Free blogs need free blog software, free blog hosting and other free blog tools. Which are the best free blog tools? Are free blog applications just as good as paid apps?
Free Blog Tools
Free Blog Software
If you want free blog software to run on your own domain then WordPress is the hands-down winner. It has a massive user-base because it is so easy to use and set up. You can set-up WordPress to display as a page-based site. (This site is built using WordPress).
WordPress allows you to build a 10 page website with all pages interlinked in a day. Using HTML this would take you a week. WordPress really has opened up the Internet to everyone; any 10 year old child can run a website using WordPress.
Joomla and other free blog software is much harder to use and takes longer to learn.
There are programs you can buy that allow you to design your own WordPress Theme (site design) This software costs $49 and anyone can use it and have a new theme within 60 minutes.
Free Blog Hosts
For your first free blog, there is no easier way than to start a free blog at blogger.com. The interface is much more simple than WordPress, you can choose layouts just by clicking and install widgets with a few clicks.
WordPress.com offers a similar facility to host your blog for free. If you are familiar with the WordPress interface then look at this option.
WordPress also offers the option to use your own “proper” domain name for only $17 a year, which really is an excellent deal.
Are Free Blog Tools as Good as Paid Tools?
The big disadvantage with any free blog or free blog hosting is that your blog is on a hard-to-remember sub-doamin instead of its own proper top level .com domain.
If your blog is shut down for any reason, you lose every subscriber, instantly. If you have your own domain name and your blog is ever shut down, you can take the domain name to a new web hosting service and all the links you built to your blog, all your subscribers will stay with you.
The WordPress.com option of a $17 proper URL and hosting is the best bargain on the Internet and it is the one I would recommend for any new blogger.