Setting Up Your Free Blog

In this article, we are going to look into the profitability of a blog and set up a blog of our own at no cost! Interested? Read on! A “blog” is an abbreviated word for web-log, is a web-based journal in which people can publish their thoughts and opinions on the Internet.  It is everyone’s home on the world wide web and anyone can start a blog.

First, we need to obtain a blog. There are several options – host a blog on your own domain or get a free blog. For starters, let’s talk about the free blogs. You can obtain a free blog at :

7 Free Blog-Host-Providers

1. Blogger : This is one of the more popular widely used blog hosts. Litterally millions of users !! They are free , offer heavy customization as well as themes. Just google the term “ Blogger templates” and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Almost forgot to mention that they have street cred to since they are part of Google!
2. WordPress : The great thing about wordpress is that it allows you to host and customize virutally anything. Any first time users will really want to create an account with them to get things rolling.  Wordpress is a free blog engine that is robust and infinitely expandable.
3. Xanga : This is another popular online blog host which caters to a younger audience such as high schoolers. It is not as customizable as blogger which may not be such a bad thing if you want to write something quick and easy without worrying about re-arranging this and that.
4. Live Journal : This is another great quality blog host that does not charge you a penny. I have personally used it and liked it a lot but it is similar to Xanga that it is not 100% customizable but in my opinion is a notch above Xanga.
5. Tumblr : A lot of great websites out there use theTumblr platform for blogging. It also looks to be quite as versatile as WordPress. Check it out! 
6. Weebly : It is look promising as it offers free blog hosting and other tools to support you with.
7. Blog.com : Such an original name and blunt to the point. I like that , don’t you ? This website also follows the suit inoffering free webhosting as well as support to help you create your own blog. Setting up an account doesn’t take too long either. So take advantage now.

Let’s get your free blog, familiarize yourself by posting your first article on your blog and tinkering around with the options and templates.

Here are a few common “blog-related” words to help you out:

1) Permalink – Permalink stands for permanent link, which is a URL that leads to an individual post that you make in your blog.

2) Trackback – When you post about someone else’s blog post elsewhere, your post will show up in their “trackback” section.

3) Pinging – Blogging seems to be paired with pinging almost every time either one is mentioned nowadays. Pinging is actually the action where a certain aggregator is notified whenever your blog is updated, so that the aggregator may show the newest post of your blog on their website. This is a useful way to gaining traffic, which we shall discuss later.

Note : Blogger.com is actually owned by Google, so it will be detected on Google’s search engine faster and you will be indexed faster.  Honestly I have not used all of them, so I would be lying to say that I have first experience. However, it is a relatively so I have no comparison on the speed of getting indexed by search engines. However, WordPress is better in the sense that it has more advanced plugins features such as Trackbacks and Categories. You can also manage your sidebar links more efficiently.

For now, I shall leave you testing out your new free blog and the features that come included with it. In the next articles, we shall discuss the many ways we can gain profit from a blog, as well as tips on how to write article that keep visitors glued and keep coming back for more on your blog.