Welcome to the first part in a three part series. There are so many options when it comes to answering the question posed in the title. Where should I host my blog is one of the most critical and crucial questions you will ask yourself when starting a blog. Today I am going to give you a lot of options on where you can blog. Most of these are free to start but realize, you get what you pay for with a lot of these services and websites. To help you navigate this rough and foreign terrain, I am going to explain the positives and the negatives for blog hosting at a variety of services. Thirty to be exact. If you have any questions, please contact me in the comments section and I will be sure to answer them as quick as possible.
1. Blogger.com
I am starting with Blogger because it is my chosen go to for blogging. Blogger was started in 1999, it’s been around forever and probably is not going anywhere anytime soon. A blogger blog can be about anything you wish. That Crafty Girl From Ohio, my other blog, is edited and produced with blogger. This blog is also edited and produced with Blogger. I personally like the platform for the following reasons. It is easy to customize (with a little html knowledge), they do not paste their advertising all over your pages, you can use Google AdSense with your blog even if you are not at your own domain, and you can use affiliate links with your blogger account as well. I do warn against the affiliate links though until you have your own domain linked to Blogger. They have been known to remove sites randomly in the past that seemed too overly promotional. If you are looking to start a blog strictly for affiliate marketing with little information, Blogger may not be the service for you.
Allows Affiliate Marketing: Yes but be careful
Allows Ad Networks (Google AdSense, etc.): Yes
2. Weebly.com
I use Weebly to host my resume website. If you are not familiar with the concept, it is like a visual portfolio that I use to show to perspective employers when I am looking for a job. It gives me a larger amount of space to share my experiences and skills. The goal is to catch them with the resume and then wow them with the website. It has worked fairly well in my favor. Anyways, I am jumping from the main topic. Weebly would be my first choice if it were not for their advertising. Free sites through Weebly may include will include pop up ads advertising for Weebly. It costs a good bit of money monthly to remove these ads. Weebly offers you a free domain though just as blogger and tons of themes to get you started. They have lots of interactive plugins that you can add to your site as well. You can build a really nice blog on Weebly with absolutely no coding experience whatsoever. Weebly also offers options to create your own storefront where you can sell your goods independently. They also allow affiliate links and the use of other ad networks but as with Blogger, be careful because when you are not using your own domain, you do not have complete control over your posts and they can be removed.
Allows Affiliate Marketing: Yes
Allows Ad Networks (Google AdSense, etc.): Yes
3. Wix.com
Wix has some of the coolest themes for creating websites. You can do a lot to customize them and many of them are completely free. There are a lot of downsides I am not to thrilled about though when it comes to Wix. Some will say Wix and Weebly are similar but I have to completely disagree. With Wix, you can only place one image in each blog post. That is just too few in my opinion in this day and age. Once you pick a theme, you cannot change that theme. It is set in stone. Changing is tedious. Their advertising is too a bit obnoxious but is a little cheaper than Weebly to remove. Their drag and drop interface is amazing and some of their plugins are amazing. If you do not know how to code and you do not need a lot of pictures to get out your message, Wix is totally for you.
Allows Affiliate Marketing: No
Allows Ad Networks (Google AdSense, etc.): Not with the free versions
4. WordPress.com
Allows Affiliate Marketing: No
Allows Ad Networks (Google AdSense, etc.): No
5. Medium.com
This website definitely has some promise but there are a couple things that worry me about the site. First let me start with the positives. It was created by the guys that started twitter so there is a lot of knowledge behind their team. Articles on Medium look fantastic. If you write something awesome, it has a chance of popping up on the front page. Now on to the downsides. It is a content farm. If you are unfamiliar with the concept, it is a place where amateur writers gather to read and write stories. Many times writers are doing this for little to no compensation. Your content is also not your own, which is the case many times when you start a website on a content farm. Content farms are not necessarily bad though Google is rumored to hate them. There is a lot of controversy on that topic that I will not get into here but as far as content farms go, Medium.com looks frickin’ fantastic. Content farms have a purpose and if you are completely new to blogging, I suggest Medium.com.
Allows Affiliate Marketing: No definitive answer, seems to be a grey area but I wouldn’t do it
Allows Ad Networks (Google AdSense, etc.): No
6. Hubpages.com
I also write at Hubpages. I have been there since they swallowed Squidoo a couple years ago. I like the place and I love their advertising program. They also have an Amazon affiliate program that pays a way better percentage on commissions than I have ever been able to ascertain on my own. Each of your blog posts is called a Hub. Hubs can be about anything but you will find most success if your Hubs are all about the same niche. I myself have not followed this advice as I use Hubpages to post things that do not fit on my other blogs. It’s a great testing grounds for a niche, to see if you have a lot to say about it before you go and build your own website. One needs to know little to now html to make a Hubpages account. The forums Hubpages offers are provide a ton of knowledge and information. Hubpages is also a content farm as Medium so keep that in mind as well. You never want to build a permanent business model at a content farm but they are a great place to learn and experiment.
Allows Affiliate Marketing: Yes, Amazon and EBay
Allows Ad Networks (Google AdSense, etc.): Yes but you must have your own Google AdSense account, approval can be tricky.
7. LiveJournal
Seems more like a social network that lets you post journal entries. I have seen some not so great things about the business practices of this company. I have not been able to substantiate any of these claims. For the time being I am going to recommend my readers to stay away from LiveJournal.
Allows Affiliate Marketing: No
Allows Ad Networks (Google AdSense, etc.): No
8. WordPress.org
WordPress.org is the “Gold Standard” It requires the most time to set up and a little bit of starting capital but the best looking, most responsive websites are created with WordPress.org. You can achieve similar things at blogger with some coding knowledge but it will take more time in the long run. The time and money it takes to get your WordPress.org blog started make up for all of the cool themes and plugins you can use on your blog. You have to have your own domain to start a blog with WordPress.org software. The process to get started is a little tedious so if you are not technically savvy, you will probably need to hire someone that can help get you started. In the long run though, this is your best option if you really want to monetize your blog and have total control over your content.
Allows Affiliate Marketing: Yes
Allows Ad Networks (Google AdSense, etc.): Yes
9. Quora.com
Are you the person that likes to answer people questions? Do you enjoy giving other people advice? Then doing a little blogging at Quora might be for you. Though Quora gets lumped into blogging, I would say it is more like a community but questions can be organized and you can suggest edits for answers as well. The best way I can explain it all is if you mixed Wikipedia with Yahoo answers This platform may not be for starting a serious blog but I see serious potential in using the service to direct traffic to some super informative evergreen posts from some of your other blogs.
Allows Affiliate Marketing: No
Allows Ad Networks (Google AdSense, etc.): No
10. Amino
Amino is a mobile blogging platform that is taking off. Each Amino has it’s own theme and there are so many to choose from. Some of them include….
That is just a few of options of what they have to offer. It really is quite an extensive collection. The biggest downside to the Aminos is that they are mobile applications. You cannot post to any of the programs from a computer. You have to download the application but it is available for iPhone and Android. I spend most of my time on Crafty Amino. I have networked with some great people and other bloggers too. The applications are completely free and not to heavy on ads. One drawback to these applications is the abundance of underage users but once you find your herd, it’s really easy to make friends. These blogs are more about your passions than making money but you can use them to promote your other websites or as a stand alone blogging application just for fun. They have catered content too so if you post something really good, it will appear on the front page for everyone to see.
Allows Affiliate Marketing: Yes
Allows Ad Networks (Google AdSense, etc.): Yes
I hope you enjoyed this list of places where you can start a blog. It’s just part one of a three part series. Check out parts 2 and 3 below. If you have any corrections or would like me to add something, drop it in the comments.
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