How To Start A Blog For Free In Australia

There are more than 6.5 million blogs on traditional blogging platforms alone, not to mention the number of people blogging through social media and other venues.

For example, Tumblr adds about 25 million blogs every six months. Some estimates put the total global number of individual blogs at more than billion and growing.

With numbers like that, you want to choose wisely to get your blog in front of as many eyes as possible in a sea of voices and choices.

How do you find the right blogging platform? Our guide to the top five should provide you with information about the different features and advantages of each platform. Now, you need to choose which of these will best help you reach your goals.

Who's the Intended Audience of Your Blog?

Some blogging platforms are better to reach very specific audiences than a platform with general reach and appeal.

For example, professionals in artistic or visual mediums would choose a platform like Squarespace, which offers excellent tools for enhancing imagery and sharing content. If you have a niche audience, such as a fan or collector's blog, Tumblr is great for reaching people who share your interests.

What's the Focus of Your Blog?

Some blogs exist to entertain, while others are great for education. Let the blogging platform support your intended purpose. WordPress is great for eCommerce and affiliate marketing. Looking for a way to boost your social media presence? Then Squarespace has the tools to help you reach that goal.

What's Your Level of Tech Knowledge/Skill?

If you have limited time for maintenance or little technical skill, you might have to sacrifice functionality for ease of use.

Platforms like Wix and Weebly are fully functional right out of the box, but they lack advanced tools that a high level blogger might need. On the other hand, WordPress works for people with all levels of technical knowledge and abilities.

Newbies will find it a little challenging at first, but it has a shallow learning curve and a lot of ready-made plugins to choose from. It's also great for advanced users who like to code and appreciate the level of customization that WP offers.

Are You Planning to Monetize?

Output Online Tools Bloggers who are in it for the love of sharing a hobby or interest don't need much scalability.

However, if your goal is to make money from your blog, WordPress is the top choice.

It's used by nearly one third of all blogs on the internet, including giants like the New Yorker and many Fortune 500 companies, and you can scale up or down quickly as your level of traffic and business dictates.

Next in line after WP, consider looking into Weebly.

How Will You Generate Traffic?

This isn't something you'll have to be concerned about if you're just putting up a platform to connect with friends and family members or a specific community. But, if you plan to generate a lot of traffic or monetize your blog, you need to take things like search engine optimization (SEO) into consideration.

Some blogging platforms, like WordPress, are great for ranking high on Google. Make sure to ask your prospective provider what kind of SEO tools are available with their platform, if they offer analytics with their service, and whether it's compatible with Google SEO tools and analytical reporting.

Checklist: Questions to Ask Your Hosting Service Before You Commit

Our goal is to make your decision easier, so here's a checklist of things to ask your blog host:

The comparison of blogging platforms is meant to provide you with a detailed analysis of the best platforms for your blog. That way, you can make an informed decision. For those of you who just want a few brief answers to common questions about blogging platforms, here's our FAQ.

I'm a Photographer. What's the Best Australian Blogging Platform for My Portfolio?

If you're looking to show off your professional photos in the best light, Squarespace is a good option.

third try

It has some of the best templates for portfolio creation, allows you to include multiple contributors, and it syncs with all social media platforms.

What's the Best Platform If I Want to Monetize My Blog?

Monetized websites are the bread and butter of many bloggers. All of the platforms we reviewed but Medium would support monetization. However, if you want functionality and the ability to scale quickly as your blog grows, WordPress.org is a solid choice.

What's the Difference Between WordPress.Com and WordPress.Org?

People often get these two platforms confused, and rightly so. On the surface, they seem like the same thing.

However, wordpress.com is a hosting platform. The price ranges from free, which is a good option for people who just want to start a small family blog, to $5,000 per month for their VIP hosting solution.

This is for large enterprises who need a lot of control and functionality. However, you don't own your domain or its contents.

You're also limited to the collection of plugins and themes that are included with each tier of service, and you can't upload premium themes or plugins from outside of the WP website; free users get a basic collection of plugins called a "JetPack".

Wordpress.org is the platform people think of when they're talking about WP blogs. This platform is free to use for anyone, easy to set up, and offers a lot of plugins and themes for added functionality, plus the ability to add premium themes and plugins from independent developers.

You'll have to find a WordPress-compatible hosting solution and register your unique domain. But, you'll retain complete ownership of your blog and everything on it.

In short, .com is for hobbyists with little to invest, and .org is for businesses interested in growth.

Is There an Alternative to WordPress.org?

That depends on what kind of alternative you're in the market to find. If you want to retain WP features and have access to all of the plugins and themes. you can use wordpress.com.

But, if you have no coding knowledge, and you're simply looking for a blogging platform that's easy to use out of the box, offers good SEO, and can grow with your blog, a platform like Weebly might be a solid choice.

For more info about regular hosting read our guide to best web hosts in Australia.

Are Free Blogging Platforms Any Good?

best free blogging platform Before considering the cost of a blogging platform, you have to look at total cost.

For example, WordPress is free, but you'll have to pay for hosting and domain registration. You can pay for a blogging platform like Squarespace, but you'll have limited features and functionality.

It may be difficult to migrate your blog to another platform later if you make a mistake or make changes within your current platform.

In the end, you have to consider what level of functionality and support you need, and then measure what you'll pay for a certain level of service versus what you get.

Our collection of top blogging platforms ranges from the fairly new to the tried and true. In the end, you need to make the choice that offers the best value compared to cost and features, how much work is involved with setup and maintenance, and the level of control you'll have over your domain and content.

With all of the solutions out there, there's no need to compromise on any of those points. The best blogging platform in Australia is the one that will help you meet all of your goals now and in the future.