If you have decided to start bloging, either for the experience, because you have some information you want to share, or because you want to earn an income, then blogging for free is a way to start. So what are the options?

I have a friend that started a blog because her brother had been in an accident and she new that the during the long term recovery a lot of people would be wanting weekly updates. Providing these individually would be difficult to everyone concerned. So she turned to blogging and a free host is what she needed.

Likewise, some people are desperate to make a small extra income and do not want to splash out on the expenses of a website, maybe not even on the small costs of a hosted website. There are options to look at in these cases.

If your blog is related to a specific hobby, then it is possible that there is a provider catering for blogs on that specific niche. RealBuzz, for example, caters for a variety of sports blogs including my interest of distance running. In fact, it is very specific and has sections for different main races. If you are blogging as a way of recording your training log and to keep you going on the training, then this sort of website is an excellent way to start. With these niche specialists other bloggers blogging about the same event or sport will see your blog listed whenever you post a new update so you should immediately have access to a good amount of traffic, for free.

But for most people WordPress.com or Blogger will be the free blog hosts of choice. Their systems are extremely flexible and well built with loads of addons and plenty of ways to customise your website to make it feel your own. So, which do you choose for your blog?

Well to me, WordPress.com has a good community feel and by setting up a blog there you will automatically tap into this and have access to various visitors from within the community. These flow of free traffic to your website immediately can be invaluable. But there is one problem for many bloggers with this system – WordPress.com does not allow either advertising nor sponsored posting within this system. So it is no good if earning an income is your intention.

If you want to earn money through a free blog, then Blogger is the place to be. It does allow adverts and sponsorship and even gives features for fast and easy integration to your Google Adsense account to monetise your blog. It is easy to set up and customisations are available to get the site looking just as you want it. For a blog that is going to earn you cash, this is the free host to use.

So, if you want to set up a blog for free and there is not a community to join or you intend to be earning through the blog, then visit Blogger.com and get online there.