The other day, I was discussing social media with my Dad, and he brought up the topic of blogging.

“I want to start a blog,” he said. “But I don’t know where to begin.”

“Begin? Like, ideas to start writing?” I asked.

“No,” he said, “I don’t even know how to make a blog. How do I do that?”

Dad, this blog post is for you and any readers on the internet who have the desire to write online, but need help finding the tools to do so.

Some great blogging platforms are:

Blogger.com. This tool is owned by Google, and it is a free service. Blogger makes it very easy to create, write, and edit posts, and it includes a fair amount of design templates.

WordPress. There are two different WordPress sites: .com and .org. WordPress.com has a free blogging platform, WordPress.org is software you can install on a website domain that you own. So, if you are interested in creating a blog, go with the .com. It’s simple, plus WordPress has a fantastic help forum if you run across any issues.

Tumblr. Tumblr is one of my personal favorite social media/blogging platforms. There is so much you can do with Tumblr. You can write blog posts, but Tumblr also allows you to easily add different forms of media so you can share your favorite photos, audio, and video with the world. It’s also much more interactive than the other blogs listed above—other users can comment, repost, or like your Tumblr posts, and you can do the same.

These three websites are the easiest platforms on the Internet for anyone who is a beginner at blogging. There are others, like Medium and Blog.com. You could even purchase a website domain name through GoDaddy or another server network. I would recommend starting by testing the platforms listed above to get a better grasp on how blogging works.  Next step: Have fun posting and writing!