Can I make money with a free blog

It's not about "free or paid".

It's about the host's terms of service.

Blogger and Wordpress.com, for anyone wanting a monetised blog, can be a nightmare and a disaster and you should avoid them like the plague because of their terms of service, NOT because they're free.

Almost everyone will tell you "paid" rather than "free", because (wisely) they're aware that you shouldn't use places like Blogger and Wordpress.com. What some people don't realise is that you can have a self-hosted Wordpress blog with a host who doesn't charge, without spending a penny.

And that way, you have none of the problems that you get with places like Blogger and Wordpress.com, but you still don't have to pay.

I recommend byethost.com. It's completely free, reliable, professional hosting. They don't put any "advertising button" on your site, or anything cheap/nasty like that. Nobody can tell that you're using free hosting. You own and control the site, just like you do if you use HostGator or HostMonster or Blurstorm or any other paid hosting. But you don't have to pay. You can host your own Wordpress blogs there. (You do need a domain name, to do this, but you can use either a $1 .info domain-name from GoDaddy, or even a free one from .tk).

Other good, free hosts are Weebly, Yola and Blinkweb, where you can have your own sites/blogs without paying, and without any of the dreadful Blogger/Wordpress.com problems ... but (a) you get a little ad placed on your pages by the host which looks a bit unprofessional, and (b) they have their own site-builder and you can't use Wordpress blogs there. But still not terrible options.

If you don't have the money to invest in hosting, you don't have the money to invest in hosting: but you don't need to let that be an excuse for hosting monetised blogs at wordpress.com or at Blogger. There are plenty of other, better options.

That's right about free blog platforms shutting you down. It really isn't worth starting a business on a free blog if there is a chance that you are going to lose all of your work. I only use free blogs to link to my owned sites.

Best to go for paid hosting, it only costs a few dollars a month at Hostgator and domains don't cost much. Think of it as an investment in yourself and your new business. Maybe you could offer a service or do some fiverr gigs to pay for it.

If you want to make money do a paid version. The hosted sites just have too many pitfalls.

Yeah, I would be paranoid about a free hosting site shutting down my blog! Especially if you have several of them under the same account, they could wipe them all out in one fell swoop!

But sill might be a good way to test a new idea for free first and then transfer to paid hosting once you make an affiliate sale or 2.

I setup a blogspot blog promoting hostgator as an affiliate a while back. Put affiliate links and banners in it. Have done nothing to it for ages and still noticed two $50 affiliate commisions coming in so might go back to that one!

If you play by the rules then Yes you can.

Learn from my bitter experience.

First I'll answer the question in simple terms.
Yes, you can make money with free blogging, such as Blogger or Wordpress.com.
However, the only monetization you can use are Google AdSense and Amazon Associates. Nothing else is permitted, which is very restrictive. If you add an affiliate link - you will be shut down!

How do I know? Because that's exactly what happened to me. I was terminated without warning or explanation. Four months of work down the bog, gone forever.

Even when you are runing on vapours, to set up a meaningful, flexible business you will need your own base - website or blog. Unfortunately that does incur web hosting and it's associated costs.

Search Google for 'Web Hosts on a Limited Budget'. On page one of Google, you will find a link to my free series "Internet Marketing on a Limited Budget".

In part 7, there are tips for reducing these costs as much as possible, including how I got unlimited hosting for just $2.30 per month, including a free domain! Alternatively click here to go direct to the article.
You will find many other cost saving tips for you here too, including many free alternatives to paid resources.

Cheers

Alan

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its fairly hard to make a ton of money with them, however its possible you just need to play by the rules.

You can definitely make money off free blog platforms (thats how I started), but once you start ranking and making money, your competitors (or the company owning the platform) can easily report you and take you down, and all your hard work will be gone.

Get yourself self-hosted blog instead, even if tyou'll have to save for it for months..

Yes you can do it, almost everyone start from it, but now its very tough but not impossible you have to accurate on your data and updated one.

You're saying, then, that a self-hosted Wordpress blog at HostGator (paid hosting) will make more money than exactly the same self-hosted Wordpress blog hosted at Byethost (free hosting) would make?

What possible reason could there be for that?! :confused:

There are certainly a few thousand professional marketers who've been hosting their blogs at Byethost for many years who clearly don't think that's true at all. And neither do I.

Again, as explained in post #2 above, it's not about whether the hosting is free or paid for.

It's about the host's terms of service, because that's what affects the security of your business.

The fact that Blogger is an unsafe and very unwise host for any monetised or traffic-generating blog doesn't make all free website hosts unsafe and unwise.

Alexa -

In regards to Byet, I noticed that they give you the choice of a sub domain. You can stick with yoursite.byethost.com, or you can pick from another 7 great names we have available.
So is there anyway to work around the sub extension or would that require paid hosting by them?

Thanks for your knowledge - Michael

Oopps, thanks for the info in the domain name. Nothing lost though. hehe

Yes they can shut you down BUT there are many out there using them successfully without getting banned. So if you comply with there TOS you may use them besides if you don't have any money there is no other option but going after free ones. Blogger sites are indexed fast by google also you can rank well with weebly if you do good onpage seo. Once you start making money then you can have your own hosting and domain.

The key is to pick some easy to rank keywords that get moderate traffic then build your blog around them. Aim to make just $10 a week. Use this income to fund paid hosting and do the same thing again only this time aim for $50 a week.

Use the extra income to outsource content creation & backlink building. Leverage up this way and you will soon find yourself earning a nice income from your blogging. This will then allow you the opportunity to really get into IM without it costing you a penny.

All's been said above, but if you can do it, invest this money into paid hosting and move on, less to worry about then in regards to stepping on T&Cs toes.

I second the notion that you use Weebly; they've been great. Also, you can certainly make money with a free blog. The main factors that determine whether or not you make money are the effort you put in and the effort you put in. That's a bit cheeky, but it's true.

If you want to get making money as a blogger, take these three major steps and break each one down into manageable tasks and goals:

1) Create immense value by writing, filming, and creating content that is genuinely useful to people.
2) Publicize your blog through word of mouth channels like social media (become a great content curator and mix in your own links from time to time), guest blogging (offer other bloggers and news sites in your market really great pre-written posts that deliver value and haven't been published anywhere else yet), etc.
3) Use email lists, product reviews, or any other method to *carefully* monetize your blog as it gains traction as an influencer in your market.

Bam. Now get to it

- B

Edit: just realized this thread was necro'd from 2011; doubt the OP is still checking replies LOL.