Imagine you could learn how to start a blog for free without hiring an expert, how would you feel?
If you could learn how to start a blog for free on your own, you can strive to be what you want to be or wish what you want to be.
Like….
You can generate income from your blog.
Writing post and connecting with people
Not only that…
You can show your expertise or become an authority to your brand.
But right now, here you are. Without any of that.
You read articles, watch video clips in other to find out the right way on how to start a blog for free.
So what went wrong that you could not proceed on how to start a blog for free?
Though, it doesn’t have to be that way.
But, there is a way you can start a blog. And, it’s not too hard to do it for yourself.
All of the answers you need are right here in this article.
To get them, you just need to read on.
Consider This Categories For Blog Topics
One thing about creating or starting a blog is about picking a category for blog topics and having passion over it.
If you are considering blogging for a living, you should consider this blog Categories.
Below are the list of most common blog categories you can consider before starting a blog.
- Economic
- Parenting
- Career
- Political
- Finance
- Pet
- Gaming
- Nature
- DIY
- Celebrity Gossip
- Wine
- Medical
- Social Media
- Cat
- Sports
- Entertainment
- Shopping
- Science
- Education
- Fitness
- Business
- Money
- Dog
- University
- Lifestyle
- Marketing
- History
- SEO
- Technology
- Green
- Law
- Photography
- Movie
- Wedding
- Design
- Travel
- Beauty
- Real Estate
- Fashion
- Music
To get the full details and statistics of the list above, you can view the screenshot below.
Though there are many type of blog nowadays online, with different goals and purpose.
Just as the list I mentioned above you can also check the most popular type of blogs, according to google search From kristiehill blog.
Using those two categories from Kristiehill and WP Virtous, it can help you to decide what type of blog you really want to create or start.
The reason why I bring those blog categories from Kristiehill and WP Virtous is that…
They show you how popular are certain blog category is being rank, or the search volume of certain blog category is being search from search engine.
And that is what we will consider as you keep reading.
So if you want your blog to be easily be search or found from search engine, you should consider creating a blog that will fall on those categories.
The most important part of having a blog is getting a blog name that can be found.
Get Founded With Your Blog Name
To get founded with your blog from human search or search engine, you will need two most important aspect that will have effect on your blog career.
But, what are this most important aspect;
- Domain Name (blog address
- Blog Platform (web host and software)
Without this, do you think your blog can get found through search engine or human search?
The answer is “No”.
Those two aspect has an important role to play when it come blogging as a career.
Let’s discuss about those two aspect.
Why Domain Name Really Matter?
To be honest…
Domain name really matters.
Do you know why?
Regarding this issue about domain name, there are questions that hit the blogosphere;
But let’s consider one of the question…
Does domain name really matters?
These give rise to debate about domain name and impact it has on SEO.
Due to buying a domain name for a certain keyword and rank for that same keyword.
But the truth is that;
Such case has been stopped, and it has prevent bloggers from buying keyword domain and rank for that keyword.
A domain name won’t make you a successful one, and if chosen wrongly, can damage your business.
Here’s what to do;
Avoid Exact March Domain
Back in 2012, Google raise an issue involving exact match domain reducing low quality exact match domain website.
(how to start a blog for free 3)
The reason is that, they notice lot of website using exact match domain as a strategy for SEO.
Exact match domain, what is it all about?
Look at this example;
If you purchase a domain with this keyword “make money blogging”, using exact match domain, it will look like www.makemoneyblogging.com.
That is a good strategy to rank for that keyword, isn’t it?
But the answer is no.
Do you know why?
If such domain don’t have quality content or quality backlinks even social media signal, then it is not a good strategy since it is an exact match domain.
That mean such domain is all about raw SEO.
Apart from that…
Exact match domain are mostly purchase domain.
What i mean is that…
Domain your purchase for a certain keyword and sold it out.
Most exact match domain contain spammy stuff.
So this is why exact match domain are not advisable.
Does That Mean Keyword Domain Are Useless?
Not exactly.
But to be frank with you, keyword don’t matter anymore on search engines like before.
But that doesn’t mean Keyword domain name are useless, but they still help in someway.
That’s why big companies of nowadays no longer care for keyword domain.
They rather focus on brand name than keyword domain name.
Do you know why?
As you continue to produce quality or great content, your brand name will grow in popularity.
With that…
Google will learn how to associate your brand name to keyword based on you content production and backlinks.
So Brand Name Is Preferable For My Domain Name
The thing here is that…
Am not trying to tell you on how to pick a domain name.
Am trying to show you how domain name really matters.
Using your brand name as your domain name is safe.
It easy for people to remember you by your brand name.
The reason is that…
Brand name send signals, and it help to improve on seo.
Go to Google search, type any of these name below
- QuickSprout
- Neil Patel
- Smartblogger
- Bloggingcage
Those are brand names.
You will see that from the search results that those brand name will take you to the brand site.
The reason is that…
Google or search engine will associates your brand to target keywords due to backlinks, quality content and users experience.
Brand name has signal.
It is broader than seo, it has something to do with page rank than to do with search engine optimisation.
Other Tips For Choosing A Doman Name
There are some tips you can use or know before choosing a domain name.
Try these tips below they can be useful for you while choosing a domain name
- Avoid Hyphens Or Dash: choosing a domain name that look like www.product-tower.com or www.product_tower.com is not recommended and it will cause difficulty for visitors to find you.
- Use One Or Two Words: Using one word like www.apple.com, www.amazon.com or two word like www.clickbank.com, www.smartblogger.com, it’s ok and helpful.
- Make It Easy To Spell/Understand:/Domain name that are difficult to spell or understand like www.DogTrainingCompany.com, www.top25seorankingbest.com and lot more. Such domain name like that can get confuse when trying to reach out to you.
- Avoid Number Domain Name: Number domain name can make someone to type the number instead of spelling the number. Example; www.onenote.com become www.1note.com, www.fivelist.com become www.5list.com. Such domain name can be confusing.
How About Custom Domain And Free Domain Do They Really Matter?
Between this two, i bet you, there is real difference between custom domain and free domain.
Free domain is having a domain name under the host company that give out free domain.
Custom domain is all about buying or owing your own domain name or renting a place in the internet.
What that mean is that, you have control over your website.
There is something i will like you to know between this two (custom and free) domain that can be beneficial to learn.
What You Should Know About Free Domain And Custom Domain
Getting a free domain is tempting especially for new users or starters who lack the ability to see the limitation of having a free domain.
One thing about free domain is that…
You don’t need to pay for it, and more hosting companies are coming up with free domain names.
Below is how free domain names look like:
- http://mydomain.blogspot.com
- http://mydomain.wordpress.com
- http://mydomain.tumblr.com
- http://mydomain.joomla.com
- http://mydomain.drupal.com
Note: Free domain are also sub-domain.
So that is how free domain names looks like.
But the question here is…
What is it that make expert not to recommend free domain to people?
Why Free Domain Is Not Recommendable?
- You Will Look Unprofessional: Readers and companies don’t take free domain like http://domain.wordpress.com or like the ones I mentioned above to be a professional domain. They will not take you as a serious person.
- You Don’t Have Control Over Ads Space And Advertisement: Most of these free domain companies over ads and advertisement on your website without you having control over it, and they get paid for it. Sometimes advertiser paid them to advertise their ads on your website.
- You Don’t Have Control Over Your Content: All you have to do is produce content while they manage your content. They can choose to remove or keep your content anytime they want.
- You Can’t Generate Income From It: Since you are using their service for free, this companies need finance to their service going. So they will use you content to generate income while you keep producing content for them.
- Advertisers Won’t Take You Serious: You want to join affiliate marketing or start using ads space in your website. They will look at you as an unserious one, because they know that free domain can shutdown at anytime.
- Data Transfer Difficulty: As you keep producing and gaining more traffic, you might want to transfer your data to a custom domain. You can because, unless you will hire a freelancer and that will cost a lot.
There are more disadvantage to using free domain.
You can also read 36 reasons why having a free website is a bad idea.
Why Custom Domain Is Recommended
If you are blogging for profession, custom domain is ideal or recommended.
Custom domain is exact the opposite of all the disadvantage of free domain.
Custom domain are trustworthy domain.
If you are trying to generate income from your website while using a custom domain, you will look professional and advertisers are willing to partner with you.
If you are talking about having AdSense or search engine presence, Google and other search engine value root (custom) domain, so you don’t have problem with that.
You will also have custom email contact like [email protected].
So now that you have learn all about domain name and others, let’s talk about various blog platform.
Blog Platforms That Affect Your Blogging Career
There are list of blog platform you can use for your blogging career.
Though most of this blog platform affect your blogging career.
Below are the list of blog platforms I review for you so that you can decide which platform you can use for your blogging career.
WordPress (Self Hosted)
WordPress is a free and open source content management system, which is based on PHP and MySQL.
Though this is a self hosted blog platform.
The reason why this is a self hosted blog platform is that…
It is a software that need to be installed on a web server, which can be either part of internet hosting service or network service.
Though it can be downloaded and installed on computer for testing and learning purpose.
WordPress was initially release May 12th, 2003, it support multi-user or multi-blogging.
With WordPress, you can have some benefit which are:
- Customizable Design
- SEO friendly
- Responsive mobile site
- High performance
- Hugh security
- Powerful media management
- Lot more
With WordPress, you can build anything you want.
WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.
Website: http://www.wordpress.org
About Us: https://www.wordpress.org/about/
WordPress.com (Free Blog Host)
WordPress.com is a blogging platform owned and hosted by Automatic.
WordPress.com provide free blog hosting for users
It run on WordPress as an open source software used by bloggers
Though it is not completely free, it can be upgraded from free to personal premium and business users via payment.
With WordPress, you can;
- Build an audience
- Find help whenever you need it
- Have a secure website you can count on
- Do more with features
Website: http://www.wordpress.com
About Us: https://www.wordpress.com/about/
BlogSpot (Blog Host)
BlogSpot is blog publishing service.
It is developed by Pyra Labs which was brought by Google in 2003.
The blog are hosted by Google with subdomain like http://example.blogspot.com.
Though the blog can also be hosted and registered with a custom domain like http://www.example.com.
BlogSpot can be install on web server.
To do that, one has to DNS facilities to redirect a custom URL to a blogspot domain.
BlogSpot allow their users to use their free domain free of charge.
While WordPress.com charge their users to use a custom domain.
Website: http://www.blogger.com
About Us:
Joomla (Free And Self Hosted)
Joomla is a free and open source content management system.
Joomla can be use to published web content and it’s developed by Open Source Matters Inc.
It is built on model view controller web application framework that can be used independently of the CMS that allow you to build powerful online application.
If you are ready to install joomla by yourself, you can download the latest version of joomla.
Though joomla provides to way of getting started especially if you want to do it without installation.
Which are;
- Free website on joomla.com
- Self hosted on joomla website
Benefits and features you can get from joomla;
- Search engine friendly
- Mobile friendly
- Unlimited design
- Multilingual
- Flexible and fully extendible
- Multi users permission
Website: http://www.joomla.org
About Us: https://www.joomla.org/about-joomla.html
Tumblr (Micro blog)
Tumblr is a microblogging and social networking website.
Users using Tumblr are allow to post Multimedia and short form blog content.
Drupal
Drupal is a free and open source Content Management System, Content Management Framework, and also a Blog Software.
With Drupal, you can use it as website or blog such as:
- Nonprofit And NGOS to advance your mission
- Healthcare
- Media And Publishing
- Government
Apart from website and blogs, Drupal can be use for:
- Developers
- Marketers
Agencies
Website: https://www.drupal.org
About Us: https://www.drupal.org/about/
Weebly (Web Hosting)
Weebly is a platform for e-commerce, website and integrated marketing for creative entrepreneur and small business owners.
You don’t need to be a developer, because Weebly has powerful drag and drop website builder.
Another thing about Weebly is the price for plan.
Free Plan:
This plan is $0.00. With this plan, you can create beautiful website with their easy to use tools.
One thing about this plan is, it display weebly ads.
Paid Plan;
This plan range from $8.00/month to $38.00/month, and also has free domain of $20.
The interesting part of this plan is that, it doesn’t display Weebly brand ads.
Website: https://weebly.com/
Conclusion
From this article “how to start a blog for free without hiring an expert;
You can learn lot of benefits from it.
First of all, the most important part of the article is that;
You won’t need an expert or someone to tell you how to start a blog, not even to pay for it.
That is the most important part of the benefit.
Apart from;
From the article, you’ve seen that:
- Some blog do have high search
- Domain name really matters a lot when it come to blog career
- There blog platform that you can use to start up a blog, through that is not all
If you take this article guide into action as I did, you able to start a blog on your own.
That’s not all;
You will come to see why it’s necessary to learn how to start a without hiring an expert.
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