An individual blog post is a web page that focuses on a specific aspect of your blog.
Your blog posts can rank for various keywords on search engines. While blogging is typically part of a website’s blog section, it requires frequent updates and new posts unlike the rest of the site.
Engaging with your audience is crucial, and you can achieve this by analysing how many readers share your blog posts on social media or by allowing them to comment on individual posts. This creates a two-way conversation, making your blog more interactive than your entire website. In some cases, a blog can even serve as a complete website, such as a fashion blog.
Let’s explore the importance of having a blog and why you should create one.
Blogs: What Are They?
Search Engine Optimisation
The primary purpose of a blog is to enhance the search engine ranking of a website. While using SEO tactics or paid advertisements can help your company homepage rank on the first page of Google, blogging offers a more effective and long-term solution.
Expertise in the Industry and Sharing Information
If you are an expert or still learning, now is the perfect time to start your blog. Sharing knowledge and experience is a powerful tool for attracting people, especially beginners. By sharing the skills you have learned, you can help others and in return, make your blog successful, which will ultimately boost your search engine rankings.
Lead Generation Starts with Attracting Visitors
Your blog can assist website visitors before they make a purchase from you. For instance, if you run an e-commerce store, there may be instances where you attract e-commerce owners who are already searching for your products online. However, in most cases, these visitors may not be ready to make an immediate purchase after finding your products online.
By blogging about topics like “How to start a retail website” or “Benefits of e-commerce vs. physical stores,” you can gradually attract readers who find your content useful and enjoyable. As these visitors start building their own e-commerce stores, thanks to the information on your blog, they will already be familiar with your brand and trust it. Subsequently, they will be more inclined to explore your product pages and make a purchase.
Engage a community online
Engaging with an online community can be highly beneficial. Just like a portrait on the wall that says “Please tell me your faults,” it can lead to valuable insights. When people share their mistakes and ideas, it helps in perfecting something. This concept can be advantageous for generating online traffic.
The best free blogging sites
1. WordPress.org
WordPress.org is the most popular blogging software globally, currently powering over 43% of all websites.
With WordPress.org, you can build your own website or blog in just minutes using their free open-source blogging platform.
Since it is a self-hosted solution, you will need a WordPress hosting provider. Choosing WordPress for your blog gives you full control over its future.
As your blog grows, you can add additional features such as forums, online stores, paid memberships, and the ability to sell online courses, which makes WordPress the best free blogging platform for monetisation.
There is a wide range of free WordPress themes available, allowing you to design a visually appealing website that stands out. Most popular WordPress themes come with built-in customisation features, giving you control over the appearance of your site without the need to edit any CSS code.
2. Web.com
Web.com is a popular website builder that enables users to create business websites, blogs, or shopping carts easily.
Their drag-and-drop website builder is extremely user-friendly, making it ideal for non-techy users. They offer an affordable starting price of $1.95.
Web.com provides a variety of pre-made themes to choose from, and you can customise your blog’s layout without any coding required. The platform offers powerful features such as SEO tools, blog security features, autosave and backup, website analytics, and more.
There are two plans available on their website. If you want to leverage their robust SEO tools and eCommerce features, you can upgrade to their Marketing plan starting at $2.95 per month or their eCommerce plan starting at $3.95 per month.
3. Wix.com
Wix.com is a highly popular hosted platform for building websites. Their drag-and-drop website builder allows small businesses to create stunning websites without any coding knowledge.
Adding the Wix Blog app to your website enables you to incorporate a blog seamlessly.
Wix.com caters to users of all experience levels, offering over 110 million users worldwide.
The basic Wix website builder is free to use, but if you want to have a custom domain, it is priced at $4.50 per month. Wix also offers several premium plans ranging from $8.50/month to $24.50/month, providing additional features and benefits for your website.
4. Blogger
Blogger is a popular free blogging service provided by Google. It is a user-friendly tool that allows non-tech-savvy individuals to create blogs quickly and easily.
As one of the earliest blogging platforms, Blogger has a long history. It was initially launched by Pyra Labs in 1999 and was later acquired by Google in 2003, undergoing a redesign to become the product we know today.
To start a free blog on Blogger, all you need is a Google account.
While Blogger is useful, many users initially choose it because of its free nature. However, as their blogs grow, they often switch to WordPress to take advantage of more features and have greater control over their sites.
5. WordPress.com
WordPress.com is a service offered by Automattic, the company founded by Matt Mullenweg, a co-founder of WordPress.org.
WordPress.com provides a free blog hosting service where you can host a blog at no cost. However, you have the option to purchase a custom domain name, additional storage, and other premium services.
Launched in 2005, WordPress.com was created to bring the WordPress experience to a wider audience. It serves as a great blogging site for users who prefer not to deal with the advanced features of self-hosted WordPress.
You can create a free WordPress.com account, but it will display WordPress.com ads. To remove the WordPress.com logo and get a custom domain, you can upgrade to their Personal plan for $4/month (billed annually). Additional design tools and storage can be obtained for $8/month (billed yearly).
Beginners often confuse WordPress.com with WordPress.org due to their similar names. Users often switch from WordPress.com to WordPress.org to access more features, ease of use, and greater control over their websites.
6. Medium
Medium is an online community for writers, bloggers, journalists, and experts. It is a simple and user-friendly blogging platform that offers limited social networking features.
Medium functions like a social networking site, where you can create an account and start publishing your articles. Your Medium profile URL will follow this format after signing up: https://medium.com/@yourname. However, you cannot use your own domain name on Medium.
Medium is free to use. While it may initially seem attractive, the lack of monetisation options and control often leads users to switch from Medium to WordPress.
Conclusion
We hope this post has provided you with valuable insights. If you have any further questions that were not addressed in this blog post, please feel free to contact us using the provided contact form. Our team will respond within 24 hours to assist you.
