How To Start An Anonymous Blog (& Make Money)

In today’s digital age, the importance of anonymity cannot be overstated.

An increasing number of bloggers are choosing to start anonymous blogs for various reasons:

• Protecting their privacy
• Expressing controversial opinions
• & creating a safe space for discussions.

What’s particularly interesting is that anonymous blogs, much like their non-anonymous counterparts, can make money through advertising and affiliate programs.

I have 3 anonymous blogs in my portfolio and so far I haven’t experienced anything negative due to them being “under the hood”. Sure, they could be more personal and trustworthy if I attached my name to them, but this hasn’t been a deal breaker.

But without further ado;

In this guide, we’ll explore strategies for remaining anonymous while blogging and provide you with a simple 7-step plan for starting your own anonymous blog.

Let’s dive in!

Can Anonymous Blogs Make Money?

You might be wondering if anonymous blogs can actually generate income.

The answer is yes!

Just like any other blog, an anonymous blog has the potential to make money through various revenue streams.

My favorite ways to monetize blogs are:

1. Affiliate marketing: Joining affiliate programs such as Amazon Associates or ShareASale allows you to recommend products and services on your blog. You earn a commission when visitors click through your unique affiliate links and make a purchase.
2. Advertising: Anonymous blogs can feature display ads through networks like Google AdSense or Mediavine. As long as your content meets their guidelines, you can generate revenue through ad impressions and clicks.
3. Digital products: Creating digital products like ebooks, courses, or printables is an excellent way for anonymous bloggers to monetize their content. You can sell these resources directly through your blog or on third-party platforms like Gumroad or Teachable.

Despite the anonymity, making money from your blog boils down to producing high-quality and engaging content that attracts a loyal audience.

If you’re interested in starting your own anonymous blog, keep reading to see how.

How To Remain Anonymous While Blogging

If you want to maintain your anonymity while blogging, below are some tips you can follow.

Personally, I haven’t had the need to go as far as using the Tor network or even VPN to remain anonymous in blogging, but your needs may be different.

I certainly do have the Whois privacy enabled when registering domain names though.

Here are the tips:

• Use a pseudonym: Choose a pen name or a pseudonym that bears no connection to your real name. This way you can create a unique author persona without exposing your identity.
• Create a separate email account: Set up a new email account specifically for your anonymous blog. Use an email service provider known for its strong privacy protections such as ProtonMail or Tutanota.
• Register your domain anonymously: Opt for a domain registrar that offers private registration (Whois privacy) which keeps your personal information hidden from public domain records. I highly recommend NameCheap for this.
• Avoid sharing personal information: Be cautious when crafting your blog content. Refrain from including personal anecdotes, photos, or other identifiable information that may reveal your identity.
• Use a VPN: A VPN or Virtual Private Network, encrypts your online connection and can mask your IP address. This adds a layer of privacy and helps minimize the risk of your identity being uncovered. Some trusted VPN providers are ExpressVPN and NordVPN.
• Connect via Tor Network: The Tor Network is designed to provide anonymous communication. When you browse the internet through the Tor Browser, you can prevent websites (including your blog’s hosting provider) from tracking your location and IP address.
• Be cautious with social media: If promoting your blog on social media, create accounts under your pseudonym and avoid connecting with friends, family, or colleagues who may recognize your writing.

Starting Your Own Anonymous Blog In 7 Steps

Select A Niche For Your Blog

Now, if you want to make money with your blog, you need to select a niche.

Blogging about what you ate for breakfast is not going to earn you a dime, so you need to select a topic where you can help people. Helping people is what earns you the money.

Choosing a niche doesn’t have to be hard (& you can always change it down the road).

A niche is simply a specific topic area or target audience that your blog will focus on.

1. Start by identifying your passions and interests

Find topics that genuinely interest you and excite your passion. Blogging about something you care for deeply will keep you motivated and enable you to create better and more engaging content for your readers.

Believe me, you’ll get burned out at some point, and having that passion behind your niche will save you.

For example, my first niche blog was about computer peripherals because I was already interested in that stuff.

2. Determine profitability

If your goal is to make money with your blog, then you also need to choose a niche with the potential for earning revenue.

The easiest way to do this is to consider:

• Are people buying products in my niche?
• Are there other blogs/websites/online stores making money in this niche?

If the answer is yes, your blog can make money too.

There are other ways to go much deeper into determining profitability, but a simple thought process like the above is enough to get started.

Registering A Domain Anonymously

A domain name is your website’s address.

It should be easy to remember, catchy, and aligned with your niche.

I’d also stick with the “.com” extension since it’s the most trusted among people.

When starting an anonymous blog, it’s possible to register your domain in a way that keeps your personal information hidden from public view.

For me, it has been enough to just use NameCheap’s WHOIS privacy, but below you can find a more comprehensive way to register a domain name without revealing your identity:

1. Choose a domain registrar with privacy protection: Select a domain registrar that offers built-in privacy protection also known as WHOIS privacy. This service conceals your personal information such as your name, email address, and phone number from public domain records. I’ve used NameCheap for this since they’re a privacy-focused service.
2. Consider using an anonymous domain registration service: If you want an added layer of privacy protection, opt for a domain registration service specifically designed for anonymous information such as Njalla. These services act as an intermediary between you and the domain registrar, further hiding your personal details from prying eyes.
3. Use an alias: When registering your domain, consider using a pseudonym instead of your real name. However, be aware that some domain registrars may require a verifiable legal name and address for registration purposes.
4. Set up a separate email address: Create and use a new email account, preferably with a secure and privacy-focused email provider like ProtonMail or Tutanota when registering your domain. Avoid using an email address associated with your personal or professional life.
5. Pay with a privacy-focused payment method: While purchasing your domain, use secure payment methods that protect your financial information. Some solutions include paying with cryptocurrencies, masked or virtual credit cards, or privacy-focused payment services like Privacy.com.

Finding A Reliable Web Hosting Service

Next, you have to choose a reliable web hosting service.

Your hosting provider should offer strong privacy and security measures along with reliable uptime and performance.

I use Wealthy Affiliate for my hosting and domain registration needs, but if you need something more privacy-focused, you may need to choose something else.

Here’s how you can find the best web hosting service for your needs:

1. Prioritize anonymity: Research web hosting providers that prioritize anonymity and privacy. Look for services that don’t ask for excessive personal information and allow anonymous registrations. Some options include OrangeWebsite, Shinjiru, and FlokiNET.
2. Compatibility with your chosen CMS: Ensure that the web hosting service supports WordPress as your Content Management System (CMS).
3. Consider offshore hosting: Offshore hosting services are located in countries that follow less stringent data retention laws, thereby offering additional privacy and security benefits. Some recommended offshore hosting providers include Abelohost and HostRound.
4. Review privacy and security features: Choose a hosting provider that offers strong privacy protection and security features such as SSL certificates, automatic backups, and DDoS protection. These features protect your blog from breaches and help maintain your anonymity.
5. Evaluate customer support: A reliable web hosting service should have responsive and knowledgeable customer support available 24/7. Look at customer reviews for insight into the quality of their support.
6. Check uptime and performance: The performance of your hosting provider can directly impact your blog’s user experience and search engine rankings. Look for hosting services with a consistent uptime guarantee, ideally 99.9% or better, and check customer reviews for an indication of their speed and reliability.

Decide A Theme For Your Blog

Selecting a theme for your blog determines the overall design, layout, and user experience.

The theme should create a visually appealing and easy-to-navigate environment for your readers.

One highly recommended theme is GeneratePress. These days I have it on every website I own.

It’s a lightweight, superbly customizable, and responsive WordPress theme. It’s a great choice for anonymous blogs too.

1. Fast performance: GeneratePress is built with speed in mind. It features a small file size and minimal use of resources. This enables fast loading times and improves user experience.
2. Customizable design: GeneratePress offers a high degree of customization and allows you to tailor the theme to suit your blog’s niche and visual identity. The theme integrates with the native WordPress Customizer and enables you to preview and modify design elements in real-time.
3. Responsive and mobile-friendly: GeneratePress automatically adapts to different screen sizes and devices. It ensures your blog looks great across desktop, tablet, and mobile platforms.
4. SEO-friendly: The theme’s clean and efficient code adheres to best practices for SEO and contributes to better search engine rankings for your blog content.
5. Compatibility with popular plugins: GeneratePress integrates seamlessly with popular WordPress plugins like Elementor, Beaver Builder, and WooCommerce.
6. Regular updates and support: GeneratePress releases regular updates and offers dedicated customer support. This ensures that your theme remains compatible with the latest WordPress versions and resolves any encountered issues.

Perform Keyword Research

Now that you have your blog pretty much set up, it’s time to figure out what people are searching on Google so you can start helping them (& earning money).

This process is called keyword research.

It helps you identify popular search terms and phrases relevant to your blog’s niche.

When you optimize your content with these keywords, you can increase your visibility in search engines and attract targeted organic traffic.

Basically, you’ll start getting visitors to your blog for free.

Here’s a step-by-step overview guide to performing keyword research:

1. Define your blog’s main topics: Break down your niche into specific topics or categories that capture the essence of your blog. These will serve as seed keywords and a starting point for your research.
2. Use keyword research tools: Use popular keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Ubersuggest. These tools generate additional keyword ideas based on your seed keywords and offer insights into search volume, competition, and keyword difficulty.
3. Analyze competitors’ keywords: Identify your competitors’ high-performing content and the keywords they’re ranking for. Tools such as Ahrefs and SEMrush can provide valuable insights into your competitors’ organic search performance.
4. Identify long-tail keywords: These are longer, more specific keywords that often have lower search volume but higher conversion rates due to their specificity. Targeting long-tail keywords can help you reach a more targeted audience and face less competition.
5. Evaluate search intent: Understand the intent behind the keywords which includes informational, transactional, navigational, or commercial intent. Align your content with the search intent of your target keywords for better search engine performance and user engagement.
6. Examine keyword metrics: Analyze the search volume, competition, and keyword difficulty to identify opportunities. Aim for keywords with moderate to high search volume, lower competition, and manageable keyword difficulty.
7. Organize and prioritize keywords: Create a list of relevant keywords from your research and prioritize them based on search volume, competition, and relevance to your blog’s main topics.
8. Optimize your content: Add the selected keywords to your blog’s content, including the title, headings, body text, meta description, and URL. Keep your keyword usage natural and avoid keyword stuffing.

If this sounds complicated, I have a resource for you at the end of this blog post which shows how to do all this in more detail.

Creating & Publishing Content

Now that you’ve done the keyword research and know what to write about, it’s time to create the best content you can.

Your first pieces of content don’t have to be award-winning quality, just try to make it as helpful as you can.

You will very quickly improve your craft when you keep doing it.

To get your blog “off the ground”, I recommend creating a publishing schedule and sticking to it. You don’t want to burn out so choose something that works out for you, like 1-3 blog posts published per week.

The type of content you could create are:

• How-to posts
• Tutorials
• Product reviews
• Listicles
• Question & Answer posts
• Comparisons
• Videos

There are many ways to go about it, so it’s best to figure out what you enjoy doing the most and stick to that.

Some other tips I can give you:

1. Research your topics: Do thorough research on each topic before writing your blog posts. This ensures that your content is factual, informative, and relevant to your target audience. Use reputable sources and keep track of your references.
2. Optimize for SEO: When creating your content, add keywords discovered during your keyword research to improve your blog’s visibility on search engines. Pay attention to on-page SEO factors such as title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and image alt text.
3. Format your content: Break up long blocks of text with headings, subheadings, bullet points, images, and other visual elements to improve readability. Proper formatting makes your content more appealing and easy for readers to digest.
4. Proofread and edit: Before publishing, proofread your content for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and typos. Use tools like Grammarly or Hemingway to aid in the editing process. Make sure your content flows well and is easy to understand.
5. Add visual elements: Enhance your blog content with relevant, high-quality images, charts, graphs, or other visual media. Visual elements contribute to a richer user experience and can help clarify complex ideas.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why do people blog anonymously?

A: People blog anonymously for various reasons including protecting their privacy, separating professional and personal lives, expressing sensitive opinions or experiences, writing about controversial topics, and avoiding potential backlash or judgment.

Q: Do anonymous bloggers get paid?

A: Yes, anonymous bloggers can get paid through various monetization strategies such as affiliate marketing, display advertising, sponsored content, or selling digital products and services. However, the income generated depends on factors like blog traffic, niche, content quality, and marketing efforts.

Q: How do anonymous bloggers maintain their anonymity?

A: Anonymous bloggers maintain their anonymity by using pseudonyms, avoiding sharing personally identifiable information, using a privacy-focused email provider, employing a virtual private network (VPN) when accessing the blog, and registering their domain with privacy protection.

Q: Is it legal to blog anonymously?

A: Yes, blogging anonymously is legal. However, it’s essential to abide by applicable laws concerning libel, slander, copyright, and privacy. An anonymous blogger is still responsible for the content they publish, and illegal activities may lead to legal consequences, even when writing anonymously.

Start Your Anonymous Blog Today

As you can see, there’s quite a lot to starting a blog and getting it to a point of earning income.

If you’d like a helping hand and a comprehensive step-by-step guide to making this all work, I have just the right resource for you;

Start building your anonymous blog.

It comes with everything you need to build successful blogs that make money. Seriously, everything.

Check it out if you’re interested in making money with blogs.