Having a blog is a great thing because you can share anything you want (…and if you are wise you can also earn a decent income from your blog).
- (Read: My AdSense Earnings for 5 Years)
Here at ShoutMeLoud, I have written about many blogging platforms that you can use to create a blog for yourself. I usually suggest creating a blog using your own domain and hosting, and creating your blog via WordPress(.org).
We have talked a lot about self-hosted WordPress blogs in previous posts, and there is no doubt that this presents a better blogging platform when compared to free blogging platforms like BlogSpot.com and WordPress.com.
Also see:
- How to start a blog for making money
- How to make money blogging (Earn up to $40000/month)
However, many newbies who want to start blogging don’t want to make an initial investment of funds to create a blog. This is completely reasonable.
There are many blogging platforms which offer users the ability to create free blogs. If you are looking for a simple free blog, my suggestion would be to start blogging with WordPress.com or BlogSpot.com.
Once you have some blogging experience, you can advance and become more professional with a self-hosted WordPress blog.
BlogSpot allows you to create a free blog, but it does have limitations.
However, as I mentioned above, for a beginner it is a great way to learn how to create a blog and begin the blogging process.
This post is dedicated to the “beginners” who are new to blogging and would like to get started by learning the basics involved in the process.
Before I begin the complete tutorial, there are a couple of things you should know:
- Firstly, BlogSpot is a blogging platform powered by Google. It offers you an opportunity to start a blog, but all your images will be hosted by Picasa (also part of Google). BlogSpot, in this sense, is a Google-centric blogging platform.
- Secondly, if the goal of your blog is to make money and to have a blog that is professional in appearance, I would recommend that you create your blog using WordPress. It’s easy, and with the help of our exclusive free WordPress guide, you can create your blog in the next 60 minutes.
Step-by-step Guide to Creating a Free Blog on BlogSpot:
To create your free BlogSpot blog site, head over to BlogSpot.com and login using your Google account. If you don’t have a Google (gmail) account, you can create one for free.
For a first time user, you will see an option to use the identity from your Google Plus profile, or you can use your limited BlogSpot profile. I recommend using your Google Plus profile.
Once you are logged in, click on “new blog” or click on this link to directly go there: Create a free blog
Name your blog:
The first thing you need to do is add a name and select your domain. I suggest you read “How To Select a Domain Name” for additional information.
Avoid using your personal name as the domain name, and instead use some generic domain name that you can brand later with a custom domain.
You can then select a blog template (you can change it anytime), and click on “Create Blog”.
Now your blog is created, but you are not done yet!
There are a few settings that you need to set on your newly created BlogSpot blog to make it easy to use.
You are now on the BlogSpot dashboard where you will see your blog’s backend. From here you can go to “Settings” and make changes to improve your blog’s visibility.
Here is a screenshot of what you should be seeing:
From here you can click on “Posts” > “New post” and start writing your very first blog post!
But before you write your first post, I would recommend that you go to “Pages” and create at least one “About” page describing who you are and what your blog is about.
- You can read my post on why you need an “About” page for your blog.
Most importantly, you should change your blog’s template as the default one is generic and boring (in my opinion).
Here I have compiled a list of free BlogSpot templates that you can download and install on your blog. Alternatively, you can go to “Settings” > “Template” and change the template from there.
On this page, you can also add a logo to the header of your BlogSpot blog, and add or remove various other features.
Once you have a few blog posts up and running, you can go to “Settings” > “Earnings” and enable AdSense for your blog. This will allow you to earn money from your free BlogSpot blog.
- Read my earlier guide on how to sign up for an AdSense account.
So your blog is almost ready and you can start writing posts. There are just a few more things I suggest you do.
I cover these things in the video tutorial below.
Video Tutorial to Create a Free BlogSpot Blog:
Note: This post is meant for every reader out there who does not already have a blog and is looking for an easy way to create a free blog.
I started my blogging journey with BlogSpot, and I later advanced to WordPress. If you want to take the more professional route right from the beginning, you can always refer to my WordPress Beginner guide.
- Also read: BlogSpot SEO tips
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WordPress is best for Blogging But those who just want to have a blog for their business and does not care about SEO/traffic , blogspot certainly is good and it allows complete customization of template code.
Harsh, Inspired by ur posts I just now created a blogspot. Then I realise to activate adsense my site should be atleast 6 months old? Any idea how to overcome that?
I think Blogspot is not a great platform compared to WordPress : less functions, less intuitive, … The competition is really hard regarding blog platforms!
@Cedric
I agree WordPress is anytime better than BlogSpot. Though BlogSpot is great for anyone who is just started with Blogging and want to learn without spending any dime. We have already covered few articles on differences between BlogSpot Vs. WordPress before:
https://www.shoutmeloud.com/wordpress-or-blogger-seo.html
https://www.shoutmeloud.com/8-reasons-why-self-hosted-wordpress-blog-is-better-then-blogspot-blog.html
Blogspot is good for small starter blogs . Personal blogs and single topic blogs can also do good on blogspot . When comparing with wordpress people often forget that Blogspot is free and one doesn’t have to worry about traffic spikes and hosting problems .
It actually dependent on your need. Still there are many top blogger who use blogspot.
Harsh, Thanks for the wonderful article. I have a doubt because i want to monetize my blog.
Can i use Google Adsense on free blogspot blogs?
Please clarify my doubt so that i can go ahead and create a new free blog and put Google ads into it.
Thanks,
Kaustav
What a great article. I just started my blog today on blogspot.com. It was not that difficult but I have a long way to go to get my blogs out to the public like you guys do. Thanks for the great article on how to set up the blog site. It gave me the confidence that I set it up right. Now I have to figure out how to get the traffic. That part I do not understand yet.
Thank you for the great article.
Respectfully,
Sean
I actually love the written content you have on your page it really has helped me out a great deal thanks
i love wordpress.com personally because the options are really more than blogger. also the articles gets indexed in seconds, lol. Try it
I think blogger is the best way to start your blogging life…Once you start getting popular and have some experience then one can always move to wordpress or continue with blogger…whichever way they choose
Are there any free design templates other than the ones shared on blogger? I tried looking for themes, I found some but I don’t know how to customize it to my taste.
It is always a good idea to share bit of basic information for the newbies! My only advice for newbies is to understand the difference between the pages and the posts. The new blogger.com platform makes it more convenient for users to create separate pages (like about us pages etc. ) and create a menu to display links to those pages apart from the posts.
Hope this helps someone.
Though wordpress is the best and if someone is looking to start a blog go for wordpress, it is tough in the begining… but you will never look back to blogger, once you learn.
Nice post. Did this some 2 years ago and should say this post is very detailed and very useful for everyone who wants to have their own blog.
Good post for newbie bloggers. Blogger.com is excellent platform to experiment and to do great stuffs.
Harsh useful tutorials, however i would like to add here for newbies. That always choose a very short and attractive sub domain for your blogpost.
Never go for a domain that contains “-” OR numbers. Take time but choose a professional subdomain name for your blog. It will help in long term.
There is one funny instance related to Blogspot and Custom domains that I would like to share with you guys…
Once I went to a site “XY.com” and then it’s Alexa siteinfo page. I was curious about its sources of traffic and found out that the majority of traffic was coming from “X-Y.com” from which it had recently migrated to “XY.com” without redirecting the old domain to the new one. Thus I came up with a nice little prank.
I “hijacked” the domain “X-Y.com” and added it as a custom domain to one of my trial blogs.
Anyone who has used a custom domain on blogger would very well understand how I hijacked the domain. For those who don’t know, this is how:
1.To use a custom domain you need to direct the domain CNAME and A records to Google’s servers.
2.After you have done the above, and before you add the domain as a custom domain to a blogspot blog, it is directed to Google’s servers.
In between directing the domain to Google’s servers and adding the domain to your blog, anyone can “hijack” your domain by adding it as a custom domain to his/her blogspot blog!
Well there is a very low probability of this happening, since you can’t know which domains are in this condition easily. It is pure chance if you happen to find one.
And moreover, even if you hijack it, the owner of the domain can always change the CNAME and A records to some other value, thus getting back control of the domain. But he/she can’t use it with a blogspot blog unless you remove it from your blog!
This is just a funny incident, and it’s absolutely no use hijacking a domain in this way. But make sure you know what to do when this happens to you 🙂
Creating blogspot blog is very simple, but not for newbies. Because when I had planned to create blogspot blog, really i was searching for a guide. 🙂 Hope it would be helpful for novice.
This is an easy tutorial but very useful for bloggers who want to write on blogger.com
While blogspot is not a reliable (in the sense they randomly delete blogs!) platform, it certainly works for promoting new sites!
Samir I agree that they do delete blogs and it’s not the best blogging platform but again it’s useful for those who are new to blogging and want to learn blogging without spending anything…
Can I do my blogging on Blogger platform for a long time or should I shift to WordPress?
@Uday
You can definitely do that and I know a lot of blogger do the same. However, do use a custom domain to make most out of it. As soon as you feel you are ready, move to self hosted WordPress.
They don’t randomly delete blogs, they delete blogs which broke there TOS.
Yes, you are right. We should be more cautious if we want to secure our blog. I think this mistake is made by new comer bloggers.
True, but not many people read the TOS, so you might be in violation and get your blog deleted. For a simple, personal blog it’s a good platform, but if you are planning to have your blog for years there are more secure options.
Hello,
Total beginner here.
Started building my first WordPress site for a client on my local drive. Used the theme Avada.
Long story short, I needed a new hard drive in my Mac.
– Backed up my failing hard drive with time machine.
– Starting fresh on my computer with a new hard drive.
– Reinstalled WordPress and MAMP.
– Moved the website files from time machine applications/MAMP/htdocs to the same place on my computer.
Reading above I need to do something with the database. But I am completely lost on this.
Please help as soon as possible!
Thank you in advance.
Well explained. Will be useful for an amateur and another, indeed.
Thanks for your comment and dropping by Murugappan.
Though its easy, this tutorial will help someone new to web. My blog is at blogger/blogspot on custom domain & I’m very happy with it in terms of money & traffic 🙂 Have already received the 1st check…
Basant once you actually get used to Blogging on BlogSpot and learned most of Blogging tips, it’s better to move to WordPress. That will eventually help you to increase your revenue and better audience…!!
Can any content in the created like photos etc be copied or printed or modified by others? Please clarify?
@Gvrao
Yes, it can be!
Good one. Useful for the upcoming bloggers. Its obvious that Every blogger will start up at blogger.com and end up at wordpress. A great transformation.