Wondering how to start a blog business in Kenya and earn
online at the comfort of your bed?
Are you tired of sleeping on your writing talent and want to
explore the doors that might open through blogging?
Or, is unemployment sucking life out of you and you’d
literally do anything to make ends meet?
Well, starting a blog business in Kenya might just be the
life-changing decision you need. It’s so darn simple, it requires very little
capital and you can work from anywhere.
Yet honestly, it needs a good amount of smart and hard work.
I’m not gonna lie that you can launch a blog today and start making good money
tomorrow. Anybody who promises you that is the Cabinet Secretary in the
Ministry of Deceit.
But, what I can promise you, just like in any other normal
legal business, a journey of a thousand miles starts with one-step. If you want
to start and grow a successful blog in Kenya, you must
- Be
ready to work hard
- Be
passionate or motivated
- Ceaselessly
learn every day
- Invest
in your blog
I started blogging in 2015 while a second-year student in
university and over the years, I have learned pretty much about the blogging
business model. It is unique and must be approached with dexterity.
In this article, I will take you through the first steps of
successful blogging in Kenya. It is one thing to start a blog; it is another to
launch a roaring blog that earns bigtime.
Are you ready?
Let’s do this!
Introduction
Before anything, I need you to dispel the notion that
blogging is a quick online money-making venture. Because if you don’t, you are
just about to have your heart broken into ten times more pieces than your ex
left you with.
Blogging is a business; a hustle where sweat matters, at
least for the first couple of years. Thereafter you can afford to be smart.
But, for the start, you must work your gluts off in order to earn money online.
Secondly, blogging as a Kenyan can follow two broad lines:
blogging for Kenyans or blogging for the world. Each has its own pros and cons.
One clear difference though is that blogging using none
local keywords is very competitive while blogging using local keywords limits
your audience. With time, you’ll learn how to strike a balance.
Lastly, I’d like you to put the number 6 in your mind.
What does 6 stand for? I’m glad you asked. I love students
like you.
6 is the average number of months it takes for a solo
blogging newbie to get his first paycheck.
Back in 2015, I read that statement somewhere. I thought it
was a bluff so; I laughed it off and said I will make money in 2 months at
most. Well, I laughed again 8 months later while withdrawing my first google
pay.
You can earn earlier, by the way, I don’t like crushing
people’s hopes. But if you lack motivation and don’t have energy to persevere,
you won’t even get to the 6th month. 90% of bloggers give up within the
first three months.
I think you are now ready to start.
Critical and Creative Thinking
Did you note the part where I said ‘life-changing decision”?
I meant every word of it. Blogging might transform your life. That’s why you
need to think deeply about it just like you did in high school when choosing
your career path.
You can blog about the endless topics in the universe, but
to succeed in blogging and really earn money online, you’ve gotta narrow down
to a few or one topic. Brainstorming involves the following steps.
Choosing a niche
This is probably the most integral step for securing a
successful blogging business in Kenya. Why do I say so? Consider this.
In a single day, 15000 websites are created and over 10
million blog posts are published. Unless you write helpful content of high
quality, you cannot stay relevant in such an avalanche. The best way to do this
is to focus on one niche and be a master in it.
A niche refers to a specific target market. For instance,
this website targets two complementary niches, university students and youths.
Whenever I write for Kampusville, I think of these two groups of people.
Likewise, you need to think about your target audience. Who
will read your content and feel grateful? Define your niche and make it as
specific as possible. The more specific you are, the lesser the competition.
To do this correctly, two independent strategies exist.
First, you can choose to blog on something that you are passionate about.
Passion is essential in blogging. Imagine the number of hours you’ll spend
seated writing and ask yourself, ‘will I enjoy writing about this topic?’
Second, you can do some good research on profitable niches
then select one and dive in.
Personally, I’d advise you to use neither. Rather, apply
both. Following passion alone will obviously allow you to enjoy the blogging
journey. However, if you don’t start making money anytime soon, you will lose
the spirit and give up.
On the other hand, if you blog on a topic based on its
profitability, you might lack the energy and wit to write helpful content
besides hating your job.
- Make
a list of 10 topics you like
- Research
on ‘profitable niches’
- Relate
your passion niches with profitable niches and try to settle on a balanced
niche
Brainstorm your brand name.
Time to engage your creative muscles and discover the
wittiest brand name ever. What catchy name would you like to give your baby?
Choosing a good brand name is essential. You might never
have a chance to change it in the future. Just imagine if Nike or Coca Cola
changed their brand names today, wouldn’t it be devastating to their
businesses?
So it’s wise to invest in a good brand name and besides, it
will be crucial in our next step.
A good brand name should be
- Unique
and distinctive
- Suggestive
and Reflect your niche
- Simple,
short, and/or easy to pronounce
- Positive
- Memorable
- Protectable
with no legal regulatory restriction
The last part only means in the future, if your brand
becomes a big deal, you can trademark it without anybody suing you. Consider
searching your name online for potential similarities with existing entities
before settling on one
But, before you settle on your brand name consider the
following step
Purchase a domain name
A domain name is simply the internet address that will be
used by people to access your articles. My domain, for instance, is
kampusville.com and as you can see, the link you used to access this article
starts with that domain name.
When buying a domain name, you will notice that not all
domain names can be bought. Why? Because someone else beat you to them.
You might spend a whole day brainstorming the name for your
brand only to find out later that its domain name is unavailable.
That’s why you should brainstorm while checking the
availability of your domain name. But how can you do this research?
Domain names are registered or purchased through registry
companies, which in most cases are also hosting companies.
Some internationally acclaimed hosting companies include
Bluehost, HostGator, Namecheap, and GoDaddy while some top Kenyan registrars
include KenyaWebExperts, Sasahost, and Truehost.
Using any of these registrars, access the domain registration
dashboard and type in your chosen brand name followed by a domain extension of
your choice.
Hold on! What’s a domain extension and how do you choose
one?
A domain extension defines the classification of your domain
by global location or sector.
There are about 5 types of domains
- Top-Level
Domain: Global Site
- Country
code TLD: Country Specific Site
- Generic
TLD: Purpose
- Second
Level
- Third
Level
In most cases, the first two TLD and cc TLD are the best to
choose from especially for newbies. The only difference between the two is if
you want to target the whole world or your country.
To target the entire world, choose .com, .net, .biz, or
.org. These domains can be bought from any registrars in the world. To target
Kenyan audience, choose .co.ke or .ke. Country-based domains are mostly availed
by local registrars, in this case, KenyaWebExperts, and the likes.
If you discover your preferred domain name is already taken,
play around with the many extensions and choose what is available, and suits
your business. Or alter your brand name.
Once you settle on one, purchase it. The average cost of
domain names ranges from Ksh1,000 to Ksh1,500 annually while others can be much
more expensive.
Registrars, however, bundle the domain registration with
hosting packages, which reduces the total cost further. Which is why you should
consider the following step before concluding on your domain purchase
Choosing Hosting Services.
This step can and should be done together with the previous
step if you want to save on costs. Some registrars even offer a free domain
name registration for the first year.
But first of all, what is hosting?
Hosting is the service of hiring storage for your website
content at a fee. The same way you pay rent to reside at a rental.
You can pay annually or monthly but the former option is
always cheaper in the end. Therefore, you should consider raising some good
capital to start with.
However, if you have a small budget, don’t despair, I got
you. With as little as 3100, you can register a domain and get quality hosting
for your first year through KenyaWebExperts.
I normally advise newbies to start out small and only
upgrade to more expensive hosting services when their websites start generating
good income. Considering that more than 90% of new bloggers give up within the
first 3 months, you wouldn’t want to invest a leg on something you are not sure
of.
Since hosting allows your site to be accessed from anywhere
in the world, choosing the right hosting is crucial. The main types of hosting
include
- Shared
Hosting: Many websites located in one server
- Cloud
Hosting; Many servers working together to act as on server which houses
your site among others
- Virtual
Private Server Hosting: Single physical server acting like multiple
servers; each website with own slot
- Dedicated
Hosting: One entire physical server for your website
Each of these types of hosting has its own pros and cons.
Shared hosting is the cheapest though it has the least capabilities while
dedicated hosting is the most expensive and most powerful.
For a new blog, however, shared hosting is more than enough.
One of the cheapest packages I’d recommend is the Basic Plan offered
by KenyaWebExperts which costs 2100 for one year.
Packages offered by the big American hosting companies are
relatively more expensive although they have superior capabilities.
Take your time to settle on one package but I honestly
advise you to select the cheapest quality hosting service. You can always
upgrade with time as you grow.
Launch your Website
A brand name, check. A registered domain name, check. A
hosting package, check. If you’re still here with me, we are getting to the fun
stuff.
By the time you are done with this, your website will be up
and roaring and you will feel like a tiny techie genius, haha! You are now a
webmaster or webmistress (for the sake of peace and harmony).
Launching your website might seem a little intimidating for
a complete armature but I can’t emphasis how easy it is, especially if you’ve
been using basic computer software, the internet, and social media.
To begin with, there are two main ways of building a site.
First, codding a site from scratch. This involves writing
actual code using software development applications, integrating them with
hosting frameworks, launching sites and maintaining code for optimum
performance
Truly, this is a very tedious job and is only reserved for
software engineers, coding professionals, and enthusiasts, none of which you
belong I guess.
The other way is using content management systems (CMS)
which enable you to launch websites without any codding and worry of
maintenance. These programs have been engineered to build the site for you and
your only darn work is to add articles and photos. Somebody say Halleluyah!
Personally, I started out as a coding enthusiast having
pursued a web design course after high school. I had high hopes of designing
from scratch sites like Facebook and I even dreamt of becoming the next Mark
Zuckerberg
But deep into the art, I realized just how much time it
takes to come up with a simple but fully functioning website and the millions
of dollars top websites spend on hiring top-notch specialized developers to
build websites.
I didn’t have time, expertise and money for that. Therefore,
I did some research on alternatives and that’s how I stumbled upon CMSes
The most popular CMS (which I use) is known as WordPress,
which powers almost 30% of the entire internet. WordPress is very popular for
its simplicity and complexity mashed together like mokimo.
While there are many other CMSes you can select from
including Joomla, Drupal, Medium, and Blogger, I would advise you to use
WordPress.
Installing WordPress.
Remember when you purchased a hosting package with a
registered domain? Well, the hosting environment was automatically configured
for you by your hosting provider.
Inside that hosting environment, there is a software known
as cPanel. cPanel is a popular software used by most hosting companies in
managing websites
- You
can access your cPanel by logging into your webmaster dashboard and
looking for a clickable link written “cPanel Login” or “Log into cPanel”.
Webmaster dashboards are customized depending on the hosting company.
- Once
you’re in the cPanel, scroll down until you see “Launch WordPress Website”
or something of the sort. When you click on the link you will be directed
to a new page with a form where you need to fill details about your site.
- Complete
the form and then install.
- After
that, you might be redirected to WordPress login page where you should use
your username and password to log in.
- If
not, just open a new tab, type “yourdomain.com” followed by /wp-admin and
press enter then log in. For instance, mine would be
“kampusville.com/wp-admin”.
Just so you know, your website will already be launched at
this point and you should access it through typing your domain address.
In case you get stuck while launching your blog, your
hosting company has a page where it provides the guidelines for all these
procedures. You should check and follow the procedures. Otherwise, you can
contact me, I can help you set up your site perfectly.
Publishing your first Article
The excitement is not yet over; you are just about to
publish your first article. My assumption by now is that you already have a
couple of articles dealing with your niche typed on a word document and saved
in your computer.
If not, consider writing one. Choose a general topic within
your niche and write a 300-500 word article.
- Once
your article is ready, log back into your blog.
- Navigate
to Posts > Add New and a new page with an editing dashboard will open.
- Create
a title or copy-paste your title on the title box
- Copy-paste
your article on the main text editor box, or below your title in
- Add
a featured image and another image within the article if necessary
- Add
a category (broad group) and tags (niche descriptions).
For instance, if you have a sports news blog and you are
writing about a football game between Gor Mahia and Kariobangi Sharks; the
categories can be 2; Football and KPL while the tags can be 3; Gor Mahia,
Kariobangi Sharks and Moi Stadium if that’s where they’re playing. I hope you
get the gist. Categories and Tags help classify your blog posts.
- Publish
your article
- Click
on “View Article” to view your article.
If you are not feeling awesome right, now then I don’t know
what excites you.
But just before you leave, there are a few things you need
to do immediately. Remember we are not just starting a blog, we want to launch
a potentially successful blog. To do this, we need to optimize the website from
the very beginning.
Below is a list of crucial things you should do to optimize
your Kenyan blog.
Configure Settings
General Settings
- Hover
over Settings
- Select
General
- In
the General Settings page, Edit the site title to your blog name and the
tagline to your mantra (Optional)
- Edit
the email address to your preferred email address
- The
rest can be ignored
- Save.
Permalinks Settings
- Again,
head to settings and select Permalinks at the bottom of the list.
Permalinks are static links, which lead a browser to a particular post or
page
- In
the Permalinks setting page, scroll down and select Post Name as your
preferred link structure.
If you are wondering, link structure is a ranking factor
used by Google. An optimized link contains the keywords of a post, which are
found in the title, and hence using the title/post name optimizes your URL.
Install Plugins
One of the reasons why WordPress is so simple yet so
powerful is courtesy of plugins. Plugins are extensions that add
functionalities to a website.
It’s like the extra features Iron Man added to Spiderman’s
Suit in Avengers Infinity War to enable him to perform some awesome extra
stuff. Plugins can improve your blog too.
There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of plugins
available for free or for a cost. Yet if you start installing every piece of
plugin out there, your blog will be bloated.
Therefore, I came up with a list of recommended
plugins, which are essential for a new site. To install any, hover over Plugins
on the navigation sidebar and select add new then search.
- Akismet:
Protect your blog from spam
- Yoast:
For site engine optimization (SEO). Follow its easy set up run through to
configure.
- Updraft:
To back up your site to Google Drive or Dropbox.
- W3
Total Cache: To speed up your site (Speed is another big factor in Google
ranking)
- Wordfence:
Acts like an antivirus for your website and provides security.
Set up Analytics.
From the very start, you need to know where your traffic is
coming from in order to strategize. Google Analytics is the ultimate tool for
this purpose.
It informs you where traffic is originating from, how long
people are staying on your site, which pages are performing well, and much
more.
Another tool worth mentioning is the Jetpack
plugin. Jetpack is packed with more than 20 other features besides offering
analytics right at your dashboard (The only advantage it has over Google
Analytics).
Setting up an analytics tool will set off the pace for you
since it informs you of your progress and helps you make strategic plans for
your blog to be successful
At this point, we have gone through almost every essential
step to set up a blog. The site is online and ready to roar. However, we cannot
forget the crucial business part of the blog. I’m sure you didn’t just come
across this blog to enable you to create a simple blog and write whatever you
want. You needed to know how to set up a successful blogging business in Kenya.
Just like any other business, blogging requires essential
practices for success. I mentioned some of them in the beginning and one thing
they all have in common is the fact that they are aimed at creating value for
customers; in this case readers.
So generally, you need to be business-minded to blog
successfully in Kenya, a country with one of the highest internet penetration
in the world. How can you do this?
Get a good premium theme
It all comes down to how many zeros you can make and to do
this in blogging, you need to prepare your site to make money. We have already
done two of the 3 essential things required to start making money
blogging. The third is getting a premium theme.
In the article linked in the paragraph above, I explain why
it’s essential to buy a premium theme. If you are a little in a hurry, a
premium theme offers a lot of customization features that will enable your blog
design to stand out.
Making your blog business in Kenya successful
Conduct Keyword Research
This involves trying to find out the topics within your
niche that people are searching in order to design your content for them.
Keyword research is a whole sector of its own and lately it quite likely the
single most powerful strategy that guarantees success in blogging.
Consider investing in keyword tools such
as Ahrefs, KWFinder, and Moz or if you have a limited
budget, use free tools such as UberSuggest, Google Trends, and Google
Search Suggestions.
Site Engine Optimization
While Keyword research helps you identify the right topics
to write about, SEO enables your articles to appear on the first page of Google
Search Results which assures you of traffic.
SEO fundamentally involves making your articles appeal to
the Googlebot and hence rank for your keywords. This is another billion-dollar
industry by the way. You can’t exhaust all that SEO has to offer because it’s
too wide but with regular learning, you can become a master like Neil
Patel.
One of the plugins I asked you to install was Yoast.
This plugin can provide you with a good foundation for your SEO journey since
it’s backed by a whole team of professionals who regularly update the plugin
and provide tips through an email Newsletter you ought to subscribe.
Join Google AdSense
Google
AdSense is the ultimate ads distribution platform in the world. It’s
the easiest to join but mind you, it takes time before a new blog is approved.
Google inspectors have to investigate your site to ensure it meets certain
conditions before you are accepted.
In case you are worried about these conditions, how about
this; if you write quality and helpful content and get traffic, then you are
already qualified. Nevertheless, promoting explicit content such as drugs and
porn will earn you a total disqualification.
Hire Writers and professionals
The awesome thing about blogging is that you can do
everything alone, anywhere at any time. Yet, if you are thinking of your blog
more than just a personal blog and rather a business, you need to start doing
more things faster.
Writing blogs can be very time-consuming. In fact very few
blogs are updated once a week although regular updates encourage Google to rank
you higher. Therefore, a smart business person would spare some money and hire
competent writers to help create quality content.
Likewise, if you indulge yourself into all the technical
aspects of building a blog, you might forget among others, the next (very
important) point
Market your content
You don’t expect to sit down and wait for people to come to
your blog especially when it’s so young. You need to get it out there. Share
articles on social media platforms, send to friends and humbly request them to
share further, start email marketing among other things.
Be ready also to spend a few bucks on Facebook
Marketing, which can work wonders if done correctly. Grow your fan-base promote
your content every day. Even a single twit a day with a link is good enough.
Conclusion
Phew! I feel like I’ve exhausted everything at this point
but in case there are updates such as the bill in parliament, which is
promising bloggers in Kenya to pay registration fees, I will be on the lookout.
If you need any help or services pertaining to any step we have discussed, leave a comment and I will get back to you ASAP.
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