The best free blog websites

June 3, 2024

15 13 minutes read

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The best free blog websites can help you to promote your work to a wider audience without the cost associated with opting for a full-blown website of your own and without needing to know anything about coding. And free doesn’t have to been inferior. We’ve tested a wide range of options, and we think some of the best free blog sites are even as good as some paid-for platforms.

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For these reasons, Wix attracts a lot of artists and designers, even if it isn’t aimed at them specifically. Note, though, that the free account is quite limited. You’ll also have an ad for Wix on your site and a Wix domain name. You’ll have to pay to remove those and unlock features like an online store and Google Analytics, but the paid-for plans are reasonably priced. We’d suggest starting with the free plan and then upgrading once you begin to attract visitors and want to make things look more professional.

The two platforms have a lot in common. They’re both based on a drag-and-drop system, which lets you quickly create a website using a template. In our experience of testing the software, we found the main difference is that Weebly doesn’t offer as many customisation options as Wix. But the positive side of that is that the interface is less cluttered and easier to use – perfect for a free blogging platform.

More and more artists and designers are promoting themselves with email newsletters. For many, this is an alternative to blogging… but it needn’t be. We discovered that with Substack you can actually kill two birds with one stone. Newsletters are Substack’s main focus, but you also get a web page to share all your past newsletters in one place. So it effectively works as a free blogging platform too.

We should clarify that if you want a unique looking blog, this isn’t the best choice. Since Substack’s main focus is on emails, its blog features are extremely limited. However, you will get a basic CMS (content management system) with text formatting tools and the ability to embed images, video and other web content. Plus, Substack is free as long as you make your posts/emails free for everyone to read. Only once you start charging people for subscriptions will Substack take a cut.

This isn’t, then, the best choice of free blogging platform if you want to build a blog in a day. Also, note that you’ll still need to pay for web hosting and a domain name to get your blog online. However, if you take the time to get to grips with it, you’ll be rewarded with an unprecedented degree of control over your site. Plus, any ads that appear on your blog will be ones that you’ve chosen to put there.

When we reviewed Site123, we tested how good this support was in practice. Results were good: we were connected with a friendly agent just within five minutes the company promised. Note, though, that phone and email options are not on offer. Site123 is pretty easy to use too. Like most platforms on this list, it provides a selection of ready-made styles and layouts and handy prompts to help you build your blog. So in fact, you may not need any support at all.

Joomla has hundreds of templates to use and customise, and lots of extensions for adding extra features and getting your blog looking just the way you want it. It doesn’t have as many themes and add-ons as WordPress.org, but if you’re able to code, Joomla is a better bet, especially if you want a larger, more complex site. If you foresee your blog growing into something bigger that you could potentially make money from, this is probably a more scalable solution.

Don’t want to pay for hosting? Since 2015 Joomla has teamed up with SiteGround to offer a great solution. The launch.joomla.org service offers you the basic standard publishing features of Joomla, with free hosting. This free option isn’t much use if you want an advance website from the get-go. But it is a great way to get started, as any blog you develop here can be upgraded later into a full-fledged self-hosted project.

For experienced developers looking for strong security and advanced features, SilverStripe is one of the best free blogging platforms to consider. It’s a free, open-source CMS that’s easy to use once it’s set up, but you’ll need web skills to get that far. Key tools include a web-based administration panel, a WYSIWYG website editor, rich-text editing, quick embedding of videos, and a drag-and-drop, tree-based navigation structure. Note, too, that you’ll also have to pay for your own domain name and hosting.

If you have no experience of making a blog or a website before, we would recommend starting with Wix or Weebly, which both have simple interfaces and free plans that are easy to upgrade if you decide you want more personalisation. If you want to sent out newsletters, we would recommend considering Substack. Ultimately, the best way to choose the right free blog site for you is to test it: they’re free so you only risk your time, and spending hands-on time with the interface will help you decide if it meets your needs.

We’ve tried all the best known blogging platforms out for size, including the ones on this list, in order to bring you a definite guide to the best free blog website platforms available today. We put each site through its paces by testing it to create a hypothetical blog. We assessed each for ease of use, the quality of their tutorials and documentation, and what posts actually look like once you’ve made them live, on laptops, phones and tablets.

Can anyone write a blog?

Yes, absolutely anyone can create and write their own blog! Tens of thousands of people do so every day, and with so many free blogging platforms out there, all you need is a computer with an internet connection to do so… or even just a phone!

A related question, of course, is: will anyone read your blog? There are absolutely no guarantees on that score, and it’s entirely down to you to promote your blog.

If you don’t have an existing audience elsewhere, our advice is to get the content right first and then start to build up your audience gradually via word of mouth. If you can provide information and insight that’s unique to your blog, by focusing on a niche area that you’re passionate and knowledgeable about, there’s every reason your blog can be a success.

Which free blogging platform is best?

The best free blog website for you will largely depend on what you’re looking for. If you want to get up and running quickly, and don’t have any web design experience, we recommend Wix, as it makes it very easy to build a website and offers over 500 customisable templates.

However, if your priority is having fine control over the look and feel of your site, and you’re willing to spend time learning how the system works, we recommend WordPress.org. Finally, if you’re an experienced coder, then you’ll find Joomla or SilverStripe gives you the sophisticated tools you need to build an advanced site to your exact needs.

Do I need a website to write a blog?

Not necessarily. Just as you can write short posts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram without having a website, there are other social networks that allow you to write long articles and post them there.

One of the most popular business networks for blogging right now is LinkedIn. As long as you’re signed up to the social network, you can publish articles on the site for free, without needing any technical skills. Just go to where you’d normally write a short post, click on the ‘Write an article’ button and follow the steps. Once you’ve written and published your article, you can share it within LinkedIn, and also on other social networks.

How do bloggers make money?

Making money blogging is kind of like making money by playing sports. In both case, very small number of people at the top of the tree are making a large amounts of money. A larger number of people make small amounts of money. And the vast majority are making no money at all.

There are many ways to make money blogging. If you can build up a large audience, then you can sell advertising on your blog. However, the rates for this are very small, so you’ll need huge visitor numbers to make this worth your while.

If your subject is niche, then a better strategy can be to create sponsored content that both resonates with your specific audience and sells a certain product or service to them. For instance, an interior design blogger might be sponsored by a high-end wallpaper company to decorate their house in said wallpaper and blog about it.

You can also potentially earn money as a blogger through ecommerce links. You write about a product, use a special link to allow readers to buy that product, and if you do, you get a cut.

Which free blogging platform is best for making money?

If you want to make money from your blog, then most free blogging platforms are going to make that difficult. Put simply, in return for providing you with a free blog, they will incorporate their own ads into your site, and you won’t get the money for any click-throughs; they will.

The big exception is WordPress.org. Because this is open source software, you will have total control over what happens on your blog, and that includes deciding to feature your own ads, for which the money will go straight to you. However, be aware that WordPress.org does have a big learning curve to use, and you will have to pay for web hosting and a domain name separately.

Does my blog need a domain name?

Most of the best free blogging platforms will give you a URL for your site, but it will be quite a clunky one that’s difficult for people to type in or remember, and will normally contain the company’s own name. If you want your blog to be taken seriously, then, you should really buy your own domain name, especially as it’ll only cost you a few dollars. You don’t necessarily need to do this at the very start, though: it’s something you can put off till further down the line when you start to build an audience.

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June 3, 2024

15 13 minutes read