So what is blogging?
I don’t want to go into too much detail as to the what and why people blog. For a detailed analysis as to what blogging actually is I recommend you take a look at the Wikipedia article here. For me i think of blogging as a place where someone with an interest can share their knowledge with the world..even if no-one is reading it..It’s a bit like a diary..but be careful what you write as one day that diary may be read by millions of people..with a bit of luck!
What to Choose…
Blogging is now more popular and easier to do than ever before. With so many different platforms to use it is often difficult to decide which one you should blog with. Many people start off on Facebook or LinkedIn and soon discover that they actually enjoy creating content and want to develop their skill a bit more on a platform that feels like they own a little bit of the internet…With that in mind, I would like to run through my Top Free Blogging sites.
1: WordPress
WordPress has two different platforms but for this post let’s stick with the totally free option. WordPress.com offers a completely free and easy to use platform that is probably the most favourite and well-known platform for most people starting out. It is easy to get an account set up and you have a number of themes you can use. I would recommend this as one of the best blogging platforms to start out on. Once you have gotten used to wordpress.com I would suggest you take a look at wordpress.org which offers a much better platform for your blog. For more information on wrodrpress.org and to see the difference between the two, take a look at my build a website in WordPress post here
2: Blogger
The great thing about Blogger is not only that it is free but that it is also owned by Google, which isn’t going to hurt you too much from getting your content ranked. If you have a gmail account it is really very easy to set up and if you link your Blogger site to a youtube channel and google + account (all free) you will then have an awesome amount of capability with your blog and can build a following through social media as well.
3: Tumblr
I like to think of Tumblr as a kind of Facebook for bloggers, without the need to have your personal details shown and you can create multiple blogs each with their own niche. Tumblr boasts over 300m users and people can like and share your blogs with others. In fact about 10% of material on blogger is original with the rest made up of people sharing or reblogging content. The most popular users are aged 13-25 but having a platform that is both social and a blogging platform cannot be a bad thing.
4: Medium
A little bit like Tumblr Medium is both a social and blogging platform. What I like about Medium is that they take away all the stuff that can be confusing to start, like sidebars and plugins. It is more like writing on a page (how we used to) rather than having all these extra gimmicks etc. The only downside to it is that you cannot customise very well. The platform is however created by the same people behind Twitter so I can see some great things to come in the future for Medium. I would suggest that for ease of use this is one that complete beginners should take a look at.
5: Hubpages
Hubpages is a little different to the other platforms in the fact that you can actually get paid to write content if your material is up to the standard they require. It is very much like Tumblr in the fact that it is a community for blogging but the fact that you can get paid to write does appeal to those wanting to create some income. Be aware though that there are some pretty sub standard articles on there but also there is a lot of learning material which can be a good thing for a beginner.
My opinion…
So these are just a few of the options available to you when you enter the world of online blogging and any of the above choices would make a good blogging platform to get going with. But which one is the best I hear you ask? I suppose it comes down to personal choice, but for me I would say that if you are interested in blogging more professionally in the future then WordPress would be the way to go. Basically because you have so much choice of customization with it, which means it will feel more like your own website rather than just (how I like to see it) renting some internet space. You can also use your own domain rather than having a subdomain.
Once you have your tiny space of the internet it would be a good idea to learn more on how to create content and maybe look at how you can make money from writing a blog. If you are interested in that then please feel free to look at my review here on a great learning platform for bloggers. So those are my top free blogging sites for beginners. Now all you have to do is decide whch one you are going to settle into and build your blogging empire…
If you have a favourite blogging platform i would love to hear about it..just drop me a comment.
Thanks for reading
Pete
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