Occasionally, someone asks me for a bit of advice on starting a blog. I’m always happy to share how to get started.
Choosing how and where you’ll host your blog online seems like the most important thing when you’re starting out.
The reality is, actually writing and consistently posting, no matter where you do it, is far and away the most critical aspect.
Nevertheless, you have to put your blog somewhere, so here are your best options for where to call home on the Internet.
Normally people want free, modern, and simple. That’s not an option. So, start by choosing no more than two, and feel free to skip ahead to the two that scratch your itch.
Free + Modern
WordPress.com
A solid first option is WordPress.com. Lots of people start here, and it’s usually indicated by YourName.wordpress.com. It’s free and offers relatively modern themes.
Here’s what you (might) hate:
- You can’t customize everything. That means certain fonts, sidebars, headers, locations of random things are more or less set in stone, and, if you have a proclivity for tinkering or perfection, this will potentially drive you crazy.
- It’s intuitive, but not the most intuitive. There’s lots of tweaks you can make, but it can be frustrating to find certain settings. WordPress is the world’s most popular blogging platform, but there’s confusion between WordPress.com and WordPress “Self-Hosted” (which is what I use and is neither simple nor free, but we’ll get to that later).
- They are going to try to upsell you. The default address will be YourName.wordpress.com and if you want YourName.com, you’ll have to pay around $30 a year. And if you want to change certain settings, that’ll cost you another $15 a year. That’s how the freemium model works. If you’re ok sticking with YourName.wordpress.com (which is fine, for a start, and you can always change it later) it’s not a bad option.
Medium
The next option in the free and modern category is using Medium, started by the man who starts all the big blog platforms, Ev Williams.
Here’s what you’re working with:
- You have basically no options as far as what your site looks like. Fortunately, it’s really clean and well designed. Another neat feature is that people can comment easily and on specific portions of the text which, if you’re pro-comments, is pretty cool.
- They just launched a way for your to use your own own domain–that’s YourName.com–which is great if you’re into having your name on things.
- Your address will be medium.com/@twitterhandle, if you don’t pay for a domain.
I like Medium but you have no control over appearance. It’s super intuitive and free, but yeah, it’ll always be “owned” in the sense that it is medium.com by Medium and not you (unless you host it yourself, which is a different, more complicated story).
It gives you more exposure because you can “tag” your posts so they show up in different collections on Medium.com and other people may find it and share your post.
This is a good option if you want more exposure, but aren’t concerned with having complete control or don’t care about making it your own and just want a place to write.
Verdict: in the free and modern options, WordPress brings more flexibility and control while Medium is prettier with less hassle.
Free + Simple
Blogger
This is the blogging purgatory owned by Google. My advice here: don’t do it. It’s ugly, limited, and, well, I have a moderately low view of Google because they could kill their products at any moment.
I have never used blogger but have an immediate gut reaction of “I can’t trust this” when I see .blogspot in the domain name (which is unfair, but hey, at least I’m honest).
This is most certainly not modern, and doesn’t even deserve any other analysis.
Verdict: stay far away.
Simple + Modern
Squarespace
This is the part where free falls away. Squarespace will set you back around $8 – $10 a month. We are knee-deep into this at the Shirkman household. Niki uses it, we use it for our (semi-defunct but still relevant) podcast, and for our ministry site.
It’s easy (mostly), beautiful (definitely), and, in my opinion, worth every penny because of the tech support alone.
When you pay for online services, they help you! Which is amazing, because tossing your computer out a window because you don’t understand why your blog is broken is a real thing.
And, Squarespace throws in YourName.com for free if you pay for a year in advance. If you use the code GIMME10 you get 10% off your first year if you pay upfront. So what would be $96 is now $86.40 or ~$7 / month.
For a quarter a day you get prime internet real-estate with support, tons of free built in themes, and the ability to customize your hearts content.
You can have a 14-day free trial of Squarespace to check it out and see if it is what you’re looking for. Again, not free, but meets the novice blogger’s needs and then some in my opinion, plus all the help you can ask for via their tech support.
WordPress Self-Hosted (For Masichists Only)
I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention the option I’m currently using, which is WordPress Self-Hosted, also known as WordPress.org. You have to pay for hosting and a domain name (that means a place to put all of your files and something like YourName.com) to pull it off.
This is the most professional option, and the option your favorite bloggers (ncluding this one) likely use. Unfortunately it’s a nightmare because if anything breaks you have to figure it out on your own. That doesn’t happen too often, but if you are into tweaking and adjusting and trying to make things perfect, you’ll absolutely want to curl up into a little ball and cry at some point.
If you’re really into freedom in the blog design sense, this will do everything you ever dreamed of, and the only cost is your sanity as you wade through the pool of utter confusion trying to tweak tiny settings and then blowing everything up accidentally in the process.
I use Site5.com which is a fine hosting services. It’s not the fastest, but it is pretty reliable and is a great place for someone to start. As long as you don’t become Seth Godin big overnight, you’ll have no worries here as far as your website not crashing down into a heap of burning flames because you didn’t pay for enough bandwidth.
Hosting will cost you about $5 / month if you pay for two years in advance, which is a big commitment for a beginner, but go ahead and put your money where your mouth is and let that financial commitment drive you to consistency. There are a few other hosting services that are cheaper than $5 / month, but now we’re just splitting hairs.
I have my domain name registered through Hover.com (but Site5 can do this, and it’s free for your first year). I prefer Hover’s interface for domain names, and they incredible support that will get you all set up if you have any questions.
Verdict: Squarespace if you want ease and help at a slightly higher cost or WordPress Self-Hosted via Site5 if you want complete control, even if it drives you crazy.
Wrapping Up
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what you choose. Mega-successful blogs like postsecret are on blogger and people read it. I just hate happen to hate Blogger because I’m a sucker for good design.
The easy part is fiddling with what site you’ll use, the hard part is writing and doing it consistently.
Writing and posting publicly in this way has helped me refine my thoughts and think more clearly more so than basically anything else.
If you’re considering writing a blog, I really hope you’ll write and write consistently (even if that’s once a week) because the Internet always has space for people sharing things they are passionate about. If you do start a blog, I’d love to know (and know what platform chose!) so send me a tweet with the link so I can check it out.
Having your own corner of the Internet is an amazing gift. Steward it well.