TextPattern – This is an excellent tool for bloggers because it is easy to use, but provides a wide variety of useful features. TextPattern is a flexible platform that provides users with complete control over all aspects of their blog.
Posterous – This is an excellent site for casual bloggers or those just starting out. It provides a large level of customization, but maintains incredible simplicity. The comment section is built into the blog. It also allows images, videos, sounds, and documents to be attached to blog posts.
Tumblr – This is an extremely customizable blog host. Users can control the HTML code of their blog and choose from a large number of themes and colors. Tumblr is focused on quickly conveying information and is designed to be fun rather than serious.
LiveJournal – This is an extremely popular blog host. It allows a number of user options, including paid and ad-supported blogs. LiveJournal is fully customizable with hundreds of unique layouts. It allows photos, videos, and widgets to be embedded into blog posts. While some may view LiveJournal as too mainstream, the blog host is popular for a reason. It provides an excellent array of options and a ton of user control.
Blogger – This is an excellent site for beginners. It does not have many options, but it does provide several unique templates. When you sign up to Blogger, it will walk you through a very simple set of directions, allowing you to have a fully functioning blog in no time. It’s a simple and easy to use blog host, which makes it a perfect blog for starters.
Blogetery – This blog host allows for a number of unique layouts and has anti-spam features that can keep your blog clean and spam free. An additional feature that makes Blogetery a great blogging site is the availability of free sub-domains. This will allow you to create pages within your blog and increase your organization.
Blogster – In addition to free blog hosting, this site provides free image hosting. This can be beneficial to bloggers who may want to link to photos or albums.
Blog – This site provides unlimited bandwidth to their non-paying members. There are additional enhancements with paid memberships, but the free membership provides enough options to keep most bloggers happy.
Multiply – This site is a combination of blogging and social networking. It is designed to be fun and promote connectivity. It is not for serious bloggers, but is a great resource for bloggers who just want to have fun.
There are many reasons to want to get away from WordPress blogs, the blog hosts listed above should provide a host that suits the needs of every blogger. The most important factor to consider when choosing a blog host is what you intend to do with the blog. If you just want to have fun than choose a host that reflects that. If you want to post serious topics, choose a host that has a serious blogging community. Whatever you choose, you always have the option of changing hosts if a site isn’t suiting your needs.
This guest post was written by Tom Walker, a writer who works for an online supplier of printer ink in the UK. He posts about print media design, advertising and art on their design blog.
