According to HubSpot data, blogs are one of the top three forms of media employed in content strategies today. This isn’t unexpected. Whether you’re blogging for business or pleasure, there are numerous advantages to writing blog content. Blogging not only helps you develop authority in your area, but it also helps you increase visitors to your website and convert that traffic into leads.
This article will help you through the process of selecting the best blogging platform for your needs and goals so you can reap the benefits of blogging. Then you will look at some of the top blogging platforms to see whether they can help you add a blog to your company’s website or develop a standalone blog.
Blogger
If you ask any veteran blogger what platform they used to start their blog, they’ll undoubtedly say Blogger. To this day, Google’s blogging service retains some advantages, including that you already have a Blogger account if you have a Google account.
Its free use will appeal to a broken starting site, and it will even supply the blogspot.com domain name and the option for a custom domain name. It’s also one of the more user-friendly platforms, with various templates easily customized.
Because it is a Google product, it connects easily with other Google products, such as Google Analytics, which can provide information about your website’s visitors that can be utilized to assist increase traffic. Additionally, your blog can be coupled with Google Adsense, which will evaluate your content and display appropriate adverts to monetize your site, allowing you to pay for your coffee while sitting in Starbucks and blogging late into the night.
Is there any reason not to utilize Blogger with all of these advantages? The concern is that as your site increases in popularity, its simplicity may cause you to outgrow Blogger. Furthermore, switching from Blogger to another platform can be challenging.
Wix
Wix is one of the leading website builder systems that can help you create the right blog for yourself, whether it’s a whole website or just a tiny piece of one. Wix provides advanced capabilities tailored to newbies who are just getting started with blogging, and it’s as easy as picking a template from their extensive library and customizing it.
Even better, Wix allows you to preview your blog template on a PC and mobile device before committing to it. Wix’s blogging capabilities are designed for anyone who wants to market themselves or a brand, expand their audience, or even make money.
You can create a blog for free with Wix if you already have a domain name and drive visitors to it with Wix’s advanced SEO tools like AMP and Schema, as well as a personalized SEO plan to improve your search engine exposure. The site also offers a scheduling tool, which allows you to compose your blog posts when convenient for you and then schedule them to go online at a convenient time.
WordPress
WordPress is a popular blogging platform utilized on 41% of all websites. It strikes a good mix between ease of use and more complex features.
They can take care of all the technicalities, including the domain name, security, and hosting, making it a one-stop-shop. WordPress has hundreds of themes to choose from, each with its fonts and customization possibilities. They also provide expert help, and a plugin that accepts credit card payments is accessible.
The Personal plan, which removes all WordPress advertising for $4 (€3.6, £3.1) monthly invoiced annually, is the most affordable. There is also a free tier, perfect for a non-commercial site because WordPress advertising is there, and there is no way to monetize it.
Jekyll
Jekyll 4.2.1, the most recent version, is a “simple, blog-aware, static site generator.” TXT files are used to create content, then organized into folders. Then you use Liquid language templates to make your site. Jekyll then combines the content and template, and a website is created that can be uploaded to a server. There is integration with Jekyll to host the website for free on GitHub for people that need a host.
While the Jekyll website has a comprehensive ‘quick-start tutorial,’ it lacks the simplicity of some rival blogging platforms that can handle anything from a web interface. On the other hand, Jekyll’s advantages are its sophisticated capabilities, which include pagination choices, available plugins, excerpt rendering, templates, and community-maintained themes. It also allows you to migrate your blog from another platform.
The advantage is that the platform is free, but the disadvantage is that there is only community assistance. The work is done in the Ruby development environment, which will turn off many newcomers.
Tumblr
While some blogs are well-developed, blurring the boundary between a blog and a full-fledged website, Tumblr is on the opposite end of the spectrum. It appears to be doing something well, as it claims to have over 500 million blogs.
It concentrates on the shorter end of the range, emphasizing more concise information, such as only an image or a link, and can appear like a social media platform in its own right. The content is more straightforward, with articles containing a range of elements such as photos, jokes, quips, Spotify tunes, and video (remember that adult content is no longer welcome). You can follow other blogs and repost posts you like to your blog, just like on a social media site.
Tumblr has the advantage of being simple to use, accessible, and excellent for usage on a mobile device. However, because the content remains in the Tumblr environment and there is no way to commercialize it, this is not ideal for a highly developed blog.
Conclusion
You can choose the best blogging platform with the capability and flexibility you need once you’ve identified your blogging goals and needs. Your platform should ideally combine ease of use and power, allowing you to begin blogging and get the benefits of SEO and traffic. Hopefully this article will help you to do the entire process easily.