H ave you ever thought about being a blogger? It is cool right! And most times people get jealous of bloggers and aspire to be like them and that is why I will be teaching how to create a blog for free and make money.
Sometimes, I got some messages from people on how they can start their own blog and definitely I would love to share with them but I believe it will be very long guide because potentially blogging is very easy and at same time complicated too so learning how to start a blog is not a big deal anyways.
You might love to become a blogger maybe as a passion or to grow your business online. So before we get started, I love to ask a question.
Author note: If you're NOT interested in this article, please IGNORE.
What is a 'Blog'?
A blog (a truncation of the expression weblog) is a talk or educational site distributed on the Internet consisting of discrete, regularly casual journal style content sections (“posts”). Posts are normally shown backward sequential request, so that the latest post seems to start with, at the highest point of the page. To break down my definition let us look at a blog like a diary or a jotter where you write down useful information that you would love others to view and read. In other words it is your public diary.
Until 2009, online journals were generally the work of a solitary individual, once in a while of a little gathering, and frequently secured a solitary subject or theme.
In the 2010s, “multi-writer websites” (MABs) have created, with posts composed by vast quantities of writers and once in a while professionally altered. MABs from daily papers, other media outlets, colleges, think tanks, support gatherings, and comparative organizations represent an expanding amount of blog activity.
The ascent of Twitter and other “micro-blogging” frameworks coordinates MABs and single-creator web journals into the news media. Blog can likewise be utilized as a verb, intending to keep up or add substance to a blog.
What is 'Blogging'?
Blogging is the act of adding new contents, posts or materials to your blog. It is the general term people love to use while talking about someone adding niche related articles to his online diary (blog).
Blogging is basically fun I assure you because it gives you the chance that you would get to share your hobbies with your readers regularly and develop your personality and social status.
What is a 'Blogging Platforms'?
A Blogging Platform is a software professional web developers develop so as to aid you in publishing your content online. It is also related to Content Management systems. Content management system (CMS) is a computer application that supports the creation, modification and execution of online based contents.
Due to the nature of this article, we define CMS in blogging platforms as a web-based publishing tool that allows users to add text, images, file attachments for display and also permits the removal of such content.
Blogging platforms are important because they provide the chance for your content to be indexed in the internet for others to view.
Importance of a blogging platforms
1. Web Publishing
- Blogging platforms there to enable users the chance to publish their content online. This means that you can sell or give-out most of your ideas online easily and this itself refers to is an importance of blogging platforms. This is why the web publishing aspect is good.
2. Website blog or installation
- Gone are the days of coding websites to get a perfect look and fill of it. With blogging platforms around because you could easily make your own blog within a minute or two, this makes up a huge importance of blogging platforms. You don’t need to attend any programming course, online tutorial of any sort related to teaching you how to create your blog or website. Due to how flexible blogging platforms are it is quite really easy for any one quickly install a website.
3. Good interface and user interaction
- When asking “what is a blogging platform?” you should also expect an answer including good interface and user experience. Although this depends on the platform, most platforms I know like WordPress for example has a very good user interface and is also a WEB 2.0 meaning that it allows for good user interaction. Good design structure, tweaking of how you want your dashboard to look like; editing the functions of your blog as well; These listed are functions to show you how quite awesome blogging platforms contributes to your success, With this also said gives you a basic knowledge of blogging platforms.
4. Provision of resources and tools
- While asking what is a blogging platform, most people also asked do they provide additional tools for extra functionalities? Well oh yes of course, with great and adequate development, these platforms are well equipped with additional tools for enhancement. The good part of it is that this tools as well don’t require coding knowledge to use, they are simply drag and drop tools that gives you the ability to add more functions to your site like a forum; a shop; a games hub; a portal; and much more. This in turn increases the user inter-activeness of your site, so you even see that these platforms provides for a great site.
5. Management of Web contents
- Due to a very professional content management system, it is a big importance of blogging platforms because they have a good means of managing user’s files. This makes a user eligible to reach out to his content files, make adequate alterations, upload or download and even completely delete it. So in a blogging environment, we have access and control of our web contents.
6. Search Engine friendliness
- The platforms are recognized by search engines making your blog have a nice attraction for organic traffic; meaning that your SEO stands a good chance. The user inter-activeness alone gains much respect from search engines for the sites are built using these platforms; and this social signal attracts good ranking in search results. No wonder custom made websites are usually not as perfect ranked as ones built with the platforms.
If you are still inquiring what is a blogging platform? Then am almost certainly sure this article is providing answers to your questions.
Best Simple Blogging Platforms
The lists of blogging platforms below are compiled based on their following factors:
- User friendliness
- SEO readiness
- Functionality
- Aid resources
- Popularity
- Community Population
1. WordPress.org
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It is the most popular blogging platform powering a whopping 27% of the internet! This is because WordPress.org is a flexible and open source software. It is the best blogging platform to make money from.
Advantages
- You have total control over your website.
- You can establish your website to be a forum or a web shop.
- It is pretty easy to customize your website design to your taste with thousands of available free and premium themes.
- You have access to wide range of plugins that you can use in tweaking your website functions.
- Because wordpress.org is flexible, as a result of this factor it is also Search engine friendly.
Disadvantages
- It requires good developing skill because it is open source.
- WordPress.org is fancied by hackers because of its popularity, so you will manage your own security and backup yourself.
You need to use wordpress.org, this site is built from WordPress.Org; WordPress software is free to use but you need a domain and host.
2. WordPress.com
WordPress.com platform is a free hosting provider site, it offers great functions too in making your website but it limits use of custom domain and premium services to free users. Both wordpress platforms belongs to Automattic, a blogging platform company. It is one of the best free blogging platform but not one of the best blogging platform to make money.
Advantages
- It is an automatic setup platform.
- Very flexible to use.
Disadvantages
- Because it is a free platform, violation of terms leads to your blog’s removal.
- It is not among the best platforms to make money because you cannot run advertisements.
- It has limited capabilities; E.g Domain addon facility, storage space and much more.
This platform is free, start a blog with it if you want.
3. Blogger
Blogger is one of the best free blogging platform that you can use in making your very own blog in a matter of seconds.
Often people call it Blogspot, it is a platform that Google itself owns and because of that it is highly secure; and also one of the best free blogging platform because it is also among the best blogging platform to make money.
Advantages
- Blogger is easy to use
- It has lots of customizable templates
- Newbies are fond of it because it is flexible. B
- logger platform is totally free to use.
- One of the best blogging platform to make money.
Disadvantages
- Blogger is limited to certain features.
- It is possible for any blog to be deleted at any time.
- It is not regularly updated.
Tumblr is a free blogging platform, among the best free blogging platform because of the priceless access a user has to make his/her blog. It is social friendly because users have quick access to easy sharing of content. It also acts as a social networking platform.
Advantages
- It is a free and easy to use blogging platform.
- Because of social integrations, Users can easily share contents among themselves.
- It supports sharing of all formats; GiF, Audio, Video and Images.
Disadvantages
- Because of limited capabilities your blog cannot easily expand.
- Very difficult to export it’s content to other platform.
- Available themes are there but you cannot bring out extra functions in them.
Tumblr is free to use with 3rd party themes and custom domains.
5. Wix
Wix is a growing platform and among the best free blogging platform. It gives users a great way to add more usability to their site. Also user friendly because it allows user to create their sites with available free drag-and-drop tools.
Users may add functionality such as social plug-ins, e-commerce, contact forms, e-mail marketing, and community forums to their web sites using a variety of Wix-developed and third-party applications. Wix is also among the best blogging platform to make money but only to premium users.
Advantages
- Easy to customize.
- Free to build.
- Available tools to add more functions.
Disadvantages
- Because it is free, wix have the option to place their ads on your blog.
- Only premium users can connect a custom domain to their blog.
- Not much disk space and bandwidth available to free users.
6. Weebly
Weebly is a blogging platform with drag-and-drop tools there to create websites. Weebly’s free online website creator uses a simple widget-based site builder that operates in the web browser and because of this all the sites elements are drag and drop. It is one of the best simple blogging platform.
Advantages
- Weebly generates a mobile view therefore providing great mobile experience. Storage space is unlimited which is a bonus to users.
- Users are allowed to use any url of their choice either weebly sub-domain or their own custom domains.
- Mobile apps are available giving users a chance to share blog updates and also comment on blogs.
- E-commerce features are supported 3rd party advertisement is permitted to bloggers.
Disadvantages
- It does not allow upload of large file sizes.
- Installation of softwares is not allowed.
- Forum and blog limitations.
- Weebly is blocked in some countries.
- There is difficulty in site backup and modification.
7. Square Space
Square space is also one of the best simple blogging platforms that gives you drag-and-drop functionality. It is flexible to use and therefore suitable to small business owners. It is among best blogging platform to make money. Advantages
- Easy to use Offers https domains for E-commerce blogs.
- It has lots of beautiful templates to choose from
Disadvantages
- Supports maximum of 20 blog pages.
- Only 2 moderators are allowed for a blog.
- Not all services are open to use.
8. Penzu
Penzu is one of the best free blogging platform acting just like an online diary. Because of its status, posts are not always allowed to be read by everyone since it works like a diary.
Advantages
- Ensure blogger’s privacy through post password locks.
- It has available apps you can access through mobile phones.
- Although it is a blogging platform, contents you write are only viewable to you alone; this is because it acts like a diary.
Disadvantages
- It is not for self-promotion therefore this makes customizable themes pretty expensive.
- Security Extensions are expensive.
- You will be forced to upgrade most times.
9. Joomla
Joomla is among the 10 best simple blogging platforms. It operates like wordpress.org, therefore it requires you to buy a hosting and domain name. Advantages
- It user friendly making it therefore to be one of the best blogging platform to make money.
- Because of its structure, it provides more than hundreds of templates for customization.
- You can also use available extensions to add other useful functions to your site.
Disadvantages
- Fewer themes and add-ons because of limited support and community.
- Though it is a good platform, you are required to make your own backups and ensure your own security.
- Their support options are premium, and they especially require them during add-on or template problem.
10. Drupal
Drupal is among the 10 best simple blogging platforms due to the fact that it powers 2.2% websites worldwide. Because it is a Content Management System, it provides a complete website functionality to blog owners.
Advantages
- It has an active community of more than a hundred thousand members. Has more than 2500 themes to customize appearance.
- It provides for installation of forums, blogs, community website and much more.
- It is easy to use therefore it requires no coding language.
Disadvantages
- It is not easy to master Drupal interface easily.
- Upon every Drupal updates, themes and plugins must also be updated.
- Drupal interface can be confusing to use most times
Okay now, I finished discussing a guide that will help you where to start building your blog. In the next discussion, I will discuss how to earn your money using it.
CREATE YOUR BLOG FOR FREE TO START EARNING MONEY
Now I will get straight to the point to teach you how to create a blog for free and make money, the processes are very easy and fun I tell you and you will enjoy running a blog on the long-run so sit back, grab a coffee and read on.
I will teach you two ways to start a blog and that is if you are starting a blog for free or you would love to jump ahead and get started with a either a free or a premium blog.
Before becoming a blogger, I want you to pick or identify your niche.
What is a 'niche'?
Basically a niche is a topic that you want to specify on when running your blog. It is more of an identity for your blog that attracts readers that have interest in your topics. While there are several niches or blogging topics out there you could go on and pick one that you know you are interested in.
If you have difficulties in picking a niche then you could think about your hobbies or interests and build your blog around it since that is why you would be building a blog or alternatively you can head on to Ezine.com, they have a lot of categories (topics) there, choose one that might interest you and use it as a blog niche. You see now that we have even got inspired with an idea for our blog niche.
Starting your blog for free
It is recommended you start a free blog first if you are new to blogging and want to learn how to do blogging very well and short on funds because that is the best way you can get to develop yourself, so in this index I will teach you how to start a free blog.
There are two best blogging platforms I would recommend to you when starting a free blog and those two platforms are Blogger and WordPress. I will go ahead and teach you how to set up both.
Using Blogger Platform
Starting a blog using blogger platform is easy, first go to Blogger.com. The platform is popular for those who want to start a blog but cannot afford a paid hosting service. It also synchronizes with Google services that is to say it is also a Google service and that means if you have a Google account then head on and sign in with your Google account.
I advise you use this method because it is faster and almost close to a one-click process. After signing into Blogger using Google account it means then your blog is ready and you can customize it to your choice.
PROS
- Easy to manage
- Beginner-friendly
- Supports up to 50 blogs per user
- It is customizable to choice with templates
- Access to free hosting
- There is built-in security for users
CONS
- It is not always reliable
- Your blog could be deleted at anytime
- It has limited features
- It requires mostly manual coding for certain functions
- Search Engine Optimization is not high
Using Wordpress Platform
WordPress is a platform for making blogs and websites and it also has varying capabilities for users who would love to get a great grasp on how to create a blog for free and make money. To get started go to WordPress.com, you will see an introductory homepage and when you scroll down you will see how you can get started with your own site there.
You should see some pricing list so alternatively you will choose the Free Plan which will give you access to make your very own free blog. Just customize settings and publish your blog.
PROS
- It has a huge community as it is the most used platform
- It is the easiest platform to use
- Lots of Plugins are available to add more features to your blog
- It has great menu management
- It gives you access to customize and add features to your blog pages and categories.
CONS
- Modification requires php knowledge
- Design modification requires CSS and HTML experience
- It is not as secured as Blogger
- It can be slow at times due to plugin errors Data might be lost during occasional upgrades.
Although both are great platforms to use for Bloggers, I would like you to know that Blogger platform is for Beginners while WordPress is for professionals. Just have a good feel and understanding of both platforms and select one that will suit you.
Using a Premium blog
If you don’t want to enroll in the way of building a free blog maybe because you cannot watch your blog being deleted at some point or maybe due to hosting problems then obviously buying a domain name and purchase a hosting to start a premium blog will be necessary for you.
To get started, search for a domain registrars like Bluehost, Hostgator, GoDaddy, etc,. Then you can head on to choose whether you want a domain name only; or you prefer a domain name and a hosting service which is all included in the plan you choose.
Conclusion:
It has really been my pleasure writing this article for you and I hope you enjoyed it. Really want you to know how to start a blog and I hope to see you becoming a great blogger soon enough.
I want to see people getting opportunity to share their ideas on the internet. If you have any questions, appreciations or additions then please comment it below.
It won’t only end here though; you will be in the need to constantly get our articles so as to upgrade your knowledge on blogging.
You matter a lot to me. Cheers!
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