How To Start A Successful Blog In Kenya and Make Money Online
How To Start A Successful Blog In Kenya and Make Money Online: When it comes to making money online, Perhaps Blogging Business is one of the most legit ways to make money online. Blogging is the art of creating blog posts (articles online). These blog posts are written with readers in mind. Blog posts can be news, tips, general information etc articles.
The blogging business is one business that requires less capital to start; about 10k is enough to start if you can create the blog by yourself or about 50k if one has to hire an expert to create a blog for them.
In this article, we will learn all that it takes to create a blog by you. We will cover all that it takes to create a successful blog that makes over 50k per month in Kenya.
There is a wrong belief that creating a blog is a daunting task reserved for only computer gurus.
But in today’s world, anybody can create a blog within 20 minutes and start sharing their ideas to the world.
This article will show you the step-by-step process of starting a blog in Kenya.
I didn’t have a mentor when I first started blogging. I made a lot of mistakes along the way – but I learnt valuable lessons. Valuable lessons which I’m going to share with you today.
So, stick with me.
What is a Blog and what are the benefits of starting one?
A blog (abbreviated from weblog) is a type of website that displays posts in reverse chronological order. The latest posts are displayed first. This site (tuko.co.ke) is an example of a blog.
There are several reasons why people opt to start blogs:
- Sharing their ideas with like-minded people
- For fun and as a hobby
- Documenting their day-to-day lives
- Building an online presence for their business
- Earning money from their blogs (more in-depth explanation later)
Whatever your reasons are to start blogging, you’ll need to have passion for your topic.
Simply fall in love with what you are writing and your audience will love you and keep coming back for more.
How to start a successful Blog in Kenya and Make Money Online
Step #1: Find a Killer Blogging Topic
The first step to starting a blog in Kenya starts by picking a blogging topic.
Choosing the right blogging niche is essential if you want to build a successful and sustainable blog.
Here’s why.
Choosing the right blogging topic allows you to find your own brand voice and marketing angle to help you stand out and attract a specific audience interested in your topic.
Because let’s face it. Unless you’re verging in a brand new industry, you’re not the only one who’s blogging in that niche.
For example, let’s say you want to start a blog on personal computers.
Its a such a great topic, but if you google something like “best PCs to buy today” you’ll see reputable websites like PCMag, CNET, mwalimu arena, jamii host and TechRadar are the one appearing on first page of Google.
These are already established brands, and it can be hard to compete with them.
However, that doesn’t mean you can’t blog about that niche. You can. But here’s what you can do instead—narrowing down your niche.
Instead of just blindly blogging about personal computers, you can decide to concentrate on a specific sub-topic like gaming.
There are three factors that you should consider while picking a niche for your blog:
a) Your knowledge
What is it that you know very much and you want to educate others? In simple terms, in what field are you an expert in?
At this stage, write down at least 5 topics you have sufficient knowledge in.
For example, a person who has never bought or sold bitcoin shouldn’t open a cryptocurrency blog.
b) Your interests
Your passion can also decide your niche type.
Although passion should not be an important factor in choosing your niche, nevertheless, it’s important.
You should go for a niche in which you can write hundreds of articles without getting bored within a few months.
c) The Niche Viability
Does your niche have a fairly large audience?
You may be interested in writing the best healthy eating tips for second world war veterans currently living in rural areas. But how much of an audience can you get from that small topic?
The truth is if you are the only person interested in your niche, you’ll end up becoming the sole reader of your blog!
To help you out here are some of the best blogging niches that you can choose from.
- Personal Finance
- Insurance
- Digital Marketing
- Business and entrepreneurship
- Gaming and Technology
- E-commerce
- E-learning
- Lifestyle
- Health and Fitness
- Fashion
- Food and recipes
- Pets
- Travel
- Parenting
Step #2: Register a Domain And Buy Hosting
To start a blog in Kenya, you need a domain name and web hosting space.
A domain is your site’s unique brand name and address in the form of www.yoursitename.com, .org, or .co.ke, and many more, depending on the extension you prefer.
For example, this site’s domain is www.jamiihost.co.ke. Every time you type this domain on your browser, you are redirected to this blog.
Then, web hosting is a service provided by companies to ensure that your website is online 24/7. It’s also where your site files are stored.
Now that you know what a domain and web hosting is then what is the cost of domain registration and web hosting in Kenya?
On average, registering a domain in Kenya will cost around Ksh 650 – 1000 for a .co.ke domain name and Ksh 1000 – 1500 for a .com domain. Web hosting in Kenya will also vary, starting as low as Ksh 1500 per year and going as high as Ksh 20,000 per year and even more, depending on the size of your website.
Below are my top recommended web hosting providers.
- Jamii host– offers the Cheapest Domain and Web Hosting services In Kenya including:
24/7 Customer Support
Unlimited Bandwidth - Hostpinnacle — it’s an ideal solution for creating a website targeting primarily local clients. I love them due to their wickedly fast web hosting services and affordable pricing. Use this link to buy a domain and you will get a 20% discount https://www.hostpinnacle.co.ke/clients/aff.php?aff=1531
- Truehost — I love their friendly support team. They are also a perfect solution to host any kind of website. Use this link to buy a domain and you will get a 20% discount https://truehost.co.ke/cloud/aff.php?aff=2065
- Bluehost — If you want the most friendly international and affordable hosting, you won’t be wrong choosing Bluehost. It’s among the most recommended web hosting companies you will ever find on planet earth
How to Register a Domain and Buy Hosting in Kenya using Jamii Host
Now, let’s check on how to buy hosting and register a domain for your blog. In this case, I’ll show you how to buy hosting using Jamii Host since it’s what I use to host this blow.
As I stated earlier, they have affordable hosting plans, and their speed and uptime performance are just impressive.
So, head over to Jamii host’s official website.
Then choose the web hosting plan as per your budget. At the moment, I would recommend the standard plan because it has more resources that you need to get started with your new site.
After that, enter the domain name that you would like to give your brand-new blog.
I recommend selecting the .com extension because it’s the most common. Then make sure that your domain is simple and easy to remember. Avoid including a number in your domain.
Use your subsequent three clicks on the ‘continue’ button and then hit on the ‘checkout’ button.
Proceed and enter your billing information.
Once done click on the “Complete Order” button to proceed to payment. Choose the payment method. I recomend you choose lipa na Mpesa if you are in Kenya. This is because Mpesa is very fast and reliable.
After paying, you will receive an email confirming your order and also carrying your cPanel credentials.
Woohooo! Congratulations!
You now have an active domain and web hosting account. What’s next is to start building your site. This now takes us to the next step in this guide on how to create a blog in Kenya.
Step 3: Choose a Blogging Platform
The best and easiest to set up blogging platform is WordPress
- WordPress.org
This is a self-hosted platform, which means you fully own all your content.
You can also customize it in any way you like. No limitations!
To use WordPress, you’ll need to buy hosting from a reliable web hosting company such as Truehost.
WORDPRESS IS MORE RELIABLE AND GOOD FOR BLOGGING. I RECOMMEND WORDPRESS.ORG SINCE ITS SELF HOSTED AND THIS means you fully own all your content.
You can also customize it in any way you like. No limitations!
Build Your Blog Using WordPress
WordPress is among the most popular and user-friendly blogging software in today’s market. In fact, it powers over 30% of the total websites on the internet.
Here’s how to use WordPress to create a blog in Kenya with zero coding skills.
Installing WordPress
Head to the Jamii Host client area and click on the cPanel Login link.
Scroll down to the “softaculous apps installer” section and click on the WordPress icon.
Use your next two clicks on the “install” button. Next, enter your installation details.
- Select the “https” installation path.
- Leave the directory part empty if you want to install WordPress on your primary domain.
- Enter your username. Avoid using ‘admin’ as your username and find a better and hard to guess username.
- Enter a strong password. Combine letters with memorable characters and numbers.
- Enter your admin email. It can be “yourname@domain.com.” For example, “john@website.com.”
Once done, hit on the install button. The installation should take a minute or so to complete.
Installing A WordPress Theme
I meant it when I told you that you don’t need to hire a web designer to start a blog in Kenya. WordPress has over 3000 free professional themes, which makes creating a blog a breeze.
To install a theme, log in to your WordPress dashboard. Do you remember the username and password you set while installing WordPress from cPanel? Well, that’s what you will use to login into your WordPress dashboard.
Head to your browser’s address bar and type this “www.yourdomain.com/ wp-admin.”
As always, remember to replace “yourdomain” with the domain that you actually registered. This is what a WordPress dashboard looks like at first glance.
It might seem overwhelming but don’t worry. As time goes by, you will know how to explore every corner of the dashboard, and everything will be at your fingertips.
To install a theme, click on the “Appearance” tab, then “Themes.”
And as a beginner, you may get confused about which theme is suitable for you. Having used WordPress for over 5 years now, here’s a list of the best WordPress themes that I have no doubt recommending to most beginners like you.
- Kadence — this theme is beautiful, lightweight, and highly customizable. It has abundant features that are not found in most free themes out there.
- Astra — It’s easy to customize, and it’s also SEO-friendly. In fact, I used the Astra theme to build my first site.
- Neve — I love Neve because it’s beautiful and blazingly fast.
- Zakra — it’s another theme worth trying. It’s easily customizable and fast as well.
To install any of the themes, just type in the theme’s name on the search bar, say Astra.
Click on the first option to install theme and finally activate it.
Customize Your Theme
The next step is customizing your WordPress theme to give it a unique touch of your brand.
Over to the “Appearance” tab, click on “Customize” section.
From there, you can upload your website logo. Add footer and sidebar widget.
That way, the WordPress customizer will help you change your blog appearance and give it a unique touch that perfectly matches your business brand.
Update Your Permalinks
Permalinks are links that lead to a specific page or post on your website. By default, WordPress sets all permalinks according to the date of publication of your post. But you don’t want your web page links to appear messy.
Your pages on your blog must have friendly and easy-to-share permalinks. As a result, updating your permalinks will help make your post’s link readable for readers and search engines.
So head to the “Settings” tab on your dashboard and click on “Permalinks”.
Select the structure of your permalink as “post name.”
Then proceed and save the changes.
Add your Site to Google Search Console
Now we want to submit our new site to Google.
Google Search Console is a platform where you can submit your blog posts to Google search engine.
Head over to search.google.com/search-console and follow these instructions to add your domain.
As an extra precaution, make sure that your WordPress site setting is not set to no-index.
Go to Settings>Reading and UNCHECK the box below.
Add your Site to Google Analytics
Google Analytics is used to track your site visitors’ activities, such as their locations and the pages they viewed.
- Head over to google.com.
- Add your domain name
- Copy the tracking scriptthey give you
- Login to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to WPCode dashboard
- Paste the script in the header section and click SAVE.
- You have successfully added your site to Google Analytics
For easy access to your visitors’ statistics at a go, you can download Google Analytics mobile app from the Play Store.
Step #4: Install Relevant Plugins to Optimize & Improve Your Blog Performance
Plugins are small software within a Content Management System that helps extend the performance and appearance of your site.
For non-programmers like me, adding some functions to a website can be challenging. But the good thing is that plugins help make the job 100x EASIER.
At the moment, here’s a list of standard WordPress plugins to install for your new blogging site.
- Rank Math: this plugin helps optimize your blogging site for SEO. That way, your site can appear on the first page of search engines like Google.
- Akismet: this plugin helps moderate spam comments to your blog.
- Jetpack: this is a multipurpose WordPress plugin that helps you improve your site’s performance, grow your email list, and even add a related post section after each post.
- WP Super Cache: with a plugin, you help improve the loading speed of your blogging site such that your visitors don’t leave you for being slow.
- Optimole: since images are huge web elements, this plugin compresses your image to make your site weigh light, hence better performance.
- WordFence: it helps boost the security of your website.
- MonstersInsights: it helps track the traffic of your site.
For more details on installing a WordPress plugin, I recommend you take a look at this guide.
How to Install WordPress Plugins
To add a plugin to your WordPress website
1. In your WordPress dashboard, choose Plugins > Add new.
2. Search for a plugin with the search bar in the top right corner. A number of results will appear.
3. After finding the plugin in the results, click Install Now. You can also click the plugin name to view more details about it.
4. To use the plugin, you’ll need to activate it. When the installation is finished (this usually takes a couple seconds), click Activate.
Step #5: Start Writing Content and Promote It to Your Audience
Great content is the foundation of a successful blog. If nobody is interested in reading what you’re writing about, your blog will fail miserably.
Answering a question about your topic is one of the simplest methods to craft content visitors desire to read. If you have a question, chances are that others do as well. Obviously, you’ll have to do some research to get the answer, but once you do, you’ll be offering useful information that people want to read.
Think about your target audience’s problem and help them find a solution.
For example, say you have a blog on your personal finance niche. One problem that your audience deals with is saving money. If you can show them the effective methods to save money, they will love your blog.
Do your research well, and include relevant images like screenshots, charts, and presentations to your blog posts to make them epic. Edit your work thoroughly. Make sure your posts are free of typos and other grammar-related problems.
Write using a conversational tone. Don’t write as if you are addressing a group of people; instead, write for one person. This way, your readers can engage with your content because they feel like you are speaking to them.
When you’ve written a blog post, that’s not over. Traffic won’t naturally flood into your site. You need to promote your blog posts.
The question is, how do you promote your brand-new blog?
First, promote your blog posts on social media. Social media is by far the only best option to get traffic to your brand-new blog. Create a well-optimized Facebook page, update your social media profile, and share your newly published posts with your followers.
Creating an email list is the second method to grow your blog traffic. Make people join your email list such that you can send them a notification whenever you publish a new blog post. Free tools like Mailchimp are ideal choices to get started with.
Thirdly, publish guest posts on other sites. This involves writing a post on other blogs to market yourself and your brand online.
Then, optimize your blog posts for search engines. SEO is the solution if you are searching for free and evergreen traffic. To learn all the basics of SEO, take a look at this guide by Moz.
Promote your blog
This part deals with how to drive traffic to your site.
There are several ways you can get more traffic to your new blog. I will explain four channels you can use:
1. Organic Traffic
Organic traffic is the one you get from search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo! and Yandex.
Use keyword research tools to get relevant keywords and write on them.
Then, insert the keyword in the post title, first paragraph, last paragraph, meta description, in URL and as image alt texts.
Use your keywords a few times in your article but do not overdo it. Keyword stuffing (using your keyword many times unnaturally) is prohibited by Google and other search engines.
Lastly, have patience when you don’t start seeing organic traffic right away. Posts can take several months before ranking on page 1 of Google.
2. Social Media Traffic
Social media traffic is the one gotten through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media.
Create an account or page and start posting relevant articles and link back to your blog.
Make sure that you don’t start spamming, Facebook can block your URL.
3. Paid Traffic
You pay for Google or Facebook Ads to promote your posts and gain more traffic.
The good thing with running ads is that you can determine how much traffic you want in advance. It all depends on your budget.
4. Email Subscribers
Add a Newsletter plugin to your blog and start collecting your visitors’ emails.
You can then send them scheduled emails informing them of your new posts.
Step #6: Monetization — How To Make Money Blogging In Kenya
Blogging pays. In Kenya, you can make real money online through blogging. There are quite a few bloggers in Kenya that are blogging full-time and making money online.
So In this section, I will show you how to earn money blogging in Kenya as a newbie.
Earn Money Through Blogging In Kenya By Displaying Ads
Ads are a significant source of online income for most bloggers in Kenya. Google Adsense is a reputable platform to earn money by running ads on your blog. To get started with Adsense, you need to join their program and add a code script, and once accepted, you can display ads and make money from your blog.
Affiliate Marketing
Using this method, you earn a commission when you recommend a product from a company. This way, when your reader clicks on your affiliate link and buys the product, you earn a cut of the sale made. You can also sell your own products of the website. Here is a sample of website earning by selling cars on their website . Auto-hub offers a car listing service to clients and in turn earn when clients sell their cars check it out
Write Sponsored Posts
Companies can pay you money to write content about their products and publish it on your blog.
Become A Freelancer
Can you write great content that appeals to your readers? Well, then companies are searching for people like you. You can use your blog to showcase your expertise and land freelancing gigs.
You can join websites like Upwork and Fivver and earn money writing articles.
Sell Online Courses
You can turn your blog into an e-learning platform and make money online. Online courses are rampant in this age of modernization, and many blogging entrepreneurs make huge sums of money by selling online courses. You can dive deep into this guide for more advice on launching a successful online course.
Frequently Asked Questions on How to Start a Blog in Kenya
Can you start a blog in Kenya for free
Yes, it’s possible to create a blog in Kenya for free. Platforms like Blogger, Tumblr, and wordpress.com (NOT the same as WordPress) are free to start. However, these blogging platforms come along with a lot of limitations. For example, you will not get a custom domain, and they limit the ads you place on those platforms. This way, building authority on your niche with a freely hosted blog becomes hard, thereby affecting your blogging income.
What is the cost of starting a blog in Kenya?
Starting a self-hosted blog in Kenya will depend on your chosen web hosting company, their plans, and your domain registering costs. Creating a blog using Truehost or HostPinnacle will cost you Ksh 1500 – 4000 annually. That is without any monthly subscriptions.
How to quickly earn money blogging in Kenya as a beginner
There is no quickest way to make money online via blogging. Like any other business out there, you don’t start today and expect to make thousands of cash online in a couple of weeks. What you need is to understand your audience well, offer value, and get innovative in marketing. Even Rome wasn’t built in one day.
How much can I make money blogging in Kenya as a beginner?
It depends on your niche and the methods you implement to monetize your blog. However, making about Ksh 30000 online from blogging as a newbie as you scale upwards is possible.
Who are the top-earning bloggers in Kenya?
Although there are no clear data on who are the top paid bloggers in Kenya, from our research, we hypothesize that top bloggers from these top famous blogs earn a decent amount of money online.
What do you need to get started with blogging?
You need a personal computer (it can be a laptop or a desktop) with a stable internet connection and enough money (Ksh 5000 – 50000)to buy hosting and register a domain.
The most important step: Rinse and repeat
Over time, you’ll realize that some strategies will work for you while others won’t.
Continue to improve those strategies that work until you perfect it.
Another important factor in creating a successful blog is posting consistently. Whether it is one article per day, three per week, or twice a month, pick a publishing schedule and stick with it.
Most importantly, don’t lose hope. The first few months of blogging will be hard. But if you keep publishing, you’ll discover that getting more traffic is actually easier than it seems.
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How To Start A Successful Blog In Kenya and Make Money Online
