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How to Start an Anonymous Blog that Someone Reads

November 16, 2021
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Blogging is perhaps the biggest boon of the internet revolution. Every day, about 4 million blog posts are published worldwide, and many of these blogs are anonymous. An anonymous blog does not reveal the identity of the blogger, or the blogger publishes his or her blog under a pseudonymous or fake identity. In both cases, the blogger is blogging anonymously.

In this post, I will list the reasons for blogging anonymously, and then I will share ideas on starting an anonymous blog. I will also discuss ways to promote your anonymous blog and earning money through anonymous blogging.

So, let’s get rolling.

Why You Should or Should Not Blog Anonymously

There are many reasons for starting an anonymous blog. The 5 main ones are:

  1. You have a full-time job, and you wish to start a blog on the side without letting your employer know about it. So, you Start Blogging under a different name or, still better, under your spouse’s name. This is the number one reason for starting an anonymous blog.
  2. You are planning on starting a blog about a sensitive topic, maybe an alien attack, and you are paranoid about your security should someone bump into you on a deserted street.
  3. You are not confident about your writing, and you wish to experiment by starting an anonymous blog, so the eggs get thrown at an imaginary author. How ingenious!
  4. You want to drive traffic to your primary blog or build links to it. What better way to do this than to blog anonymously?
  5. You are publishing a guest post, and the blog author publishes your article under his or her name. This is pseudonymous blogging, a form of anonymous blogging.

Now that you have seen the advantages of blogging anonymously, let me caution you of its 4 disadvantages as well.

  1. If your audience is your local community or you are likely to encounter your readers face to face, they will most likely discover your real identity on meeting you. So, it’s best to blog under your real name right from the start.
  2. If you are blogging in a niche where the authenticity of the source is crucial, for example, a news blog, then you should not blog anonymously or under a fake name.
  3. If you wish to build a personal brand, then obviously, you cannot afford to remain anonymous online.
  4. If you are blogging anonymously for some time, then you cannot just choose to use your real name one beautiful day since this will confuse your readers, or worse, make them distrust you.

Remember: Even if you decide to blog anonymously, you have the responsibility to be completely honest with your audience so far as your content is concerned. You should not publish misleading and fake information on your blog simply because blog anonymously.

How to Start Blogging Anonymously

Starting an anonymous blog is easy as pie. You need first to pick the right blogging platform and launch your blog. Once you have done this, you can set up your profile. You can now decide whether to blog anonymously or under your real identity.

One of the best ways to blog anonymously is to start a WordPress blog since WordPress allows you to blog under any name you wish and also does not restrict your ability to change your profile name later.

If you wish to blog anonymously, you need to pick a pseudonym that you will use on your blog. Next, you need to decide whether you will use your real image or grab a copy from a stock photo site.

What’s more, you can also choose not to display any author name on your blog. This way you can become completely anonymous. But you should know that many readers don’t trust a blog if they don’t find any author name on it.

Apart from WordPress, many blogging platforms allow you to start a free anonymous blog like the following:

  1. Tumblr
  2. Wix
  3. Weebly
  4. Medium
  5. Blogger
  6. Squarespace

But you should blog on the above platforms only if you intend to start a small hobby blog. If you are serious about blogging and want to earn income from it, then WordPress is the way to go.

There are many advantages of blogging on WordPress, but I will only list the main ones here:

  1. WordPress is a free Content Management System (CMS), and you don’t need to pay anything to use it.
  2. There are more than 55,000 free plugins available on WordPress.org to extend your blog’s functionality in any way you desire.
  3. Apart from this, you can pick from among thousands of free WordPress themes to dress up your anonymous WordPress blog.
  4. WordPress is excellent for SEO, and you can make your blog stand out in the search results if you make consistent efforts.
  5. WordPress is secure and is regularly updated. What’s more, new features are always added to the WordPress core.
  6. There is a thriving community of WordPress users, and you can get answers to any WordPress problem in no time.

So, are you ready to use WordPress to launch that anonymous dream blog of yours? Then do the following. Remember, this is a small summary of the detailed steps of starting your WordPress blog but you can get up and running with your WordPress blog in no time with this mini-guide:

  1. Get a custom domain name for your anonymous blog from Namecheap. Namecheap is one of the most popular domain name registrars and also arguably the most trusted one as well. I have purchased all my domains on Namecheap.
  2. Get web hosting to host your newly purchased domain. I will recommend SiteGround since it is one of the best-managed WordPress hosting providers with outstanding support and other features to make your web hosting an enjoyable experience.
  3. You should then complete the 1-click WordPress install from within your hosting dashboard and login to your WordPress website.
  4. Since you wish to make your WordPress blog anonymous, you should straightaway head over to Users > Your Profile from the WordPress dashboard. Here, you can enter your desired nickname and select the nickname from the “Display name publicly as” drop-down. Since you wish to remain anonymous, you should not enter your real name here. Instead, you can enter a generic name like “Blog Name” or “Editorial Staff” or anything else that will hide your real identity.

Congrats! You have just launched your anonymous WordPress blog. I highly recommend that you go through my detailed guide on creating a WordPress website to configure the remaining settings and also take care of your blog’s security.

Promote Your Anonymous Blog

Now that you have created your anonymous blog, it is time to promote it to get viewership and make your blog popular.

The best way to promote your blog is on social media platforms like Quora, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter. You can also share your blog posts on social bookmarking sites like GrowthHackers.com, Folkd.com, Reddit, Slashdot, Scoop.it, etc.

Since you are blogging anonymously, I assume you also wish to remain anonymous on social media while promoting your blog. You can easily do this since most of the social sites do not require you to authenticate your identity, and you can create a pseudonym to promote your blog posts.

The only notable exception to this norm is Facebook that will annoy you repeatedly with identity verification notifications. But where there’s a problem, there is an easy way out.

You can do the following to remain anonymous on Facebook:

  1. Create a Facebook account using a disposable email.
  2. Get a cheap mobile number that you will use for Facebook verification. Do not use 3rd party sites for verifying your Facebook account since you will need your mobile number in case Facebook locks you out of your account.
  3. Upload a profile picture, which is not your real self. You can use any stock image site for this. But if you’re using a stock image, remember to rename the image to your Facebook profile name since Facebook also scans for stock profile images!

Once you have set up your anonymous Facebook account, you should become a member of different blog promotion groups and start promoting your blog.

Quora is also another popular social media platform for promoting your blog anonymously. You can even ask questions on Quora and get paid for it.

Are there any famous anonymous bloggers?

There are millions of anonymous blogs, but since the authors have chosen to remain anonymous, we do not know that they are actually blogging anonymously. However, one famous blogger did come out in the open about her anonymity.

I am talking about James Chartrand, who started MensWithPens.ca but did not disclose for a long time that she was, in reality, a woman. She claims that she hid the fact that she was a woman in order to make her mark in a male-dominated industry. It was only in 2009 that she revealed her real identity.

How to make money with your anonymous blog?

Earning income with a blog involves the same methods and processes whether you are blogging anonymously or under your real identity.

How is that, you may wonder. This is because no one except you know who is the real beneficiary of your blog. You could be blogging under a pen name but your spouse or family member could be the recipient of the blog earnings.

If you have a full-time job and are blogging on the side, you might consider making your family member the recipient of the sales that occur through your blog.

This will help avoid legal and tax complications in the future.

Some of the ways to earn money by blogging anonymously are:

1. Affiliate marketing: This is one of the best ways to make money anonymously. People are not interested in your identity rather how you can solve their problem by recommending the right solution. If you follow this approach, you should start making some serious money by promoting other products.

2. Selling your product: You can also earn income online by selling your products to your readers. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a $1000 product. Instead, you can start small by selling an eBook. You can also pitch your service to your site visitors but this might expose your true identity to your clients.

3. Through advertising: If your anonymous blog gets lots of traffic, you can consider displaying Adsense or 3rd party ads and banners.

4. By publishing sponsored posts: Another way to earn money by blogging anonymously is by publishing sponsored posts on your blog. If you publish sponsored posts, you should state upfront that the post is sponsored.

Summary of starting an anonymous blog

You have seen the advantages of starting an anonymous blog. You have also gone through the steps for starting your anonymous blog. Then you learned the best ways to promote your blog anonymously using social media. Finally, you also saw a few ways in which you can make money from your anonymous blog.

If you enjoyed reading this post, consider leaving your comment below and let me know did you finally start your anonymous blog?