Free blog sites have come a long way in recent years. In the past you needed some form of design or programming experience to put up a successful blog, nowadays, you can easily get a professional-looking website up without having to write code or know typography. Anyone with a computer and access to the Internet can create their own blog with a bit of creativity and a lot of help from the best blogging platform. With free blog sites, you basically start with a website building kit that will take you from template selection to writing your first entry in just a few minutes.
If you have been wanting to dabble in a bit of writing to express your creativity and share your thoughts with the world, here are some of the best free blog sites to help you get started. Opening a free account with these platforms is highly recommended for hobbyists who want to try their hand at blogging without having to spend extra to get started.
1. Strikingly
Image taken from Strikingly website
Image taken from Strikingly product
When it comes to simplifying website building, Strikingly is one of the best free blog sites in the industry. It features a user-friendly website editor and integrated blogging platform that lets you get your site up in as fast as 30 minutes. This website builder has a diverse collection of modern and mobile-responsive templates that are suited to virtually any topic or industry niche you would like to write on. The text editor is very intuitive. All you need to do is start typing in your content, add in images and other visuals and the platform will do the formatting and heavy lifting for you. It’s an ideal choice for business websites that intend to blog for content marketing purposes as well as for building personal portfolio websites.
Not only that, but Strikingly also offers SEO optimization features for your blog. You can optimize your blog in several ways, such as creating a good title page, writing good meta descriptions, and describing every image you use in each content on your blog. You can do all that in the Strikingly site editor. You can also find tips and tricks to optimize the SEO of your blog at Strikingly.
Image taken from Strikingly website
But, is SEO that important for your blog? Of course, SEO is very important! Your blog is most likely just one of many other blogs covering the same topic or niche. You can find out what blogs or websites discuss topics similar to yours by entering keywords that discuss the topic of your blog to Google. For example, your blog discusses restaurants in various parts of the world. You can enter these keywords and find your big competitors for those keywords.
In short, you will be competing with many people to get people's attention and if you want people to find your website more easily like you find the website or blog that you find on the first page of search engine results, then you have to optimize the SEO of your blog. Strikingly, as one of the best blog sites, can help you to make your blog be found by many people on Google.
2. Wordpress.com
Image taken from WordPress website
Not to be confused with its bigger cousin, Wordpress.org (one of the best blog sites in itself but may not be suitable for you if you are looking for a free platform), Wordpress.com allows you to create blogs hosted by Automattic. It’s one of the most basic blog sites that’s ideal for hobbyists and individuals who just want to try their hand at writing on the internet. It’s easy to set up but unlike other website builders, customization options are fairly limited on the free plan. You cannot monetize your blog if you are on a lower-tier plan and you may also be at risk of losing your page if you violate the terms and conditions of using the platform.
3. Medium.com
Image taken from Medium website
Medium was created by one of the founders of the social networking site Twitter and has become one of the most popular blog websites for budding writers and journalists. Aside from serving as a blog site, it is a social network in itself, allowing users to comment on published content. Getting started is fairly simple - you just need to sign up for an account and you can start blogging right away. If you’re looking for a fuss-free site that’s meant to simply house your inner thoughts and feelings, Medium is a great platform. But if you want an engaging website with all the bells and whistles, you’re probably better off with the other best blog sites on this list. Medium doesn’t offer design and customization options because it focuses more on content creation.
You can also build your own publication or magazine on Medium. As has been said before, Medium is a kind of social media for writers. You can make contact with other authors and create publications together. This publication is like a collection of writings that can cover any predetermined topic. You can also create publications for your own writing and make these publications into your writing portfolio.
On Medium, you can also make money through your writing. You can join the Medium Partnership Program and make your writing accessible only to premium members of Medium. You will get money for every member who reads your story and gives a clap, something similar to likes on Facebook or loves on Instagram.
This makes Medium a little different from other best blog sites. Generally, you get money from your writing from advertisements posted on your blog or by being affiliated with a certain product. On Medium, you don't have to. You just need to create extraordinary content and make your content only readable by premium members of Medium. But, of course, this makes your writing inaccessible to everyone, which is something you should always consider.
4. Wix.com
Image taken from Wix website
Wix is another great blogging platform that allows you to build a fully functional website to house your blog. Free accounts get some level of customization through a wide collection of templates and integrated apps. Just be careful about deciding on a template because you will not be able to change to a different one if you change your mind after publishing. Set up is easy and the blog editor uses artificial intelligence so you can automatically design your page. You may be limited in terms of e-commerce integration options but the option is available on Wix if you want to expand your site later on.
5. Blogger.com
Image taken from Blogger website
Blogger.com is another oldie but goodie in the blogging platform department. It has been around since 1999 and, after Google acquired the site in 2003, anyone with a Google account can easily sign up for this service. It is a completely free hosting service - no need to worry about site maintenance and technicalities. In terms of website templates, it has come a long way and has since introduced mobile responsive themes as well as anti-comment spam features. You are limited to the design options provided by the site and customization is very limited.
Those are the best blog sites that you can choose to start your own blogging sites.
Having a blog is one of the best ways to share your thoughts. Not only that, but you can also meet people, create a community, and help people through your posts on your blog. You can even monetize your writings and earn money from your writings. If your writing is really good and you can make a lot of money from monetization, you can even make blogging your day-to-day job.
However, writing is not the only aspect of your blogging lives. Another aspect of blogging lives besides your writing skills is the blogging platform. You have to make sure that you are using the best blog sites as your blogging platform.
So, what makes a particular platform one of the best blog sites?
One of them is the features offered by the blogging platform you choose. Best blog sites offer comprehensive features; starting from offering ease of writing, attractive and user-friendly design, complete SEO optimization, and of course customer service that is ready to help users anytime and anywhere. If you have no experience or knowledge about website creation, you should also make sure that the blogging platform you use is friendly to people like you: not too technical but still able to produce a good website.
Many of the best blog sites offer the above features, such as Strikingly. Strikingly is the right choice if you want a strong website with a good appearance without requiring you to master web development.
Image taken from Strikingly product
At Strikingly, you can create your blog using our ready-to-use templates. You can also find blogs made by other Strikingly users and get inspiration. This way, you can also learn how people create and design their blogs and apply what you learned to your blog.
What are you waiting for? Start your best blog sites with Strikingly today!
