7 Blogging Options for Beginners

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Blogger can choose different blogging options for their blog. The platform you choose depends on your choice.

Blogging options include free blog sites and platforms that require you to pay before using.

With an increase in internet penetration in third-world countries, your blog audience can be anywhere, and when they like your blog, your blog revenue increases.

If you are reading this post, it means that you are thinking of setting up your blog and looking comparison of free and paid blog sites. You can read my guide on how to build your blog.

In this post, I will share 7 blogging options for beginners; this will help you find the best free blogging sites for beginners.

7 Blogging Options for Beginners

1. Blogger

Blogger is the blogging platform that I used for my very first blog. It is one of the oldest blogging options globally, and Google owns the platform.

To sign up, all you need is your Google account. If you don’t have a Google account, you create one within a minute and use the email address to sign up for your blog.

Blogger adds Blogspot to your blog address. This means that your blog address will look like greatschool.blogspot.com

You can remove the Blogspot by buying a domain name from your domain registrar as low as $0.99.

Reach out to your domain registrar customer support on how to edit your nameserver.

Your blog will be live as long as you keep up with their rules.

Pros of using Blogger

• Blogger covers your blog’s hosting for free, and you can use their platform as long as you want.
• Free SSL certificate for every blog; head over to your blogger dashboard to activate your SSL certificate.
• You are only paying for the domain name if you want to remove Blogspot from your blog address.
• Easy to build your blog without any prior knowledge. You can build your blog within a few minutes, and your blog is live.
• Blogger is SEO friendly.

Cons of using Blogger

• Lack of third-party plugins and extensions to customize your blog.
• To customize your blog, you need to understand a few HTML codes that beginners don’t know.

Who is Blogger for?
Blogger is suitable for bloggers who take blogging as a hobby. You can use blogger, which is free, and migrate to a paid blogging options.

Blogger is one of the best free blog sites, old bloggers used blogger back in the day, but due to lack of innovation, only a few are using the platform, while the rest have migrated to paid blog platforms.

2. Wix
Wix is one of the best website builders in the market. You can build your website within five minutes using their drag and drop feature.

With zero coding skills, Wix makes it easier for beginners to churn out high-quality designs.

Pros of using Wix

• Drag and drop features help you to build your website and blog.
• It comes with a free plan but adds Wix to your blog address. You can migrate to a paid plan and buy your domain name to remove Wix from the blog address.
• Easy to build a website and blog without any knowledge of web designing.
• Seo friendly to improve your ranking position. One of the main drawbacks of Wix is that Wix is not SEO friendly, but this has been fixed.
• Wix app market to help you to customize your website and blog.

Cons of using Wix

• The paid plan is expensive.
• Limited plugins and extensions in their app market.
• More suitable for website.

Who is Wix for?
Wix is suitable for website builders with limited skills.

3. Squarespace
Squarespace offers almost the same functions as Wix. You can sign up without any credit card information.

Squarespace is not limited to blogs, but you can also use it to build high-quality websites and e-commerce sites.

Pros of using Squarespace

• Squarespace installs a free 2048 bit SSL certificate to enhance the website security.
• You can build a wide range of websites, blogs, and e-commerce sites.
• Seo friendly to improve your ranking position in SERP.
• Free test run of their platform without credit card.

Con of using Squarespace

• Expensive in the long run.

4. Weebly

Weebly claims that more than 40 million websites are using its platform. And you don’t have to know any HTML or CSS before you can build your website, blog, and e-commerce site.

Just like a blogger, you can use Weebly for free. Weebly will add Weebly to your blog address and footer ads. You can remove it when you switch to a paid plan.

• Starter: Free domain name worth up to $14 per year when you annually. Or $8 per month. This removes the Weebly in your blog address and footer ad.
• Pro: Extra features are added to the pro plan that is not available in the starter plan, and quick and reliable customer support to help you build and maintain your website. It costs $12 a month.
• Business: This is for an online store with just $25 a month. You can build your e-commerce and host for a month.
• Business Plus: This is the most advanced plan that costs $38 a month. Offers more advanced e-commerce features for large store owners.

Pros of using Weebly

• Build a wide range of websites.
• Drag and drop features.
• Easy to set up, you can convert your blog to e-commerce if you feel like it by moving to their business plan.

Cons of using Weebly

• Setting up and maintaining per month can cost a fortune, especially for new bloggers who are not making a dime from their blog.
• Limited theme and plugins.

5. Tumblr
Tumblr is the king of micro-blogging, hosted for free for all bloggers with strong social media integration.

Tumblr is for bloggers interested in posting short posts, videos, images, memes, and quotes, and with a strong user on their platform, your new blog will get a lot of page views.

Pros of using Tumblr

• Free to use; by default, you get a subdomain with the addition of Tumblr in the blog address.
• You can use a custom domain that removes Tumblr from your blog address.
• Free theme to choose from without any prior skill in web design.
• Strong social media networking and integration.
• Highly engaging community user to leverage on.

Cons of using Tumblr

• No plugins and extensions to ease your work.
• Limited when compared to other blogging platforms.

6. WordPress.org
This is the most popular blogging platform globally; it powers over 20% of the entire website and blogs in the market.

WordPress.org is open source which makes it free, but before you can use it. You need to have a domain name and web hosting

It is perhaps the cheapest and comes with up-to-date plugins and themes to customize and improve your website. When you start making money from your blog, you can purchase premium themes and plugins.

Once you find your blog name, the next step is to buy your web hosting. The web hosting you choose will enable you to host WordPress.org.

WordPress.org can be used to power websites, blogs, and e-commerce sites. The ease and freedom with which you can customize your sites make them the best in the market.

Hosting companies come up with different packages for their customers. Most features of excellent web hosting include:

• Unlimited bandwidth.
• Free email address of your blog.
• Free SSL certificate for your blog.
• Daily backup of your blog.
• 99.95% uptime.

Pros of using WordPress.org

• WordPress.org is open source which makes it free to use.
• Cheap and reliable web host from as low as $2.99 per month
• Unlimited plugins, themes, and extensions to choose from.
• It powers over 20% of the entire website and blog available.
• Great community support to help you in your blogging journey.
• No coding skill is required. Plugins are available to help you make changes to your theme without any CSS and HTML knowledge.

Cons of using WordPress.org

• You need to have CSS and HTML experience to understand WordPress better.
• Premium theme can be expensive and free theme contains bugs that hackers can exploit.
• Setting up WordPress is hard compared to other blogging options; You can use the service of a professional web designer.

7. WordPress.com

WordPress.com is the hosted version of wordpress.org. The blogging options is free to use, and you don’t need to buy a web host before you can use the platform.

Since there is no software to be hosted, all you have to do is sign up, and just like that, you have your new site.

WordPress.com comes with a free theme that you can use to customize your blog, and you can’t use any third-party plugins and extensions.

WordPress.com is good for a hobby blogger to test run for free. The blog address subdomain will contain WordPress, and you can change it when you move to a paid plan.

WordPress.com Pricing

• Free: Best for Getting Started at $0 for life.
• Best for Bloggers: $3 per month, billed yearly. Comes with a .blog domain.
• Best for Personal Use: $5 per month, billed yearly, and you can use your custom domain.
• Best for Freelancers: $8 per month, billed yearly.
• Best for Small Businesses: $25 per month, billed yearly.
• Best for Online Stores: $45 per month, billed yearly.

Pros of using WordPress.com

• Get started for just $0.
• Handle all the hosting and maintenance of your sites.
• Fast and easy to set up.
• Top-notch customer service to help you.

Cons of using WordPress.com

• Does not support third-party plugins, extensions, and themes.
• If you are using their free plan, you must follow their rules. Or else they can delete your blog.

Free blog sites can test run your blogging journey and migrate to paid blogging options.