How Much Traffic To Make Money Political Blog

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A lot of people seek out political information every single day. According to recent research on political blogging and social media, nearly 50% of adults in the US read political blogs.

Those with political blogs can reach a large audience, report on candidates, and share their viewpoints.

If you have political opinions, or maybe you always have juicy bits of news that you feel like shouting from the busy street corners, creating a political blog may be just the thing for you. It will allow you to create a community of friends who love political information and make money doing something that you enjoy.

This guide will show you everything you need to know to research, build, grow, and monetize a political blog.

Editors Note

This guide is extremely DETAILED and explains everything you need to start a Political blog. I've been at this blogging stuff for over 8 years and have built a business making $20,000 per month, so I have a lot of helpful advice for you newbies out there.

If you get stuck or need advice, please contact me directly and I'll help you out for free.

How to Start a Political Blog in 10 Steps:

If you just need someone to walk you through the process of setting up your blog quickly and easily, check out step 5.

As with all other blogs, a political blog can act as your platform or personal online diary allowing you to communicate and voice out your political opinions and beliefs to an online audience of interested people.

Becoming a political blogger propels you into the political razzmatazz limelight, and eventually, you can become a kind of think tank go-to.

Whether you are liberal or conservative, you stop being part of the noise and become a strong voice that is engaging and effective in communicating with individuals of political interest and developments.

From Barack Obama's victory in 2012 to Donald Trump's triumph in 2016, one observable trend has been the role and impact of the Internet (political blogs and social media) in the electoral victories. Since then, there has been a continuous rise of blogs in the political sphere.

Before we dive into the 10 steps to starting your own political blog, let's take a look at the reasons why you should start one.

Let your Voice be Heard
Improve Your Writing Skills
Make Money
Get Candidate Attention
Govern Those who Govern Us (watchdog)

You can use your blog to share news or as a platform to boost your own campaign. Another reason to create a political blog is to be a whistleblower on the government, politicians, and so on. The list of reasons to create a political blog is endless.

However, it's important to note that not everyone can become a political blogger. The main reason for this is that the niche is quite specialized, catering to intellectuals as well as people with in-depth knowledge and understanding of the political atmosphere.

Having said that, you have a very high chance of becoming a successful political blogger if you are a politician, a journalist, an activist, or someone who loves political trends and is an observer or a media professional.

Now that we've established who should start a political and why, let's take a look at the 10 steps to follow in order to launch your very own successful blog.

1. Decide the Focus of Your Political Blog

Your first step is to decide on the focus or direction of your new blog. You need to determine beforehand if your blog is going to be focused on political news, analytical posts on politics and politicians, or will you focus on writing posts on election overview, etc.?

There are many different directions you can choose to take your blog. Here are a few ideas to inspire your brainstorming session:

Political Recommendations
Criticizing Political People/Policies
Report Political News
Analytical Posts on Politics
Election Overview

Before making your choice, keep in mind that with a political news blog, you have the ability to copy and paste stories, curate, aggregate, or write original content.

However, if you choose to focus on analytical posts on politics, politicians, and election overview, you will have to be a skilled professional writer with an author profile for columnists and so on.

If you become a timely news creator or aggregator of the latest or trending political news and events, your blog will quickly become popular as the go-to site for the latest news.

2. Choose Your Political Niche

Once you know which direction you will be taking your blog, you can then decide on the niche that you will focus on with your political blog. Your niche can be focused on different political parties, Federal vs State vs city, and so on.

Here are some ideas to help you get started:

Conservative Political Blog: As a blogger in this niche, you uphold the values and virtues of being conservative.
Liberal Political Blog: If your opinions are more liberal, you can create a Liberal political blog.
Moderate Political Blog: If you would rather focus on moderate political issues, then you can create this type of blog.
International Politics Blog: Yet another niche to choose is international political blogging where you cover global affairs outside of your local reach.
Controversial Political Blog: One way to make sure you stand out from a lot of other political blogs is to be in opposition to the ideals, actions, and ideas of the current government or politicians.
Local Politics: One of the best recommendations is to begin and narrow down to a particular country, region, city, etc. Instead of trying to start a general political blog.

These are just a few examples of the different types of political blogs. The list of options is endless.

Here are more types of political blogs by category:

Conservative Political Blogs: e.g. National Review Online, The Daily Signal, Hot Air

Liberal Political Blogs: e.g. Talking Points Memo, TalkLeft, Boing Boing – Politics

Political Cartoon Blogs: e.g. Cartoon Movement, The Sacramento Bee, The Cagle Post

Political Satire Blogs: e.g. The People's Cube, The Daily Nooze, Humor Times

Political Science Blogs: e.g. Political Science Now, Saideman's Semi-Spew, Tom Pepinsky

Geopolitical Blogs: e.g. Covert Geopolitics, Geopolitical Monitor, Geopolitical Futures

Political Opinion Blogs: e.g. PoliticusUSA

Political Philosophy Blogs: e.g. Intellectual Conservative

Democratic Philosophy Blogs: e.g. MoveOn.Org – Democracy In Action

Funny Political Blogs: e.g. Funny Blog, Mendaco Press

Female Political Blogs: e.g. Intellectual Conservative, The Geller Report

Freelance Political Blogs: e.g. World Politics 101

Progressive Political Blogs: e.g. Left Foot Forward, Latest from Crooks and Liars

Personal Political Blogs: e.g. John Redwood's Diary, Guido Fawkes

Political Analyst Blogs: e.g. National Review Online, National Review Magazine

Political Action Blogs: e.g. MoveOn.Org

Political Consultant Blogs: e.g. Douglas Carswell

Political Campaign Blogs: e.g. The Cook Political Report, Man On A Mission: Politics

Political Discussion Blogs: e.g. Ken Rudin's Political Junkie, Colorado Pols

Political Entertainment Blogs: e.g. Macleans.ca

Political Humor Blogs: e.g. Slate Articles Blog

Political Ideas Blogs: e.g. The Politics Guys Blog

Political Law Blogs: e.g. Power Line

Political Strategy Blogs: e.g. Baby Boomer Resistance

Political History Blogs: e.g. Ken Rudin's Political Junkie

Your interests and goals will help determine the niche you choose. However, as much as your purpose determines the direction of your political blog, you should do your best to ensure that there is some uniqueness in your model.

There are already thousands of political blogs online, and you need to ensure that your focus and niche set you up for uniqueness so you can stand out from the rest.

This uniqueness is what will prompt people to want to visit your blog. If you are to succeed in this landscape, your blog must become known as the authority in your particular political niche.

3. Choose Your Blogging Platform

Now that you've decided on the direction of your blog as well as your niche, it's time to choose your blogging platform. Even with the best scoop, you won't be able to reach anyone without a digital platform.

Your blogging platform is simply the software to help you get your blog content on the website so people can find it online. There are a lot of blogging platforms available to choose from. Some are free, and others cost money.

Free platforms include Blogger, Wix, and Squarespace. But, before you reach for any of these blogging platforms, it's important to understand that they come with some drawbacks which may negatively impact your ability to create a successful blog.

Drawbacks of Using Free Blogging Platforms

Free websites don't rank as well as premium ones on Google.
Blogger, Wix, and other free platforms have very slow loading speeds.
With a free blogging platform, you're simply renting the domain, you don't own it.
You don't have full website monetization options on free platforms.
Aesthetically, hosted platforms don't look as professional as self-hosted ones.
You can't make use of supported features to add to your site's functionality.
All your SEO work goes toward helping the free website, and not yours.

I recommend using WordPress, which is by far the best and most popular blogging platform available right now.

Note that there is a free service at WordPress.com, but like all the other free blogging platforms, it has serious limitations.

Your best chance of creating a successful and profitable political blog is to use WordPress.org the premium, self-hosted version which allows you to host your political blog on your server so you can have complete control.

Here are some of the reasons why you should choose WordPress over free platforms:

WordPress is free to use forever, all you need is to get your domain and hosting.
The software is very easy to set up, even for complete beginners.
WordPress is widely supported by a large community of developers.
The software is very robust and secure.
WordPress allows you to easily add functionality to your website.

If you're still not convinced that self-hosted WordPress is the best blogging platform to choose, just check out some of these recent stats:

WordPress currently powers over 35% of the web
Users create over 70 million new posts every month
Every 6 months, there are over 1.1 million new registered WordPress domains
WordPress dominates Google SERPs with over 2.28 billion results
The software is available in 196 languages
There are over 54,000 free plugins on WordPress

Source

WordPress is unbelievably simple to set up. You can be up and running with just a single click of the mouse. Also, the software can be endlessly reconfigured to suit your needs. You'll also find tons of prebuilt political WordPress themes (more on that below) to give you a jump on your blog creation process.

Have I convinced you that WordPress is the best CMS (content management system) in the world? Great!

Now let's move on to the next step.

4. Decide Your Domain Name

Your next step involves choosing a domain name for your new political blog. The domain name is simply a technical term for what you're going to call your blog.

For instance, if the name of your political blog is Political Fire, then your domain name will be PoliticalFire.com or PoliticalFire.org, etc.

In short, your domain name is your blog's address on the Internet. It's what people will type into their browsers when they want to come to your blog. That's why it's important to take the time to choose the right name which is not only brandable and memorable but also easy for your readers to type.

For many people, this is one of the hardest steps in creating a new blog. It shouldn't be as many blow it out of proportion, but you do need to put some thought into it.

Below are some crucial things to remember when choosing a name.

1. Purchase a.com Domain Name: You will find a lot of domain extensions for political blogs, such as .democrat or .republican. However, I recommend going with .com as it is the easiest for most people to remember.

2. Choose a Broad Name: Don't go too narrow with your domain name. A blog name that is too specific will make it very hard for you to expand your blog down the line.

For example, if you choose a name like Election Overview Blog, then you are limited to that small topic as opposed to a name like Political Power which would allow you to expand your topic or niche in the future.

3. Keep the Name Short and Sweet: As previously mentioned, your domain name needs to be memorable, as well as easy to type into browsers. For this reason, it's best to keep your political blog name to just two or three words. If necessary, you can use up to five words, but try not to go any higher than that.

4. Use Alliteration: Alliteration refers to the use of two or more words that start with the same letter or sound. This helps to make your domain name more memorable. For instance, Pursuing Politics, Purposeful Politics, Politics and Power, and so on.

5. Use Creativity: You may find that the name you want for your political blog is already taken. In order to be able to get a similar name, you can try using other words with similar meanings. For instance, if you wanted the name Intellectual Conservative, you might settle for Smart Conservative, instead.

6. Add Extra Words if All Else Fails: If you've tried everything and you still can't get the blog name you want, then you might add extra words like "the" "blog", "daily", "insider", and so on. For example, if the name Fact Check was already taken, then you might choose the name "the" Fact Check, or Fact Check blog.

7. Think of a Concept: Try to think of a concept around your political blog name. For instance, imagine how it could be branded or how you could expand a blog in the future. Doing this will help you come up with even more ideas for a great domain name.

For example, Left Foot Forward is a political blog that is focused on political news and comments for progressives. This concept may have played a role in helping the creators to come up with the perfect name for their blog.

8. Use Name Generators: If you're still stuck trying to come up with a name for your new blog, use name generation tools like Instant Domain Search and Lean Domain Search. All you have to do is enter a few keywords, and the tools will spit out a list of possible domain names that you can choose from.

9. Don't Buy a Domain Name: If the name you want is already taken, you may find it being offered for sale by the owner for significantly more than the cost of a standard domain. You should not consider buying it at this stage.

Rather, use that money to create high-quality content for your site. In the future, when your blog is profitable, you may then consider purchasing the domain name you want.

10. Don't Get Stuck Here: This is the stage where a lot of people get stuck. They spend days agonizing over the right choice and ultimately never make it past the step.

Set aside a couple of hours for this process and then move on to the next step. All you have to do is find a name that you are happy with, and that shouldn't take you longer than a couple of hours.

Remember, taking action on your new political blog is a lot more important than the blog name.

Here is another of my articles that explains this process in a bit more detail.

Examples of Popular Political Blogs (and why their names make sense)

PoliticusUSA: This blog focuses on news and political commentary, as well as analysis from a liberal viewpoint. The name is short, unique, and easy to remember.
News Busters: This is a leading US media watchdog and the name makes it very clear what this political blog is all about.
Move On: Moveon.org is all about democracy in action. It's a popular blog focused on grassroots political activism. Their name is short and memorable.
The Political Insider: This name reveals the blog's purpose to connect readers to the pulse of everything that is newsworthy around DC and in the media.
Peak Politics: This conservative blog focuses on Colorado politics. It makes use of alliteration for a distinctive and memorable name.

Pro Tip: Consider using keywords in your political blog name.

A keyword or key phrase refers to the word or words that readers type into their browsers when searching for specific topics. For example, some of the most popular political blogs have domain names like ConservativeHome.com, RedState.com, and so on.

These two examples are right-leaning political blogs, which means that there's a good chance their target audience might type in terms like "red state" or "conservative" when searching for interesting political articles to read.

Here are 10 Ideas for Political Blog Names:

Political News USA
Political Talk Nation
Purposeful Politics
Political Newsday
Partisan Games
Insider Politics Blog
Liberal Politics Project
Turf Politics
Political Fire
Politics and Policies

5. Buy Your Domain Name and Hosting

Once you've decided on a domain name for your new blog, the next step in the process is to actually buy the domain name and your website hosting.

The domain name is what your new political blog will be called. Your hosting is a service that keeps your website files on their servers to make sure that your blog is always available on the internet. This service can be likened to renting business space, except you are renting on the internet.

So, when someone types in your website URL, then Bluehost will show your blog to the individual who searched for it.

I've created a step-by-step tutorial to walk you through the entire process of buying your domain name and hosting. The first thing you need to do is click on this link to visit Bluehost and follow along with the tutorials below.

Below is a YouTube video and screenshots showing you the exact step-by-step process, choose whatever tutorial that works best for you.

Step 1: If you haven't yet, click on this link and you'll be brought to the WordPress Hosting page that you see below.

Step 2: Next, you'll be brought to the hosting plan page. You could choose to get a "Plus" or "Choice Plus" plan, but honestly, that's not a requirement.

The Startup plan is the cheapest at $3.95/month through my link vs. the normal $8.99/month.

This plan has everything you need including 50GB of webspace (plenty of room for your files), a free domain for a year, plus other standard features like a free SSL and a secure WordPress install. Feel free to browse a bit to decide the right plan for you, but rest assured that Basic will work just fine if you want to minimize your investment.

Step 3: After clicking into the plan, you'll be brought to the next page where you will type-in your new domain, or you can just choose "I'll create my domain later" if you haven't decided on one yet. The domain is the URL people will type into a browser to view your website in the future.

Step 4: Once you submit, the next page will ask for all of your information. That will start with your account information, which is self-explanatory.

Step 5: Next, you'll have to input your Package Information. This is to choose how long you want the plan to go for. My advice is that you choose 24 months to get the discount and save some money, but you can go as low 12 months if you want.

Step 6: Next you'll have to choose what "Package Extras" you want. You can scroll over "More Information" to understand what each of these items are, but here is my own advice.

I would get the "Domain Privacy + Protection", this makes it so that no one can tie your name to the domain name you create. To me, the only other one worth considering is "Codeguard Basic". The other two I wouldn't personally get. But choose what is best for you.

Step 7: The next step is Payment Information, which is self-explanatory.

Step 8: And the last step of signup is to confirm that you read and understand the Bluehost Terms of Service, Cancellation Policy, and Privacy Notice. Click the check button and then click "Submit".

Step 9: Next you'll be prompted to create an account and password. This is the information that you'll use to login to the Bluehost platform to manage your site and account info.

Step 10: At this point Bluehost puts you through a short questionnaire to better understand your scenario. You can answer all of these questions, or click "Skip this Step" on the bottom. If you're a newbie, I advise you to answer the questions as it'll help your onboarding experience.

Step 11: After you're done with that you'll be advised to choose a theme. For now, you can just choose to use a free theme. You can always replace the theme later if you'd like.

Step 12: From there, you'll be brought into the backend of WordPress in the admin panel. This is where you'll manage your site from. You can add posts/pages as you see fit, but when you're ready click on the blue button that says "Launch Your Site".

Step 13 (Final): Your blog is LIVE. Just go to a browser and type in your domain name. Once you do this, you'll be able to access your website!

Congrats! You officially have a website.

If you're wondering how to edit things on the website, all you have to do from here is go to your website URL with /wp-admin at the end in a browser and login.

Example: http://www.mostawesomewebsiteever.com/wp-admin

And don't worry, we cover how to edit things more in the rest of this guide as well. So please continue reading.

6. Choose and Install a Theme For Your Political Blog

With WordPress installed on your new blog, it's now time to choose and install the same. A theme is just software that dictates how your blog looks.

There are themes for all types of blogs, such as food blogs, photography blogs, and so on. You need to find a good theme for your political blog that is well designed, clean, and professional looking.

There are free themes and paid themes that you can choose from. I recommend that you choose a premium WordPress theme as it comes with a host of advantages over its free counterparts.

Below are just some of the many reasons why you should choose a premium WordPress theme over free options.

Reasons to Choose Premium WordPress Theme

Full Customization Features: Most free WordPress themes are limited in terms of customization, which means that your blog will look like a million others on the Internet. However, with a premium theme, you can make your blog look exactly how you want.
Unique Designs: WordPress themes come with tons of sleek, professional-looking designs and templates that you can choose from so you don't have to start from scratch.
Security and Mobile Friendliness: WordPress themes are fully responsive. They look great on devices of all sizes, and they come with enhanced security which allows them to fight off any malicious code.
Customer Support: Unlike free themes, premium themes come with robust support in case of any technical problems. This makes them perfect for beginners or tech-challenged bloggers.
SEO Friendly: Premium WordPress themes are designed to help enhance your website's search engine optimization for a site that performs well and ranks high in search.

In contrast, the majority of free themes come with generic templates. They typically aren't mobile-friendly, and they have notoriously poor security and customer support. Some free themes may even contain malicious code that can potentially cause harm to your new blog.

Once you have installed your theme, you can customize it to make it even more appealing to your target audience. And the best part is, you can do all of this without having to learn a single line of code.

Here are a few examples of themes that are great for a political blog:

Personally, I always recommend Thrive Theme Builder to people. Why? Because it's completely customizable and you can adjust your blog to look exactly how you want by pointing/clicking as opposed to hiring a developer.

In fact, this blog was build using Thrive Theme Builder and I'm absolutely thrilled with the result. Long term? I think this is the most cost-effective theme you'll find.

Click the image below to watch a video and learn more about Thrive Theme Builder.

And, if you'd like to watch an extremely detailed tutorial you can watch this playlist on YouTube.

If you feel Thrive Theme Builder isn't for you, here are some other theme options that are perfect for a political blog.

1. Astra Political/Speaker Themes

Astra is another very highly-rated site builder, similar to Thrive Themes, but they have very specific themes perfect for political bloggers. Read my Astra Theme Review.

2. Political Press – Responsive WordPress Theme

This is an awesome theme for political websites. It has purpose-oriented customizable options, full translation, and built-in Twitter bootstrap. It also comes with a ton of useful custom widgets and various other features that make your blog-creation work a breeze.

3. Partiso | Political WordPress Theme for Party & Candidate

This is a powerful political blog theme with multiple layouts, widgets, and shortcodes. With it, you will be able to create a unique and attractive website that appeals to your audience.

4. Novomag – News Magazine Theme

This theme is a newsmagazine theme, but it's perfectly suited to a political news blog. It comes with a ton of shortcodes for WordPress and a review page layout. It also has over 600 fonts and unlimited color combinations so you can create the perfect look for your blog.

5. Diplomat | Political Responsive Site Template

This political theme template is great for anyone looking for a clean and simple WordPress theme. It comes with a wide array of templates that you can simply swap out the images and text for a professional-looking political blog.

6. MCKinney's Politics | Elections Campaign & Social Activism Theme

This theme is perfect for political blogs, party management, political campaigns, and much more. It has side and top menu options, and features for events, and donations. With its robust customization options, you will be able to quickly and easily transform the theme to make it look the way you want.

These are just a few of the many political themes that you can choose from for your new blog. You can also search through theme marketplaces like Envato, ThemeForest, and StudioPress to find a theme that appeals to you.

Listed below are some of the most important factors to consider when choosing a theme.

What to Consider When Choosing a Theme

Speed: You want a theme that is fast for great performing website
Mobile Responsiveness: Your theme must look great on any device
Beautiful, Sleek Designs: Choose a theme that comes with beautiful, stylish templates
Easy Customization: The theme must be easily customizable to match your style
Responsive Tech Support: It should offer reliable and prompt technical support
Great Reviews and Ratings: Your theme should also have great reviews from users
Well-Known Brand with Longevity: Choose a theme from a well-established brand

Once you've found a theme you like, you can get started building your blog. So move on to the next stage where we create the essential pages for your new political blog.

7. Create Essential Pages& Logo

Your website's essential pages include the About page, Contact page, and Privacy Policy page. Let's take a more in-depth look at what you need to include on each of these pages:

About Page: The About page is one of the most visited pages on a blog. If you are the main writer of your blog, make sure that this page has information about you, why you started your blog, and what readers can expect from it.

If you have other people contributing to the blog, you may want to include their information here, as well. For instance, if yours is an analytical political blog, then you will likely have some respected political columnists contributing posts to your blog. This is all information that you can include on your About page.

Make sure you communicate how your blog is different from other political blogs and why someone should follow you.

Contact Page: The Contact page of your political blog is yet another important page that you should focus on. Make sure you have all the information there to cater to media requests, book reviews, and other promotional items (depending on the type of political blog you run).

This could include email, WhatsApp, telephone numbers, physical address, etc. Your contact page should also have a contact form to make it easier and more convenient for your audience to get in touch with you.

Additionally, you may want to include social sharing buttons so your audience can connect with you on various social platforms.

Privacy Policy: A Privacy Policy helps to protect your readers from any potential privacy breaches. It's also necessary to protect you from legal liability and your new political blog definitely needs to have one.

There are free sites where you can get a Privacy Policy drafted. Alternatively, you can get a professional to create one for you, as well as other legal pages, such as Terms and Conditions and Disclosures and Disclaimers.

Create a Logo: It's also a good time to focus on creating a logo for your book blog. There are a LOT of different ways to do this, but I'm a big fan of using this logo maker.

To get started, you can click here to create a blog logo.I think it's a good idea to create a logo at this point now that your blog is all setup.

This platform will provide you with a free logo for your blog and if you need the high-resolution logo files, you can pay a very minimal amount for access to those files and a few other things.

8. Begin Blogging

If you have a desire to start a political blog, chances are, you don't really need much help with this part. You likely already have a ton of ideas, but just in case, here we'll discuss a few tips to help you get started creating articles for your blog.

Political Blog Writing Categories

You need to create categories for your blog to make it as easy as possible for readers to find the type of content they're looking for. To do this, simply take the topic, or niche that you chose, and then break it down into smaller subtopics.

For instance, the political blog Think Progress has the following categories:

Politics
World
Clements
LGBT Q
Culture
Immigration
Latest
Video

Once you've chosen the categories for your blog, you can pick one category and then create a post. Each post that you publish on your blog from then on should fall under at least one of the categories that you've chosen.

When starting a new political blog, the most important thing is to write regularly.

Some blogs publish once a week while others publish multiple times a day. Choose whichever frequency works for you and stick to it.

You may want to start slow in the beginning and then pick up the pace as you grow. For instance, you may publish one or two posts per week and then, later on, start publishing two or three times per week.

Important Note: Before you start promoting your political blog, make sure that you have at least 10 posts written and published on your blog. This is to ensure that when people start visiting your new blog, they find it populated with enough interesting content to keep them engaged.

Learn From the Best Political Blogs:

Browse through these and other popular political blogs to gain inspiration for the different categories for your own blog.

Political Wire
Game Politics
GeoPolitics | Think Progress
The Political Insider
HuffPost Politics UK

Remember, you have to produce interesting posts day after day, week after week, so it may be a good idea for you to create a content calendar to ensure that you are regularly publishing engaging content for your audience.

9. Promoting Your Political Blog

Once your blog is live, it's time to start promoting it. Below are some of the most effective ways to share your work with the world for a popular, successful, and profitable blog.

Tell Your Friends and Family: The first thing to do is to share your blog with your friends and family. Ask them to visit your blog, read your posts, and share the blog with their network of friends. This will help increase your exposure beyond your own circle of friends.

Be Active on Social Media: This goes without saying. You need to be very active on social media, especially sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest where you can access millions of people and get the word out about your new political blog. Follow other prominent people in the industry, post your blog link on all your profiles, and share it in relevant groups where fans of politicals hang out.

Use Quora: Open an account on Quora and follow people of political interests. Answer questions, post your own questions and engage with others. Remember to link back to your blog so that people can click through to read your posts.

Facebook Ads: Facebook allows you to advertise to a targeted audience. You can spend as little as a dollar a day to get your blog in front of your target audience and to amass page likes or followers. For instance, you could target people that already follow other political blogs in your niche.

Post Regularly: One of the biggest drivers of traffic to your blog will be search engines. So make sure you post regularly on your blog, include relevant keywords in your articles, and follow SEO best practices to grow your blog traffic organically.

Guest Posting: Connect with other political bloggers and offer to write guest posts for their blogs. Alternatively, you can ask them to write a guest post for you. Either way, you get exposure to a brand-new audience as they will likely share the post with their readers.

Publish on Medium: Some of the best political blogs online today publish via Medium. Think Progress is one such example. Although Medium offers a lot less flexibility than a WordPress blog, it is still a great choice since the site is already optimized for the search engines.

Also, Medium has an inbuilt community of readers, which means that bloggers don't have to start from scratch. To get the best of both worlds, you can publish your posts on your own blog, and then publish on Medium, as well in order to increase your reach.

Never Stop Promoting

The vast majority of bloggers (97%) who are not successful fail because they don't focus on this aspect of blogging.

Promoting or marketing your blog isn't always fun, but it's necessary if you want to experience success.

By taking the practical steps outlined above, you make it more likely that you will be part of the 3% of bloggers who actually succeed. And remember, make sure you have at least 10 posts written on your blog before you start promoting it.

10. Start Making Money

When it comes to monetizing a political blog, there are quite a few different blog monetization methods available to you.

In this section, we take a look at some of the most commonly used and most effective ways to make money from your new blog.

Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate marketing is all about recommending products and services to your audience and then getting paid a small commission for each sale generated. You can join affiliate networks like Amazon, Madrivo, etc. and then recommend different products, such as books, organic food delivery services, and hemp clothing lines (for left-leaning blogs) and survival gear, and so on if your blog is to the right.

Consulting: If you are particularly skilled or experienced in creating strategies, doing research, social media, media buying, and so on, you can offer political consulting services. For instance, you can be a political consultant serving Republican candidates and campaigns, and so on.

Direct Ad Sales from Politicians: With the lack of live event campaigning due to the pandemic, political ad spend has been revised upward. As a political blogger, you can sell ad space to politicians so they can share the message with your audience. However, to be able to profit from this, you have to first build up your audience before getting direct ad sales from politicians.

Google Adsense: Whether you are on the left or the right of the political spectrum, Google AdSense can work for you. All you have to do is sign up with Google, and then they will start showing ads on your website. You will get paid a small amount for each ad view or click. Over time, this adds up to a nice stream of passive income from your blog. Just be sure to filter your ad content depending on which party your blog leans toward.

Selling Political Merchandise: As a political blogger, you can sell political merch that reflects your values and the different causes that are important to you. There is a heated political climate right now, and those who are prepared will be able to take advantage of it for capital gain. You can sell things like T-shirts, photography, mugs, pillows, bags, etc. emblazoned with radical statements (as an example).

Sponsored Posts: Sponsored posts are yet another great way to monetize your political blog. A sponsored post is where you get paid directly to write an article about something, such as a product, service, politician, campaign, etc. Sponsored content can pay very well if you have a large following. Although it may not be profitable for you in the beginning, it's something to consider once you start getting high levels of traffic to your political blog.

Donations: Although many people create political blogs for the love of the game, it's still great to know that you can implement these monetization methods and start generating an income from doing something that you love. Alternatively, you can simply ask for donations on your blog as opposed to implementing the various monetization methods. This is a tactic that's used by many of the best political blogs online. For instance, Truthdig does this with an enticing tagline:

"Give yourself the gift of uncompromising, independent journalism – Donate today".

How to Start a Political Blog: The Final Word

You now have at your disposal everything you need to launch and run a successful and profitable political blog. Use the information to help you take the steps you need to take to achieve your goals and desires.