how to start a blog in nigeria

How To Start A Blog In Nigeria & Make Money

Last updated on September 4th, 2020 at 07:55 pm

“You want to know how to start a blog in Nigeria and make money? “

You are in the right place. How to start a blog in Nigeria and make money as well isn’t a trend that is going down, well this trend and also this article isn’t just for Nigeria. You would agree with me that creating a blog in Nigeria or wherever you are and making money as well is good.

I’ll be glad to walk you through this process.

Starting your own blog should not be anything complicated or even expensive. In fact, more and more people are creating a WordPress blog every day. It seems that almost every person or business today has a blog. That is not a surprising sequel to the buzz of digital marketing trends.

But if you are like most people, you certainly do not know how to make a blog.

Starting a blog can truly be intimidating if you do not have the necessary technical skills.

Again, the number of options available for starting a blog can be downright confusing for newbies, unfortunately, there are lots of crap online from lazy bloggers who only want to make a sale or drive traffic to their blogs.

The good news is that the free step by step guide I have written here should remove any confusion of the process and only requires rudimentary computer skills. So whether you are a young teenager or even as old as my grandmother, you can have your working blog in less than 20 minutes.

Why Start A Blog Today?

Creating your blog should not be complicated or expensive. In fact, the whole process comes down to these four steps only:

How to start a blog in four steps

  1. Choose a name for your blog
  2. Install your blog (takes about 5-10 minutes)
  3. Customize the design and layout of your blog
  4. Write your first blog!

The Internet is expanding with growth now. There are more users than ever. This increased growth means more potential readers for your blog. In short, there is no better time than now to create a WordPress blog. You are cheating yourself and hurting your business if you aren’t blogging.

By starting a blog you can expect the following benefits :

  1. Income

Blogging can be very lucrative if it’s done right. The best bloggers in the world obviously are big boys, but even a part-time blogger in Nigeria can hope to make money if things are done right.

  1. Recognition

No, you will probably have no paparazzi following you because of your last blog. But a successful blog can earn you a lot of recognition in your field. Many bloggers are recognized as experts only because of their blogs.

  1. It’s fun!

In addition to more tangible benefits such as resume development and income, blogging is a great way to share your ideas with like-minded people, nothing brings more fulfilment to me than reading a reply of how my blog post was helpful.

Free Blog Course

I had terrible experiences starting out as a blogger. I was one of those naive folks who hired a developer to design a blog for them, this guy ripped and milked me dry! Truth is: You do not need to pay a developer to have a blog.

I can understand if you are busy, or you need it for your business and do not have the time to do so, it makes sense to hire someone to do that. You can hire me here.

I was broke when starting my blogging journey, I remember I got on my Google and I searched “how to start a blog in Nigeria” and there was nothing reasonable to guide me. I can relate with people like me – I do not wish anyone today go through the same pain I had to go through, so I took the responsibility of teaching newbies.

Goodness! Only if I had this opportunity back then.

Also If you get bored of reading long articles, this one is pretty a long read, my free blog course can be of help. A 15 video in-depth tutorial teaching you every step needed to design and monetize a WordPress Blog.

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You can also continue with this guide – unfortunately I cannot type out everything I have put together in the course – that can be too long. This guide is will point you definitely in the right direction.

3 Tips To Become A Successful Blogger

  1. Set up your blog

You have learned exactly how to start a blog in Nigeria with the WordPress blog platform that can be used from any computer, tablet or smartphone. WordPress is the most popular blogging platform in the world. How can one be a successful blogger if you don’t start? funny?

  1. Have a passion for your subject

What is a blog? The foundation of blogging is hinged on sharing your knowledge with the world. Choosing a topic that fascinates you greatly facilitates the process of starting a successful blog.

  1. Learn from others

I am not ashamed to admit that during my moments of learning how to start a blog in Nigeria, I made tons of mistakes. This is where it gets golden for you, you should never make the mistakes I made rather you should benefit from my wealth of experience. That is very important in scaling success.

Why Should You Trust This Guide?

Are you wondering if you are in safe hands?

Yes?, relax!

I am Daps, I will be your guide on this journey for creating a successful blog. I have been creating blogs and websites since 2014. Since then, I have launched several personal blogs and helped hundreds of others to do the same. I have helped tons of people and businesses to design websites all over the world. You can read more about me in the “About” page.

Meanwhile, you can also read my 20 best blogging tips for beginners. It will come in handy.

How To Start A Blog In Nigeria in 2019

There are just three things you need to create a WordPress blog:

  1. A domain name idea (this usually is the name intended of your blog i.e dapsdigital.com)
  2. A web hosting account (this is the server upon which the blog is built to make it visible on the www)
  3. Your undivided attention for just 30 minutes.

Yes, you read it right. You can start a blog from scratch in less than 30 minutes, as a matter of fact, I can get one done in 5 minutes, it can be that easy and I will walk you through the whole process, step by step.

This guide  will cover:

  • How to Register a Domain Name for Free
  • How to Choose the Best yet Cheapest Web Hosting
  • How to Install WordPress
  • How to Install a Beautiful Theme
  • How to Publish Your First Blog Post

Register for my Blog Mastery Course to continue learning these:

  • How to Customize WordPress with Plugins
  • How to Add a Contact Form
  • How to Setup Google Analytics Tracking and All Initial WordPress Set-Up.
  • How to Optimize Your Website for SEO
  • Monetization Strategies For Your Blog
  • Resources to Learn and Master WordPress

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4 simple steps to create a WordPress Blog

Step 1. Setup

The biggest mistake newbies make when creating a blog is choosing the wrong blogging platform. Luckily you’re here, so you won’t be making this mistake.?

For 95% of users, it makes more sense to use a self-hosted WordPress (WordPress.org). Why? Because it is free to use, you can install plugins, customize your site design, and most importantly make money from your site without any restrictions.

Now you might have probably heard that WordPress is free.

You might also be wondering why is it free? Is there something hidden?

Nothing is hidden. It’s free because you have to do all the setup and hosting yourself.

In simple term, you need a domain name and web hosting.

The problems of Free Blogs

As a blogger, you can make a free blog on a variety of sites (Wix, Tumblr, Blogger, WordPress, etc). This seems like a good idea in theory, but there are huge disadvantages to using a free blog site :

Problem # 1: “Free” is not free”

While this may seem odd, free blog sites exist to generate revenue for the company by offering you the “free” blog. They do not give you a blog space because they love you. On the contrary, they make money thanks to the time and hard work invested in writing on your blog. This is usually done in two ways:

They market your advertising space
The free blog sites will insert advertisements on your blog without your permission. You have absolutely no control over the advertisements displayed on your blog and you will not receive a dime from the revenue generated by this advertising space.

They sell you “improvements”
Registering on any of these services can be free, but you will soon find that to make important changes to your blog, you will have to pay. Want to change the design of your blog? $50. Do you want your own domain name? $20 a year.

Problem # 2: No benefit

The purpose of free blog sites is to generate money for the company offering the blog space, not completely for you. This means that you are not allowed to sell products or services through your free blog.
In addition, the company realizes all its profit by marketing the advertising space on your blog. As I’ve discussed in the Free Blog Mastery Starter Course, selling advertising space is a major source of revenue for a majority of blogs, and it’s absolutely not possible with a free blog.

Problem # 3: No control

When you make your blog on a free website, you are just building a house on someone else’s land. Realistically, the owner of the land is the owner of the house. If they decide to shut you down for any reason, then there is absolutely nothing you can do because you do not really own the blog.

To make matters worse, free blog sites do not provide access to a full range of features you need to become a blogger. I’ll be sharing in some series of posts loads of interesting tips and tricks to use to optimize your blog. Unfortunately, many of these things simply can not be done on a free blog site.

Problem # 4: Low security

The reality is that sites are sometimes hacked. Yes, it happens even to new and small blogs. If this happens to you and you use a free blog provider, the hacker can steal your domain name; which means that you will lose your site and will never be able to recover it.

In short, I recommend staying far away, far from free blog sites. It’s not worth the headache or risk, no matter what kind of blog you intend to start, rather learn how to start a blog in Nigeria and make money the right way.

The good news is that paying for your own blog avoids all these problems and is not expensive. In fact, it’s cheaper than a “free” blog; because there are no hidden fees.

A domain name typically costs $12.99 / year, while a web hosting normally costs $7.99 / month.

Another good news s that iPage is giving out an unusual offer of $1.99/month and a free domain name FREE for a year. That is my definition of FREE if I have to compare features and the pricing.

affiliate_link
If you can still read this then this offer is still available for you to take advantage of.

iPage is one of the oldest web hosting companies, started in 1998 (that’s before Google). They are also one of the largest brand names when it comes to WordPress hosting because they host millions of websites including all my blogs.

Bait Alert!

Do not fall for this bait!

All those crappy local hosting companies in Nigeria offering hosting services as low as ₦6k for a year is not worth the investment, as a blogger and web developer for many years of working for other people, it has never worked for serious people. The hosting capacity is always very low, immediately your blogs start attracting a few traffic, you run out of bandwidth and hence you never stop upgrading your package and eventually waste more money over time.

Consider those crappy hosts if you want to start a blog in Nigeria just for journalling and you don’t want your site to blow – at the sight of small traffic, your site will go down. Trust me those visitors won’t come back.

On top of all this, iPage to me has offered the best at the cheapest over the years. Unlimited  Web hosting and bandwidth, unlimited storage capacity, FREE domain, WordPress Installation with a click of a button. I always love to get value for my money.

Another hosting I strongly recommend is Bluehost, however, it is a little more on the high side. I can recommend it because I have used it before and most pro bloggers recommend it as well. Currently, Bluehost goes for $3.95/month. If you have a budget that can accommodate this, why not?

NOTE: At Daps’ Digital we believe in transparency. If you sign up with iPage using our referral link, we will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you (in fact, you will save money by getting a free domain). We would get this commission for recommending any WordPress hosting company, but we only recommend products that we use personally, for our clients over the years and believe will add value to our readers.

All you have to do is visit iPage and click the GET STARTED NOW button

Pro Tip: The worse you can do to yourself as a newbie learning how to start a blog in Nigeria is to compromise on hosting quality. It will be a huge distraction. You need to worry much on writing quality content and driving traffic to your blog. After working so hard, your blog keeps going down at intervals and your readers go away to somewhere else, never to return. You have lost trust and credibility.

ipage web hosting

Upon getting started, you will be asked to enter the domain name for your website/blog on a new screen.

free domain registration

You would be required to put in an unused domain name, you have to search till you get one that is available and then hit the CHOOSE MY TERMS BUTTON.

I always recommend going with the 36-month plan because that’s the best value. Having a 3-year hosting plan for less than $72 equivalent of ₦26k+ as at today is massive savings on the long run. How to start a blog in Nigeria and make money just got easier.

ipage hosting payment customizaion-min

On the next screen, you will see optional extras that you can purchase that Ipage added for you. It’s entirely up to you whether or not you purchase these, but I generally, don’t recommend purchasing them right away. You can always add them later on if you decide that you need those services.

ipage customization plan

So you want to verify by the right-hand side that your initial amount remains the same before you continue

ipage order

Lastly, you will need to add your account information and finalize the package info to activate your account.

ipage purchase now

Pro Tips:

  • I advise you ensure that the registered name on the account matches the one on the card or PayPal details, iPage is highly security conscious, especially if you are using a Nigerian IP address – they love to deal with real humans.
  • Immediately you complete the purchase, the process will be suspended and reviewed. You should get an email from Ipage within few minutes either to confirm payment success or asking you to make some verification.
  • You may require to go through a verification process before your account is active, you would receive an email asking you to provide a Government-issued ID – a drivers license, National ID, Voters Card, International Passport should do the trick.

You can leave me a comment or send an email to [email protected] if you have an issue regarding activating your iPage account, I will be glad to be of assistance, starting a blog in Nigeria can be a little more complex because of the high level of fraud around here, so sad.

Step 2. Install WordPress

Once your iPage account is live, you will get an email from iPage with your details. You would have the opportunity to set a password and security question. After that, you would have access to the CPanel where you can install WordPress. There is a visible WordPress icon as highlighted below

In the cPanel, you will see lots of small icons for different services and features. This can be a little overwhelming, so ignore 95% of them because you will never need to use any of them.

cpanel install wordpress

You would be redirected to iPage Mojo Marketplace where you would select the domain you just registered and push the NEXT button.

mojo marketplace

After that, you need to enter your Site Name, username, and a password for your site

After this is done, you’ll get a WordPress installation in progress screen, this should not last for more than a minute.

wordpress installing-

After installation, you will get a link to your website or blog and also an admin link and details to access the backend.

Again, once a while the installation fails for different reasons, sometimes due to outdated PHP, do not panic, just visit the iPage live support, and their support will update your PHP and install WordPress for you.

Your WordPress blog URL should be like this: www.yourdomain.com

While your admin URL should be like this: www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin

Step 3. Select Your WordPress Theme

The default theme from WordPress for your blog is usually not good enough. This is what WordPress 19 default theme looks like:

how to start a create in nigeria

There are thousands of pre-made WordPress themes that you can install on your site. Some of them are free, while others are paid.

You can change your theme by going to your WordPress dashboard and clicking on Appearance » Themes.

Go ahead and click on the Add New button.

On the next screen, you will able to search from 7200+ free WordPress themes that are available in the official WordPress.org themes directory. You can easily sort by popular, latest, featured, as well as other feature filters (i.e industry, layout, etc).

how to start a blog

Hover around any of the themes to preview before installing – this way you know exactly what your blog will look like upon installing.

What you need to look for in theme is design, colours, typography, and other elements.

The best tip to select the perfect WordPress theme is to always ensure simplicity in theme design. It helps you keep things clean and clear while you offer a good experience to your users.

When you find the theme that you like, simply point your mouse to it, and it will show the Install button. Click on it and wait for the theme to be installed. Then, the install button will be replaced with an Activate button. You need to click on it to Activate the theme.

Depending on the theme you select there might still be other customizations that might be needed to make it look exactly like the demo, if there are any then there would be instructions or look around for theme documentation to guide you.

Step 4. Publish Your First Post

To write and publish your first blog post, click on the Posts » Add New menu in your WordPress dashboard.

You will see an editor area where you can easily write your first blog post.

publish wordpress blog post

You can easily follow through the tutorial tour or skip it if you are familiar with the interface and then start typing or copy and paste any written article into the word space.

Finally, you would require to publish an article for it to go live. You may as well save or even schedule the post to deliver at a later date.

Yippie! Your first post will be live immediately.?

To learn more about WordPress and how to start a blog in Nigeria, some initial setup every blogger make, adding plugins, having social shares, tracking visitors stats of your blog, submitting your blog to Google for regular crawling and indexing, then you should take my Free Blog Mastery Course, I have 14 videos waiting for you teaching you step-by-step how to get all these done.

Thanks for your time

All the best in your blogging endeavours

Feel free to ask questions or drop a comment below, I will try my best to reply to all comments.

Cheers.