Should You Use a Free Blog?

By Donna Knight

If you are a beginner at blogging, the easiest way to get started in blogging is to use free blogging services.  Popular blogging web sites like Blogger.com ( http://www.blogger.com ) and TypePad ( http://www.typepad.com ) allow people the convenience of setting up and hosting a blog without paying monthly fees. This allows you to get started with a blog with all the easy-to-use tools you need. The fact that it’s so easy to get started without having to learn HTML is why so many people who were never inclined to have a website now are avid bloggers. Blogging has truly brought web publishing to the masses.

By signing up with a free blogging web site, you may find it easier to get listed in search engines than you would if you had to install your own blog from scratch. You don’t have to know how to register a domain, find a host or install a blog script. If you can write, you can blog. Because Google owns its’ own free blog hosting site, Blogger.com, it also crawls its’ own pages frequently for updates. If you have a Blogger blog, you’re almost guaranteed to be listed in Google’s blog search engine. This easy listing in search engines can take some of the work out of promoting your blog, and can help you gain more visitors with less marketing effort.

If your blog attracts a lot of visitors, that is when you might want to consider hosting your blog on your own website. Just like with free hosting, free blog hosting can give an unprofessional appearance to your visitors. But the fact is there are successful businesses who use blogspot because they would rather concentrate on running their business and marketing their website than hosting their own blog. In many cases, it doesn’t seem to damage their reputation at all.

Having your own domain helps give you a professional appearance. It may be scary to register a domain and find hosting if you’ve never done it before, but it is not rocket science. You can register a domain for a yearly fee of under $10. You can find decent hosting also for less than $10 per month.

One benefit of having your blog on your own domain is that you can sell advertising space to cover the cost of the hosting and make a profit. However, it may not make sense to invest in these luxuries until you have enough traffic to your blog to generate revenue.

Some people might worry that if they switch their blog to their own web site, they might lose visitors. If you build up enough of a following, people will follow you to your new domain. Also, you can do a lot more with a blog on your own domain than you can on a free blog host. You can add other traffic building and money generating features to your website or pay someone to add them for you. Likewise seperate blog scripts for a website are just as easy to post to as a free blog is, once it is set up. Getting someone to install the blog script for you can be relatively cheap if you hire someone from a site such as http://Scriptlance.com.

In the end, if you want to dip your toes in the blogging pool, there is nothing wrong with starting with a free blog site. That is how I got started, and despite the fact that I did virtually no promotion, and didn’t even have much on my blog yet, I did get traffic. Free blog hosts are very easy to use and can help you decide once and for all if blogging is for you. Sign up now. Go to http://blogger.com and get started today.

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Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 250 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time when marketing online, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com. Copyright (c) 2006 Donna Knight. Permission granted to reprint this article as long as the article and resource box remain intact.