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Solomon Eseme
Solomon Eseme

Posted on • Originally published at codelikemad.com.ng on

START A NIGERIAN NEWS BLOG FROM SCRATCH

Hey there, Solomonhere and in this article am going to show you how to create a Nigerian news blog website and start making money from it.

Am Solomon Eseme, a Software engineer and content creator, I have assisted lots of Nigerians create different type of blog website through my YouTube videos step by step.

You can take a look at the different popular Nigerian blog websites I have taught my readers and subscribers how to create.

  1. How to create tooXclusive website
  2. create naijaloaded website
  3. Steps to create Jaguda website

If none of those kinds of website meets your need, then join me down the article as I show how to create a Nigerian news website from scratch step by step.

Before we dive in, lets understand what we mean by a news blog website, currently there is trend in news blogging in Nigeria because of the trending nature of entertainment industry in Nigeria. So, the news niche already has a large audience of readers and followers because people wants to know the current happenings and trends in the country.

So, if you are kin about Nigerian news and can gather the trending information or pick one and spin it around to become great content that are enjoyable to your readers then you need to be in this niche.

HOW TO START THE BLOG

We have choosing News blogging as a niche, if so let’s dive into choosing the blog platform and creating the blog from scratch.

A blog platform enables you to create and manage your news blog, there many free and paid blog platform available but we won’t go over that in this article. For the sake of this article we will be using WORDPRESS to create and manage our Nigerian news blog website.

GET STARTED WITH WORDPRESS

WordPress is a very customizable and easy to use content management system mostly used for creating and managing blogs and other websites, it has variety of themes and plugins which makes it easy for a novice in the web development field to just pick already customize theme and plugin and through drag and drop with minutes get their blog ready to be hosted.

We won’t go over the WordPress in this article but you can check my channel for a complete beginner’s series on WordPress.

SETTING UP DOMAIN NAME AND HOSTING

You should purchase a domain name and hosting space for your blog or make sure the domain name (your website name) is available for purchase. You can contact me for assistance or watch my video on getting a domain name and hosting space. But if you are not buoyant now and still want to continue, no problem we are going to building the blog offline, so you can still follow along with us.

SETTING UP XAMPP AND WORDPRESS

Okay guys, if you are here well done so far, to save you more reading I have created a video tutorial on my channel that shows you how to install XAMPP and set it up with WordPress…. If you still have questions drop it on this website or YouTube comment box. (I always response to comments).

MY DEFAULT SETTINGS

So here am going to show you guys my default WordPress settings that I always love setting on every of my WordPress site. This is so because it helps me in SEO section of my content marketing.

So, the first thing I always so is to set my Permalinks to POST Name, so how I achieved this is via:

  1. Settings
  2. Permalinks
  3. Then click on POSTNAME radio button.

That will be all for now. There are more you could do at first installation but I love keeping the settings default most of the time unless otherwise.

INSTALLING THE THEME FOR OUR NIGERIAN NEWS BLOG

Now am going to show you how to install the theme that we will be using in the example, this is the interesting part of the tutorial because after installing the theme our ugly looking website is going to be transform to a super sweet and beautiful website waiting for us to customize it.

To achieve this, go to

  1. Appearances
  2. Themes
  3. Add New
  4. Upload Theme
  5. Choose the theme I will send to you (if you request)
  6. Click on Upload/Install.
  7. After installing the theme, you can preview it or just activate it straight from there. AAND!!!! BANG! You did it to this stage. Congratulations.

For the theme and installation process for this website watch the video here.

INSTALLING THE PLUGINS FOR OUR NIGERIAN NEWS BLOG

Okay guys, after installing the theme we are supposed to end there right, but no we still need some functionalities on our website that is why we need to install some plugins to help us achieve these functionalities, depending on the ones our website will need.

To install a plugin,

  1. Go to Dashboard
  2. Plugins
  3. Add New
  4. Upload/download from list.
  5. Install and Activate.

After installing the plugins, you can go back to the plugins page to customize it or leave the default settings

For our list of plugins for this website watch the video here.

CUSTOMIZATIONS AND SET UPS

Congratulations once again for making it up to this point, here am going to show you how to customize your website to look exactly like our example site that we are building but to save you much reading and long article I will demonstrate this with a video,so watch it here and continue after you have customized it. I will see you in the next point.

PREVIEWING AND WELL DONE SO FAR

Wow!! If you are here wow again!! You have made it so far and I want to thank you for continuing, so now you can preview your website to see if it equals to what we have on the tutorials and also our example website if you are creating that with us. If you are happy with you got, don’t forget to paste the link to your website (if it’s online) on my YouTube comment box or on this blog. I will be glad to review.

MONEY MAKING TIPS FOR NIGERIAN NEWS BLOG

As a content creator and a software engineer, I have discovered lots of ways you can earn money from your Nigeria news blog. Am going to list a few that I feel it great for beginners and I won’t throw lots of light on it because it’s outside the scope here, but there will definitely be a tutorial on that soon.

So, from my research so far, I have discovered these ones good for beginners but before listing them out I want to point out here that it’s not a get rich quick scheme, you have to work hard and give it your time, that’s be consistent and deliver good content because content is king.That’s what will attract loyal audience and audience engagement too which in turn will definitely pay in future, so if you are ready to explore, these are my personal list of how to generate income from your Nigeria news blog.

  1. AdSense: This is a major source of income for beginners and even pros in the blogging industry, you can check out how to setup AdSense in your blog and what you need to do to get approved.
  • Affiliate Marketing: is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.

  • Selling Contents: You can start selling your products to your readers/audiences such as eBooks, tutorials videos, podcast etc. anything you do that can actual sell online.

  • Direct Ad: This is a situation where a company or individual will come to you to buy an ad space or ask you to advertise their product on your website for them. Examples are lindaikeji, nairaland, etc. they are using this form of Income generation.

So, guys these are my top 4 ways of generating income for your nigerian news blog, I hope this helps even if I did not exemplify or elucidate more on it but don’t worry when I drop a tutorial on it, I will link them appropriately so do check back.

CONCLUSIONS

It’s been a long read and video watching, I want to thank you for getting through it, you can check out more articles that could help you on my blog if this wasn’t what you needed, if it was and you are happy with it, I will love to hear from you, let me know your thoughts and suggestions in the comment section below.

On my channel I do post videos relating to software development, web development, digital marketing tips and content management system tutorials like this one every week, so do check it out and subscribe for more.

The post START A NIGERIAN NEWS BLOG FROM SCRATCH appeared first on CodeLikeMad.

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