Thoughts on Picking a Free Blogging Web Site
By Donovan Baldwin
Decisions are always difficult, but once you have decided to start a blog, having to select one free blogging site over another can feel overwhelming.
There are just so many options!
There are several large free blog-hosting sites that dominate the blogosphere, but there are also smaller sites. To make matters worse, it seems like every week more free blogging sites are making their appearance on the scene.
Still, there are not too many hard and fast rules when it comes to making your selection. Whether you decide to join up with an established site like blogger or blogspot (which have become one since this was originally written) or whether you choose to sign on with a relatively new venture depends mainly on what your priorities are.
Of all the criteria, however, reliability is perhaps the best reason to opt for a large and well known free blogging site.
While it does seem that most major sites appear to offer the same or equivalent services, choosing to have an established brand host your blog, tends to make you feel secure that your blog will not crash often and will not disappear in the middle of the night.
Additionally, a site that has been around for a while and which has a good track record is likely to have the resources to make sure that its clients aren't unpleasantly surprised by any technical glitches.
Many bloggers, however, feel that this isn't enough of a selling point.
Personally, I have found that free blogging sites such as blogger and blogspot get you into Google and other search engines faster. Also, you can use the free site feeds at Yahoo, MSN, and Google as well.
Still, bloggers who choose to go with smaller, newer blog hosting sites do so for a wide variety of reasons, just as those who choose bigger sites. Sometimes it's something as simple as familiarity with the free blogging site.
Perhaps, in the long run, the number one advantage of a smaller site is a fairly abstract one.
Bloggers tend to relish the fact that the Internet is a place where the underdog has a strong chance of success, and by choosing to have a small company as a blog host, a blogger just may be casting his or her vote for David against Goliath.
In my experience, it is often more important what you do with the site than who hosts it and if it is a free blogging site or not.
If you would like to get a professional opinion on free blogging sites if you are going to be blogging for cash, you need to download a copy of Rob Benwell's book, Blogging to the Bank.
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