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Previously I create an article about how to earn money online, and I highlighted in the article how profitable creating a blog or website is, I also published an article on how bloggers earn money in which I mention every proven way how a blogger can make money.
I start blogging in the year 2017, and this website of mine where you read this article is a product of my persiverance to learn about how to start a blog about half a decade ago.
Like you I was also a complete beginner back then, what is even harder was at those times it was hard to find complete tutorials on how to start a blog that are 100% correct.
Now as a blogger with years of experience I will share with you the basic things you should know on how to start a blog for free, and I will also mention the disadvantage of using a free blog compared to a blogging website that needs investments.
What is a blog?
Before we start creating a blog, let us first know what a blog is.
A blog is short for a web blog where people write or record their activities on the internet, the original term is web blog which later becomes a blog. You might be confused about a website and blog, but dont worry itโs completely normal, even when I was just starting doesnt even know what is different about a blog and a website.
A blog can be a kind of website or become a part of a website. If you are confused a website is a static page that isnโt updated very often, but a blog, on the other hand, is a kind of website that usually published newer or fresh content.
While the blog is a kind of website, it can also be a part of the website, blog posts can be used by another website to drive traffic to their website and increase their conversion.
In this tutorial, I will teach you how to start a blog for free, not just a website but a blogging website.
How To Start Blog For Free Step by Step
1. Choose A Niche For Your Blog
The very first thing to do is to choose what is your blog niche, if you are not aware of a niche it is basically a topic of your website or interest that you will be featuring on your website.
You can create a website with multi-niche like my website but there are some caveats on a multi-niche website, below are the pros and cons of multi-niche and single-niche blogs as your reference.
Pros and Cons of Multi-Niche Blog
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Unlimited Topic | Harder to increase domain authority |
| Can be ranked In multiple niches | Harder to increase page authority |
| Harder to attract blog subscriber |
Pros and Cons of Single Niche Blog
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Easier to increase domain authority | Limited topic |
| Easier to increase domain authority | Harder to rank in other niches |
| Easier to attract blog subscriber | |
| Much Easier to rank on your focus niche |
The pros and cons that I write in the tables above are just a guide, the result can be different based on your efforts.
In choosing a niche there are a lot of options, some bloggers failed because they are not passionate enough about their blog, choose the niche that you like the most, especially if you are the one that will write all the articles on your blog.
Since this topic is about how to start a blog for free, I assume that you all do the work for your blog including writing, but if you have a budget in a long run and want to hire a writer for your blog, the best niche is the highest paying niche to earn more money on your blog.
The truth about blogging is that even if you dont have enough knowledge about the niche, you can still create a blog about it, just make sure that you hire a writer that is an expert on the niche that you choose.
Below is the list of profitable niches that you can choose from.
Most profitable Niche Based on CPC (Cost Per Click)
I get the data about the profitable niche by using an SEO keyword tool.
| Niche | CPC(Cost per Click) |
|---|---|
| Legal | $15.20 |
| Insurance | $14.51 |
| Domain names | $9.68 |
| Crypto | $4.42 |
| Digital Marketing | $3.17 |
| Health | $2.92 |
| Finance | $2.36 |
| How to make money online | $1.67 |
| Travel | $1.16 |
2. Choose a Domain Name
After choosing a niche or topic, the next step was to choose a domain name, you must choose a domain name based on the niche that youโve chosen.
You can use your name and add the niche that you like, it is up to you, but I highly recommend that you make your domain name as shorter and easier to read as possible.
Also, make sure that the domain that you choose was related to your niche, you can write on a piece of paper all domain that comes into your mind that is related to your niche.
Why do you need to make multiple domains if you are only planning to create a single website? It is because of the huge number of websites around the world, and there is a high chance that the domain that you preferred is already picked by someone, so make sure you have a backup plan by writing any possible domain name that is good for your blog.
How To Properly Choose A Domain Name
3. Create a Blog On Blogspot/Blogger Platform
There are a lot of ways how you can start a blog for free, but almost all of them didnโt support earning a free blog.
One example is WordPress.com or the managed version of WordPress, you can create a free blogging website out of it but there is no way to earn from a free WordPress account, monetization is only allowed on WordPress if you subscribe on their premium plan, or host your own WordPress website.
Since our tutorial is about how to start a blog for free, subscribing to a premium WordPress or hosting your own WordPress is not free anymore, so instead the easiest way to start a blog for free and earn money is through using a Blogspot platform.
Blogspot or Blogger, this blogging platform is owned by Google which is why some people call it Google Blogger.
Starting a blog on Google Blogger is easy, and I will guide you through the process step by step.
How To Start A Blog For Free In Google Blogger Step By Step
Follow this complete and simple steps on how to create a blog for free, this was 100% free (zero cost)
Step 1: Go To Blogger.com
The very first step is to head over to Google blogger, just type on your browser blogger.com, and after that, you will need to choose a name for your blog and click next.
Step 2: Choose a URL
After choosing a name that you will use for your blog, the next thing that you will need to do is choose a URL, a URL will serve as the domain name of your blogging website, this is the part that you will need to use the domain names that I told you to write on a piece of paper.
In choosing a domain name on Google Blogger, there are huge possibilities that the domain of your choice might be taken thatโs why I advise you to create multiple domain names just in case youโre preferred domain might not available.
After successfully choosing a domain name for your blog on Blogger, it will look like this https://yourname.blogspot.com, all domain names on blogger always ended with a .blogspot.com, if you want to remove it youโll need to purchase a domain name on registrar which cost you money.
Step 3: Access Your Dashboard
After choosing a name for your blog and registering a URL of your blogger website, you will now access your dashboard.
The dashboard will serve as a control panel for your website, which you can create and monitor everything on your blog. You can write, publish a post or a page, design your website, and see how many visitors visit your website.
You can also modify the setting and structure of your blog in your dashboard.
Step 4: Check Your Dashboard Setting
The next thing you should do when starting a blog on Blogger is checked your dashboard setting, there are certain settings that you need to check like the privacy setting, and make sure that it was turned on for your blog to appear in Google results.
Step 5: Check Your Privacy Setting
Always keep in mind that your blog must appear in search results at any cost because it is the main way to drive traffic to your blogging website, always remember a website without visitors is a dead website, t earn money from a blog, you must do your best to drive visitor into your blog using search result.
Step 6: Check HTTPS Redirect Setting
The next setting that you need to check is the HTTPS redirect. Almost all website has HTTP by default, but you must convert your URL into HTTPS because it is a secure version of HTTP that is required by a search engine.
If your website only has HTTP it has a high chance that your website will avoid by visitors because it will be labeled as an unsafe website.
To avoid this happening make sure that the HTTP redirect to HTTPS on your blogger setting is enabled.
Step 7: Check Your Metatags Setting
The next thing that youโll need to check is your metatags setting. A meta tag is a short preview of your blog, this one is very important since a meta tag is one of the ranking factors of your website, make sure that this setting is always enabled.
Step 8: Choose a Theme
After checking all the settings on your dashboard the next thing you should do is choose a theme for your blogging website.
You donโt need to do coding in blogger, since there are ready-made themes that you can choose for your website, you can customize your theme and if youโre satisfied with the appearance you can click apply to use the theme for your blogger website.
Step 9: Create Pages
There are certain pages that Google required on every website without these pages Google will not let your website appear in search results.
You need to create and published pages like the about-us page, contact page, and privacy policy, you also need to create pages as a section of your blog.
Step 10: Place Your Page On Your Website Header
To make sure your blogging website looks professional your page must appear in the website header, to do this head-over layout, then find the cross column below the header and click add a gadget, after clicking add gadgets scroll down until you find pages then click it.
After clicking the pages a new option will appear then click add a new item and start adding a page one by one and click save, after that click view blog and you will see that the pages of your blog will appear on your header.
Step 11: Publish Your Post
After all, is set and done, you can now start publishing and writing your blog post one by one, every post you made will appear on your home page.
Step 12: Connect Your Google Search Console
This one is very important to drive visitors to your website, a search console is a platform where you can index every post on your website, and indexing is a way to introduce your newly published content to the search engines.
There is no way for your blog post to appear in Google search without using the Google search console. To do this simply click the word Google search console on your dashboard and you will be redirected to Google search console.
You need to create an account and add your blogger URL to the property of your Google search console. To guide you through the process of adding your blog to the Google search console you can visit the tutorial made by
Rankmath.
If there is something that you canโt understand you can watch this video tutorial that Iโve recorded on how to start a blog for free on Google blogger.
How To Start A Blog For Free Video Tutorial
Now that you learn about how to start a blog for free, let me tell you why I didnโt use Blogger anymore and some of its disadvantages.
Disadvantage Of Using Google Blogger For Blogging
Lack Of Search Engine Optimization
Blogger.com is the easiest way to publish a blog or create a blogging website for free, but there are downsides to using it, the very important thing was the lack of search engine optimization.
SEO or search engine optimization is the most important thing that every blogger should learn, there are a lot of techniques on how to optimize your website or blog post for better ranking on Google.
One of the clear downsides of Google blogger in SEO is the inability of using an SEO plugin if you compare WordPress and Blogger.com there is no contest, WordPress has DIY features that you can do everything you want to do on your website.
WordPress is also way better in SEO since you can use some SEO plugins in WordPress, if you are not aware of plugins, it is a ready-to-use program that works like an add-on, once you use it to your website you can add some functionality to your website without using codes.
For now, there are 55,000 WordPress plugins that are available and each one has different functionality that can be useful to your website.
One of the most important plugins are SEO plugins like Rankmath help a lot with ranking on Google, but in Google Blogger you canโt use even a single plugin like an SEO plugin that can guide you on how to create search-engine-optimized content.
Not unless you want to spend some money on your blogger blog and hire some expert to write SEO content for you that can rank on Google.
If you want to hire a writer to create search-engine-optimized content for you, you can visit wewriteblogpost.com and order some optimized content of your choice.
You can use my promo code to get a 10% discount.
Promo Code: MIRAGE10
Long URL
Another disadvantage of Google blogger was its long URL in every article, as Iโve mentioned your domain name in using Google blogger always ends with .Blogspot.com, and if you read my article on how to choose a domain name Iโve mentioned that you should choose a shorter domain name.
It is because of SEO. A search engine like Google favors websites with shorter URLs on its blog post or article because URL length is one of the ranking factors in SEO.
When you have a shorter domain name means you can generate a shorter URL in every blog post that you published, which is almost impossible when you use Google Blogger.
Do you guess why? it is because a domain name is always a part of a URL in every post you will publish.
But in Google Blogger, every domain name you choose always ends with .Blogspot.com which is already a long URL, and when you published a blog post, your domain name will be added with your page name, and publication date, and your already long domain on Google Blogger will become much longer after publishing a content.
To fix this issue you can purchase some custom domain names which usually almost all websites use, and domains that are shorter and easier to read.
Some examples of this domain are Youtube.com, Facebook.com, and more that end with Top level domain extension, not a domain that ends with a .Blogspot.com.
If you want to spend a little to purchase a domain name you can register a professional-looking domain name that ends with .COM in Namecheap, you can get a huge discount using the button below this line.
You Canโt Have 100% Ownership
Another disadvantage and the main reason why I donโt use Google Blogger anymore was the lack of ownership, Blogger.com was acquired by Google in the year 2003, which means Google owned the Blogger.com platform which is why some people called it Google Blogger.
Since Blogger.com is owned by Google, it means that every blogging website made by its platform is owned by Google not you.
Just like Youtube, all Youtube channels are owned by Google, so when someone says โI own a Youtube channelโ they are wrong since Google owns it not them, same in Blogger.com.
On the other hand, If you build a website using unmanaged WordPress, the website is completely yours, but donโt be confused since there are two kinds of WordPress.
The managed version of WordPress and the unmanaged version of WordPress, the unmanaged version are open-source which is why when you use it to build your website you will have 100% ownership.
If you are curious to build a website on WordPress you will need to rent a server or web hosting and purchase a domain name, I recommend you use Cloudways, which is a very fast Cloud hosting that is greate for beginners.
The dashboard is very easy to use, and the installation of open-source WordPress can be done with just one click of a button which is why I recommend it for beginners, after installation you can just design your Website based on your preference.
Limited Theme and Customization
Another disadvantage of Blogger.com was its limited theme, Yes there are premade themes you can use on the Blogger website, but they are just very limited, unlike the WordPress platform which has a lot of themes that look professional.
Themes in WordPress are made by a third-party professional that has very clean coding.
You can easily create a professional-looking website without coding knowledge if you use a WordPress theme, compare to a theme blogger that has limited, functionality and customization options.
Bottom Line
A Google Blogger platform is the easiest way to create a blogging website for free, but honestly, I did not recommend it in the long run.
I use Blogger.com almost a decade ago, but I only use it to practice my blogging skill, but donโt get me wrong since there are a lot of bloggers still using blogger.com, but almost all of them use a top-level domain name.
You can take a look in the Google search itself and you can rarely see websites with the .blogspot.com domain, because of the SEO issues, but if you still want to start a blog for free, you can still use Blogger.com with .blogspot.com domain but it will take some time before your website ranks on Google.
Frequently Ask Questions On How To Start A Blog For Free
Can A Beginner Start Blogging?
Of course, anyone can start a blog, and every expert start as a beginner, if you are complete you can start with Blogger.com and later jump into WordPress.
Can I start a blog for free and make money?
The way to do this is by starting a blogging blog on Blogger.com and when you gain a huge amount of visitors, you can earn money through ads.
How do beginner bloggers make money?
The easiest way to earn money through blogging is by ads, you just need to be accepted into Google Adsense to run ads on your blogger, it is the easiest method for beginners to earn from blogging.
Why do most blogs fail?
Because they give up to early, blogging is not a get-rich-quick, youโll need to be dedicated to your blog, work hard, and work smart.
