Anybody who runs a blog needs some way to publish it, and there are more than a few providers willing to help out with that endeavor. There are a lot of great blog hosts available, and most of them provide a free offering that is more than enough to satisfy a simple blog.

We’ll take a look at a few of the higher-quality hosts and the services they provide. All of the sites below are good options, but which provider you choose to host your blog is up to your personal preference.

Blogger

Started in 1999 as a spinoff of note-taking software and snapped up by Google in 2003, Blogger has managed to become the most popular blog host.

One of the most major advantages of letting someone else host your blog is that it’s much, much easier to set up. With Blogger, there’s a three-step process to getting a new blog ready. First, you’ll need to make an account. If you already have a Google account for something like Gmail, you already have one. Second, you’ll name your blog and pick a subdomain for it (this is something like http://mynewblog.blogspot.com). Third, you pick a layout template for the design of your new site.

If you don’t want your blog link to be at blogspot.com, Blogger has features for uploading your blog to your own website. This way, your blog can be at something like www.mynewblog.com instead. However, you’ll still have the small Blogger advertising bar across the top of your pages. The process is straightforward, although a little bit involved. Still, within just a few minutes, you can have a blog set up almost anywhere you want.

The control panel is simple, and has three main tabs for navigation: Posting, Settings, and Layout. For each, there’s a second bar of more specific navigation items in that category.

Under the Posting tab, writing new posts is simple. You’ll see a line to type the title into, as well as a larger box to put the post itself. There are some basic formatting options on a toolbar at the top in order to give your posts more visual appeal. In case you don’t finish your post, you can save it as a draft without publishing it and come back later. Also, the extra formatting options are hidden by default in an expandable box to keep the window clean.

As far as customizability goes, there are only a few included layout templates to use. However, you can edit any of the HTML for them, or even upload completely new themes. Sites like http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com offer a variety of new templates to choose from.

Overall, Blogger is a great blog host. The service is popular, is easy to use, and is customizable. And as with any Google site, the reliability is superb.

Pros: Free, easy-to-use, customizable, and doesn’t require technical maintenence
Cons: Some bloggers may find it too simple, always contains Blogger ads

WordPress.com

While WordPress is great software that you can download and run on your own, which we’ll cover in detail in Part Two, some people don’t want to deal with the trouble. WordPress.com is a solution to this problem: you get to use WordPress and all its great features, with somebody else doing all the technical work.

The control panel begins at the Dashboard, an overview of your blog. The main tabs across the top are obvious (Write, Manage, Design, and Comments) and descriptive of their functions–almost anybody could start using it with no experience.

Most importantly to any software is the Write Post screen, where you should be spending most of your time. The Writing panel for WordPress is the most comprehensive of the three programs I’m trying out (there’s actually a button to “Show/Hide Kitchen Sink”). One of the more useful bonus features found only in WordPress is the fullscreen editor–a great way to keep you from being distracted by other features.

Another neat WordPress-only feature is the mode tab. It allows you to switch between rich-text and HTML modes. This feature won’t be very useful if you don’t know anything about HTML, but those who do will recognize the fine-grained control it can provide over your posts.

In talking about WordPress, you’ll probably hear people talk about uploading extra plugins and themes. This is something you can only do when running your own version of WordPress. You can’t do it here.

On the other hand, you’re going to get extra benefits when using WordPress.com over using the custom software. They’re kind enough to back up your posts every hour, so your blog is always pretty secure. Also, because there’s an index of all the blogs they host, your blog gets a little bit of free advertising.

Pros: Free, full-featured blogging platform, free advertising on WordPress.com
Cons: Limited theme availability, no support for most plugins

LiveJournal

While not exactly a blogging platform, LiveJournal also offers a way to make posts to the Internet. As you might be able to deduce from the name, it’s meant more as a journal-keeper than a blogging engine. There are options on the post page to attach your mood to each post, as well as your current location.

The setup steps are very similar to Blogger’s: you create an account, then choose a theme for your page. Unlike Blogger, you only get one journal per username.

It’s clean-looking, but the control panel for LiveJournal isn’t nearly as well organized as those of other hosts. There are seven drop-down menus across the top to access every part of your account. Also, LiveJournal is the only site to have ads in the control panel, which might get annoying if you spend a lot of time there.

LiveJournal seems to be best suited to hosting a personal journal rather than a blog. There aren’t very many themes, and the options seem oriented at broadcasting yourself rather than a specific topic. Additionally, there are great features for associating your pages with your friends’ pages, which may be considered spammy on a serious blog.

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend using LiveJournal for a focused blog. The features of Blogger and WordPress are much better suited for that kind of use.

Pros: Easy to use, would be great for keeping in touch with friends
Cons: Not designed for blogging, limited themes, and ad-heavy

Between these three offerings, Blogger and WordPress.com are both great options. WordPress.com seems more appropriate for serious or professional blogs, and Blogger is better for simpler blogs. LiveJournal would be best for the personal content it was designed for.

All three of these are hosted by somebody else, which is nice if you don’t want to deal with the technical aspects or maintenence. In part two, I’ll cover some software you can use to host your own site, giving you complete control over what you’ll be able to do.

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