a niche that genuinely interests you and can maintain your long-term commitment.
Blogging demands dedication and perseverance, and your genuine passion for the topic will be a driving force in staying dedicated to your blog’s success.
My Story:
In my case, before I began my successful blog, I used to work as a content writer for OperaNews Nigeria.
However, they changed their terms and conditions, which didn’t work out in my favor, leading me to leave the platform.
With blogging, I found an alternative way to continue expressing my writing skills.
I started this blog to document my strategies and journey, hoping that it could serve as a valuable resource for others who are interested in learning from my experiences.
Moving forward…
Step 1: Research the Audience and Competition:
When I searched for “write and get paid” on Google, I realized I was competing with a staggering 3,440,000,000 websites that focused on writing.
And same for blogging with over 21,590,00,000 blogs.
Note: The results may be the same for you depending on your niche (<1 million are considered less competitive)
However, this massive list of blogs didn’t scare me because it highlighted the potential profitability of this niche.
The competition itself was proof of how lucrative it could be.
I want to assure you not to be discouraged by the competitiveness of your chosen niche because I was still able to rank no 1 on Google for some keywords in my niche.
I’ll show you how to achieve results even in a highly competitive space (more on that later).
You see, the more competitive a niche is, the greater its revenue potential.
This is why industry giants target such niches, making it tougher to secure a high ranking.
Moving on………
#1 Create A List of Your Competitors:
To create a list of websites that are ranking for the keywords you want to target in your niche, you can use Ahrefs SEO tools.
These tools can help you gather valuable data on your competitors and identify their top-performing pages.
Once you’ve compiled this list, you can save it in an Excel document for reference and analysis.
Ahrefs is a powerful tool for competitive research and SEO optimization.
We compile a list of competitors because they’re not our enemies; they’re blogs already ranking for the keywords we want to target.
This helps us discover:
- The number of keywords they rank for.
- Potential income and revenue insights.
- Profitable products or programs they promote.
Rather than brainstorming what works, your Competitors have already done the groundwork for you, making our job easier.
Step 2: Choose A Blog Name & Domain:
- Niched checked ☑️
- Competitors analysis ☑️
Next up is to choose a blog domain name..
Your domain name doesn’t have to be complex or anything of a big deal…
It’s just the name that appears on the URL of your website.
Here is what you should have in mind:
- Must be brandable
- Easy to pronounce and be able to spell
- Contains no symbols.
- Aren’t too long
- .com domain tends to work better
Reasons because a bad name makes it harder to build a successful blog or business…..
For example:
Shopify: helps small businesses build an online store and sell online.
Shop ➡ Shopify
It’s okay if your domain name doesn’t directly relate to your blog’s content.
Using your name as your domain often works well.
My Biggest Regrets:
In the beginning, I made a mistake with my blog’s domain name.
It was meant to be my name, “nickdams.” But I ended up choosing “damshustle” because I was initially inspired by “danielshustle blog.”
I was tired of brainstorming blog name ideas, so I combined “dams” and “hustle,” which sounded quite similar to “Daniels” and “hustle.
” I learned to deal with it and fortunately, we weren’t targeting the same audience (Lucky me).
The Advantages of using your name as a domain:
- Easy Niche diversifications
- Builds a brand for your name
- Professionalism
Step 3: Register Your Domain Name & Hosting:
For your blog to be live, you need to register your blog name as a domain name and hosting……
Why WebHosting?
In simpler terms, think of a domain name as your home address, and hosting is like the actual house where all your stuff on the internet is kept.
>>Click Here<< and you will be redirected to Namecheap where you can add your domain.
“Add to cart” is a syndication that the domain is available for purchase.
Go ahead with the purchase and add web hosting…….
Proceed to checkout and ensure you are on 1 year subscriptions which cost $33 (₦33,000).
And confirm the order……
create an account on Namecheap if you don’t have one and proceed to payments.
You will be redirected to your blog managed on wordpress cms (content management system).
What is WordPress?
Back in the day, creating a blog required some programming skills.
But thanks to WordPress, we can now use a user-friendly drag-and-drop feature and pre-designed templates to easily design and customize websites for various purposes like businesses, blogs, portfolios, or online stores.
Research says 98% of blog are hosted on wordpress making it the most used CMS.
Editing Your Blog to Suit Google EEAT:
EEAT stands for;
E= Expertise
E= Experience
A= Authority
T= Trustworthiness
Google algorithms use certain criteria to determine the ranking of websites in search results.
These criteria include four important factors (EEAT), which your website needs to exhibit unless you’re not relying on SEO for traffic.
Trust me, blogging without SEO is completely useless. so we have to abide by Google’s quality rater guidelines……
The absence of these four factors, known as E-A-T, was the reason my website got hit by the 2022 Google Core update, causing a 90% drop in traffic.
I had to update my sites to meet these criteria and these were the results (finally recovered).
and I’m sharing them with you to help you avoid a similar setback in the future because it took me 8 months to recover.
In Summary:
Important pages to have your blog for E-E-A-T:
- About Us: This page explains the central focus of your blog. When people read it, they should understand what your blog is all about.
- Contact Us: Creating a contact form page on your blog is crucial. It allows people to easily get in touch with you and provides a means to receive feedback from your readers.
- Privacy Policy: You’ve probably seen this on other blogs, and it’s essential. It outlines how you handle user data and is crucial for legal and ethical reasons. Remember, copying and pasting articles from other blogs is prohibited, as Google takes this seriously.
- Disclaimer: Similar to the privacy policy, a disclaimer is important. You can check any other blog to learn more about what to include in your disclaimers.
Here’s How To Set Them:
So head over to your wordpress admin dashboard and locate pages as indicated.
Create pages and upload them.
And then, click the appearance >menu option, to make those pages visible on the sites.
Ok, that is for the pages section.
Conduct Keyword Research:
Keywords are phrases your potential audience is searching for on Google.
Using the cooking niche as an example below, words like .
Are keywords a cookie blogger should be targetting..
These words emerge because, when you input a term on Google, don’t press enter, the search engine automatically proposes related keywords.
This isn’t arbitrary; it’s a reflection of what people actively search for on Google.
When Google provides these auto-suggestions, it’s a strong indicator that many people are actively searching for those terms.
The popularity may vary based on seasonality and search volume, but if Google is suggesting them, you can be confident that these keywords are actively sought after by a significant number of users.
If you rank for these keywords, Google rewards you with traffic…….
However, not all keywords are created equal. some are too competitive while others are not.
For example, my potential audience is newbie bloggers who are interested in learning how to blog.
And when I search for the term, “how to start a blog“.
You will see a list of giant sites ranking for that term making it too competitive and harder for me to rank.
My blog domain authority is (zero) while those rankings are >70. That’s a huge difference…
So i had to look for less competitive keywords using my keyword research blueprints.
And found out they are also searching for the word “random blogging tips“.
I crafted a detailed SEO article tailored to address the interests of this audience and the results .
And started getting some little traffic…….not bad for a start…
Find Low Competiton Keywords:
Low competition are keywords you can easily rank for without a doubt.
And they are usually “long tail keywords“.
What are Long tail keywords?
They are low-competition keywords that are (3+ words) in length and easy to rank for…
How To Find Long Tail Keywords:
Design Your Blog:
You need to set up the following:
- Pages
- Blog Designs
- Navigation
At this stage, you shouldn’t worry about your blog designs and it doesn’t have to be complicated for a start.
You just need a basic wordpress theme for a start…
Log In to Your WordPress Admin dashboards and locate your “appearance“, then “add a new theme“.
After then activate the theme
So that is it for the blog appearance, ok so let’s move to the necessary parts of this post.
Install Essentials SEO-Plugins:
When it comes to blogging, the ultimate goal is to attract “traffic,” and the most effective means to achieve this is through “SEO.”
That’s why it’s important to have all necessary SEO plugins and they are…
Yoast SEO Plugins:
Yoast SEO plugins provide a free and detailed analysis, offering features that can elevate your SEO efforts.
They furnish essential information, including the number of internal links on a page, article word counts, schema markups, and more.
Whether it’s analyzing or optimizing your content, Yoast SEO is a reliable tool.
Cool Feature: They submit your article sitemaps to Google so they can see your page and rank it for the keywords it deserves.
Without this plugin, Google won’t find your article and it takes almost forever to rank.
Ps: I’m currently using Yoast SEO but would recommend Rank Maths over Yoasts.
Rank Math:
If you’re looking for an alternative to Yoast, Rank Math is an excellent choice.
Although both tools yield similar results, they come from different companies.
Rank Math offers comprehensive features to enhance your SEO strategy.
Google Site Kit:
Unlike Yoast and rank maths, Google site kits track and record your overall SEO performance directly from Google search results.
Since the plugin is developed by Google, you can trust the legitimacy of the data you receive.
For instance, this data seen are from Google site kits plugins (search console).
And Google Analytics.
Table Of Contents (TOC) Plugins:
Installing a Table of Contents (TOC) plugin provides your potential readers with an easy-to-navigate structure.
TOC breaks down your content into manageable sections and subheaders, facilitating quick skimming for readers.
It also helps Google understand the organization of each segment of your article.
Incorporating these free blogging tools into your strategy can significantly enhance your blog’s SEO performance, making it more accessible and appealing to both readers and search engines.
Match Keywords Search Intent:
When you don’t match search intent, you won’t rank.. simple…
Search intents are the reason behind a search query on Google, and there are three types
- informational
- commercial
- navigational
- and transactional
For example, when people search for “how to cook jollof rice” they want practical steps to make tasty jollof rice.
Google understands that videos are the best solution to help users with this, as they provide a visual guide to cooking.
And also an informational article down below the fold…
To rank for these keywords, you need to create video content and write a detailed, informative post on how to cook delicious jollof rice, as mentioned earlier.
Articles like “5 ways to make jollof” may not be suitable for this purpose.
For example, I wanted to write a post on “how to blog without a domain” and noticed all article rankings are informational keywords and contain the word “blog without a domain” on their headlines.
I included that in my article headline…And ranked no.1.
Ps: Before writing any article on a particular keyword, ensure to match the search intent
Published Your First Blog Post:
Now we have done:
- Keyword research
- Finding low competitor’s keywords
- Mastery search intents
The key to achieving success is not just posting on your blog, but making sure each blog post is incredibly useful and informative.
Your articles should also demonstrate a high level of expertise in the topic.
Topical Authority:
As I mentioned before, in May 2022, Google’s core updates significantly reduced my website traffic by 80%.
This happened because I had a broad focus on my content without establishing topical authority.
According to Google, the highest quality pages and websites exhibit a high level of expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. In simpler terms, Google rewards websites that are seen as experts and authoritative sources.
For instance, if you’re writing about health, Google prefers articles authored by health experts or doctors.
Now, you might be wondering if Google is smart enough to determine these credentials on websites.
The answer is? No.
Google doesn’t directly detect the credentials of the writer or decide if they are qualified to write an article.
Instead, it relies on certain signals, and the two most significant ones are:
- Topical Authority
- Backlinks
A topical authority is when you cover an entire topic in your niche..
As I mentioned earlier, when I first started blogging, my niche was targeted towards beginner bloggers and article writers.
However, I realized that my focus was too broad, so I decided to narrow it down specifically to blogging.
To address the decline in traffic, I took the step of deleting category pages that were too broad.
I was trying to cover many topics from social media marketing, affiliate marketing, seo.
So I streamlined my content to focus on just two categories related to blogging and try to cover every topics related to it.
This adjustment was made to ensure a more specific and targeted approach to addressing the interests and needs of my audience and then traffic started shooting up.
Tools Like:
Keywords Everywhere (Free Chrome Extension):
Answer The Public:
Google auto-suggests:
People also may ask section:
These are the best places to get Related Querys to build Topical Authority.
Backlinks:
Backlinks are links from one page of your site to another blog.
The more backlinks your blog receives, the more authoritative Google perceives it to be.
This is because Google navigates the entire web through links from one site to another.
However, it’s important to note that not all backlinks hold the same weight.
For instance, if a website with a high Domain Rating (DR) above 70 links to your blog, it carries more significance than a link from a site with a DR below 10.
Additionally, relevance plays a crucial role.
Let’s say you run a chef blog, and you acquire a backlink from a website with a DR above 90 that talks about Bitcoin.
In this case, the link is not relevant, and Google might view it as spam, possibly leading to penalties.
On the other hand, if you receive links from sites related to cooking, it’s considered beneficial.
I’ll delve more into this later.
Let me show you how to optimize your article for SEO to rank higher on Google.
Step 1: Add Keywords In URL:
This is the very first step in optimizing your content for SEO.
Adding keywords in the URL tells Google what the entire page is all about.
This page ranks on page 1.
Has the targetted keywords in the article URL of the article.
Step 2: Add Keywords In Intro:
Ensure you add targeted keywords in the first 100 words of article introductions where it makes sense.
Step 3: Add Semantic Related Keywords:
In the past, bloggers used to simply insert keywords multiple times into an article, and that was often enough to secure a good ranking.
However, this led to the adoption of spammy optimization tactics, with bloggers prioritizing keyword insertion over user satisfaction.
Fortunately, the introduction of Google’s Hummingbird algorithm rendered these tactics obsolete.
Nowadays, the focus has shifted to semantic keywords.
These are related keywords or phrases that Google expects to find in your content, forming the entirety of the post and closely related to your topic.
It’s worth noting that tools like Robinize SEO software can be valuable in optimizing content for semantic keywords, ensuring that your content aligns with modern search engine algorithms and provides a better user experience.
How To Make Money from Your Blog:
There are many ways bloggers can make money and it all boils down to your skills.
Offering Their SEO skills as a service and more.
Most Nigerian bloggers make $3000/month above with others struggling.
I have put out the best way you can make money as a blogger.
Affiliate Marketing:
Affiliate marketing stands out as one of the fastest ways to earn your initial income in the world of blogging.
Take, for instance, the scenario where we crafted a review article about a specific product that successfully ranked on Google, attracting over 1000 visitors.
By incorporating a Call to Action (CTA) with our affiliate link in the article.
we were able to generate $77 in affiliate commissions.
Not a bad start at all!
This illustrates the potential of affiliate marketing in turning your blog into a source of revenue relatively quickly.
Google Adsense:
Google AdSense is one the most popular means of monetization in blogging.
Once you meet Google Adsense requirements, you can apply and get approved to start earning from ads
Google starts showing ads on your websites and pays you based on clicks and impressions
Over To You?
What did you learn from this tutorial?
Are you starting your blog today either way let me know in the comments.
