How To Start A Blog In Nigeria And Make Money Online?

The steps for creating a blog in Nigeria and every other country can be relatively the same but the challenges will differ. This special guide is written with keen interest to help Nigerians and other African countries who share the same or similar blog setup challenges.

In Nigeria and many other African countries, there could be challenges with power supply, weak network signal, high cost of internet bundle, and high cost of living thereby, making it difficult for young persons or families to afford a smartphone, laptop, or desktop computer. Aside from the lack of some of the basic infrastructures mentioned in this paragraph, it’s also important to understand that the economic situations in the affected areas have positioned many persons in search of a get-rich-quick scheme, which blogging is never in that category.

As a Nigerian, who has made success in the blogging industry right here in Nigeria, I see myself as someone who is in the right position to share with you helpful tips that will help you start a successful blog in Nigeria or any other African country amidst every possible challenges you may encounter.

How to start a blog in Nigeria and become successful

If you want to start blogging in Nigeria, the following tips can help you start your blogging business in Nigeria and with time build the most visited blogs in the country.

1. Prepare yourself

To become a blogger, you first have to understand what blogging is all about and the possible things required of you to make your first step. Knowing the basics that are needed, will greatly help you prepare for your journey into the blogosphere. Your little research will reveal that you need at least a smartphone, a laptop, or a desktop computer to get started. You will also be able to decide whether you want to start with a free blogging platform or go for paid hosting (self-hosted blog) where you will purchase a custom domain name, and pay for a hosting plan to host your files on a server.

As a beginner, it’s common for most people at your level to start blogging on free platforms like Blogger.com by Google, where their blog files are hosted for free and they have uncustomized unique URLs through which people can access their blogs. But, if you mean business, you should consider WordPress from WordPress.org, which is a free and open-source content management system that requires you to host your files on a server. Interestingly, there are a great number of hosting companies with pocket-friendly hosting plans for beginners to help them start their businesses online without breaking the bank.

2. What are you good at?

It is your blog, but you are not building the blog for yourself.

This is where most people get it wrong in starting a blog, while your interest and what you are good at, can make you put out content easily, it’s important to look beyond what you can easily do or passion.

When you figure out what you are good at, the next thing to do is to find out if there’s an audience for it, you can start by checking out those who are already in the field and how they are performing on search. If you notice that there are not a great number of interested persons in that niche, make a switch to what people are looking for.

Writing about what people are looking for, which is not within the scope of what you already know, will fetch you more money in the long run but requires an extra layer of work as you will have to carry out extensive research to put out valuable and engaging content in that niche for your blog. The good news is that you can also hire experts in that field, to write about the topic you will publish on your blog, they might not even be experts, but they might be people with exceptional ability to dig deep into the internet in their research and come up with helpful content that solves a problem.

3. Learn from experts

Leave aside the huge social media followership and noise, do not also take the opposite to be the genuine and safe ground to pay and learn. At the stage of searching for an expert to learn from? This should be one of the most careful moments of your life, as it can make or mar your blogging journey and no one makes it to the top a frustrated blogger.

When it comes to blogging, some people see it as something they can learn on their own, while some see the need to have an expert over their shoulders to help them point clearly at what needs to be done to achieve great results. YouTube is a great platform to start learning for free, unfortunately, the communication between the instructor (video creator) and the viewers, is nothing to write home about.

Make use of all the free resources available to you, while considering cost, they will help you get started, you will make mistakes, and also learn from your mistakes. However, if you are a time-conscious and result-oriented person, you wouldn’t want to waste all the time trying to figure out how to get things done yourself. As a Nigerian who has had a fair share of the challenges of starting a blog in the country, I clearly understand what it looks like to people who are starting out and in this comprehensive WordPress Blogging Course, you will learn everything from how to start a blog from scratch to finish and tips for building a successful WordPress blog.

4. Start with what you have from where you are

If you have been thinking about starting a blog, the right time to start is now.

Blogging is something you can start with your smartphone, while people complain that they do not have a laptop, and wonder if they can start a blog with a phone, I am here to let you know that it’s something you can do with your smartphone. However, a laptop or desktop computer will give you a wider display and enhance your efficiency, but you can get going with what you have and in the long run, get a better device.

If you have a smartphone in your hands right now, you can start to learn how to blog for free or via a paid course. When you want to start creating your blog, you can use your smartphone for; domain name search and purchase, hosting account setup, WordPress one-click installation, your blog post content writing, and many more. All the platforms you will use for these processes are responsive and mobile-friendly. For easy use, I would recommend an Android smartphone as it gives you the flexibility to easily access downloaded files, rename files, unzip, or zip folders, etc. You can achieve all that with an iPhone but might require some additional steps or the installation of an app.

Alternatively, you can borrow a friend’s laptop, or make use of computer centers/cyber cafes where you can buy time and have access to a computer and the internet. A few hours a day or a week can have a great impact on your blogging journey.

5. Create a problem-solving blog

Having a problem-solving blog is one of the most reliable ways to blogging success. While human problems are uncountable, you can dive into niche-specific blogging and provide helpful content in that field. One of the top secrets of blogging is your ability to narrow your idea or blogging activities to a particular niche or even a sub-niche. Honestly, going into a niche that you know well about or can carry out further research on, will help you to cover great topics, rank better, and even earn more from advertisements since your type of audience can be easily identified by advertisers.

Seeing blogging from a business point of view is very important, but this doesn’t mean you should over-stress on making money without discovering what value your blog readers will get from visiting your blog.

So, what problems do you intend to solve with your blog? To answer this question correctly, take a look around, draw out your pen, and begin to write down some shortcomings in your niche of interest that you intend to solve with your blog. Then, write out the steps you want to take to solve them and write easy-to-follow guides based on your discoveries.

A simple problem to solve with your blog can be the discovery of how there are many comments on different blogs waiting for replies, comments from people who are actively looking for answers to a particular question, or how to fix a problem. You can build a blog to foster communication between you and your readers, to help them out with questions they may have after following your guide. A little dive into different online forums can also reveal popular questions or the most disturbing challenges people face using a product or service. to fast-track this process and enjoy our list of most profitable niches, make sure you enroll in our professional blogging course to set you on the right path and avoid wasted efforts.

6. Promote your blog

Blog promotion is the strategy employed to increase your reach and maximize your revenue. There are various ways to promote a blog, it can be through paid promotion, partnership, referral, or SEO techniques. Some of the blog promotion methods are capital intensive while some can be achieved with little or no money.

To incredibly promote your blog, normalize sharing your posts on social media platforms such as Facebook groups, link insertion in Quora Answers, Medium, Linkedin, and many more. Pay attention to value, and craft means of bringing back visitors to your blog. If you provide helpful content on your blog, your visitors are likely to increase by at least 4% if visitors keep recommending your blog to their friends and families. A great tool to bank traffic for your blog and keep people revisiting is building an email list, or a push notification list.

To effectively build an email list, consider giving out something for free that people can get in exchange for signing up for your newsletter. It can be a free ebook on anything you know that will be of interest to your readers.

7. Monetize your blog

Are you wondering “How do bloggers make money in Nigeria?” In Nigeria and many other African nations, there are various ways to monetize your blog traffic, starting from the most popular ad network called Google Adsense to many others such as Adseterra, and Media.net, However, it is important to note that each ad network has requirements, rules, and regulations that every publisher must abide by, to generate revenue from their blogs.

Aside from getting AdSense approval in Nigeria or joining any other ad network, there are also a great number of ways to make money from your blog in Nigeria and this includes; affiliate marketing, selling your products and services, sponsored posts, link insertions, and many more.

To monetize your blog through ad networks, review the ad network of interest, develop your blog to fit into their terms, write great blog posts that are well optimized for search engines, generate the minimum required traffic, and keep it constant for at least 3 months, submit your blog for approval. After a successful approval, you will start displaying ads on your blog.

The simple truth remains that not every blog gets approval, but if you keep to the terms and eligibility criteria, you can increase your chances of getting approved to display ads.

FAQs

Conclusion

Blogging isn’t a get-rich-quick business model, but it is a skill everyone should consider, there are a great number of things to blog about, and there’s no way you will run out of things to talk about. You can set up a small blog about yourself, for someone else, for your small business, or even teach others how to create a blog the right way. So, if you are in Nigeria, or any other part of the world with various challenges in starting up a business online, I would like to know that this piece of content helps you get started now without further delays.

If you have questions about setting up a successful blog in a challenged country, remember that the comment box below is open, and I will be more than glad to answer your questions.