How to Start a Blog for Free

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How to Get Started with Blogging

A blog is an online journal where you can digitally convey your thoughts, ideas, opinions and practically anything else that you want people to read. Blogs come in different styles depending on the preferences of the user. Many blogging sites, offer built-in features such as hyperlinks, straight text, pictures and etc. Some blogging sites, even allow you to put video on your blogs. Instead of writing text, some bloggers choose to make their blogs more audio friendly, by using spoken word entries. This is called audio blogging.

Basically a blog contains these 5 features:

Title- which allows you to label your post
Body- this is the content of your post
Track back- other sites can be linked back to your blog
Permanent link- every article that you write has a URL
Comments- this allows readers to post comments on your blog.

One of the advantages of blogging is that it is made of only a few templates, unlike other websites that are made up of numerous individual pages. This makes it easier for blog users to create new pages, because it already has a fixed setting that includes: slots for title, body of the post, category, etc. This is especially useful for first time users, since they can start blogging right away. They can choose from a number of templates that blogging websites provide.

Anyone who wants to start a blog can do so by becoming a member of a blogging website of their choice. Once they've become members, they automatically become a part of that particular blogging community. They can browse through other bloggers pages, and link them back to their own blogs. They can also make comments on other members' blogs.

Blogging is not limited to personal usage. There are a lot of blogs that follow a theme such as: sports, politics, philosophy, social commentary, etc. These blogs discuss their specific topic. This way blogging becomes a medium in which people can share their knowledge and opinions about a variety of themes and topics. Some bloggers even use their blogs as a means to advertise. Some authors advertise their books on their blogs. While other bloggers, use their blogs to shed light to currents issues, events, news and catastrophes.

Nowadays in education, blogs also play an important role. Professors use blogging to document the lessons that they have discussed and taught. This way, students who have missed classes, can easily catch up with their assignments.

A lot of entrepreneurs benefit from blogging by promoting their businesses on their blogs, with millions and millions of people logging onto the net everyday, blogging has become a lucrative enterprise. Some bloggers who run online businesses promote their merchandise online while others profit through advertisement.

But by far, the most popular blog type is the one that takes the form of a personal journal. This is the kind that is usually used by first time bloggers. Individuals who want to document the daily struggle of their everyday lives, poems, rants, or opinions find that blogging offers them a medium in which to express themselves.

Blogs varying in topics, themes, and set-ups, can be found in blog directories. First time users who want to get an idea of what the blogging world is about can browse through a number of blogs using these directories. This way they get an idea of what these blogging communities are like.

Blogging is popular all over the world. Blog is short for the term weblog. There are no rules when it comes to blogging. Bloggers have the freedom to express themselves however they want, and the best thing about blogging, is that most blogging sites are free. There are numerous blogging websites to choose from in the net. This gives first time users the option of joining a blogging community that appeals to their interests.

Just search any blogging directory and you'd get a listing of a lot of blogging sites that are available on the net. It's easy to search a blogging directory, because it is organized according to category. This way you would get exactly what you are after. Blogging is really for everyone. It is fun, simple and easy

What is a Personal Blog?

Get started today.making a free blog.

BlogBlogging for Fun

Although blogging can be used for a variety of other purposes such as generating income, promoting a cause and providing information there are many bloggers who enjoy blogging simply because it is fun. These bloggers enjoy blogging for reasons such as staying in touch with friends, expressing themselves or keeping a record of important events. This article will explain how blogs can be used for these purposes.

Blogging to Stay in Touch with Friends


Staying in touch with friends and family members is just one of the many reasons a person may wish to start a blog. This is especially useful for those who move far away from their friends and family members. Staying in touch by phone, regular visits and even email is not always easy. This is because it can be difficult to keep up long distance interactions with several different people at once. However, by maintaining a blog, a person can greatly simplify the process of staying in touch with friends and family members because they do not have to repeat information in individual phone calls or emails or make time to visit several different people.

When maintaining a blog, the individual can choose to post a variety of information and photos. Through this information and photos the blog owner can keep others informed about current events in his life. Friends and family members can view the blog at their convenience to catch up on important events in the blog owner's life and in most cases can post comments to the blog owner. They can also read comments from others. This is beneficial if those viewing the blog know each other because they can not only stay in touch with the blog owner but also have a chance to communicate with other friends and family members through the comments section of the blog.

Blogging as a Form of Expression

Some bloggers begin blogging as a form of expression. They may right poetry, songs, and short stories or even use the blog to vent about personal events or politics. These bloggers may wish to keep their blog private or can make the blog available to the public. Keeping the blog private is sort of like keeping a diary or a journal. It gives the blogger a multi-media form of expressing himself without the risk of others discovering his true feelings, innermost dreams or frustrations. Other bloggers opt to make these blogs public. This may be for a number of different reasons. Sharing these feelings with others allows the blogger to reach others who may have the same interest as the blogger.

Bloggers who use their blog as a form of personal expression may want to be cautious and consider the decision to make a blog public. This is important because the blog owner may initially not see problems with allowing others to view his personal thoughts. However, over time he may realize his blog could either be offensive to others or could result in problems if friends or family members view the blog.

Blogging to Keep a Record of Events

Another common reason for blogging is to keep a record of important events. Examples of some types of events which a blogger may wish to document include a pregnancy, weddings, vacations, sporting events or completion of school events. Using blogs to keep a record of these events gives the blogger an opportunity to record daily events in one simple location where they can easily look back on the blog or share the postings with others who might be interested in the events. In these cases the blog can serve as a form of scrapbook documenting the events as they occur. The blog owner can post as often as he desires and may choose to include elements such as photos, music, audio files and video files into the blog. The blog can also be designed to suit the events being documented. For example a journal depicting a vacation may have backgrounds, fonts and colors representing the vacation location while a pregnancy blog may feature elements which represent pregnancy, babies and being parents.

Blogging and the Social Networks

BloggingBlogging on a Social Network

Blogging is becoming increasingly popular and social networks are also becoming more and more popular as well. Social networks include popular websites such as MySpace.com where users can create personal websites and interact with other users. These websites may include a wide range of components including text, images, audio, video and blogs. Here system users can voice their opinions, provided updates on their life, offer insight into current events or accomplish a number of other goals. However, bloggers who utilize a social network to maintain their blog should consider a few different factors. This article will discuss some of these factors including whether to make the blogs available to the public or keep the private, considering the audience of the blog and dealing with harassment through the blog.

Making Blogs Private or Public

Most social networks enable users to make their website either private or public. Private Websites are only available to the user and other users he specifically approves to view his website while public websites are available to all users of the system. These same capabilities also apply to the blogs which are maintained on a social network. For this reason bloggers must determine whether or not they wish to make their blog posts available to the entire social network or to only a fraction of this network.

This decision will be largely based on a matter of personal preference. Social networks can be quite extensive and some bloggers may be apprehensive about their blog being available to such a large audience while other bloggers may have no apprehensions about the size of the potential audience. Bloggers should carefully consider this option before staring a blog but always have the option to change these settings after the blog has been established if they change their mind about the choice they originally made.

Considering the Blog Audience

Bloggers who utilize a social network to maintain a blog should also carefully consider the potential audience for the blog. Most social networks include a broad cross section of the general public. Therefore bloggers should be aware of this audience when posting a blog and should consider how the blog entries will be interpreted by blog audience members. While it will never be possible to avoid offending all potential audience members some bloggers may wish to consider at least attempting to ensure the blog entries they post are appropriate for all members of the social network. If this is not possible the blogger may consider making the blog private.

Dealing with Harassment through the Blog

Another aspect bloggers who use a social network to publish their blog should be aware of includes the potential for harassment from other members through the blog. This can be in the form of offensive comments posted in response to blog entries. Depending on the degree of the harassment the blogger may choose to ignore these comments or take stronger actions. Bloggers should review the policies of the social network and solicit their assistance in dealing with harassment from other users. In most cases dealing with the problem may be as simple as blocking the user from making comments on the blog but in some cases it may be necessary to contact the social network administrators in an attempt to get the user banned from the system. In this situation the administrators will review the situation and make a judgment regarding whether or not the user has violated the terms of service.

Before You Begin a Blog

Blogs which are also known as web logs are the new thing on the internet. They are pretty much a platform that you can use that will allow you to post your thoughts on most any subject that you want to. They can be used for journaling, promoting, writing, and publishing, anything that your heart desires. However, if you are a beginner and new blogging as well as marketing, there are some very important things that you will want to know.

Blog marketing is pretty easy if you have a marketing mind. You are going to find that many people use blogs as a diary, and many times these blogs that are used for this purpose are not intended to make them money, but simply a way to put there thoughts out there and find others that are going through the same thing. If you have never even had a blog before, the simplest thing that you can do is to start one, and just journal in it for a while. This will allow you to learn just what it takes and what it is all about to keep up a blog. When you are just journaling your thoughts and what is on your mind, you have nothing to lose and nothing to gain. You don't even have to make your blog public if you don't want others to read what you have to say. That is a personal preference. However, doing this will let you see how it works. Then you can move on to trying to market a product or a service.

Using a blog to market something is cheaper than using a website. This is because there are so many free ones out there that you can use to get the word out, and they are really just as good as having a website that you pay for. There are of course some advantages to having your own URL, but for a beginner, a free one will work until you get the hang of it and want to move it all over onto your own server. The free blogs are just not that customizable. If you are not familiar with HTML, you are going to find that your blog will look like everyone else's. But, that is ok in the beginning. You can always make changes later on once you are becoming successful.

When you have your own blog, you are in charge of the content that is posted on it. You can decide what is said, and what is not. You are after all writing it all, right? So, the sky is the limit. Whether you want a blog that does website reviews and takes nominations, or you want to sell things that you make out of your home, the choice is yours. Using a blog to get the word out about whatever you want too is a great way to market and promote something.

Blog marketing can get complicated if you let it. It is really only as hard as you make it. While there are some bloggers out there that are making a six figure income with the use of blog marketing, we all know that it can be done. We just want to know how. Well, for any beginner, start small, and be consistent. The six figure bloggers all did. They started with one, built it up, and then added another blog, built it up. Then, keeping up both blogs and not letting them fall behind, they continued to add more and more. Of course they had help, and they outsourced a lot of their work. If you are looking to make a massive income with blogging, you will need some help.

Earn Income Using FREE Blogs


Earn Income Using FREE Blogs

The use of free blogs to make money should be one of your beginner strategies as an internet marketer. Even though you will later want to move towards your own domains and paid hosting, you can certainly make money with free blogs. Using a free blog is a great way to learn how blogging for money actually works, without encountering large overhead costs. Free blogs do get indexed and ranked on search engines. They may not get ranked as quickly as a paid blog - with your own domain and paid hosting. Here are some tips that you should consider when using free blogs to make money.

1. Use Multiple Free Blogs

When using free blogs, you should utilize a variety of the different free blog platforms to give yourself the best chance at getting traffic from the search engines. The two most popular free blogging platforms are Wordpress and Blogspot.

WordPress is one of the best of all the free blogs. Google will rank a WordPress blog ahead of most others. Search engines love WordPress because they do not look upon affiliate links favorably. So if you pack affiliate links into your WordPress blog, you might find your blog shut down after a lot of hard work. There is something you can do, simply use redirect URLs like tinyurl or bit.ly to cloak your affiliate links. This will protect you from getting penalized.

Blogspot is owned by Google - and that never hurts. And you will find plenty of Blogspot blogs ranked in the search engines. The biggest difference between the 'WordPress' and 'Blogspot'- is that Blogspot is more tolerant of affiliate links than WordPress.

A good strategy would be to make WordPress the centerpiece blog for keywords/product. But always create a Blogspot blog with the same or a similar keywords. Then use all the other free blogging platforms and link them to these blogs. Use the same keyword in all your free blogging platforms - create links from inside the content and link to your main blog. This will create a lot of links- and give you many different chances for free traffic as well.

2. Utilize Free Traffic - Articles, Press Releases and RSS Feeds

This is the same as using any other paid domains - you must use articles and press releases to create traffic and links to your blogs. You will find that articles will not only provide you traffic; but the links can do a lot for your SEO efforts. Simply create an article for each of your main blogs pages- (which should be at least 7-10 to begin with) - link to the home page and 1 other page within your blog. I would do this for your best 2 blogs - the results will be well worth the work and, to be honest, this is a must for using free blogs to make money. After writing your articles and press releases - make sure that you submit your sites and articles to RSS Directories. This will double and even triple your links.

Make a Free Blog

Create your free Blog
Free weblog publishing tool from Google, for sharing text, photos and video.
Get a Free Wordpress Blog from Blog Dive
A blog is a personal journal published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete entries
WordPress.com - Get a Free Blog Here
Free blogs managed by the developers of the WordPress software.

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Don Jeffre works as an SEO Consultant and specializes in generating leads, obtaining top search engine positions and conducting marketing training. He... more »

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