How to Start a Cannabis Blog That Makes You Money

How to Start a Cannabis Blog

Making money with a marijuana blog does not happen overnight…especially if you’re starting with a brand-new blog.  However, if you follow the plan we’ve laid out for you, you will make a passive income soon.

The following information will show you every step necessary to create an excellent, clean, functional blog.  I will also show you how to grow it AND learn how to monetize it in less than an hour.

Let’s start and go over how to become a blogger and get your first online cannabis blog up and running.

This is so exciting!

Step 1. What’s Your Big Idea?

If you want to create a blog, you don’t need a brand-new idea. But your blog should be focused on something specific such as marijuana, supply, growing, seeds, etc.

Remember that no idea, no matter how good, is truly unique.

But you do have a distinct voice, character, and unique experiences. And you probably have a vibrant personality that will attract others like your family, friends, and people who believe exactly the way you do.

You need to ask yourself two questions when choosing your blog’s niche.

1) Am I Interested in this Topic?

Your readers will know if you don’t love what you’re blogging about. You will also get burned out on the topic quickly, and all your work will be for nothing. I’ll say, “you shouldn’t even start blogging about a subject if you don’t love what it’s all about.

Whatever subject you decide to write about, you need to love it and want to learn everything you can about it. You’ll run out of topics and ideas to write about if you don’t. By loving a topic, you’ll be able to consistently create content and write about things that help build and keep your audience coming back for more.

If you’re still lost at this point, consider what you already know about. Is growing marijuana your forte? Do you like to consume marijuana in different ways? Unbiased independent review blogs get a lot of attention over time.

2. Are There Others Interested in the Same Things?

Don’t think you’re the only mid-20-year-old out there who’s obsessed with marijuana. I promise you there are others.

You can find out by doing a quick Google search for “people who smoke marijuana,” and you’ll find 48,900,000 results directed at people like you.

If you think your idea is too odd. Or, maybe too broad? Don’t be surprised when you see millions of results for your search topic.

If you are interested in cannabis and want to start a marijuana blog, avoid using only broad words like marijuana, cannabis, weed, etc. Be specific, like “consuming marijuana” or “medical marijuana benefits.”

You will want to find your niche and grow your blog to succeed.

Step 2. Choose a Name for Your Cannabis Blog

This is where it starts to get fun and exciting. It’s also crucial because your blog name will also be your brand. This is how you’ll be remembered. However, you don’t want to overthink your name. Many new bloggers get stuck on this. The secret is to take action immediately and gain traction.

A domain name is what is typed in the URL bar at the top of your browser and will also be your blog’s name. For example, the blog you’re reading right now is marijuanaaffiliatemoney.com. A domain name will cost you around $11 a year.

Don’t sweat it if you don’t find the perfect domain name; you can still start your blog and change its name later.

Brainstorming is the best technique to find the perfect name. We discussed letting your thoughts go and identifying your specialty in the last phase. It’s time to give those concepts a name at this point.

So, start with some paper and a pen. Write down every phrase related to your topic that comes to mind for a few minutes.

Start putting words and phrases together after that until you find something that sticks out. Write down somewhere between five and ten names that you think would work.

Check to check whether those names are accessible as domains right now. Your blog is housed on a domain on the internet.

We suggest not using your name for your blog, but it’s not a deal killer. If you use your name, it may be harder to sell if you decide to sell your blog for a profit in the future.

If none of your top picks for site names are available as a .com, start over and come up with other ideas.

Tips for naming your cannabis blog

Take these tips into consideration when naming your cannabis blog.

• Use a .com extension over others. They’re easier to remember.
• Avoid using hyphens or numbers. They are difficult to remember, and people forget hyphens.
• Go for something memorable or catchy.
• Try to use keywords that represent what your blog is all about. Keywords will help people quickly identify your blog’s niche and help search engines distinguish what you are writing about.
• Aim for two to three words. Most, if not all, single-word domains are taken.
• Try to stay under 15 characters. This cannot be easy, but it may happen. This blog URL is 23 characters long.
• For personal brands, use your given name or a variation of it.

Finding the perfect name may take a little time and effort, but starting your brand-new blog will be well worth it.

Step 2. Get Web Hosting for Your Cannabis Blog

Web hosting is a paid service that allows your cannabis blog to be accessed worldwide through the internet.

Your blog will not be found online if you don’t have web hosting. Without a domain name, your blog will not have an address. Web hosting and a domain name are two things you must have to be successful.

When it comes to hosting companies, there are many to choose from. Prices range from $3 to $50/month for the new blogger just starting.

Since you’re starting a new blog, you should use Bluehost. They are the largest hosting company and are very well-known in the industry. I have worked out a deal with them where you can get started for just $2.95 a month (you will also get a free domain name). And, at no cost to you, Bluehost does compensate me every time someone signs up.

Since you’re just starting, you don’t need any additional bells and whistles. Once you gain a little momentum and get over 25,000 visitors a month, you can decide if you want to upgrade. Don’t worry; Bluehost can scale with you.

The best part of the Bluehost deal, which isn’t available to everyone, does not only do you get a free domain, but you’ll also collect $175 worth of free stuff, such as money to spend with Google and Bing ads to get traffic to your site once it’s up and ready. Click here to get my Bluehost special.

Step 3. Install WordPress – Your Blogging Software

Now that you’ve found your niche and your name, you will have to find some blogging software before starting your blog. I have all my blogs on WordPress because it’s user-friendly, powerful, and accessible.

There are many other blogging software platforms to choose from. However, if you create a blog, not on WordPress, you will find it can get costly and fast.

WordPress offers thousands of free plugins that will help you add value and modify your blog pages and layout in any imaginable way. Many of these free WordPress plugins are just a couple of clicks and are up on your blog.

You don’t need any technical nerd experience whatsoever. You can install WordPress with exactly five clicks of the mouse.

Here’s precisely how to do it.

Once you’ve got your hosting account and free domain from Bluehost, log in to the cpanel, find the website section and click on the icon “Install WordPress.”

You will now add a little bit of detail to your cannabis blog. Add your blog title, and make your admin username unique and different. You can also add your first and last name and whatever you want to use for an email address.

Check the two boxes at the bottom before you hit the “install” button. You will have a fully functional WordPress cannabis blog ready within a few minutes.

Step 4. Add a Design to Your WordPress Blog

WordPress designs are called themes in the blogging industry. The foundation of your cannabis blog will be pretty basic and look something like this:

There are thousands of themes to choose from, some free, some paid, and some even have trial memberships. It can be straightforward to get wrapped up in all the glitz and glamor and end up not getting anything done.

The good thing about themes is that you can change your theme at any time, so what we’re trying to say is don’t get hung up on picking a theme. The goal is to find something decent and begin blogging away.

We’re going to show you how to find all these themes now. First, you will need to log into your WordPress admin section. You do this by going to yourdomain.com/wp-admin.

Now you will need to enter your admin name and WordPress password.

To install a theme, hover your mouse over the “Appearance” menu in the left sidebar and then click “Themes” when it comes up.

You will see a few standard themes already installed: WordPress’s “Twenty-[various-year]” themes.

We will show you how to search for better, more modern themes that instantly make someone want to hang around on your cannabis blog for a while.

Click the “WordPress Themes” at the top of the page to access many excellent themes.

We like to select “blog,” “custom header,” and “grid layout.” However, you can choose whatever you think would best suit your needs.

Take a minute and evaluate if the theme fits both the topic you’re covering and your style.  (Keep in mind you can customize colors, pics, fonts, etc., within the theme itself at a later time.)

Once you’ve settled on a theme, click the “Install” button to launch your new theme.

If by chance you can’t find one that fits your personality, there are premium themes you can purchase for a price. Read the terms and conditions; some themes are one price, and others may charge annually.

If you can’t find a theme that you like, there are premium themes that you can purchase from sites like:

• Elegant Themes (This website is built with an Elegant Themes template)
• Themeforest
• Thrive Themes
• StudioPress

Now that your theme is activated let’s start the fun part of customizing your cannabis blog.

Step 5. Customize and Optimize Your Cannabis Blog

There are thousands of customizations you can make to a WordPress blog. For the sake of this tutorial, we will stick to the basics.

The foundation of your design is the theme. It includes the core features to run your blog. WordPress has all kinds of scripts called plugins. These free and paid plugins can help extend or add to the functionality of your blog.

There is a plugin for anything you would like to do on your blog. Some plugins are used to add sliders, forums, or contact forms. Some themes don’t always have some of these features available as essential features.

To customize your active theme, the first step is to click the “Customize” button.

Optimize Your Cannabis Blog for Search Engine Traffic

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a multi-billion dollar industry.  It has made ordinary people millionaires overnight.

SEO is the term used to describe optimizing your website so it can be found by search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo for specific keywords and phrases.

Marijuana, cannabis supply, and everything associated with it are becoming more mainstream as more states and countries legalize it.

This means learning how to capitalize with a search engine-optimized cannabis blog puts you in the right place at the right time.

We owe much of our online success to learning and keeping up with SEO.  It has helped an everyday group of ordinary people live a lifestyle where we do not need to answer to anybody and can do what we want.

If you have never heard the term SEO or this is your first time hearing it.  Don’t be afraid; WordPress makes it simple to optimize the technical aspects of your cannabis blog.

The main thing you will want to focus on when it comes to SEO is creating unique, engaging content for real people like you.  You can do this through text, images, or even videos.  Your main job is to cultivate a relationship between you and your readers.

The best way to do this is through informative and relatable friendly conversation.

The first thing you can do is download a plugin named Yoast SEO.

Take your mouse, hover over the left side menu to where it says plugins, and click “Add New.”

You will click “Install Now” and “Activate” once it becomes available.

The Yoast SEO plugin will take you through 8 steps.  These fundamental questions will help optimize your cannabis blog.

Step one asks you to select the environment that best fits your website.  You will likely want to choose “Option A” if you intend to start driving traffic to it immediately.

You may choose “Option B” to finish your site before launching it.  If you choose option B, don’t forget to change the setting when you publish your blog.

Section six allows you to choose a title separator and verify your blog’s name.

You don’t have to put a lot of thought into this; it has no bearing on your search engine optimization. A title separator is a symbol that separates your blog title and website’s name in the meta title information within search engines. This is what people see when searching for something in a search query.

You may see an example: “How to Start a Cannabis Blog that Makes Money – The Marijuana Consumer.”

You must select the one you want to use and click the “Next” button when ready.

If you want to subscribe, add your email address and click the “Sign Up” button.

We will go to “Google Search Console,” formally known as “Webmaster Tools.”  The Google Search Console is a tool by Google that will allow you to submit your site to their search index and help optimize visibility to searchers.

Click on the SEO section on the left-hand sidebar and then click on the “Webmaster Tools” tab.

Once logged into Google, press the “Alternate Methods” tab and select the “HTML tag” to verify your cannabis blog.

You also will find the ability to give Google a little nudge when you publish new posts.

About XML Sitemaps

The last setting we’ll set up in the Yoast SEO plugin is an XML sitemap. XML sitemaps are files that list all the URLs for your website.

An XML sitemap helps search engines like google crawl your site for any newly published posts or pages. The Yoast SEO plugin has a built-in feature that automatically updates your sitemap, so you can set it and forget it.

To access this feature, click the “Features” tab and make sure all the components are set to “On.” Don’t forget to hit “Save Changes.”

Setting Up Permalinks for Your Cannabis Blog:

Permalinks will help you with your SEO journey.  They are static hyperlinks that lead to a particular page or blog post.  WordPress sets your permalinks to a post ID by default that looks like this – yourdomanin.com/postID.

There is a simple fix that I will show you to help with the permalink structure and your SEO efforts.

Go back into the left sidebar, hover over “Settings,” and click on “Permalinks.”

There are several options that you can choose from. I highly recommend you use the “Post Name” option to take advantage of keywords in your post and page URLs. Make sure you hit save after you’ve chosen your setting.

If you’re still here, We congratulate you on your well-done job. You’ve purchased your domain name, set up web hosting, installed a custom theme, and optimized your cannabis blog to be found and crawled by search engines.

Take a moment and pat yourself on the back!

Now we get to what blogging is all about. What are you going to tell the world about in your blog?

Let’s see if we can help you get started.

Step 6. Cannabis Blog Topics Needed

Your blog is already set up and ready to go on the technical side. All you have to do is develop exciting topics to add to your masterpiece.

Most of your blog posts will come from personal experiences, successes, failures, and newly researched learnings.

Most professional bloggers use search engines to ask questions such as:

• Should I start a blog?
• What should I blog about?
• What to write about?

This is where you should start with some questions and write them down for future blog ideas. When we have a new blog idea for our marijuana site and looking for inspiration. We use a list of questions and a brainstorming system to develop fresh content.

It may sound daunting, but it is far from complicated and will not take much time.

If you follow the tips below, you can come up with around fifty topics you can work on within about 30 minutes. (distraction-free, of course)

Grab a pen and paper or open a document on your computer to take notes.

Your goal for this system is to get about ten answers for each of the following questions. Keep in mind 10 is the goal. If you can think of more, write them down; if you can’t think of ten, do your best.

This exercise will work to find topics for any blog, not just a cannabis blog.

You will want to put yourself in your reader’s mind and start with these five questions.

 1. “What do my readers get excited or passionate about, and what intrigues them?”

Example answers:

• As a marijuana smoker, I get excited about smoking good weed.
• I’m passionate about the different ways of consuming cannabis.
• I’m intrigued by the growth process of the marijuana plant.

2. “What character traits do my readers have?

Examples:

• Marijuana smokers are laid back.
• Cannabis users can be very creative.
• People who smoke marijuana tend to like the taste of food.

3. “What are some of the significant obstacles my readers endure?

Examples:

• Cannabis is not legal in their location.
• The bad stigma of being a marijuana smoker.
• Finding sources where they can purchase cannabis.

4. “What do my readers love about the cannabis niche?”

Examples:

• Marijuana users love to try new ways to consume cannabis.
• Cannabis consumers love to learn about new strains.
• Smokers prefer consuming marijuana over booze.

5. “What do my readers hate about the cannabis niche?”

Examples:

• Being labeled a “lazy stoner” for being a cannabis consumer.
• Marijuana is not recreationally legal in all locations.
• There is a lot of misleading information on the subject.

I think you understand what you’re trying to do. This will work with any niche, not just for a cannabis blog. Once you get to around 50 answers, you can begin working on blog post ideas from each of the above. You can most likely see now that you’ve created an unlimited resource of blog post ideas.

Here are a few examples of cannabis blog topics from the above list:

• Marijuana Grow Boxes and Why You Should Buy One
• The Best Cannabis Strains When You Want to Relax
• Where is Marijuana Legal?
• The Marijuana Bong and How it Works
• Vape vs. Joint:  Which is More Enjoyable?
• How to Roll a Joint the Right Way
• Smoking Weed: My Favorite Way to Consume Marijuana

You aim to develop a catchy headline to draw readers in and then hit them with a right-left in the rest of your cannabis blog content.

Step 7. Write Your First Cannabis Blog Post

This is when WordPress becomes very useful, WorPress has a intuitive editor built in, it’s similar to common word processing tools.  New blog entries will be created directly from your WordPress admin.

First you will want to click on “Posts” in the left sidebar.

To begin your first marijuana post, click the “Add New” button at the top of the page or in the left sidebar.

The first thing you want to do is add a headline or title to your cannabis blog. You will want to refer back to the exercise you did previously. Once you type it in, WordPress will automatically create a permalink based on the keywords you used in your headline.

To add a new image, you first want to click on the area where you want to put the idea. Hover over your text, and a blue + sign appears. Click on it, and a pop-up will appear; you can see all the options available. Select the “image” icon.

NOTE:  You can also hover over a section of the text, and an up/down/move icon will show up on the left-hand side of the section. This will allow you to move that specific section to a different area within your blog.

There are many options on the right sidebar of the media library.  You can play with those settings later to get familiar with them.

Yoast has a few post-specific settings you’ll want to take advantage of.  They can be found under the main text area of the WordPress editor.

There are four main settings we will be discussing.  They are “SEO Title,” Meta Description,” “Slug,” and, of course, “Focus Keyword.”<

After completing these four things, Yoast will preview what your cannabis post will look like when searchers discover it on Google’s search engine results page.

You will want to create SEO titles that attract readers to click on your post in the search results and write meta descriptions that explain your article.

As you optimize your title and description, the Yoast SEO plugin will provide instant real-time feedback.

Click on the “Edit Snippet” button and then enter your “Focus Keyphrase,” “SEO Title,” and “Meta Description.”  There are a certain number of characters that can safely be entered.  If the green line turns to orange, some of your information will be cut off in some search results pages.

Yoast has a few post-specific settings you’ll want to take advantage of.  They can be found under the main text area of the WordPress editor.

There are four main settings we will be discussing.  They are “SEO Title,” Meta Description,” “Slug,” and, of course, “Focus Keyword.”

After completing these four things, Yoast will preview what your cannabis post will look like when searchers discover it on Google’s search engine results page.

You will want to create SEO titles that attract readers to click on your post in the search results and write meta descriptions that explain your article.

The Yoast SEO plugin will provide instant real-time feedback as you optimize your title and description.

Click on the “Edit Snippet” button and then enter your “Focus Keyphrase,” “SEO Title,” and “Meta Description.”  There are a certain number of characters that can safely be entered.  If the green line turns to orange, some of your information will be cut off in some search results pages.

You set your featured image by clicking on the “Featured Image” button on the right sidebar.  Once you select it, another box will come up that says “Set Featured Image,” click it next.

The media window where you selected an image earlier will come up; now, you have to click on the image you would like to use.

On the right sidebar, you will need to add a little bit about the image in the “Alternative Text,” “Title,” and “Caption” lines.

Once completed, you can click the “Select” button in the lower right-hand corner.

Before going live with your blog post, you can take a sneak peek by clicking the “Preview” button in the top right corner of the page.

Before publishing your first blog post, ensure it looks and feels how you want it to.

Use the checklist below to review your work.  Once complete, you can then hit the “Publish Button.”

• Is your post easy on the eyes by using enough whitespace?
• Are you speaking to your readers in a conversational tone?
• Did you use headings to separate your sections?
• Does your content flow naturally?
• Did you use bullet points and lists to summarize information?
• Finally, did you check all of your content for typos and grammatical errors?

If everything looks good, you’re ready to publish your first cannabis blog post.

You will find the “Publish/Update” button in the upper right-hand corner of the WordPress Dashboard.  Click it, and your blog post will be available immediately.

After all our hard work, let’s take a look at what our test blog page looks like.

Congratulations!  Now take a moment and pat yourself on the back.

You have just successfully created a blog that looks awesome, and it is optimized for search engine traffic.  It wasn’t as scary as you thought, right?

Cannabis Blog Conclusion

The harsh reality is creating a blog is pretty straightforward.  Building one that will be successful and provide income requires dedication and hard work.

However, We’re here to tell you as long as you stay focused and see it through.  The rewards are much greater than the risks.

Blogs of any kind, including cannabis blogs, are more accessible and affordable today than ever.  The highest expense is time.

Life will throw you curve balls, and many distractions will come your way.  Once again, our advice is to write about something you are knowledgeable and passionate about and share it through your blog.

We have written it out on this page so you can get started and get well on your way.

Be honest and transparent…and most of all, be YOU!

As you and your blog grow, you will find followers that will flock to you…listen to them, engage with them, and most of all…respond to them.

Once you gain some traction, you may want to monetize your blog with cannabis affiliate links.

Thank you for reading our article, How to Start a Cannabis Blog in 2024 that Makes Money.

We got to run; it’s almost 4:20!