Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Free blog hosts for starters

It is increasingly easy to post a blog online for free.  Several sites provide this service and bloggers can often earn money via advertising and referrals just by posting an opinion or idea.

Here are a few common and popular web links to FREE blog sites:

www.wordpress.com

www.blogger.com

www.blog.com

www.mashable.com

Some of these sites have restrictions on content - no porn or defamation - but open to any other blogs.

These services are a wonderful way to get noticed in cyber space and state a personal opinion.  If one has expertise in a certain area, blogging is a way of passing along that knowledge.  If one wishes to drive viewership, post often and with relevant content.

Words of caution though: Any thoughts you place on the Internet can be searched by employers or authorities and potentially be used against you.  Anonymity is at risk so be smart and careful when blogging.  Also, blogs are not the best way to sell a product if that is a goal.  A better and more controlled way is via a web site and virtual storefront.

Happy blogging!

- AJ

2 comments:

  1. I use blogger.com for my company. It's very simple to setup, professional looking and you can be posting content in minutes. Now my businesses primary focus is in machinery moving and rigging and I'm not a professional blogger, so I'd say the interest level and viewers are a bit different than for your typical blog. I don't have the blog in place to generate revenue from Google Adwords as so many blogs do. For me the purpose is twofold. First it's a way for my company to help its customers. I have a large base of customers be it in the food industry, aviation or general manufacturing that buy and sell equipment necessary to run their business. I want to encourage transactions, so one way is to help get the word out when a customer needs to sell a machine of some type. I don't ask for a commission, but hopefully they will give me the opportunity to move and install the machine when the time comes. The second is search engine optimization. Information about machines is relevant to my business. Fresh relevent content boosts search engine ranking and drives traffic. After all, being found on the Internet to attract new customers is rather the point.

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  2. Good point about fresh content, Craig. The search engines rank based largely on fresh content. This will be a topic of an upcoming post.

    Thanks.

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