How to Start a Blog in Nigeria in 2020: The Ultimate Guide

The terms, “blog”, “blogging”, and “blogger” have now become very popular in Nigeria — for good and bad reasons.

The success stories of Linda Ikeji and others who are making a killing from the blogging profession have motivated more-than-countable Nigerians to go into blogging — to get their own share of the “blogospheric cake”. On the other hand, some mischievous elements have made bloggers infamous for publishing false news and malicious information.

No doubt, blogging can be very lucrative. Many Nigerian bloggers are now doing their thing on a full-time basis, simply because their blogs are generating monthly income that is more than enough to pay their bills and make them comfortable. Linda Ikeji and my humble self are good examples.

As with any other business that seems lucrative, blogging is a widely sought-after venture in Nigeria today — for obvious reasons. Who doesn’t like to be at home full-time, sitting behind a laptop for just a few hours a day, and making cool cash doing just that?

how to start a blog in nigeria

Unfortunately, most Nigerians who hop on the bandwagon of blogging abandon their blogs within a few months. The reason? Blogging isn’t as easy as and straightforward as most people think? And blogging these days is far more difficult than what obtained in the past.

What most people do is simply set up a free-hosted blog on Blogger, churn out a number of posts over days or weeks, and sit back while expecting an avalanche of traffic and a boom in their bank accounts. But that has never worked for anyone, not even in those days when blogging was far easier.

Truth is, anyone with the right mindset, tools, and determination can succeed as a blogger. But you’ll need to master and implement all the smart and effective strategies involved. Gone are the days when trial-and-error spurred people to success in blogging. And to succeed as a blogger these days requires being strategic.

In this post, I’ll be explaining the steps involved in starting a blog — here in Nigeria. If you’re looking to start your blogging career without making any mistakes, then this post is for you. Sit back, relax, and read on.

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Starting a Blog: Step 1 — Get the required tools

blogging tools

As with any other venture, your first step towards blogging is to gather all the tools you’ll need. These include a laptop or desktop computer, a reliable Internet connection, good writing skills, and a good amount of time.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked if a smartphone or tablet can be used for blogging instead of a PC. And here’s my usual answer: “Yes, but get ready for a lot of hitches.”

There’s a lot more to blogging than crafting posts. As you progress in your journey as a blogger, you’ll need to master tools like the Google Keyword Planner and probably some other web-based and desktop programs that might not run well on mobile devices — that’s if they run at all.

Aside from their technical handicap, mobile devices have much smaller screens, which will be a disadvantage when you’re trying to accomplish certain tasks that blogging also entails.

So, your best bet is to get a laptop or desktop PC. But if all you have for now is a smartphone or tablet, you can make do with that — don’t expect a smooth sail over the long term, though.

As for the Internet connection, it goes without saying that you’ll need one. Without Internet access, you can’t research for information meant for your blog posts, you can’t access your blog, and you can’t publish posts. In fact, you can’t do anything!

In addition, to become a successful blogger you must be a good writer. And you must be ready to write regularly. There are no shortcuts!

Oh well, the only way around this is to hire a good writer to craft your posts for you. And I’m telling you, that would be very, very expensive if you’re looking for top-quality posts. This is what I do tell most beginners: “If you’re not a good writer, blogging isn’t for you!”

Oh, did I just scare you? I didn’t mean to. Don’t be scared. I didn’t mean you must be another Shakespeare or Soyinka. All you need is the ability to write in clear English that is free from obvious grammar, style, spelling, or typographical errors. If you think you can pull through that, then you’re good to go. If you’re not sure, a good tip is to write a sample post and ask other people — good writers, I mean — to vet your writing skills.

Finally, you need to devote some time to blogging. You should be willing to set aside at least 2-3 hours of your day to it, especially when you’re just starting out.

You might be wondering why you need that much time. But the truth is, blogging entails more than writing and publishing blog posts. Promoting your blog requires even more time and effort. Get that clearly!

So, if you can’t devote 2-3 hours of your day to blogging, then starting a blog is not an option you should consider. What this means is that blogging isn’t for you if you run a day job that leaves you so tired at the end of each workday that the only thing you do on getting home is sleep off.

For your convenience, this post has been packaged into a FREE e-book (see picture below). To download the e-book directly, simply use the download link below.

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Starting a Blog: Step 2 — Decide on your niche

blog niche

This is no doubt the most important part of this post … because it explains the most important concept you need to understand when starting out as a blogger. So, I want you to read this section with increased attention.

Blogging is becoming more and more competitive by the day. Several thousands of blogs spring up every day to compete for people’s attention, yet the number of available readers isn’t increasing at anything close to that rate. So, it takes playing your cards right to succeed as a blogger.

While it might seem like a smart idea to appeal to as many people as possible by blogging on a wide range of topics, the opposite is actually what works for most bloggers. It’s much better and much easier to appeal to some people than to try to appeal to everyone and end up appealing to no one. In short, it’s better to choose a niche for your blog.

Choosing a niche is one of your most important first steps towards starting a blog. Go about it the wrong way, and rest assured that your blog would wind up as a failure. In fact, opting for the wrong niche is one of the commonest reasons why people fail at blogging. So, by understanding how to make the right choice, you’d be able to avoid one of the biggest pitfalls lurking on your path.

Now, let’s get into the business!

What exactly is a niche?

In the context of blogging, the word “niche” refers to the subject or topic that your blog centers on as well as the specific audience you’re trying to entertain or help with your blog content. Your niche could comprise one topic or subject or multiple ones and could be targeted at categories of people based on geographical location, interests, or occupation.

For example, Linda Ikeji’s blog features entertainment news and updates, gossips about celebrities, and related stuff that would interest Nigerians. So, it’s correct to say her niche is “Nigerian entertainment and celebrity news updates”. Here are other examples of popular Nigerian blogs and their respective niches:

Bella Naija (Entertainment and lifestyle — for Nigerians in general)
TechCabal (Technology — for Nigerian tech enthusiasts)
Web Income Plus (Tips on making money online — in Nigeria)
Zikoko.com (Interesting and shareable stuff — for Nigerians)
Omojuwa.com (Political analysis — for Nigerians)

So, in other words, a niche comprises the topic(s) that a blog stands for as well as the blog’s ideal readers. Majority of blogs have their own clearly-defined specific niches, although there are few popular blogs that feature posts on a wide range of topics (but if you dig deeper, you’d still find that they tilt more towards certain topics than others).

Most blogs you’ll find have specific subjects and target readers. However, it’s not a must to define your niche with both specific topics and specific readers in mind. Some blogs have niches that comprise only a specific topic without any geography-based or interest-based bias. A good example is a health blog targeted at a global audience.

How to choose your blogging niche

First, bear in mind that you’re in the best position to choose your own blogging niche — because you understand yourself, your capabilities, and your tendencies more than anyone else does. So, asking other people to choose a niche for you is a huge blunder.

1. Choose a niche model

To choose your niche, your first step is to decide whether your choice would be interest-driven or income-driven. Either model has its pros and cons, which you’ll understand better in a bit.

A. The interest-driven model

This is quite in line with what most blogging mentors teach their students: Choose a niche based on your area of interest, knowledge or experience. If you’re a tech freak who enjoys talking about latest mobile devices and their fascinating specs, then you’d be fine with the tech niche — or even more specifically, the mobile devices niche.

Similarly, if your mum has been running a poultry farm in your compound since you were very young, and while growing up you’ve been able to understand everything about the business and have even developed some interest in it, then you’re in a very good position to start and run a blog on poultry farming.

So, all you have to do is to ask yourself the following questions:

What are some topics that I enjoy talking about?
What are some subjects or ventures that I have deep knowledge of and would like tell others about?
What are those topics that and topics that I don’t necessarily know about but am very much interested in and would like to research extensively about.
What are my hobbies?

Answering these questions will help you come up with a good number of niche options.

This niche model places your interest, knowledge, or experience at the forefront. And if you’re adopting this option, you shouldn’t bother about potential income streams or blog monetization options from the start.

No, I’m not saying you shouldn’t expect to make money from the blog. Of course, you’re blogging with the ultimate aim of making money. But with this model your priority is to choose a niche that is well within your comfort zone, start your blog, grow your audience, and then start considering different monetization options later on.

Here are the advantages of the interest-driven model

Writing and publishing your blog posts would be relatively easy because you’ve chosen a topic that always piques your interest and that you’re passionate about.
Your interest and passion for the topic you’re blogging about would keep you going when things look bleak from the start or somewhere along the line.
You’re unlikely to run out of blog post ideas.
You’d be able to position yourself as an expert in your chosen subject, and over time you’d be regarded as such.
Over time, your blog would be widely regarded as one of the authority go-to website for topics you blog about. And this authority would be all you need to attract advertisers whose products or services cater to your blog’s audience.
Over time, you’d be able to build a large pool of loyal readers who would visit your blog regularly without being prompted to. At that point, you’d no longer have to work your ass off to attract attention and traffic.
When your blog is ripe enough for monetization, there are usually multiple options.

And, well, here are the disadvantages

Some subjects are difficult to monetize. For example, if you start a religion blog, you might be able to grow your followership over a relatively short period, but your chances of making decent bucks from such a blog are very slim. Why? The reason is that when it comes to matters of religion, people are not inclined to buying informational stuffs. All they want is a little motivation to boost their level of faith, and nothing more. Only few Nigerians would buy e-books on spirituality. And worse, Google Adsense and most other ad networks as well as affiliate marketing programs have little or no provisions for religion blogs.
Some subjects you’re interested in or passionate about might not appeal to many people. If you’re very good at bead making for example, it might strike you as a smart idea to start a blog on bead making. But the truth is, not so many people show interest in learning bead making, let alone actively search the web for information about it.

B. The income-driven model

This model simply involves choosing your niche based on how exactly you intend to make money from your blog, not based on your interest. Adopting this model means you don’t care about interest or passion for the topic. What you care about is to make money, regardless of the subject that will make that happen.

So, if you find that a lot of people are searching the web for information on teeth-whitening products, for example, you can decide to create a blog aimed at promoting various teeth-whitening products as an affiliate and generating commissions from that. In that case, your niche selection is income-driven because you have opted for affiliate marketing as your monetization strategy from the outset, and you’ll be tailoring your blog for that strategy.

Similarly, if you want to make money as a freelance writer and would like to attract clients consistently, you might want to start a blog on a topic that appeals to the class of clients you intend to work with. So, if you think Internet marketers pay writers very well, a smart way to show them your writing skills is to start a blog on Internet marketing or any other topic that Internet marketers would be interested in. Here, you’re not choosing that topic because you’re interested in it, but because you’re looking to make decent income crafting content for Internet marketers.

This strategy is what most people imply (even though they don’t understand) when they say, “I want to start affiliate marketing” or “I would like to start making money online through Google Adsense”. And if you’re anything like such people, you should be ready to settle for any topic or subject that goes in line with your monetization strategy. There’s no room for interest or passion here. No comfort zone! It’s strictly business!

To select a niche based on the income-driven model, all you need is objective proof that your chosen topic or subject appeals to a sizable audience and is compatible with your monetization strategy. This is where some knowledge of keyword research would come in handy.

Here are the advantages of the income-driven model

If you play your cards right, you can start a blog based on this model and start earning decently from it within 7 to 9 months.
With this model, you require few blog posts to achieve success because of the relatively narrower scope. I once started a blog based on the model, published just 10 posts on it, and 6 months later it started earning over $200 monthly.
This model makes it easy to actualize the passive income dream. That is, once a blog based on this model starts to make money, it will consistently earn income for subsequent months to years even if you do nothing to it. That’s income on autopilot — the dream of virtually everyone in online business.
Because you don’t have much to do on a blog based on this model, you have set up as many similar blogs as possible. What I do is build one to the point where it starts to earn, create another one and replicate my efforts, create a new one, and so on. This way, I’m able to diversify my income.
You can decide at any point that you want to sell off your blog. Money-spinning blogs based on this model are very lucrative, and they presently sell for between 20 – 25 times their monthly earnings. So, if your blog earns $200 per month, you can sell it for $4,000 to $5,000. Sometimes, you want to sell a blog because you’ve built additional ones that are also doing fine, or you need money for some personal projects. It’s easy for the buyer to continue running the site because you’ve done all the hard work.

And here are the disadvantages

You’ll have to write on topics that you’re not really passionate about or know nothing about. So, you’ll need to be an exceptional writer and researcher to succeed with this model.
Because it’s difficult churning out blog posts consistently on topics that you’re not knowledgeable or passionate about, chances are high that you’d get bored or frustrated shortly after starting out.
You’ll hardly be able to position yourself as an authority in your niche, especially is you run multiple sites based on the same model.
Your blog can suddenly stop earning anytime whenever something goes wrong with your major traffic or income sources. For example, if much of your traffic comes from Google, your income would crash if your blog’s position in Google results pages should drop suddenly. Similarly, if the affiliate program you’re working with suddenly decides to reduce their commission rates, your earning would inevitably drop. And because you’ve tailored your blog to your traffic generation or monetization strategy, you might be unable to switch to other options if something goes wrong with the ones you started with.

Bear in mind, however, that the 2-option categorization I’ve explained here isn’t etched in stone. You might be able to come up with a niche-model that comes under both options. But most ideas you’ll have would align wholly or for the most part with only one of both options.

2. Decide on the scope of your niche

Blog topics vary in terms of scope. Some have a wide scope, while others have a narrow scope. For example, a blog on “weight loss tips” has a wide scope, which can be narrowed down to “weight loss tips for women”, which in turn can be narrowed down to “weight loss tips for post-childbirth women”. Going further, you can consider restricting by geography to get “weight loss tips for Nigerian post-childbirth women”.

This goes without saying, but the narrower the scope of your topic, the less the number of people you’re focusing on, and the less the maximum traffic you’ll be able to generate. But that doesn’t necessarily mean less income because among bloggers, “specialists” are respected and trusted more than “generalists”.

Each option has its advantages and disadvantages, and you’d want to consider these carefully before making a choice. A wide-scope topic is usually not affected in the long term by stiff competition because the content featured on such blog is voluminous and variable, and at least a small fraction of that content can help to provide the needed competitive edge.

Another advantage is that wide-scope blogs can be monetized through various options. But if you’re looking at setting up and running multiple blogs, a wide-scope topic isn’t advisable because it takes time to craft enough content to cover the whole topic — sometimes, it takes forever! So, if you’re choosing a wide-scope topic, be sure to choose one that you’re very much interested in and seriously passionate about.

On the other hand, a narrow-scope topic can quickly stand out from the competition because of its narrow focus. And it’s a very good option for newbie bloggers who want to test their feet with blogging or intend to run multiple blogs because little content is required to cover the whole topic.

However, the effect of competition can be very strong. Sometimes, a narrow-topic blog would fail to make headway because there are already lots of similar blogs on the same topic. And at times, such a blog can suddenly start fizzling out after being successful because everything about it can be easily replicated by someone else, since it features a small body of information. Another disadvantage is that monetization options are usually limited.

3. Decide on your target audience

Another important part of the niche selection process is to define your target audience in terms of geography. That is, you need to specify whether you’d have your blog targeted at Nigerians only (local audience), people in another specific country such as United States (foreign audience), or readers from all over the world who are interested in your blog subject (global audience).

In all, you have 3 options there, each with its own pros and cons. Now, let’s analyze the options, so you can understand them better.

Option A: Local (Nigerian) audience

This entails choosing a blog subject and sharing information that is relevant only to Nigerians. My blog, WebIncomePlus.com, for example is targeted at a local audience because it features volumes of information on how Nigerians can make money online legitimately.

So, if your topic is one that appeals to and piques the interest of Nigerians, you might want to consider this option. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of targeting the Nigerian audience.

Advantages

Your blog would have higher chances of becoming popular and winding up as a success because there is relatively less competition.
Because you have a deep understanding of Nigeria and Nigerians, you’re more than likely to create content that they will find valuable and helpful.

Disadvantages

If your monetization strategy is affiliate marketing or selling your own information product (e-book, e-course, etc.), you might have a hard time convincing Nigerians to by whatever you’re promoting. And that’s because most Nigerian Internet users are freebie hunters. The few who are really ready to pay are afraid of getting scammed.
Generally, your blog’s earning potential is much reduced, when compared to what obtains with blogs targeted at a foreign or global audience.

Option B: Specific foreign audience

If you’re planning to blog on a topic that is popular only in the United States or the United Kingdom, for instance, there’s no point tailoring your content for readers outside that country. Just craft blog posts that will appeal to readers in the country you’ve chosen, and you’d be fine.

There are various reasons why you might want to target readers in another country. For example, after discovering that Adsense cost-per-click is usually very high for content related to education in the US or UK, you might decide to create a blog that features information on how teenagers in the US or UK can easily secure admission to colleges in their country.

As another example, one of the blogs I own, BestWakeUpLights.com is targeted at Americans. I chose the American audience for two reasons: Firstly, the kind of products I review on the blog is popular and selling well in the US. Secondly, the site is monetized via the Amazon.com affiliate program (the US version of the program) which records most of Amazon’s product sales.

Here are some of the pros and cons of targeting a specific foreign audience.

Advantages

Your blog has the potential to make far more money than a blog targeted at Nigerians.

Disadvantages

Your writing skills must be near-perfect because native English speakers have zero tolerance for crappy English. They just don’t want to waste their time reading any piece ridden with obvious grammatical blunders. And they don’t trust whatever information such a piece is trying to pass across to them.
You must have a deep understanding of how readers in that country view your blog topic, so you can craft your content in such a way that it resonates well with them.
Coming up with valuable content consistently can be very difficult because you’re not based in the country your blog is targeted at.
You might face stiff competition if your topic enjoys massive readership in the country your blog is targeted at.

Option C: Global audience

If your blog topic has no geographical bias with regards to appeal, then you might want to target a global audience. That is, you don’t need to focus on readers in a specific geographic location, especially if your blog topic is already well narrowed down.

For example, if you decide to start a blog on “post-childbirth weight loss tips”, you might just want to leave your blog targeted at women all over the world who are looking to get back in shape after childbirth, since that topic already has a narrow scope.

As with other options, targeting a global audience also has its fair share of merits and demerits.

Advantages

Your blog has the potential to make far more money than a blog targeted at Nigerians.

Disadvantages

Your writing skills must be near-perfect because native English speakers (who have zero tolerance for crappy English) are also part of your audience.
You must be able to craft content that is free from any form of location bias.
You must have what it takes to make your blog stand out from the heavy competition, which is usually present in most cases.
So, after choosing your blog topic or subject, you want to figure out if it would appeal to a local, foreign, or global audience. And if your topic seems to be suitable for all three options, take some more time to decide on which option to choose.

Now, how do you tell Google what your target location is, so that it would favor your blog when showing results to users from that country? You’ll learn more about the simple step involved later on. For now, let’s continue with the basics.

4. Analyze the demand and earning potential of your niche

As with business, starting a blog requires that you take your time to figure out how many people are actually interested in what you’re planning to offer on your blog.

For example, if you’ve become a guru in biology because you studied that course in the university, don’t consider starting a biology blog because biology isn’t among the topics that an appreciable number of people would actively search the web for. And you’d only compound your woes by targeting your biology blog at Nigerians. How many people go online to search for stuff like “What is a cell?” and “Definitions of diffusion and osmosis”?

So, before you choose a niche, you must be sure that your topic or subject is one that interests a lot of people. Topics related to health, technology, news, entertainment, sports, cars, blogging, making money online, small business tips, fashion, and personal finance are a winner any day

In fact, if you’re targeting a global or foreign audience, there’s a very long list of topics to choose from. But when it comes to Nigerians, not all topics pique their interest. Topics that Nigerians actively search the web for, include technology, business ideas, making money online, fashion, cooking and recipes, education, entertainment and celebrity gossips, agriculture, tips on how to travel abroad, weddings, and freebies.

In addition, you need to understand the earning potential of your niche as well as the workable monetization options. For example, a product review blog would be better off with affiliate marketing because its visitors are in the buying mode, while an entertainment blog can only earn from ads because its target readers only want to catch some fun, not to buy something.

Bear in mind that a blog monetized with affiliate marketing or information marketing stands the chance of earning more than one monetized with Google Adsense. That’s because affiliate marketing and information marketing don’t require huge traffic to generate decent income, but earning decently and consistently with Adsense and directly sponsored ads requires massive traffic.

So, before you go with a blog topic, be sure that it would appeal to a good number of not just people, but Internet users. And how do you objectively determine the number of Internet users who are interested in your topic? The answer is simple: Find out the number of monthly searches on Google for terms related to the topic. That’s where keyword research comes in.

5. Assess your chances of success with your chosen niche

The success of your blog hinges on factors that have to do with you and factors that you can’t control. Examples of factors that depend on you include the following:

Your background knowledge of the chosen topic or your ability to research the topic extensively.
Your writing skills and ability to craft compelling content.
The amount of time, energy, and money you’re willing to invest in your blog.
How consistently you will work hard to grow your blog consistency and hard work.
Your blog promotion and traffic generation strategies.
Your monetization options.

As for these factors, you must assess yourself carefully for each of them and be sure that they align perfectly with your blog topic. If any of them doesn’t align well with your topic, consider improving on that factor or changing your blog topic, depending on the gravity of the factor you have issues with.

While there are many factors that don’t depend on you, one important one you can’t control is stiff competition. Unless you have a lot of money to throw around for aggressive marketing and massive brand awareness campaigns, always try to avoid niches that are already dominated by too many big players.

For example, it’s too late right now for any newbie blogger on a small budget to start a general health blog. The blog would be dead on arrival because it has the likes of WebMD, Wikipedia, Medscape, MayoClinic, Healthline, and other authority health sites to battle with. A smart way to play your game against these monster sites and boost your chances of success is to narrow your scope as much as possible or target health topics that they tend to shy away from, such as alternative or natural medicine, home remedies, etc.

Similarly, starting a new entertainment and celebrity gossip blog in Nigeria right now is like setting up the blog for its own suicide. Why? Because that niche is already beaten to death in Nigeria, and people already have their go-to blogs when they need entertainment and celebrity gist. I mean, blogs like Linda Ikeji’s blog, Bella Naija, Information Nigeria, Naij.com, LadunLiadi.com, Lailasblog.com, etc. So, making headway with a new blog is almost impossible, unless you have millions of naira to spend on marketing and promotion — just like the owners of Naij.com. Or you’re cocksure you have something unique to attract people with.

In summary, if you’re not in a good position to blog on your chosen topic, wait until you can or change your topic. And more importantly, if your niche is already dominated by huge authority sites, narrow down your topic or change to a much less competitive niche.

In all, your success as a blogger hinges largely on your choice of niche. So, you just can’t afford not to get it right. Be sure to take your chosen topic through all five steps and go ahead with it only if it ticks every checkbox. Otherwise, consider a change of topic, or you’ll set out on a path of frustration and regret.

Suggested reading:

For your convenience, this post has been packaged into a FREE e-book (see picture below). To download the e-book directly, simply use the download link below.

DOWNLOAD FREE E-BOOK

Start a Blog: Step 3 — Choose a domain name

blog domain name

After choosing your niche, your next step is to choose a good domain name for it. This is another area where many newbie bloggers goof.

Now, your domain name is more than just a name. It’s a brand that you’ll continue to identify with for as long as your blog exists. So, you need to choose it carefully from the start because changing it later will cost you a lot.

A lot of people choose domain names like wazzawizzy.com and lalasticlala.com simply because these names sound soothing to them. Others choose ridiculously long names like thebestwaytomakemoneyonline.com. Others choose spammy-looking ones like best-hotels-in-lagos-nigeria.com. And others, in a crazy bid to be unique, opt for domain extensions like .tk, .pw, .io, and so on. All these are mistakes!

While there are no rules etched in stone regarding choosing a domain name, there are certain conditions that an ideal domain name should meet. These include:

Short (maximum of three words)
Easy to spell and remember
Tells about the blog (niche, audience, or benefit)
No hyphens or numbers

To help you come up with a good domain name, here are some quick options:

Mention the benefit that your blog will provide (com)
Mention the intended audience (com)
Mention your blogging topic or niche (com)

You can also consider using your name if you simply love it that way or you’re unable to find another cool name that you’re satisfied with. There are more than countable successful bloggers who use their names as their domain names. But as for me, I won’t go with this option unless the blog is just for my personal opinions and thoughts.

Starting a blog: Step 4 — Develop your blogging strategy

blogging strategy

Before going ahead to set up your blog, you need to develop a strategy. That is, a realistic plan that details how you will run and grow your blog. This is necessary if you really see blogging as business and intend to make money from it.

Here are the important elements you must address as part of your blogging strategy:

Content
Promotion
Tracking
Monetization

Element 1: Content

Content is what really makes a blog. People visit blogs to read content — nothing more. Not to salivate over the design or admire the looks of the owner. Without good content, your blog won’t make headway. So, it’s important to plan how you’ll create and publish content on your blog after setting it up. Here’s how to go about it.

Make a list of the different types of posts you’ll be publishing on your blog. Examples include tutorials and guides, opinion pieces, interviews, news updates related to your niche, statistical findings, and so on.

Decide on the format of content you’ll be publishing. Would be publishing only text? Or you’d be creating videos, too? Or you’d add infographics at intervals?
Plan how frequently you’d be publishing new posts on your blog. For a starter, aim for at least 3 times per week or even more. But bear in mind that the quality — not quantity — of your content is what really matters. Only quality and valuable content can help you grow your blog and achieve your short- and long-term blogging goals.
Do keyword research to figure out exactly what information your target audience are looking to read online. The simplest way to go about this is to use Google Suggest. In addition, visit online forums and check out sections that are related to your niche. Look out for topics that have grown into long discussions and see how you can create blog posts around such topics.
Plan how you will source for the quality information you want include in your blog posts. Your personal knowledge and experience? Or would you interview experts? Or would you just consult authority blogs in your niche and other relevant online resources?
Decide whether you’ll accept guest posts from other bloggers or not.

Element 2: Promotion

Your blog will not attract visitors automatically. No blog will! To attract readers to your blog, you need to proactively promote your blog. There are many ways to do this — from free options to paid options.

You need to decide what channels you’d be using to share your blog posts. Free options include Whatsapp, social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), email marketing (setting up a mailing list), guest blogging, and so on. Paid options include Facebook ads, placing banner or text ads on other blogs, and so on.

More importantly, your promotional efforts must be time-bound. For example, you must decide whether you’ll be sharing your posts on social media every two days or whether you’ll publish one guest post per week.

Element 3: Tracking

This simply entails monitoring your blog’s progress objectively by checking your traffic figures frequently. Tracking your blog helps you to know how many people are visiting it, which blog posts are particularly attracting more readers, and whether your traffic is waxing or waning over time.

Tracking also helps you to know if you’re achieving your goals and whether your blog is ripe for monetization or not.

The best tool to track your blog is Google Analytics (click here to learn how to set it up).

Element 4: Monetization

This doesn’t have to come early if your blog is interest-based. But it doesn’t hurt to decide from the start how you want to make money from your blog. Options include offering freelance services, affiliate marketing, information marketing (your own e-books and e-courses), ad networks (Adsense, etc.), private ads, flipping, etc. The choice is yours but always bear in mind that some options will never work for some niches, as I explained earlier on.

Finally, you should set milestones for your blog. For example, you can say, “I want this blog to have started attracting at least 500 visits per day by the sixth month, and at least 1,500 visits per day by the first year.” Another example is, “By the sixth month of starting this blog, I should have published at least 30 guest posts on other blogs in my niche.”

A good blogging strategy or plan serves as a compass that guides your blogging journey and helps you achieve success earlier than you ever imagined. Develop a realistic one, and you’d be on the track to success.

Starting a blog: Step 5 — Set up your blog

After carefully reading and implementing all of the steps I explained above, your next step is to set up your blog.

I already crafted a detailed post on how to set up your blog, so I won’t bother re-explaining here. You can read the post here: How to Set Up a Blog Self-hosted WordPress Blog in 30 Minutes (or Less)

And that’s it! Now you’ve learned all the most important things you need to know in order to start a successful blog here in Nigeria.

I already published other helpful posts on various topics related to growing your blog. Here are some of them:

Final words

The major reason why most Nigerian bloggers fail and quit within the first year is that they started wrongly. If you’re considering starting a blog and you’ve read this post, then you’ve taken a huge step towards becoming a successful blogger.

And if you really play smartly and by the rules, you’ll share your success story with me after a couple of months 😉

For your convenience, this post has been packaged into a FREE e-book (see picture below). To download the e-book, simply use the download link below.

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Your turn

Do you have any questions or contributions related to the contents of this post, blogging, or making money online in general? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment.