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The million dollar question of how to create a blog for free and make money remains
You’ve learned that blogging is a good way to make money online but you don’t think you have the money to invest in a blogging platform so you can make money from a blog.
Here’s the thing… yes, you can create a free blog with WordPress.com and many other free content management systems but making money off a free blog may be more challenging than when you invest a little bit of money in your blog.
Making money from a blog, in general is more challenging that some get rich quick blogging gurus claim. This is not to say that you can’t make money off a free blog, but you can make more from a non-free one.
Setting up a non-free blog is not as expensive as you may think because the only thing that you’ll be investing in to get started blogging is web-hosting where your blog’s files and database are stored. Professional blogging platforms like WordPress.org are free to use and there are thousands of free WordPress themes that can get you started on your blogging journey.
Yes, you can start a blog even if you’re broke and unemployed but it’s going to be a good idea to find a job first when you’re just starting out your blog because making money from a blog may take longer than you expect.
You may have read articles about people making 6 figure incomes from their blogs and there are hundreds of thousands of people who make a good living blogging but let’s not forget about the millions more who are struggling in their blogging business.
The very first thing that you should consider when thinking of starting a blogging business is if you have a knack for writing. Blogging is a writer’s domain, so don’t blog just for the sake of making money from a blog.
Can you make money from a blog if you can’t write?
Yes, you actually can but and that’s a big BUT! If you can’t write or you don’t have the time to write for your blog, you should have the resources to pay someone else to write for you.
And since you’re searching “how to create a blog for free and make money” online, you may not have the resources to pay writers to do the blogging for you. So I suggest that you do the writing yourself!
So to answer your question:
Creating free blogs is easy, making money out of free blogs isn’t.
In fact, you can create a free blog… just about NOW!
Just click here and fill out your details on the WordPress.com website
WordPress.com (not to be confused with WordPress.org) lets you start blogging for free but you have to carry the WordPress.com domain extension on your website, so your blog will carry a domain name that will look something like: http://www.yourblog.wordpress.com/.
You may think that it isn’t a big deal but it is! It’s far harder to build trust with your audience when they know that your site is hosted for free. Also, the static nature of most free blog platforms makes them harder to monetize.
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Can You Start a Free Blog and Upgrade Later?
Most free blogging platform offers you to start a blog for free and lets you upgrade your subscription with a paid one later one where you ditch their domain name extensions and fully use your own branded domain.
The problem with this strategy is that it will cost you more over-time and still, your blog will have limitations.
Take a look at WordPress.com’s subscription below, the WordPress.com’s branding will only be removed at the highest subscription tab, which cost $33 a month which gives you free one-year domain.
This means that you’ll have to pay for your domain name on top of the $33 subscription. (Click on the image for a larger view).
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So What’s the Better Way to Create a Blog that Makes Money?
The best way to start a blog is not to start it with a free platform so you’re NOT tied up with them. Start a blog with WordPress.org instead!
Wait! isn’t WordPress.com and WordPress.org the same? WordPress.org is opensource, it’s WordPress’ foundation. WordPress.com is where they make their money.
To avoid starting your blog as a subdomain of any company, invest in hosting. Remember, you’re creating a blog for business purposes so you have to treat it like one.
I always tell people to treat their businesses as a real business because they are real… once they start making money.
If you’re looking to make money from your blog, you have to be willing to invest a little to launch a more professional blogging business.
Web-Hosting
There are a lot of different web-hosting companies but BlueHost is a good choice for people just starting out and even when you grow your blog, you can always upgrade to their dedicated servers.
You can create a blog with BlueHost for as low as $3.95 a month then grow from that as your blog and income grow.
As of the moment, all my websites are hosted on SiteGround. I switched to them 2 years ago when one of my sites was infected with
Their Grow Big package for which I’m subscribed to goes for $19.95 a month (or $239.40 billed annually).
Siteground is a powerful hosting service for WordPress blogs. Website speed is unparalleled and they have an almost 100% uptime with a downside of being a pricey shared hosting as compared to other hosting services.
I was forced to move to SiteGround from Site5 when one of my websites was infected as they offered their SG
One of the advantages that SiteGround has compared to other web-hosting companies is website speed! Before SiteGround, I had to tweak a lot of different caching plugins to speed up my WordPress blogs but SiteGround does it all on the background.
Blog Speed Matters
If you’re thinking of starting a blog or website, remember that speed will play an important factor on your blogging success.
People nowadays are getting less and less patient and if your website speed is SLOOOOWWW… people leaves!
So, it’s important to consider speed when choosing a webhosting company.
In my experience Siteground speeds up WordPress blogs like no one else but then of course, since you came on here looking for information on how you can start a blog for free and make money, you can start off with their Startup Plan for only $3.95 a month (regular priced at $11.95 after a year) instead of gowing for the Grow Big plan which is for people like me who run multiple websites.
Domain Name
In the last couple of years, I’ve always had and bought my domain names with Namecheap and yes, as their name suggests; they’re one of the cheapest domain name providers online!
Are they the cheapest? Well, maybe not but then again there are other considerations than just the pricing. For one, I find their platform easy to use, customer service is okay and their price is of course, relatively cheap which hovers around $10 a year.
Capital Needed to Start A Blog
Wait… why do I need to pay for domain name and hosting again???
Uhmm… because you will most-likely NOT make money blogging with a blog that’s hosted for free.
Don’t worry, starting a blog won’t cost you an arm and a leg but paying for a domain name and hosting does not guarantee your success.
What most make money blogging gurus miss to tell you is the fact that you’re not going to make money simply by starting a blog. It will take work make your blogging business work.
Just like any business, it will take blood, sweat and tears before you make a consistent income blogging so be ready to work!
So, how much will it cost?
Let’s see…
- $10.00 for a domain name.
- $3.95 a month for hosting (billed yearly at $47.40.
There ya go! at less than $60.00 of start up capital, you will have yourself a fully functioning and a professional blogging platform that’s ready to make you money.
Oh, and yes… if you want to get fancy, you can get yourself a shiny new WordPress theme from Studiopress, Theme Forest or Elegant Themes but you can always use free ones from within your WordPress dashboard to keep your startup capital low which by the way is next to nothing!
Most paid WordPress themes would cost you around $40 to $60 which would increase your blog startup costs to around $100.00 so if you’re not ready to spend $100.00 on your blog business, you may want to put off the purchasing of a paid WordPress theme as this can wait.
Again, you can always use free themes from inside your Dashboard. You can find them on the appearance tab, when you click on “themes”. Most of these free WordPress themes also have paid versions and you will be encouraged to update for more features but keep in mind that your blog design will be secondary; the more important part of your blog are your blog articles.
Good luck on your blogging journey… with your NOT so FREE BLOG!
