Where can I start a blog for free?

July 7, 2022

Starting a blog offers up a whole host of potential benefits. Not least the fact that you can start to really up your SEO game and drive hundreds or thousands of free, targeted visitors to your site every day. However, starting a blog can seem complicated and expensive. Well, not to worry! Below, we’ve compiled a great list of the 6 best free blogging platforms that are open to anyone. So here goes …

1. WordPress

Let’s get started with the biggest and most famous free blogging platform. WordPress is the king of blog builders and have been around even before blogging was popular. Over the years, the developers behind WordPress have built a platform that is solid, robust, safe and flexible. And thousands of developers have now jumped on the bandwagon and offer free themes and plugins.

As such, you can build yourself a site that is almost limitless in customisation. You can also host your site for free if you like. However, there are a number of benefits to paying a small amount every month and getting hosting that is much faster and more reliable. You also get more control over how you choose to monetise your site, such as through display advertising.

2. Blogger

If you just wish to start a personal blog solely for your own use, then Blogger has long been a popular choice. It is laid out in a similar way to a word processing document in how you enter your text. It is very basic and you choose a fixed theme based on a selection that Blogger has to offer. The site is fully hosted so you don’t have to worry about anything technical.

This simple-to-use nature means that it is great for personal use but not so good for businesses. This is because you have very little control over customisation. What is nice though in that they have spots where you can place ads. As such, if you are able to drive a lot of traffic to your articles, then you have the potential to start monetising it.

3. Medium

Medium has grown rapidly in recent years and has proved a great place for writers to gain immediate exposure to their articles. This is because, once you sign up, you simply go ahead and paste your content into their pre-designed site. You don’t actually then own the site on which the content is published, instead, it goes directly onto Medium.com.

This has a number of perks, not least the fact that Medium already has an incredibly large daily reader base in the millions. In turn, if your articles prove popular, then people still get a large amount of exposure to you through any links you insert, as well as your personal bio. But of course, this isn’t suitable if you want to have control over your own blogging site.

4. Tumblr

Starting a Tumblr blog is another popular choice if you are starting a personal blog, as opposed to a professional business one. What helps make it stand out is the playful feel of the finished articles. They aren’t typically designed to come in long-form content. Instead, articles published on blogs built with Tumblr tend to have a more social media post kind of feel.

That being said, you still get a lot of cool functionality you would want when starting your own blog. This includes the ability to sync with Google Analytics, the ability to ad affiliate links and the chance to include ads. It is also very easy to get started. So, if you’re not looking for the typical full range of blog functionality, and want to publish fun, colourful posts filled with multimedia, then give Tumblr some thought.

5. Ghost

Ghost is proving an increasingly popular choice amongst those individuals and businesses who are not fond of WordPress. Instead, Ghost offers up a blogging platform that requires less work to get started and which looks clean and modern. The finished feel is somewhat similar to Medium which, as you already know, clearly offers a highly desirable feel amongst readers.

To get started, you may need to spend a small amount of money on hosting but, after that, you’re good to go! Those who use Ghost often praise its easy-to-use interface. Inputting content is very straightforward. And, what’s also very popular is that you get a live preview of how your content looks. As such, you don’t have to keep publishing the site in order to see what it will eventually look like.

6. Wix

You can’t write a post on the best ways to start a blog for free and not mention Wix! You get a lot more customisation as compared to other builders on this list, such as Blogger or Tumblr. This is because Wix is based on an intuitive, simple to use drag and drop builder. Simply drag in any elements you would like your site to have, such as text or imagery, and watch it come to life.

As you get more advanced, you can further customise and update the look and feel of your site, but even as just a beginner you can have a nice site ready to go live. Alternatively, use the Wix AI to build the site more quickly by simply inputting basic answers to questions on what you are looking for. Wix is a great all-in-one solution for those looking to do more than just publish content, so is ideal for businesses looking for a free or very cheap blogging solution.

Final thoughts

If you’ve been asking where can I start a blog for free, there are a lot of different options these days. The best way to proceed would be to first decide how much control you have over your site. Do you want to design a completely unique blog or are you happy with a tried-and-trusted, yet more simple template? Afterwards, go ahead and try a few of the above solutions to find one that suits you best. After all, they are all free to use!

Main image credit: Mikayla Mallek

Internal screenshot credits: WordPress, Medium, Stanford Review