How To Start A Blog And Make Money In Canada [FREE Course] 

Step 1:  Assess yourself 

Assessing yourself is the first step in starting a successful blog in Canada. 

It will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses, and determine when to seek help.

As a beginner, assessing yourself means two things — your passion, ability, and capacity.

a. Passion 

A blog is a platform where you express your passion or interest to your target audience. Your passion or interest can be in any of the following niches:

Finance 
Economy 
Career
Education 
Health
Entertainment 
Sports
Etc. 

But due to the monetary potential of blogging, many bloggers prioritize money over passion.

Today we see many blogs saturated with adverts and sale impulses instead of quality content.

If you want to last long in the blogging journey, you must identify your passion/interest and make it the focus of your blog.

Moreover, when you blog based on your passion or interest, you will find it easier to create high-quality content that appeals to your audience.

b. Ability & capacity 

You need to know your ability and capacity in web designing when looking to create a blog.

Based on your ability, you can decide whether to do it yourself or hire a web designer. 

Doing it yourself means you will handle the entire blog design process yourself, saving money along the way. 

You can do so with the help of guides like this and by watching YouTube videos.

However, hiring a web designer will provide you with a standard and professional blog that will cost you $$$. 

If you have little or no confidence in handling the process, I suggest you hire a web designer. 

But to reduce ongoing costs, you need to acquire some basic design skills along the way because web design is an endless process. You need to add, remove or change some things as your blog grows.

That being said, your capacity as a blogger will depend on the device you have and your budget.  

Creating a responsive blog requires access to a desktop or laptop. You can use your tablet or smartphone to blog after the design.

But if you have web design skills but do not have a device, the best you can do to reduce cost is to:

borrow a device 
use a cafe, or 
delegate some of the tasks to a professional web developer. 

When considering your capacity, you also need to determine whether to go with a paid or free blog.

A paid blog refers to a blog with customized domain name and hosting services.
A free blog is a blog with a subdomain name and limited hosting services.

Of course, choosing between the two will depend on your budget or intention of creating a blog.

If you are on a low budget or just looking to get some basic blogging experience, you can start with a free blog and upgrade later. 

But one thing to bear in mind is that a free blog has many limitations compared to a paid blog. More on this later.

Step 2: Choose your domain name

Now that you have assessed yourself, the next thing is to determine your domain name. 

What is a domain name?

Domain name is the address to the homepage of your blog. 

For example, mywealthexperience.com is the domain name of this blog. 

Your domain name could be your name or brand name. 

Since your domain name is the address to your blog, it is important to make it:

Unique
Short and memorable 
Descriptive
Easy to spell and pronounce 

The goal is to make it easier for visitors to identify your blog. As such, your domain name should not contain numbers, hyphens, and spelling errors.

That being said, let us explore the various types of domains to help coin your domain name properly.

Types of domains

There are different types of domains but the following are the major ones:  

Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD): This identifies general domains that are not specific to particular countries or groups. Examples include .com, .net, .org, .biz and .info. While these constitute the common types of domains, .com is the most popular among them.
Country Code Top-Level Domains (ccTLD): This identifies with a particular country. For example, the domain name “Blogging.ca” means the blog is based in Canada.  
Internationalized Country Code Top-Level Domains (IDN ccTLD): This identifies countries that use non-Latin words such as the Chinese language.

A detailed explanation of domains has been provided by Anna Fitzgerald on HubSpot. 

As a Canadian blogger, you can choose a generic domain (.com) if you want to target an international audience or go for a country domain (.ca) if you want to focus on Canadians only.

How to choose a domain name 

If you are looking to boost your personality through blogging, you may want to use your name as your domain name.

But if you want to build a brand, you should consider a brand-based domain name instead. 

Just as with traditional business models, you can register a new domain name or buy an existing one. 

Registering a new domain name will allow you to choose your own name and domain type. The main disadvantage is that you will have to build everything from scratch yourself.

On the other hand, you can decide to buy an existing domain name that has already built authority and has higher visibility. 

That way, your blog posts will be easily recognized by search engines and possibly rank higher compared to a new domain name.

Step 3: Register your domain name and host it  

If you set out to build your domain name from scratch, the next step is to register your domain name and host it. 

By registering your domain name, you unlock the door to your address. Whenever someone types your domain name on their browser, it will take them to your blog.

Hosting, on the other hand, is a premium service offered by hosting companies to help your site run smoothly. 

Among other benefits, the hosting provider you choose will determine your blog: 

loading speed
uptime (how often your website is accessible online)
security 
storage

Most hosting providers will allow you to register your domain name and host it with them.

There are dozens of hosting providers out there, including:: 

Bluehost
Hostinger
DreamHost 
GoDaddy 
SiteGround 

However, Bluehost stands out as the overall best even though it is pricey. I have been using Bluehost for over 5 years and I never had a day to regret it. 

So I recommend that you register your domain name and host it with Bluehost to avoid technical issues in the long run. 

How to register and host a blog on Bluehost 

The following is a step-by-step process on how to register and host your blog on Bluehost:

a. Go to the Bluehost website 

Visit the Bluehost website using this link. 

Click on the “Get Started” button or “WordPress Hosting” below the button as shown in the following image:

b. Choose a plan

Upon clicking the “Get Started” button, you will land on the pricing page as shown below:

As you can see, Bluehost has four hosting plans all of which provide a free domain name for 1 year.

Bear in mind that there will be taxes on any of the plans you choose.

If you want to create a personal blog like this, the basic plan should be okay for you. 

Ultimately, the plan you choose would depend on your needs and blog purpose.

c. Create a domain name

After selecting your plan, the next step is to register your domain name.

You have two options there — register a new domain name or use an existing one.

d. Create an account 

The next thing is to create your Bluehost account and provide payment information.

You can make a payment using your credit card or PayPal account.

Do not forget to unselect all the products under “Product Extras”. You can operate safely without them. 

But if you have the bucks to spare, you can add them for additional comfort. 

Taxes aside, you will spend a discounted $35.40 to register and run your blog with Bluehost in the first year without those extras. 

You can budget at least $45 to cover everything plus taxes.

For renewal, Bluehost will charge you a total of $85.93 per year excluding taxes. 

This renewal cost is determined by adding a $65.94 annual fee for hosting and a $19.99 annual fee for a domain name. The free domain name offer lasts for your first year only.

If you choose a different plan other than the basic plan, visit the Bluehost renewal pricing page to know how much it will cost to renew your hosting.  

The domain name’s annual price remains $19.99 for all plans. 

💡Note: Bluehost runs promos frequently. So the current pricing you see at their website now may not be the same as of the time of writing this course.

Step 4: Design and set up your blog 

Upon providing your personal details and making payments, your Bluehost account will be created and you will be required to log in to create your blog. 

If you need any help in the design process, you can seek help after clicking the “Create your Website” button.

The next step is to choose the primary purpose of your site out of the following options: 

Blog
Store
Business 
Portfolio/Resume
Other (choose from the drop-down search button)

In this case, you should select Blog.

After that, you will be required to choose a  website builder also known as a content management system (CMS).

There are different website builders that help in designing and managing blogs. This includes:

WordPress
Shopify
Wix 
Google Sites

But WordPress stands out among the best and most popular due to its ease of use, free themes, and robust collections of free plugins.

Fortunately, all Bluehost plans provide access to WordPress.

But as you can see below, there are two WordPress builders to choose from — WordPress and Bluehost Website Builder.

The standard WordPress builder has unlimited customization while the Bluehost Website Builder has limited customization even though it makes the design process faster and easier.

As such, I recommend you choose the WordPress website builder to enjoy limitless customization.

The next thing is to describe your blog by selecting from the drop-down options.

Choose a theme

Choose your favorite theme from the available options. There are free and paid themes. However, a free theme is enough for a start. 

Some of the best themes include Kadence, GeneratePress, Astra, Elegant, and OceanWP. 

When selecting a theme, consider a responsive and mobile-friendly theme that shows your content perfectly on desktop, tablet, and mobile.

You should customize the theme to your taste by adding your colours, logo, and favicon. You should also replace all the details that come with the theme using your own details.  

After selecting a theme, you will be redirected to the homepage of your Bluehost dashboard and be required to log in to your WordPress account.

Log in to WordPress

That is your blog’s backend, where you will be posting content and managing the entire outlook of your blog. 

Install plugins 

The first thing to do when you log in to your backend (provided you did not skip any of the previous stages), is to install plugins.

Plugins simplify and automate design and content management processes that would otherwise require coding skills.    

To install plugins, you need to locate the “Plugins” section and click on “Add new” as shown in the attached image. 

You can search for plugins or upload them from your device.

Below are the major plugins you need to install before you start publishing content: 

Gutenberg Blocks: For writing blog posts and creating pages. Learn how to set it up on this YouTube video.
Yoast: For optimizing your post for search engines and correcting grammar. Learn how to set it up on this YouTube video.
Site Skit by Google: For accessing your blog performance and monetization data in one dashboard. Learn how to set it up on this YouTube video.
JetPack: For security
Table of contents: For displaying a table of contents on all your blog posts. 

Create pages

The next thing to do after installing plugins is to create pages by clicking on the “Add New” section under “Pages“.

The following are the major pages you need to create: 

Home
About 
Contact 
Privacy Policy  
Disclaimer 
Author Biography
Blog or Posts 

You should visit your competitors’ sites to see how these pages are structured or watch YouTube videos for guidance.

How to Start a Blog for Free in Canada

As noted at the beginning of this chapter, you can start a blog for free and upgrade when you have the capacity or mastered the basics.

But before you proceed, it is important to know the main drawbacks of free blogs:

Hardly rank on the top pages of search engines 
Limited customer support 
Limited features that enhance security, speed, and performance 
Limited control of your site
Automatic display of ads by your website builder without sharing the proceeds with you. 

That being said, the process of creating a free blog is related in many ways to the above process of creating a paid blog.

The major difference is that you do not need to buy a custom domain name and pay for a hosting service when creating a free blog. 

All you need is to sign up with a free website builder and start designing your blog. 

There are different free website builders out there that cater to different needs — WordPress, Blogger, Wix, Weebly, and so on. For blogging, WordPress stands out among the rest.

To create a free blog on WordPress, you need to follow the steps below:

Visit WordPress 

Go to the WordPress website and click on the “Get started” button

Sign up

Enter your email and password or sign up using your Google or Apple account

Choose a domain name

Enter the name of your preferred domain name in the search box. 

If the domain name is available, you will be required to choose the domain type. 

Since you are creating a free blog, you should select a subdomain (the domain that ends with .wordpress.com) as shown below:

Upon selecting the free plan, you will be redirected to the WordPress pricing page where you will compare the free plan with paid plans. 

Below are the features of the WordPress free plan: 

Beautiful themes and patterns
Unlimited pages
Unlimited users
Time machine for post edits
Built-in newsletters & RSS
Brute-force protection
Smart redirects
Online forever
10% transaction fee for payments
Paid subscribers
Visitor stats
Spam protection with Akismet
Limited automatic shares in social media
Contact form
1GB storage 

If you are comfortable with these features, click on the “Start with Free” button to begin designing your blog. 

Set your goals

The design process starts with selecting the goal of your blog. 

You can select more than one goal ranging from: 

Write and Publish
Sell online
Promote my website or business
Import my existing website content
Get a website built quickly 
Other

For blogging, you should click on Write and Publish as the goal of your blog. 

Provide your blog name

The next step is to provide the name of your blog which will appear on top of your home page. 

If you have a tagline (slogan), you can provide it to proceed to the next step. 

Choose your theme and customize it

You can now choose a theme and customize it to your taste.

Choose a theme that suits your website type. Since you are creating a blog for publishing articles, you should select from the following range: 

Some of the best free themes for blogging include Bitacora and Remote.

You can view each of the available themes to see how they look on a desktop, tablet, and mobile phone.

Once you find a theme that suits your taste, select and customize it to make your blog unique.

Start writing or skip

When you are done customizing your theme, the WordPress website builder will ask you to start writing or skip. 

You should skip writing for now until you are done setting up your backend.

Launch your blog

You are now one step away from taking your blog live. Just click on the “Launch your site” button to make your dream a reality.

Let me be the second to say congratulations! You are now a blog owner. But not without setting up your backend. 

Just before you start publishing content, you should add relevant plugins and pages by clicking on “Add New” on the respective section on your backend. See below:

Relevant Plugins 

Gutenberg Blocks: For writing blog posts and creating pages. Learn how to set it up on this YouTube video.
Yoast: For optimizing your post for search engines and correcting grammar. Learn how to set it up on this YouTube video.
Site Skit by Google: For accessing your blog performance and monetization data in one dashboard. Learn how to set it up on this YouTube video.
JetPack: For security
Table of contents: For displaying a table of contents on all your blog posts. 

Relevant Pages

About Us or Me
Contact
Privacy Policy  
Disclaimer 
Author Biography
Blog or Posts 

You can visit your competitors’ sites to see how these pages are structured or watch YouTube videos for guidance.

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