- Chris R.
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- Published: October 16, 2018
- Modified: November 9, 2020
“MoolahNinjas main goal is to help our readers improve their financial lives. We partner with other companies that share that same vision. Some of these links in this post may be from our partners. This is how we make money.”
There are thousands of people who use this one thing to put their lives, expertise and experiences out there… What is it? A blog! From small online journals to full-fledged influencers, blogs have become the way many have found their voices online, and some even earn extra money from them. And you don’t need to pay a cent if you want to get started either. If you’re interested in making your own blog, we’ll tell you about the 3 best options: (Wix, Medium, and WordPress). Read on – here is how to create a blog for free!
How To Create A Blog For Free in 6 Easy Steps
There are 6 steps you’ll go through in the process of learning how to create a blog for free. They are:
1. Decide on your blog name and a subject you’ll be talking about. Make sure these are things you REALLY like as your blog will be based around them!
2. Set up your blog online. You’ll need to register your blog so people can come see it! We’ll walk you through exactly how to do that for free later on in this guide.
3. Customize and tweak your blog. You’ll need to choose how your blog looks so it really sends a message to your readers. Plus, it’s great to have a blog you’re proud of
4. Create your first blog post. Once you’ve got your blog set up it’s time to get to writing and making some content for people to come see
5. Promote and market your blog. There are THOUSANDS of blog posts being published every day. To make sure that people know who you are, you’ll need to learn about how to market and promote your blog so it gets discovered
6. Monetize your blog. This is an optional step, since you may just want to keep your blog as something personal or purely for entertainment. But, many people have quit their jobs and blog full time making money from it. We’ve got a whole guide ready for you if you’re interested: How to Make Money Blogging
Blogging is one of the most fun and enjoyable income methods we talk about here at MoolahNinjas for earning money online. You see, we’ve come a long way from the days when we had to know how to code in HTML to build a website while learning how to create a blog for free…
Your 3 Options for Creating a Free Blog...
We’ve come a long way from the days when we had to learn how to code in HTML to build a website. Now, there are several websites that provide free website and blog hosting. We’re going to review three great and very different free blog websites depending on what you are interested developing to show you which is the best.
Blogging websites can provide everything from hosting to a wide selection of themes, designs, plugins and more. They will offer many that are available for free, but also premium options if you are wanting to develop a more serious website with advanced tools. Most blogging websites will have specialized hosting options depending on if you want to focus on design, writing, customization or anything else.
We’re going to show you how to set up blogs with 3 different hosts:
All of these options are great places to learn how to create a blog for free and offer a wide selection of free and premium options.
How To Create A Blog For Free With Wix
Wix is a very easy blog and website host that advertises itself as the only HTML5 capable drag-and-drop website building platform. If you don’t know what HTML5 is, that’s fine. Essentially, if you want to just design a blog quickly and easily, Wix has your back.
If you sign up for a free account, you will be given 500MB of storage and GB bandwidth with Wix. If you are learning how to create a blog for free, these specifications are perfectly fine.
To set up a blog with Wix, here is what you have to do:
1. Create an account with Wix and select “Let's Do It”
2. Select “Start Now” to get your blog with Wix started
3. Choose a template
Wix will have a large selection of templates to choose from that are free of charge. But if you are learning how to create a blog for free, take time to select a template you like as Wix will not let you change your selection one finalized. A pop up window will appear (disable your pop up blocker) where you will add and edit essential items like:
- Title
- Footer text
- Background colour
- Add/Delete pages
From here you have to manually save your work as there is no autosave with Wix.
4. Name your site!
When learning how to create a blog for free with Wix, your URL will appear as: www.wix.com/yourusername/sitename. If you want to have your own domain name like www.yournamehere.com, Wix will charge a price for a customized domain name.
5. Publish!
Once you’ve done all of the previous steps, select “Publish” and you successfully set up a free blog with Wix!
Wix is a great option for anyone who is just getting started and learning how to create a blog for free. It takes some of the complication out of too many customizations and can still give great, sleek and professional looking layouts for your first blog or website.
How To Create A Blog For Free With Medium
If you are more of a writer who wants to publish more fleshed out pieces with a traditional flare, Medium is the place to go. Unlike Wix, Medium is a free blog platform that lends itself more to a minimalistic style where limited formatting options and white space give it a writer’s feel.
However, it does have different features that make Medium an interactive blog. Medium was set up by the same founders as Twitter. So, it added a few features that are similar to the social platform. With your Medium account, you can follow other bloggers, discover publications and interact with writers on their posts. Medium users can also recommend, share, highlight and bookmark publications.
For what it offers, learning how to create a blog for free with Medium can be a great for a minimalist, content heavy blog. But, it might not be the best option if you want to learn how to create a blog for free with all the creative design elements and website options.
To get your Medium started:
1. Select “Sign In/Sign Up”
You can link your Medium account to Facebook, Twitter, Google or Email. If you are interested in gaining followers or sharing your publications on other platforms, linking to your social media accounts can build from your existing connections rather than starting from scratch.
2. Choose your URL
As Medium is your domain host, your URL will look like medium.com/@YourNameHere that can be customized to your preferred URL.
3. Add your profile pic and a 160 character bio
Once you’ve done this, you’ve successfully figured out how to create a blog for free with Medium!
A few blog features about Medium:
Creating a new publication with Medium is both easy and intuitive: They have formatting options that will keep your blog looking clean with clear headers and separators if you need them. However they will have limitations on certain fonts so if you’re dying to use Comic Sans for your blog, you’ll be out of luck.
This is also easy to do with Medium. Copy and paste or select a file to upload to your story. Medium will allow up to 4 different sizes for your media selection and you can choose how to align as you wish.
If you are someone who wants to get a few opinions before publishing your story, you can share your draft! Whoever is looking over your work can contribute or even leave notes for you to consider. When you are ready then select publish, and your story will be live on Medium!
One of the nice features of Medium is that you can to go your “Stats” page and look at how your publications have performed in the last 30 days. Here, you can see who is recommending, sharing, leaving comments or bookmarking your work. It’s a great data tool that should be utilized!
How To Create A Blog For Free with WordPress
WordPress is one of the largest and most popular blogging and website platforms today. Anyone new to creating blogs and even large companies use WordPress to host their personal blogs and professional websites.
What sets WordPress apart from other hosting websites is its wide selection of customization options for your blog, and ease of use for beginners. Anyone who wants full creative control when learning how to create a blog for free can do so with WordPress. When you’re ready to make your blog more professional, it’s easy to integrate it into your existing website.
Getting Started On WordPress
1. Create account
You’ll be asked to provide general information including your name and email address.
2. Additional tools and extras
When you finalize your account set up, WordPress will ask if you want to add extra tools and plugins for your blog. Some of them may be free while others will come with a fee. If you are still learning how to create a blog for free, then we suggest waiting on buying any additional tools until you feel confident with your blog and know what you need. After you have selected your tools, you can complete your purchase and account set up.
Get Your Blog Set Up
After you get your account set up, you can move on to your blog.
WordPress will start with asking you to select a theme. You can choose from several free theme layouts provided by WordPress or opt to make your own. Here, you can also select your colour scheme and background images to make your new blog look how you want.
This is where you can add pages and posts to your blog. You’ll be updating this regularly as you build your blog. But do keep in mind that pages and posts are 2 different things:
Pages – Static pages do not change or are updated. This would include your home page or any main pages that contain general information and help give your blog structure.
Posts – These are updated regularly with the most recent post listed first. This would be your blog, any new photos or media you want to share.
Since the whole point of your blog is to add content, make sure the layout of your content is to your liking. When learning how to create a blog for free, content can be easily formatted within WordPress to include text-editing tools. Also, make sure you pay attention to media sizes as you don’t want images or videos that are too large or too small on your blog.
A few overlooked features that should also be addressed are titles, navigation and comments:
Titles – These are important for your static pages, especially as you build your page navigation. This could be as simple as using titles like homepage, page 1, page 2, page 3, or you can customize it however you wish. Don’t forget to also add a short tagline to your homepage! Think of it like a one sentence summary of what your blog is about.
Navigation – This is especially important if you are going to have more than one page on your blog. Navigation is just how you want to set up your menu bar to make it easy for anyone to choose which page they want to see. Depending on your blog layout, your have your navigation tools as a floating top banner, drop down menu, or even a collapsible button in a corner.
Comments Section – You can choose if you want your blog to be interactive with readers by adding a comments section or comment box. It’s not a requirement but sometimes this is an overlooked feature. If you’re interested in having a blog that also has a forum for Q&A, a comments section can be an effective tool.
There will be a range of what plug-ins will be free and what you will have to pay for. Plug-ins can include adding forms, photo galleries, Flash (if you want to add a game) and much more. This would be where you can experiment with how you want your blog to include.
If you want to focus on fashion, then maybe having a certain photo gallery layout can showcase your content better. Or, if you are a game developer, having a Flash plug-in can be an easy way to test the market and see what works or doesn’t work. Basically, plug-ins can be where you specialize your blog to be uniquely yours!
Final Thoughts and Recommendations
Figuring out how to create a blog for free can be experimental and fun for everyone. We’ve come a long way from creating blogs and websites with hand written code, to having web hosts who can make the process easy for anyone to set up a professional looking site in minutes.
In this article we reviewed 3 of the best free blog sites, but there are many different web hosts available online. Each one offers great tools and features. They can work as a personal blog for your own entertainment, or you can utilize it to make money blogging. It’s really just up to what you want to do!
But if we had to make a recommendation, WordPress is probably the most powerful blog and website host. While Wix and Medium also have great features, WordPress suits everyone from beginners to professionals giving you a lot of room to grow. One you’ve learned how to create a blog for free with WordPress you can take it to a new level with paid plugins, customized domain names and the like.
To read more about how to set up a website through WordPress, click here.
However, learning how to create a blog for free means you can try several different blogging websites to figure out which one works best for you! So feel free to try and feel what you like and have fun with it!
