Starting a new blog or a website can be daunting especially if you are new to blogging, website designing or WordPress. I remember back in 2018 when I started blogging, Blogspot was the ultimate free blogging choice for many. It was simple, had some SEO settings built-in and came with free domain & hosting too. Today in 2024, the blogging space has certainly got better and there are many new free Blogspot alternatives have come up. In this article, we are going to be sharing a list of such top free blogging websites for new bloggers, content creators and publishers.
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Why Should You Care About Our Picks for Free Blogging Websites?
Because we have first-hand experience of what we speak. Be rest assured, this is not just a random list on the internet. At Cuelinks, we ourselves are publishers & advertisers. As an author too, I am a content creator myself who has firsthand experience using Blogger, Wix, WordPress, Zyro, & Medium.
List of Free Blogging Platforms 2024
- Medium
- Blogger
- Ghost
- WordPress
- Wix
- Hubspot
- Jekyll
- Squarespace
Ways to Monetise a Free Blog:
- Promote your blog on social media
If you are an influencer, you can promote your free blog on your social media. Monetise the traffic with affiliate links & products.
- Affiliate marketing
Use the power of affiliate marketing to start earning revenue from a fresh, new blog. You can make use of banners, text links, emails, product listings, and coupons, depending on the program terms. You can easily get access to 1000+ affiliate programs by signing up with Cuelinks for free.
- Build an email list
Platforms like Hubspot offer you 2000 emails per month for free. You could easily use these credits to send promotional emails to your target audience and generate some revenue.
- Use Telegram affiliate marketing
You can start earning money by doing Telegram affiliate marketing based on your passion for example, food Telegram affiliate marketing, fashion Telegram affiliate marketing, etc. We have covered this in detail in this article: How to Earn Money from Telegram Affiliate Marketing in India?
- Sponsored posts
If you are a social media influencer with a decent following, you might also get requests for sponsored posts on your site or remember those 2000 free email credits we talked about. Well, you can use these to do cold email outreach as well to your possible prospects.
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1. Medium: Best Free Blogging Platform to Write & Earn
Medium is one of the best free blogging platforms for new bloggers, publishers or content creators. You can sign up on Medium for free and start publishing content. Medium also has an internal partner program in which writers get paid for their articles. The program sadly isn’t available in some countries including India, Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan, etc. But, the good news is that Medium in August 2023 has promised to further extend the program to all those countries & more. I have personally used Medium and the platform’s interface is extremely easy to understand & use. You get insights on how your articles are performing in terms of the number of views, number of claps, comments, time spent on a page, etc. This certainly makes the platform one of the best blogging platforms in 2024 to use especially now that they are extending their Partner Program support to several other countries as well & have even removed the condition of having at least 100 followers to be eligible to start making money.
Medium pricing: Free to publish + earn money by enrolling in the Medium Partner Program (Use Cuelinks to also earn from affiliate commissions)
Is Medium a 100% free blogging platform? Yes
Customisability: You cannot change the branding of the site. However, you do get basic customisation options to edit or format your article such as Title, add images, videos, links, etc.
Ideal for: Beginner writers, expert writers looking to make a side income, hobby writers, and social media influencers who want to establish authority online
Pros & Cons of Medium Blogging Platform:
Pros:
- Completely free to publish articles on
- Simply and easy to use
- Build a following
- Earn money by signing up for the Medium Partner Program (you need to be a Medium Member)
- Good SEO (better chances of getting your articles rank as compared to using Blogger or website builders)
- Get insights on views, time spent on a page, number of repeated readers, etc
- Medium is now extending its Partner Program to several more countries including India, Thailand, Bangladesh, etc
Cons:
- Limited customisation. You cannot do much fancy stuff with your article apart from just images, text and links
- Limited earnings. To put it simply, you only earn if a Medium Member reads your article.
- No migration. You cannot migrate your content to a different site in future as you can in case of building a website on a website builder (with certain charges)
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2. Blogger: Best Free Blogging Platform for Beginners in 2024
If you have seen Shark Tank US, you must have seen the Canadian businessman Kevin O Leary often say “All roads lead back to Mr. Wonderful.” He calls himself Mr. Wonderful. Well, in the blogging world, all roads start with Blogger (for most of us Gen Z writers at least). Blogger was founded in the year 1999 and is one of the oldest, 100% free blogging platforms in the world. All you need is an email address and that’s all. You could start your blog for 100% free on Blogger. But wait, there are some things you need to know now in 2024.
Earlier, there weren’t as many free alternatives to Blogger as they are available now. So it was the best free choice for anyone wanting to get started. But things are a little different today. We only recommend using Blogger today if you want to write as a hobby or for personal use, are a complete beginner, want to experiment with a niche or know HTML, CSS, and Javascript coding to customize your website if needed.
If you are planning to monetize your blog and are serious about growth, Blogger isn’t for you.
Can Blogger Blogspot websites rank?
Yes, unlike most people’s belief, Blogger websites do rank in Google Search. It all depends on the niche, the SEO optimisation and the SEO difficulty. Note that there’s no second thought about the fact that a custom domain website can rank anytime over Blogger in most cases.
Blogger pricing: Users can sign up on Blogger and start publishing content at absolutely no cost. Additionally, you can also connect your custom domain to Blogger for free. It’s a 100% free blogging platform to use.
Is Blogger a 100% free blogging platform? Yes
Customisability: If you are a bit tech-savvy or internet-savvy, you could fairly customise your Blogger website. But, that’s about it. There’s not much you can customise apart from things like header design, colours, font size, etc. Though while publishing, you do get a pretty comprehensive editor to use which is a good thing.
Ideal for: Beginners, those planning to write as a hobby, experimenting with a low SEO difficulty niche, etc.
Pros & Cons of Blogger Blogging Platform:
Pros:
- 100% free + option to earn from Google Adsense
- Good for affiliate earnings (not much restrictions as some other platforms might impose)
- Easy to use, simple interface
- Plenty of SEO settings
- Good website speed
Cons:
- Limited customisation (unless you can code HTML, CSS, JavaScript)
- Not easy to rank on Google
Speaking of affiliate earnings, do check out our article on the best web hosting affiliate programs with high payout in India 2024
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3. Ghost: Best Open-Source Free Blogging Platform 2024
Ghost is yet another top free blogging platform that has emerged recently. Note that unlike other platforms mentioned so far, Ghost is an open-source blogging platform which means you can download the software & tweak it as per your needs for free. You might need a bit of help doing this and you can easily find that on YouTube or Google with a few searches like “How to build a blog with Ghost Blog for free.”
What is even more cool is that if you are super tight on budget and cannot afford to spend even a single buck on hosting, domain or building a blog, you could still do it. How? Well, you might get your free domain and host from free service providers for example, Freenom, Infinityfree, etc (there are many of them) and install WordPress or Ghost to publish articles. But a very important disclaimer here:
Using free web hosting or a free domain puts your website at a higher risk of malware attacks, unsolicited advertising and other harmful stuff. So do try your best to invest in a domain & hosting.
This is where Hostinger comes into play. It’s one of the most reliable & pocket-friendly domain and hosting providers (personally used).
Coming back to Ghost, how do you use the Ghost platform to create a blog for free? You will need to have at least some coding knowledge up your sleeves. Here are the steps you need to follow to create a blogging website for free with free domain & hosting using Ghost & Github.
Steps to create a free blog using Ghost:
- Search Ghost CLI
- Follow the instructions given & run the install Ghost command
- Once installed, create your Ghost account
- Next, you get a Ghost dashboard with a default theme (you can change it later on)
- To visit your site, simply remove the “ghost/#/site” from your URL which should look something like this “http://localhost:2369/ghost/#/site”
- To edit your website, go back to the original complete URL
- Publish posts, remove or add any additional elements, etc
- Go to “Design” & download the website code
- Use WGet to transform your code into a static page code
- Create a repository on GitHub and upload your website code files to host your blog on Github for free
Pros & Cons of Ghost Blogging Platform:
Pros:
- 100% free if you host your website on Github
- Clean & simple CMS interface to publish your articles
- Add Staff option
- Add Members option
Cons:
- Needs you to have some coding knowledge to set up & manage your site
- Not the best platform for building a complex, interactive website
4. LinkedIn: Best Free Blogging Platform to Reach Businesses
This might be a little unexpected but LinkedIn is one of the best free blogging platforms out there. As of 2024, LinkedIn has 1 billion active users and more than 60 million businesses use the platform. Publishing your content on LinkedIn not only gives you meaningful, high-value exposure but also can help you build connections and network among your community. As a beginner blogger, building a strong network is in my opinion more important than making a few bucks from your AdSense account. As the author Porter Gale says, “Your network is your net worth.”
To publish your blog for free on Linkedin, all you need to do is create your free account, visit your feed page and click on “write article.” Note that this option for some reason is only available in the desktop version as of now. So be sure to log in to your LinkedIn account on your laptop or desktop.
Do LinkedIn blogs rank?
Yes, some of the articles from Linkedin do rank. However, this depends highly on the niche and the article topic. Most LinkedIn articles do not do well on search engines as much as they do well on Linkedin’s internal search.
Linkedin pricing: It is 100% free to publish articles on Linkedin and you need to be a Linkedin paid user for that.
Is LinkedIn a 100% free blogging platform? Yes, it’s free to publish articles. You can choose to become a paid subscriber to increase your connections, get more insights, etc.
Customizability: Not much. Linkedin is a free, simple-to-use blogging platform. You cannot customise the article’s interface much apart from adding some visual images, using bold, italics text, etc.
Ideal for: Beginners & professional bloggers looking to expand their connections, and build a network
Pros & Cons of LinkedIn Blogging Platform:
Pros:
- 100% free to publish articles on
- Chance to build more connections & expand your business network
- Exposure to get more inbound leads for your business
Cons:
- Linkedin articles do not compete highly against website articles on search engine ranking so don’t expect your article to get a ton of traffic (exceptions might exist)
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5. WordPress: Best Blogging Platform for Content Creators
WordPress needs no instruction when it comes to being one of the best open-source free blogging platforms in the world. Before you sign up on WordPress, note that we are referring to WordPress.org and not WordPress.com. These two are different than each other. So make sure you sign up on WordPress.org. To publish your blog for free on WordPress, you will have to buy a domain and hosting.
WordPress being a free CMS is just that. You do need a domain and hosting to make your site live or even start building on WordPress. Most domain & hosting providers do provide a domain for free for the first year and hosting starts at less than Rs.69 per month. With this small investment, you can easily create your WordPress blog, start publishing articles, rank on search engines, connect your Google Adsense & start earning. You can even consider joining an affiliate network such as ours and start promoting your favourite affiliate program and making money from your new WordPress blog.
Do WordPress blogs rank?
Yes, more than 63% of the websites in the world are created on WordPress. Thanks to its clean code, and SEO optimisation structure, a WordPress website with high-quality content generally starts ranking on Google in a few weeks to months.
WordPress pricing: WordPress as a CMS is completely free to use. All you need is a domain and hosting to get started.
Is WordPress a 100% free blogging platform? We will not say maybe 100% because you do need a domain and hosting.
Customizability: Outstanding. You get complete control over your website.
Ideal for: Beginner & professional bloggers, business owners, etc
Pros & Cons of WordPress Blogging Platform:
Pros:
- Free to publish & manage all your content on
- Great SEO optimization
- Create highly customizable websites
- Easily lets you connect your Google Adsense
- You can also customise your Wordrpess dashboard specifically for your business
Cons:
- You need additional plugins to add extra features & they might be paid
- Needs frequent updating which is okay but it puts your website at risk of crashing in some cases
- Page speed is a bit slower (though you can fix it)
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6. Wix: Free Website Builder to Create a Blog for Free
As per the stats from My Codeless Website, Wix is the #1 website builder in the United States followed by India & Brazil in 2024. While Wix is not a dedicated blogging platform per se, it is a website builder that gives you quite a lot of freedom to create quick websites using its drag-and-drop builder. So you are not only limited to publishing blogs! You can build a shop, set up a calendar to let users book appointments, enable members-only content & a lot more.
While creating and publishing a blog on Wix is completely free, you will have to pay Rs.199 per month (starting plan) to connect your domain (you get the first year of your domain for free if you purchase it with Wix). What makes Wix one of the best blogging platforms in 2024 are the marketing tools you can use such as lead capture forms, e-commerce shop, accepting payments, automation, etc. I know you might be thinking we could do that with WordPress too right? Well yes, but you need extra plugins for that and they are mostly paid. So if you are tight on budget, aren’t as tech-savvy, need a quick blog & want to enable e-commerce, you might consider using Wix.
Do Wix blogs rank?
We do not have much data on that but it seems like Wix blogs do rank. The company claims to have its own website built using Wix and offers a number of SEO options.
Wix pricing: Wix is free to create and publish a website on the Wix subdomain. However, if you wish to connect your custom domain ID, you can go with their starting plan costing Rs.199 per month.
Is Wix a 100% free blogging platform? Not 100% free since you do need to pay to connect your custom domain but given the features you get, it surely is a cost-effective option.
Customizability: Great. Compared to other website builders, Wix offers slightly better customization space.
Ideal for: Beginner & professional bloggers, small business owners, e-commerce shops, etc
Pros & Cons of Wix Blogging Platform:
Pros:
- Easy, quick and simple to create and publish a blog or website.
- Great customization despite being a drag-and-drop website builder
- Good SEO support
- A host of marketing tools (with a paid plan) which you mostly need to pay for separately in WordPress
Cons:
- You get Wix branding in the free version. Also, don’t expect your free Wix website to rank.
- You cannot change your template once you have started building your website
- You can’t migrate your website to a different platform
- Can be slow if you are using a lot of videos and images
Also Read: Top 10 Best VPN Affiliate Programs in 2024
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7. Hubspot: Best Free Blogging Platform to Sell Products
Hubspot is certainly one of the best free blogging platforms and it truly is 100% free (really, you do not need a credit card too and nor any trial periods) One of the biggest advantages of Hubspot that we found is the good SEO support you get. From Alt Texts, Metadata, and Meta description to tags and publish date, you get pretty much all the important SEO settings – all in the free version. What we also liked about Hubspot’s free Blog Maker is that you get dedicated settings to optimize your blog.
To create a blog for free on Hubspot, all you need is an email address. Simply head over to this link and sign up with your email address, answer some basic questions and you are all set. You get a free sub-domain and hosting, so you need to worry about it to get started. Check out our sample Hubspot free blog maker site created here.
Do Hubspot blogs rank?
We found Hubspot Free Blog Maker to have some of the best SEO optimization options including metadata, meta description, alt text, tags, author profile, headers, & more. Hubspot also claims to use powerful blogging software to make its blogs rank in search engines.
Hubspot pricing: Hubspot allows users to create blogs for free on a sub-domain & a custom domain too which is generally paid. The paid plans for CMS start at $23 per month which includes additional features.
Is Hubspot a 100% free blogging platform? No, but what you get for free is quite a lot. For example, you can connect your custom domain for free, have a product library of up to 100, and even have a live chat option on your website.
Customizability: Limited in terms of design but in terms of website optimization, you do get several options.
Ideal for: Beginners, small business owners, and micro-influencers who want to sell products
Pros & Cons of Hubspot Blogging Platform:
Pros:
- Connect your custom domain for free (generally paid for most other builders)
- Product library of up to 100
- Send 2000 emails per calendar month for free
- Good SEO support
Cons:
- Limited customization in terms of design
- Cannot integrate Google Search Console, get SEO analytics, or content staging unless you choose the highest-paid plan
- The website editor or dashboard feels a little confusing
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8. Jekyll: Free Open-source Blogging Platform with Fast Loading Time
Jekyll is a free open-source blogging platform that has been available since 2008. Similar to Ghost, Jekyll’s website can be connected to your Github account and be hosted for free. Thanks to no databases, and no CMS present with Jekyll websites, these are usually faster-loading than others. Also, gives minimal scope for attackers to attack. So, it certainly is a great option if you are looking to create a blog for free and know some coding.
To use Jekyll, there sure is a big learning curve if you are a beginner or are new to the coding world. However, if you are a web developer who is comfortable with languages like PHP, etc, you can get your website up and running in a matter of some time. Unlike WordPress, Jekyll doesn’t store any databases or have a graphical user interface so keep that in mind before you choose to create your free blog on the platform.
Do Jekyll’s blogs rank?
Yes if you connect a custom domain and host your website on Github, optimise the SEO, a website created on Jekyll can likely rank like any other normal website. Thanks to its faster speed due to no databases, CMS and minimal design.
Jekyll pricing: Jekyll is a free open-source blogging platform
Is Jekyll a 100% free blogging platform? Yes
Customizability: Depends on your coding skills
Ideal for: Web developers looking to create a blog for free
Pros & Cons of Jekyll Blogging Platform:
Pros:
- No database, unlike WordPress CMS. This means faster page speed
- Minimal design & features. You only have code on the website you are using
- Since there’s no database, it is less likely to be attacked
- Hosting on GitHub servers is possible (free)
Cons:
- No graphical user interface
- A big learning curve if you do not know coding
- Limited themes and plugin support
9. Squarespace: Free Blogging Platform
Moving on to our list of the best free blogging platforms, Squarespace has secured a place for itself. Thanks to its modern templates & useful features such as Members Area (you can monetise your content by adding a paywall or offering exclusive premium content as a reward to select users), Create a paid newsletter, Sell digital products (courses, memberships, subscriptions), etc. All of this makes Squarespace a good starting point for beginners or those who wish to have those extra functionalities with a few simple clicks.
But, there’s a reason why we have kept Squarespace in the last spot in our list of best blogging platforms in 2024. One of the major reasons is its pricing. The platform doesn’t have a free plan and you only get to use your website for free on a trial basis. Squarespace doesn’t offer as many customisation options too as some other builders such as Wix offer. So why have we included Squarespace in our list of the best free blogging platforms? First, because of the number of marketing tools & features you get and second, because Squarespace is still one of the best website builders out there for you to try your hands on. Our recommendation would be to give Squarespace a try solely to get a hang of the various marketing tools you can use and the various designs you can create.
Pro Tip: You can extend your 14-day free trial period by 7 days by requesting Squarespace customer support chat (only available on desktop).
Do Squarespace blogs rank?
We do not have much data on Squarespace blog rankings but as per some reviews, Squarespace page speed is a little slow which might affect its SEO.
Squarespace pricing: There’s no free plan. You get a 14-day free trial period after which your Squarespace site expires.
Is Squarespace a 100% free blogging platform? No
Customizability: Limited customisation
Ideal for: Beginners-only, getting your hands on website building, incorporating different marketing tools, experimenting
Pros & Cons of Squarespace Blogging Platform:
Pros:
- A range of marketing tools including Memberships, Courses, Paid exclusive content, etc
- Beginner-friendly and beautiful website designs
- Eliminates your hosting cost
- Need not buy separate plugins for some extra functionalities
Cons:
- Only 14-day free trial period
- Expensive pricing
- Limited Customisation
- Advanced marketing tools like subscriptions are only available for the highest-paid plan
So this was all about sharing the best free blogging websites and platforms in 2024. Of course, we could have expanded the list to top 15 free blogging platforms, the top 20 free blogging websites, etc but our key focus was to only include the platforms that we truly think are the best. However, you need to limit yourself to these. You might want to check out other platforms too such as
More Free Blogging Platforms & Websites (2024):
- Drupal
- Weebly
- Mailchimp
- Tumblr
- Joomla
- Typepad
- Hubpages
- WordPress.com
- Zoho
- Ucraft
And more
Do share with us in the comments below if you found this article useful in selecting the best platform to create a blog for free. You might also want to check out our article on 5 Adsense Alternatives to Try in 2024
