How to start a blog for free
I am happy to welcome you to the guide that will allow you to understand how to start a blog for FREE. Starting a completely free blog isn’t difficult if you know how to do it. Today I will show you 5 services that allow you to start a free blog without difficulty.
So get comfortable and relax, because let’s get started right away!
The criticalities of starting a Blog for free
ATTENTION: I gladly teach you how to start a blog for free, but if you want to start making money from it, then you are forced to spend a small initial budget.
Because after all, we are talking about a business: that of blogging. If you want to start a blog for free, only do it if it’s a hobby and you don’t intend to make money from its direct monetization. Otherwise, better if you adopt a slightly more professional solution.
So what can you use the services I’ll show you for shortly?
They are certainly good for:
- Testing
- Sites that shouldn’t be visited by many people
- Sites that don’t have to be professional/beautiful
- Sites that are not used to make money directly (ads on the site)
- Sites that do not need special features
How To Start A Blog 100% Free (Easily)
For this type of blog, we don’t have to do some kind of business. Just rely on one of the free blogging platforms that I will list below.
The Best Services To Start A Blog For Free
I remind you that the complete guide to creating a blog with WordPress can be found in this link.
1. WordPress.com
If you want to learn how to start a blog for free, the most complete and reliable platform you can turn to is WordPress. It is a CMS licensed under the GPL that ensures the highest degree of customization. In fact, it has many themes and plugins that can be downloaded for free from the Internet and allow you to model the appearance and functionality of the blog according to your needs. Unfortunately, the installation of themes and plugins is not freely accessible in blogs hosted on WordPress.com (the service that allows you to create your own WordPress blog without purchasing an online space), but we will talk about this in a bit.
If you want to create a free blog with WordPress, connect to the WordPress.com website and click on the Create website! button to start creating your free account on the service. On the page that opens, select a topic from those available (eg Writing and books, Business and services, Art and entertainment, or Health and wellness) and define more precisely the profile of the blog you want to open by selecting one of the sub-categories that are proposed to you (eg Technology and computers in Business and Services).
Now you have to select the aspect you want the blog home page to take on (eg a list of the most recent articles, a welcome page, or a grid with the most recent articles) and you must select the graphic theme to use on the site.
After this step too, fill out the form that is proposed to you and enter the address you want to assign to your blog (the address will be name-you-have-chosen.wordpress.com). Then wait a few moments and, if the address is available, choose the free plan on WordPress.com by clicking on the Select button located next to the item that concerns it.
Now confirm your willingness to use the free WordPress plan, by clicking on the Select free button, and fill out the form that is proposed to you by entering your email address, a username, and a password to log in to WordPress. Finally, click on the Create my account button and wait a few moments for your blog to be prepared.
2. Weebly.com
another online service to build a blog for free that I want to introduce to you is Weebly. The beauty of this service is that you can use it directly and comfortably from your favorite browser using specific commands and functions.
To start building a website with Weebly you need to go to the main page of the service. Then press the Subscribe button located at the top right.
Now fill in the fields displayed by entering your full name, your email address and a password of your choice to be associated with the account you are about to generate, and then click on the Sign up for free button.
Now indicate what you want to focus your website on by choosing one of the three available options such as Site, Blog, or Shop, and on the page that will open, select the theme for your online space that you prefer by moving the mouse cursor over one of the many available, indicating the base color and then clicking the orange Choose button.
On the new page displayed, check the section relating to Use a weebly.com subdomain to create your website for free, type the domain you want to associate with your online space in the appropriate text field, and then click the orange Continue button.
3. Blogger.com
Another very valid platform for starting a blog for free is Google’s Blogger, which can count on ease of use equal to that of WordPress and direct integration with all “big G” services. To create a blog on Blogger, connected to the main page of the service and click on the link Create an account (located at the bottom) to create a Google account to use to access the platform.
If you already have a Google account, go to the Blogger home page, click on the New blog button and, in the box that opens, choose the title, address, and graphic theme to use in the blog.
In a handful of clicks you will be ready to start your blogging adventure having a very flexible system to customize the appearance and content of your “corner of the Web”.
Unlike WordPress.com, Blogger also supports programmatic theme customization and the addition of banner ads in blogs. However, the site address remains “complicated”, that is, something like name-that-you-have-chosen.blogspot.com. Unfortunately, it cannot be downloaded and used on a separately purchased webspace.
To post your first article, log in to Blogger and click on the pencil icon located at the top left, or on the New post button located in the left sidebar.
4. Tumblr.com
If you do not have very big aspirations as a blogger and are satisfied with a small online space, simple and essential, within which to share your thoughts with readers, you can turn to Tumblr. Tumblr is a platform for the creation of tumblelogs, i.e. blogs in which articles are generally published more concise than those present in blogs but richer in multimedia elements, such as photos, videos, etc. To simplify the concept as much as possible, we can define it as a hybrid between a blogging platform and a social network.
To register for free on Tumblr and create your tumblelog, all you have to do is connect to the main page of the service and click on the Start button. Then fill out the form in the center of the screen with the email, username, and password you intend to use and click on the Register button to go on.
Tumbrl is the perfect cross between a blog and a social network, in fact it integrates perfectly with Facebook and Twitter.
5. Medium.com
In conclusion, I want to tell you about Medium, an original blogging platform created by one of the co-founders of Twitter. It has some social features like Tumblr (for example posts are sorted by theme just like on Tumblr), you can subscribe to a user’s posts and you can vote for articles.
Medium cannot be hosted on an external space and does not provide for graphic customizations: all blogs look the same, elegant, and with large images, and there is no possibility to insert advertising banners. In short, it should only be used if you want to actively participate in its community and believe you are in line with its “target”.
If you are interested in Medium and want to try your adventure on this platform, connect to its home page and click on the Sign in / Sign up item located at the top right. So choose whether to log in with your email address or with your Google, Twitter, or Facebook accounts and complete the authentication process by following the instructions on the screen.
When the operation is completed, log in to your account and click first on your photo at the top right and then on the New Story item to write a new post. The rest is useless to explain: the editor is extremely clear and intuitive.
