Photo by Ed Yourdon

If you woke up this morning wondering, “how do I start my own blog?” then I have good news for you. Starting your own blog couldn’t be easier! In order to start a blog you will need just three things: a computer, an internet connection, and an interest in writing. If you possess these three things then congratulations, you are well on your way to becoming a blogger!

Most people have access to a computer and internet (and if you don’t, consider hitting up your local library!), so let’s move on to having an interest in writing. Anytime someone I know expresses a passion in something – anything – I advise them to start a blog. You do not need to be an expert in any given topic to start a blog, you just need to have an interest in sharing your passion with the world.

Here’s a free piece of advice from yours truly: If you dream of being a professional or even semi-professional blogger, think long and hard about what topics are of interest to you and that you think you can write about long term. Maybe your interest in starting a blog is a fleeting thing, in which case this doesn’t matter, but if you are REALLY serious about blogging, think about where you would like to see yourself in the blogosphere. When I started my blog, Fantabulously Frugal, I did not think about anything. I was reading a bunch of coupon blogs at the time and knew I wanted to do something similar, but for women without children. I did not put any thought into the name of the site, and while I still think it is cute, it has also pigeon holed me a bit. Some brands will not work with me because they don’t want to work with a “frugal” blogger, and occasionally readers get upset if I post about something that’s not frugal. Take it from me: A little planning in the beginning can go a long way! We will get into this more next time.

Now that you have a topic, let’s move on to how and where to start a blog. There are three platforms that most people use to start their blogs these days: Blogger, WordPress, and Tumblr.

Starting Your Blog on Blogger:

I started Fantabulously Frugal on Blogger and it is an excellent free blogging platform. These days you basically just sign in using your gmail account and then you can start publishing immediately. I will talk about design in another post, but Blogger gives you some templates to work with, and there are also so many talented (and affordable!) blog designers that can create something unique for you. Purchasing your own domain name through Blogger will only set you back $10 per year, which is a great price! (For reference, setting up a blog on Blogger would give you a URL (or domain name) like iheartpotatoes.blogger.com, whereas purchasing your domain name would get you iheartpotatoes.com.)

Starting Your Blog on WordPress:

Most bloggers I know use WordPress as their blogging platform, though there are two “different” WordPress sites. Sites hosted on WordPress.com are free and similar to what you will find on Blogger. WordPress.com is even letting you purchase your own domain for $13.99 per year. I have not used the free version of WordPress so I cannot speak to the pros and cons. My blog is now self-hosted, but the framework I use for the site is WordPress. (This is confusing and not really something to worry about at this point. In the future I will talk about self hosting a blog!) While I am sure such people exist, I do not know anyone that launched their blogs using the free version of WordPress.

Starting Your Blog on Tumblr:

If you know your blog is going to be photo heavy, you may consider setting up a Tumblr. Like blogger, once you register for an account you will be ready to go. You can type posts, share photos or music or quotes, or even repost what other Tumblr users are posting to their sites. There are tons of free designs available, and even more paid designs. Like Blogger and WordPress, you can also buy your own domain name through Tumblr so that your URL is not iheartpotatoes.tumblr.com, but instead, Iheartpotatoes.com. I recommend using Tumblr if you are going to focus on disseminating little tidbits of information that you find around the web

If you want to make a free blog (at least to start), personally I recommend using Blogger because it couldn’t be easier to use but if you need some help getting started there are so many great tutorials out there. The set-up time is minimal. In fact, in the time it took you to read this post you could have launched your blog and published your first post!

Next time I’ll share some more tips on choosing good blog names and getting started with your first post.

What free blogging platform do you prefer in the Blogger vs. WordPress vs. Tumblr battle? Is there another one that’s free and easy to use?