There are several ways to create content and share ideas, knowledge, and experiences nowadays, and one of them which is the oldest and still one of the best ways is blogging, and in the time we are now, it has never been so easy to start a blog(even easier than starting a youtube channel). You can start blogging with your smartphone nowadays even if you don't have a computer and you can do it completely free. In this article, I'll be sharing with you the top 5 free blogging platforms you can start a blog on and even potentially earning revenue using those platforms.
1. Medium
Medium is one the largest blogging platforms in the world with over 60 million monthly readers. Whether you're in a cooking niche, fitness, tech, software development, or any other niche, you can use Medium as your blogging platform without needing to worry about SEO since you'll be leveraging the 60 million monthly readers already on the platform. One of its great features is the ability to plug in your own custom domain instead of using the generic subdomain provided by the platform. You can also be able to monetize your blog when you reach a certain number of requirements listed by the platform here. You can check out how to start a Medium blog here.
2. Substack
This is more of like a newsletter platform but can also be used for blogging. What's great about substack is that you turn your blog into a newsletter and create an audience that you can reach straight from their inbox. This way you don't need a separate blog from a newsletter, once people subscribe to your blog they get them straight to their inbox instead of always having to go read on the website. Substack also offers writers the ability to monetize their content and make a living through blogging and newsletters. You can check out how to create a substack subscription newsletter here.
3. Hashnode
I didn't put this one as number one because it's mainly targeted towards developers while the other two above can be used for any type of writing. Nonetheless, Hashnode is one of the best blogging platforms out there(which is why I chose it as my own platform). It offers a wide range of customizable features such as custom domain, SEO, newsletter subscription, and even the ability to monetize your content. You can customize your blog to look and feel as you like with the ability to add custom code. You can check out how to start a blog on Hashnode here, and a bunch of other tutorials on fully setting up your blog on the platform below.
- How to add a custom domain
- How to optimize for SEO
- How to add a newsletter subscription
- How to monetize your blog
- How to customize your blog
4. Dev.to
This is another great blogging platform targeted at developers. It refers to itself as a social network for developers. Sadly it doesn't offer a custom domain feature but it offers web monetization, the ability to publish from RSS, and the ability to generate a self-hosted static blog feed from your Dev Community posts using stackbit(a bit of a mouthful 😅). You can check some tutorials on how to set up your blog on dev.to below.
5. Blogger
Blogger is Google's free blogging platform. It offers a wide range of customization features and a free subdomain with .blogspot.com with the option to use your own custom domain. Also, since it's Google's own blogging platform, it comes with SEO optimization built in the settings as well as monetization features. One feature that blogger has over all the rest is themes which give you the ability to choose how you want your blog to look and you can even customize the HTML code. You can check out how to set up a blog on blogger here.
Honorable Mention
Tealfeed
This is a relatively new platform and is currently running in beta. This can make it a good choice for new bloggers as it is still in its early development process. It also has its own community of readers meaning as a new blogger you can leverage that without worrying about discoverability.
Conclusion
Starting a blog has never been easier and with one of these platforms, you can easily start your own blog and start establishing your online presence. Of course, there are other platforms such as WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace that are advertised to be "free" but in my opinion, none of those is free since you have to deal with stuff like hosting or sometimes even having to buy a domain, which is not the case as in the ones mentioned above.
If you've reached here, I want to say thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to read this article. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram.