Blogging 101: How to Start a Blog on a Budget

blog on a budget

This whole ballin’ on a budget thing is a recent development as I’ve grown and matured into my roaring twenties. I am wayyy less frivolous with my spending and actually take the time to shop smarter regardless of what it is I’m shopping for. I’m happy to report that my budget friendly approach has carried over into my little blogging bubble and I’m sharing more juicy blog tips to add to last week’s post.

Starting a blog: free vs paid hosting

There’s no doubt most services out there give better quality for the paid stuff. They sucker you in with the free versions and then say ‘Oh, but look at what else you could have with this premium package!’

TV providers do it {Comcast, Verizon}, audio providers {Sirius XM, iTunes} do it, so naturally web hosting services do it as well. What they don’t tell you is how you can beat the system, so to speak.

There are 3-4 main platforms people blog from: WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, Squarespace {« increasingly getting more popular due to its user friendly web designing system}.

3 out of 4 offer free blogging services: WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr.

I’ve used 2 out of the 3: WordPress and Blogger, {you can see my very first blog here, yikes!}. Blogger is by far the easiest one to set up, post from, navigate, etc. If you have a gmail account, you automatically have Blogger. You pick a name and boom you’re done and now have a blog whose URL looks something like this: notanotherblonde.blogspot.com.

The free version of WordPress is similar in that your URL will look like this: notanotherblonde.wordpress.com, but the dashboard is a little more complex, BUT that’s a good thing because you’re able to do more.

WordPress.org is the paid version for a self-hosted website. Blogger also has a paid version and as of May 2015 that rate was just $10 a year! For $10 a year you get your own .com website and a no fuss blog ready to use. {I used Blogger for the first 4 years of my blogging career.}

Some successful bloggers still use the Blogger platform like Brooklyn Blonde, Trop Rouge, and Lex Weinstein, so you can definitely have a killer blog on a budget.

I currently use the paid aka self-hosting WordPress.org site for my blog. It’s been a smooth ride and an extremely powerful learning experience. Through blog building you are lightyears ahead of your friends, {unless of course they’re computer engineers}. It’s also super satisfying to know you built this entire beautiful website from scratch.

My recommendation? Pay for WordPress but if you’re just starting and really want to blog on a budget go for the free version, you can always upgrade later.

Comment your questions below!