How To Start A Blog For Free ( Yes For Free )

 

The internet is a large village and with it comes many many tools that are readily available for you.

Over the past 2 months, I have had to start at 0 after everything came to a standstill after a family emergency. What kept me sane is writing. I did not have the funds to buy a domain, hosting or even engage a web designer, but thanks to the online space, I started this blog completely for free and yes, I have monetized it!

If you love writing or you are looking for a way to showcase your business via a website and do not have the funds, you can get one absolutely free.

Before we go to the step by step, I want to mention that as much as you will get the website for free, you will need to work hard by creating authentic content consistently that offers value. That is the only way your business/blog will grow.

Now, let's get started.

How I started My Blog for free.

20 days ago, I started my blog. 20 days later, I am on my way to 3,000 views. Today I woke up to one of my posts doing very well (this one )and I thought, let me share this secret to someone who maybe looking for a solution.

With blogger.com, you can create and run multiple blogs/websites absolutely for free. Here is a step by step on how you can do it too.

• Go to Blogger.com and sign up with your Gmail account. 
• Your dashboard will be empty, click on the "new blog " and give your blog a name

• Go to themes and choose a theme for your new blog.  Make sure to choose one that fits your business/what you want to show in your website
• Create a new logo. You can do this free of charge via canva.com. You don't need to have design skills, just search for "logo" and edit to fit your business.
• Once you have your logo, go back to Blogger.com, click on layout, click on header logo, click on upload image.
• Your website will now feel and look like yours. But it won't have any posts. Add in posts( content) so that when publish your website, it's not empty.
• Make sure to add in labels in order to categorize your posts. Eg if you talk about different topics like fashion, make-up, travelling, make sure to add in the labels. See image below.

You can get Free images for your blog posts from pixabay.com, unsplash.com and you can create graphics on canva.com all for free!

• Next, you will need to add a menu that will guide your website visitors. See image below showing my menu

It's easy, go to your account on blogger.com, click on layout, click on main menu, click on link list. You will want to delete the default links, and add in your desired menu. Remember the labels you created in the previous step, you will use them to categorize your menu. 

You can get the label URL, just go back to your blog and copy. Just scroll to the bottom on your blogger account, click on view blog

Check the right side and you will see your labels "categories". Right click on each and copy URL.

• Next you will add in your social networks.  Go to layout, click on social plugin and add in all your social network URL
• Next, you should create some important pages such as privacy policy. It's very easy. Go to h supertools, click on web tools, click on privacy policy generator. Add in your website title and click generate. Copy this info and come back to your blogger account.
• Click on pages, create new page, give it the title Privacy Policy and paste. Click publish and you've got your privacy policy page. Here's mine at the bottom of the page.

After doing this, you need to make your page live, so go back to layout, scroll to the bottom and click on footer menu, add an item ( or edit one that you don't need such as "about us ) and add in the URL. The URL is in this format " https/gdwsk.blogpost.com/p/privacy-policy.html" ( Remember it should be your blog's name not gdwsk ).

• You can add in Ads in your blogs ( this is monetizing your website ). Go to layout click on side bar, click on Ad. If you are an affiliate marker, you should be having banners from your affiliate network. Get your banner codes and add them on your blogger account.

You can take some time to check out other items you can add to your website under the layout section. Keep adding and tweaking until you are satisfied with your new website.

What you will have is a complete professional website for absolutely Free. The downside is that you will not have  a custom domain but that's okay to start with. Once you start getting revenue, you can purchase a domain.

Next, we will see how you can make money to buy a custom domain for your new website!

It is not easy, but nothing good comes easy. Take time to create content consistently, market your content and you will have content in no time.

I started this blog 3 weeks ago and I am 31 views away from 2,000 unique views for my site and I need you to take me to 3000 by end of this month!

If you found this valuable, share and comment and get me to 3000 views by end of this month!

If you feel like the process is difficult to navigate, shoot me a message and I will take you through.

+254716352252. You can click on my social links and reach me directly.