How to Make Money Online for Free - - Create a Blog and Monetize it

I decided to title this post "How to Make Money Online for free" because the system I'm going to describe here does not require any capital investment from you. The only form of capital investment that you may likely need is your internet subscription fee if you don't have free access to the internet. But if you do have free access to the internet, then you don't need any capital investment.

When you read Online-business-ideas-how-to-make-money-online in a legitimate way, there I established the fact that one of the ways to make money online in a legitimate way here in Nigeria, is to create a blog/website and monetize it. There I also made it clear that a blog is short for weblog, and it is a medium that allows individuals to publish any subject of interest online. I also made clear that it is one of the best ways to make money online for free in a legitimate way. If that is the case, it is therefore important we learn how to create a blog. Since our goal is to make free money online without spending a dime, we will learn how to create a free blog with Google Blogger and monetize it.

How to Create a Free Blog with Google Blogger

Thanks to Google, they offer a free platform to get you started on your online business venture. With their www.blogger.com, you can create a beautiful, professionally looking Blogspot that you can use for your online business venture. In this article, I will outline the steps involved in creating a free blog with Google Blogspot.


Step1: You will need a Google account (Gmail account) to get you started. Head over to mail.google.com and open a free Gmail account. Fill all the fields that look like the screenshot below as required.

A Gmail account looks like "exmaple@gmail.com. Verify your account either with a voice call or SMS verification. After that, your Gmail account is ready for use. It is this account you will use to create your blog and to sign in anytime you want to access your blog.



Step 2: Head over to  https://www.blogger.com and you will see something that looks like the screenshot below:

Step 3: Enter the title you would want to use for your blog. Make sure the title is related to the central theme of your blog i.e. what you want to blog about. For example, your title may be "how to make money online". Also enter the URL (blog address) of your choice. It is also recommended your URL is related to the theme of your blog also as part of the Search Engine Optimization. Select the template of your choice from the options displayed as shown in the screenshot above and click on "Create blog" button shown in red as can be seen in the screenshot above.

Now your blog is ready for use. You have taken the first step of your journey to making money online for free. But you still need to add some settings or features to your blog, for optimum performance. Click on the blog title to get to the setting page as described below:

Step 4: Click on settings to reveal the page shown below:

In front of Description, click on edit, and enter the description of your blog, as you can see from the screenshot, the write up there is a description of a particular blog. The description should cover everything you are going to blog about. Since our blog in this example is how to make money online, our description will be something like: "how to make money online, latest ways to make money online for free, surefire ways to make money online from home, making money online without investing money, etc". After that click on save changes. You can make changes to the description later, but it is recommended you don't make changes often, for search engine purpose. Consistency is very important in your blogging endeavour.

After the description, click on "Listed on blogger to reveal the following options:

• Add blog to our listing - Select yes
• Let search engine find your blog - select yes

Next scroll down to reveal bloggers reader as shown below

 On blog readers, "Public", which is selected by default in most cases. You need a lot of people to read your blog, don't you? Remember to save changes at each step.

Step 5: Select Language and Formatting to reveal options as shown below

Scroll down to select your timezone depending on your location on the globe. For Nigerian users, select Lagos which is (GMT+01.00)Lagos, as shown above. You may also change your date header format, timestamp format and comment timestamp format if you wish, but it's not necessary.

Step 6: Click on "post and comment" to reveal the options under it, as follows:

• Who can comment - select anyone, since you are just starting out, you really need people to visit your blog and leave comments on your great work.
• Comment Moderation - select always, to avoid spamming.
• Show word verification - select yes, also to prevent spamming. Always remember to save changes at each step of the way.

Lastly, click on "Other" to reveal the options under it:

• Blog feed - select short
• Scroll down to "Adult Content" - select no (hope you will not display any porn stuff on your site). Remember to save settings.

Now your first money making machine is ready for use. You can start making money off your blog now. But you need to add some touch of professionalism to it so that visitors to your blog will be happy to stay. You need to design the template. Yes, you need to design the front end of your blog. All you have been doing in the preceding steps is the back end of your blog. Only you have access to this area of your blog. Visitors to your blog cannot access the backend. They can only see the front end.  The frontend is the place where visitors will see when they visit your blog. What you are seeing right now, reading this blog is the frontend of my blog.


Having an attractive, user-friendly frontend is paramount to successful blogging. For template design, we will consider "How to design the frontend of the blog.

How to Design the Frontend of Your Blog

In the preceding paragraphs, I described how to create a free blog with Google Blogger. We also learned that a blog is made up of two sections. A section that is accessible only to the administrator (owner), called the backend; and the one that is accessible to the visitors, called the frontend. I also made it clear that for a good user experience, the frontend should be well structured, and user-friendly. So, let's dive in right away and learn how to design the frontend of our blog.
Step 1: Log in to your blog. Click on the title of the blog to reveal the options as shown in the screenshot below:

Step2:  Click on the template. Allow it to load to reveal the following screenshot:

Step3: Click on customize and you will be taken to this page (screenshot below) where you will do the necessary design.

The template currently active on your blog is indicated “Live on Blog” at your left hand. At your right hand you have a list of other templates as shown in the screenshot above. Remember we chose Ethereal template from the beginning. You can still change it if you wish at this stage. Below the dark portion in the screenshot above where “how to make money online” appears is the preview of your blog frontend. All the changes you make will appear there for your to see before you apply them to your blog.

Since our blog is for “money making”, it is recommended that the background color and outer background color be white and it should be  free of background images. Below the Live on Blog is the option “remove background image”. Click on it to remove the background image.

Step4: Click on Advanced from the options at the left hand to reveal the following screenshot

Click on Background from the options. As you can see there are options for outer background color, main background color and border color, and the corresponding color palette beneath. Change outer and main background color to white by selecting white color from the color palette. Save changes.

Click on Links and change color of links to blue. For color of hoover links and visited links, you can change them to any color of your choice, but red or orange is common and widely used. 

A click on Body Text, Blog Title, Post Title, Date Header and Gadget Title will reveal options where you can change the font style and font size. For font style Verdana and Arial, known as sans serif fonts  are widely accepted. For font size, select any size and look at your preview, if you are comfortable with the size, then save your settings.

Step 6: Click on Layout to reveal the following screenshot

Select the template layout of your choice. For business blog it is recommended you use three columns layout to give room for you to display ads and other relevant information or products on the sidebars. Since our blog is money making blog, we will select a three columns layout from the options. Click on Apply to Blog. After that click on Back to Blogger.

You are almost done with the design, but to make it more professional and user friendly, you need to add some gadgets. Some of the gadget you should consider adding are: Recent Post, Search Box, Email Subscription Box, Facebook Share Button, etc. Make sure not to add too much gadgets to retain the overall beauty of the blog.

Step 5: To add  a gadget, click on layout from the option as shown in the screenshot below

A click on layout from the options above will reveal the layout of your blog as shown below

Click on “Add a Gadget” as can be seen from the screenshot above. You can click any of the options. After adding the gadget you can move the gadget to any position by dragging it with your mouse click. A click on “Add a Gadget” will reveal the options of gadgets as shown in the following screenshot.

Select the gadget of your choice by clicking on it. Name your gadget if need be and click on save to add the gadget to your blog. To add more gadget, repeat the process until you have added all the gadgets of your choice. Arrange the position of your gadgets as you would want them to appear in the front end and click on save arrangement.

Another thing you should consider adding to make your blog look more professional is the “Link List” where you can display things like “About Me”, “Disclaimer”, “Contact”, and “Home”. You can add Link List at the top of your blog or beneath, depending on your choice. Here I’m going to describe adding the Link List beneath the blog.

To add a Link List to the bottom of your blog, click on “Add a Gadget beneath the “Post Area” of your blog to reveal the following screenshot

As you can see there is option for Link List. Click on it and enter the number of the links you want to display in the specified box. Copy the URL of the link you want to display and paste it in the specified box. Name your link and click on “Add Link”. Repeat the process until you have added all the links you want to display and then click on save.  Click on “Save arrangement in your layout.

You can experiment things on your own and make research on your own. The above serves only as an introduction or a sort of guideline for beginners. It is not an authoritative or exhaustive description of how to create a blog.

You have successfully designed the front end of your blog. Your free money making blog is now ready and you are about to start making money online. Does that mean once a blog is created we will start to make money automatically? No! Before you set out to create a blog, you have to figure out the theme of your blog. The theme of your blog, also known as the niche, is the main subject ideas upon which you want to create your blog. Niche selection is much more than just picking an idea and then build a blog on it. Unless you are creating a blog just for the fun of it, you have to do Niche Research to Select a Profitable Niche, if you goal is to make money blogging.

You will have to add quality contents to your blog regularly. You must offer something of value to your blog visitors. It is this quality content that will attract visitors to your blog. It is this quality content that will bring money to you when you monetize the blog through the various monetizing systems. You will also need to promote your blog through various methods as already covered in Newbies' Guide to Targeted Website Traffic.