Five Easy Free Blogging Platforms
On one of my other blogs I’ve begun detailing a process where I end up with a main blog supported by at least one, usually two additional blogs, all in support of a main web site, in order to make sure there is substantial and significant relevant content in support of my web site. One of the ways I do this is by making use of a variety of blogging platforms that are floating around out there.
First off, there is no substitute for a real hosted domain name – especially if you’re going to be selling something. I self-host all my main blogs and business web sites. But in order to spread the linkage around, I establish these other supporting blogs on other hosting systems. This cuts down on expense and imagintion – I don’t have to keep coming up with domain names.
Here’s a brief run-down of the top five that I recommend for a hassle-free, no-cost blogging experience.
Google Blogspot/Blogger
Probably “King of the Jungle” in terms of SEO benefits because, hey, you KNOW it’s going to get indexed if you allow it to. The Blogger/Blogspot platform has hundreds of “gadgets” built by open source programmers to do nifty things like display random Flickr images or display your local weather. I use the RSS import gadget to feed back into my free blog, the RSS feed from my main blog. Confused? For these two reasons alone (indexing and RSS importing) I always set this support blog up first and get it going with at least one or two shorter articles.
Yahoo 360
No sense in skipping this one. If you’re blogging for SEO, don’t foget the original personal free blog. Yahoo had all this portal stuff years before Google, but somehow, their market share never materialized. You won’t see Yahoo 360 blogs all over creation but again, this is a platform affiliated with a search tool – it’s dumb not to have a presence there, even though the blogging tool itself is not quite as robust as others out there. Besides, you can always use the yahoo.com email address for junk mail.
Blogs2k
Quick, simple, WordPress for Dummies. You don’t have to know WordPress very well – in fact, if you’re a WordPress pro, you’ll feel limited by what you’re not allowed to do with Blogs2K but you can’t argue with the WordPress Multiuser 1-minute intall. Seriously, this was fast and easy! It comes with a handful of widgets and some themes to choose from – limited so as not to get you into trouble.
Tumblr
Another easy, “no tech required” platform where you simply put in an email address, a password and name your blog and presto, it’s up. Post an article (or a photo or an audio file) and you’re off to the races. There is some customization available in terms of themes and colors, and they also have an RSS import tool. Remember, the reason we’re doing all of this is to give some incoming links to our bread and butter blog. Make sure you check off the permissions to have your blog indexed.
WordPress.org
Guess what you can get here? Yep, WordPress blogs. Free or paid, you chose. You can start out with a free blog with limited options and choose to add features as you require them, which is pretty nice. However, for a stand alone blog, nothing beats WordPress on a self-hosted system with a collection of kick-ass plugins and a nice theme that you can hack up.
But that’s another post…
Sorry, ouija has no special extra insight.
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