How to Start a Blog for Free? There’s so much info out there on the web, and everyone’s telling you to do different things. Where’s the starting point?
Well, hold up. I used a blogging newbie too. I had the same problems. I started my blog back in 2012, and I knew less than nothing about blogging. In fact, it was only the week before I’d learn what a blog was.
When you know your destination, getting your direction becomes easier, right?
People start blogs for different reasons. Today, blogging is a great way to So below, I’m going to outline exactly what you need to do to get started and set up your own personal blog.
How and Where to Start a Free Blog
Before we dive in though I really want to talk about why you should build a blog, Blogging has quickly become one of the most popular ways of communicating and spreading information and news.
There are literally millions of blogs online (don’t worry, you can make yours stand out and get noticed!).
It’s a great way to express yourself and also a fantastic way to share information with others.
You become a better person and a better writer.The best reason? You can make money doing it!
WHY you want to start a blog
Make a difference. Do you want to help people take control of their personal finance? Start your own blog. You wish people would exercise more, make healthier meals and rest better? Start a blog.
Get published. The world is changing, and traditional publishers are falling into irrelevance. Smart authors now make a blog, build a loyal audience and publish their works. This approach works always.
Make money. It takes time and commitment but people make real money from blogs. I’ve made tens of thousands of dollars myself from blogging. And many folks I’ve taught how to create a blog are doing fine too.
If you’re still undecided,
You can start a cool blog for any or all the above purposes. Just use this simple guide, and you’ll see how easy it is.
Choose a Blogging Platform
This is a very important question you must settle before you move on because it will ultimately affect your growth. Although there are various blogging platforms available out there, two of the most used and recommended are Blogger and WordPress.
The debate between Blogger and WordPress is a long, and never-ending one. Indeed, different people have a different point of views and different reasons for liking either of the two platforms. The decision, however, ultimately depends upon what sort of user you are, and what you intend to do with your blog.
Choose Google Blog Platform
Blogger is the best option for you if you’re a beginner user. It is easy to start, and the learning curve is a very comfortable one. Blogger is customizable to a great extent and doesn’t need you to have any skill-sets for using it. Anyone can set up a Blogger blog. And best of all, there’s little to no investment required. For your blog, you will only need to buy a domain, which is worth $10, give or take a few bucks.
Another great thing I like about Blogger is, it is pretty easy to tweak. There’s a single template code which you can edit to change the outlook of your blog. And the implementation is pretty clean and efficient too. Blogger is optimized for search engines and has easy social integration.
There is, however, a catch. Blogger is limited in the sense that it isn’t for programmers. You can not run PHP or ASP scripts on your blog, nor can you fiddle around with a database. There’s also a limit to the number of stand-alone pages, and the number of users you can have.
Choose WordPress Blogging platform
WordPress is an extremely powerful open source software that is customizable to a great degree. And best of all, it supports PHP, so it is the number one choice for programmers and web developers. You could create heavily dynamic content or flexible database applications on your WordPress site. Hence, it is preferred by the corporate and business sector, where functionality is the biggest priority.
However, the learning curve is pretty steep. WordPress can be difficult and challenging. Even the slightest of tweaks can take up a lot of time and effort. And since the software is constantly updated, plugins you are using currently might not work well with the next update. Hence, you will end up a lot of time debugging errors and finding solutions.
WordPress also requires you to invest a lot of money in it. You have to buy not just a domain, but a hosting as well. And if you want full customization, you will need to buy a framework. So even the start-up investment can reach as high as $150-$300 – let alone on-going investments in hosting renewals, plugin subscriptions, and so on.
( There are two types of WordPress blogs. Free (www.yourblog.wordpress.com), and self hosted (www.yourblog.com). Free blogs are hosted on WordPress.com and are extremely restrictive. They only serve as a demo for self hosted blogs (WordPress.org). In this post, we are talking about self-hosted blogs which are fully customizable and not free WordPress blogs)
So in essence, between Blogger and WordPress, Blogger is the better option for beginners. WordPress requires a lot of time, effort, and resources. But Blogger is totally free (apart from the domain). And it’s not like Blogger blogs can’t be professional. This very blog is run on Blogger. And you can see for yourself how much customization we have done. So WordPress is best for corporate and business sector websites because Blogger is best for people who have little to no development experience. Hence, we would recommend you choose Blogger and not WordPress.
Create a Free Blog On the BlogSpot Blogging Platform
Before I begin the complete tutorial, there are a couple of things you should know:
First, BlogSpot is a blogging platform by Google. It offers you an opportunity to start a blog, though all your images will be hosted by Picasa which is also part of Google. BlogSpot, then, is a Google-centric blogging platform.
To create a blog using blogspot free, head over to BlogSpot.com and login using your Google account. If you don’t have a Google (Gmail) account, create one for free.
For the first time user, you will see an option to use the identity from your Google Plus profile, or you can use your limited BlogSpot profile. I would recommend using your Google Plus profile.
Once you are logged in, click on the new blog or click on this link to directly go to create a free blog.
The first thing you need to do is add a name and select your domain name Avoid using your name as the domain name, and instead use some generic domain name that you can brand later with your custom domain.
You can select the blog template here (you can change it anytime), and click on “create the blog”. click on “Posts” > “New post” and start writing your first blog post! If you want to move off the blogspot sub-domain and buy your own domain name
