Zac JohnsonWith over 300 million blogs in the world today, there has never been a better time for you to start a site of your own and leave your imprint on the world wide web. One of the biggest reasons why a person doesn’t start a blog or site of their own, is simply because they don’t know where to get started or are easily overwhelmed with all of the technicalities and options they have at hand.
In this article we are going to give four of the best ways to get started with your own blog today. We are going to cover the most simplistic, easiest, fastest and cost effective ways to get started — while also dabbling in the area of professional blogging as well.
If you only get one thing out of this article, it should be to take action and dive into the world of blogging today!
Free Blog Hosting Sites
When starting your first web site or blog, you have a lot of options — such as going with a free hosting solution or paying to get premium hosting and functionality on your blog.
Services like WordPress.com and Blogger.com offer 100% free blog setup and hosting for millions of users around the world. The benefits of these services is that they are completely free to use and you can go live with your blog in just a few minutes time.
However, there are also many negatives to free blog hosting, such as not actually owning your blog content, not having a domain name associated with your account, limitation on plugins and site themes and also looking unprofessional with a long site address that is just an extension off the service you are using.
Using a Free-to-Premium Website Builder
While sites like WordPress and Blogger are great for setting up a blog for free, there are better options out there for bloggers who plan to grow and scale their online presence over time.
For example, a free web site and blog builder service like ImCreator.com allows you to sign up for a free account and gives you nearly all of the same functionality of Blogger and WordPress, but has a lot more functionality and features built in for advanced users.
Another advantage to using a premium website or blog service, is that many have their own built in drag-and-drop site builders, which allows for a more advanced and personalized site design vs. just picking a theme or template to go live with. The difference here is that a drag-and-drop builder allows you to completely customize the look and feel of your site within their editor. When using WordPress or Blogger, you might need to mess around with the site code or hire a designer to make any detailed changes.
As mentioned, the majority of free-to-premium blog hosting services out there are catered to the free audience, but allows bloggers to grow and scale in size for a low monthly cost. Members who upgrade to a premium package would usually gain access to having their own domain name, a wider selection of themes to choose from, a higher level of customer support and hosting.
Other popular sites that allow you to create your own sites through a drag-and-drop based platform are Wix and Weebly. Each of which has their own benefits and pricing platforms.
There are many options to choose from when it comes to free-to-premium hosting, so be sure to check out your options and see which fit your needs best.
Setup Your Own Domain, Hosting & WordPress
The most professional method for going live with a blog of your own, is through the use of premium hosting, securing a domain name and having WordPress installed on your server. While it’s the most professional method, it’s also going to cost you a few dollars a month for hosting and you will need to install WordPress as well — however, many hosting services now offer an easy one-click solution to install WordPress.
While WordPress.com was mentioned earlier in the article, the version of WordPress that you would actually download and have installed on your server, would be WordPress.org. Through this free WordPress software, you can fully customize the look and feel of your site, without the limitations of creating a free account on WordPress.com. As the owner of your site, you would also have full ownership over your content, held under no content restrictions and can even make money through your blog as well.
The costs to securing your own domain name is roughly $ 10 per year and premium web hosting usually starts at just a few dollars per month. WordPress.org software is free to download and install at your leisure.
It’s Time to Go Live with Your Blog!
Now that you have a better understanding of your different options when creating a blog, its time to actually go live with one of your own!
The important thing to remember is that your blog is yours. Make it personal, interesting and claim it as your own. Use it to promote your business, your online resume, a portfolio of your work or even just a little place for you to talk about whatever you like.
There is no right or wrong way to blog — just get started with your own and see where it takes you!
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