Are you ready to start your blog but you're stuck at what blogging platform to use? In this article I'll walk you through how to pick the best blogging platform for your blog and we'll cover nine different blogging platforms so you can get a better idea of which one is best for you.
When you're looking to pick a blogging platform to start, these are some of the things that you want to be thinking about when choosing the blogging platform. The biggest thing is you want to make sure that it's easy to use for you and that it's beginner friendly.
You don't have to know a lot of technical things to get started. You also want to make sure that it's feature-rich or that their features are available for what you want your blog to do and then do you have room to grow? Both in terms of the features that you need and the functionality but also you may not be thinking about earning money yet but if you want to make it earn money in the future is there ability for you to add things like advertisements on your site, affiliate marketing, and things like that.
So having all of those things in mind let's start looking at the different platforms that you can use for your website.
First one we'll talk about is WordPress.org
This is the open source software that means it's free for you to use and it's also free for you to contribute. Now, WordPress.org is different than WordPress.com and you've probably heard many people say just get a WordPress site up and i'll talk about WordPress.com in a minute. Many of the pros for WordPress.org are that you have maximum control over your site.
No one will be able to shut down your site because you're not following whatever their rules are. The next thing are the most robust features out there anything that you think you want to do with your blog to take it to the next level whether it be adding features like a forum, membership site, ecommerce if you wanted to that's all available to you by using the WordPress.org platform. There are thousands on thousands of plugins, these are the things that help you make your site do what you want it to do by adding the extra functionality.
They're also thousands of themes both free and paid to make your blog look exactly how you want it to look. Now coming with that maximum control over your site some of the cons are that you are tasked with maintaining your blog yourself and that means you must update your site and keep all the plugins and themes updated and you'll also be tasked with making backups of your site. Now if you do it right a lot of times the hosting provider that you work with can help you with some of these items so the price for using WordPress, as I said before, the actual software itself is free but you have to have a server to post this on and the server or the hosting company that you get the server from they'll actually charge a fee and depending on which hosting company you go with, that can range in price and but the average range is about $12. 99 a month.
But as a WPBeginner visitor you can get it for as low as $2. 75 a month through Bluehost.com. With that you'll also get the free SSL certificate for your site, that secures your site for you.
The next one we'll look at is Wix
Some of the pros of Wix is that it's a fully hosted platform meaning you just go and sign up. They have many templates to choose from to get up and running quickly, they have built-in functionality for you to get started, but some of the cons are it shows Wix branding, there's a free version of it but it shows Wix branding unless you pay for a higher tier.
Another thing is they'll show ads on the site but you don't get those ad revenues they will get the ad revenue for that and also moving can be difficult it's actually one of the more difficult sites to move if later on you've decided you want to host your blog somewhere else it's very difficult to move it off of Wix. The price range is free. For the free tier you get basically your site with the Wix branding in the URL. If you want to pay for then the range is between nine and twenty six dollars a month.
WordPpress.com.
WordPress.com is using the same software as wordpress.org but they're hosting it and their hosting it on their own servers and you're simply paying them to do it all. So some of the pros for this are there's no setup required you simply log in start paying and you're ready to go. It's also you really easy to use and manage. Now the cons for this is you do have limited functionality for your blog, it also means that you can't run ads on your blog and you don't own your blogs.
If you do something on your site or write about something that they don't agree with they can shut your blog down and whatever traffic or whatever visitors you've built up you've lost that. The price structure for this is it's free for the bottom tier where you could be your site. WordPress. com.
You can get custom domain names and the range for the paid tier is between four and eight dollars a month.
The next Blogging platform let's talk about Blogger.
Blogger is owned by Google, Blogger was acquired by Google in 2013 and is offered up to people to use as a blogging platform and some of the pros are that it's free. It's completely free to log in and use as you want it's pretty easy to use and it's a Google product so it's secure and reliable you know that the security of it is pretty high up there.
Some of the cons to it are you have limited features, it's not their main source of income, nor is it their main focus and so you have limited features. Also they can also suspend your account any time if you write about something that they don't agree with so again you don't own your information or your blog. Other things that they can just simply shut down the whole service so if one day they decide they don't want to deal with Blogger anymore then, then that's a real possibility. As I said blogger is free to use.
The next blogging platform that you can look at is Tumblr.
Tumblr is a micro blogging service, it's really geared towards like sharing images and videos. A lot of people really enjoy using tumblr for blogging and obviously some of the pros are that it is free and easy to use and get set up. It is integrated with social media so it's a lot easier to share things through there. It's a real easy platform to blog videos or images and audio as well.
Some of the cons for Tumblr are limited features, difficult to migrate the blog if you ever want to move away to a different platform and that's very difficult to do. The cost for Tumblr is that it's free and it's usually yoursite.tumblr.com or if you want to add a custom domain then there will be a cost for that.
The next platform we'll talk about is Medium
Medium launched in 2012 and it is geared more towards strictly writing and blogging and very little networking capabilities. Some of the pros are that it's free and easy to use. With Medium you can reach an existing community online since Medium shares your articles with people who have similar interests to what you're writing about. It allows you to focus solely on writing and that's simply because there's no themes involved in it at all. Now some of the cons on the flip side of those pros and the fact that there are limited features, you're not really going to set up, you can't set up an ecommerce, site you can't set up your own forum and things like that.
Next its Medium's audience and not yours so yes they can send you some traffic but if you ever wanted to do anything with those, that audience it's not really your traffic they're not coming to your site to read about your stuff. Also you can't run ads and you can't set up your commerce site. s
So if you're wanting to make money then this being your sole place of blogging is not going to be great for that. It is free to use although they are doing kind of a paywall for readers where people have to pay to continue to read and there will be some interesting changes over the next couple of years to see how this changes over the, over the months to come.
So the next one let's talk about Squarespace.
Squarespace is a great blogging platform and it's using great easy to use drag-and-drop features. Most of the people that they're looking for are more like small businesses to create an online presence so that's their main focus of their people. Some of the pros for Squarespace are that it's very easy for beginners it's great drag and drop feature, beautifully professionally designed templates for you to use, and a lot of people really like that. You can also add an ecommerce set up if you want.
The Cons are that it is a proprietary platform and so the features are pretty limited it's just based on what they're pushing out. So if you wanted something different then you might not get the feature that you want for your site. There are also limited integrations since it's a proprietary platform there's not too many third-party developers who can create something to integrate with your website and the personal plan it's pretty limited you only get 20 pages for your personal plan you do get your blog and then you only get two contributors. The price structure for this is it can range from $12. 99 a month to $18 a month depending on if you pay upfront or not and then if you wanted to add an ecommerce then it bumps it up to $26 to $40 a month as well, and you have to purchase your domain name separately
The next one is Ghost
It's a minimalist blogging platform and they've really pared down on all the features that they offer so that people just focus on writing and that's actually one of the biggest pros for that is you're only focusing on your writing and your blogging. It's also very clean and clutter-free and it's fast because it's built on JavaScript so it's fast. If you go with their hosting version then there's no setup that you have to worry about. Some of the things to consider is it's not easy to customize with apps because of the limited features.
there's limited integrations as well as limited themes, if you're trying to do the self installation it's complicated and not very easy to do. The price structure for this is $7. 99 a month and you also pay $14. 99 a year for a domain name. If you let them post it for you then it's $19 a month for one blog and you get a limit of 25, 000 page views.
Finally we'll talk about Weebly.
Weebly is another blogging platform that hosts everything for you and they have a great clean drag-and-drop feature for you to get up and running. Some of the pros are it's fully hosted, the drag-and-drop design for you you're able to test features on a free plan to see if that works for you and if you want to go up to a different tier. Some of the cons for Weebly are that they have limited features, like with Squarespace they have limited third-party integrations, and migrating the site is quite difficult if you ever decide to move to a different platform. The price for Weebly is it's free tier if it's yoursite.weebly.com. Other than that it's as much as eight dollars a month if you're billed annually with limited features and then it can go up to $49 a month if you want to unlock all of the features that they have and you have to buy the domain separately.
Now obviously for me, WordPress.org is the best one to do and we think the combination of WordPress.org and Bluehost is your best option when just getting started.
If you're wanting to take your blog seriously and you're wanting to eventually grow this into a money-making venture then WordPress.org is the best place to start and the beauty of WordPress.org installation is you can start as simply as you need to and then as you grow, as your needs grow it can grow with you and if you're ready to make that choice then go ahead and click on the next video in this playlist where I walk you through step by step on how to get WordPress installed for your blog.
I hope you enjoy this article?
Thanks
When you're looking to pick a blogging platform to start, these are some of the things that you want to be thinking about when choosing the blogging platform. The biggest thing is you want to make sure that it's easy to use for you and that it's beginner friendly.
You don't have to know a lot of technical things to get started. You also want to make sure that it's feature-rich or that their features are available for what you want your blog to do and then do you have room to grow? Both in terms of the features that you need and the functionality but also you may not be thinking about earning money yet but if you want to make it earn money in the future is there ability for you to add things like advertisements on your site, affiliate marketing, and things like that.
So having all of those things in mind let's start looking at the different platforms that you can use for your website.
First one we'll talk about is WordPress.org
This is the open source software that means it's free for you to use and it's also free for you to contribute. Now, WordPress.org is different than WordPress.com and you've probably heard many people say just get a WordPress site up and i'll talk about WordPress.com in a minute. Many of the pros for WordPress.org are that you have maximum control over your site.
No one will be able to shut down your site because you're not following whatever their rules are. The next thing are the most robust features out there anything that you think you want to do with your blog to take it to the next level whether it be adding features like a forum, membership site, ecommerce if you wanted to that's all available to you by using the WordPress.org platform. There are thousands on thousands of plugins, these are the things that help you make your site do what you want it to do by adding the extra functionality.
They're also thousands of themes both free and paid to make your blog look exactly how you want it to look. Now coming with that maximum control over your site some of the cons are that you are tasked with maintaining your blog yourself and that means you must update your site and keep all the plugins and themes updated and you'll also be tasked with making backups of your site. Now if you do it right a lot of times the hosting provider that you work with can help you with some of these items so the price for using WordPress, as I said before, the actual software itself is free but you have to have a server to post this on and the server or the hosting company that you get the server from they'll actually charge a fee and depending on which hosting company you go with, that can range in price and but the average range is about $12. 99 a month.
But as a WPBeginner visitor you can get it for as low as $2. 75 a month through Bluehost.com. With that you'll also get the free SSL certificate for your site, that secures your site for you.
The next one we'll look at is Wix
Some of the pros of Wix is that it's a fully hosted platform meaning you just go and sign up. They have many templates to choose from to get up and running quickly, they have built-in functionality for you to get started, but some of the cons are it shows Wix branding, there's a free version of it but it shows Wix branding unless you pay for a higher tier.
Another thing is they'll show ads on the site but you don't get those ad revenues they will get the ad revenue for that and also moving can be difficult it's actually one of the more difficult sites to move if later on you've decided you want to host your blog somewhere else it's very difficult to move it off of Wix. The price range is free. For the free tier you get basically your site with the Wix branding in the URL. If you want to pay for then the range is between nine and twenty six dollars a month.
WordPpress.com.
WordPress.com is using the same software as wordpress.org but they're hosting it and their hosting it on their own servers and you're simply paying them to do it all. So some of the pros for this are there's no setup required you simply log in start paying and you're ready to go. It's also you really easy to use and manage. Now the cons for this is you do have limited functionality for your blog, it also means that you can't run ads on your blog and you don't own your blogs.
If you do something on your site or write about something that they don't agree with they can shut your blog down and whatever traffic or whatever visitors you've built up you've lost that. The price structure for this is it's free for the bottom tier where you could be your site. WordPress. com.
You can get custom domain names and the range for the paid tier is between four and eight dollars a month.
The next Blogging platform let's talk about Blogger.
Blogger is owned by Google, Blogger was acquired by Google in 2013 and is offered up to people to use as a blogging platform and some of the pros are that it's free. It's completely free to log in and use as you want it's pretty easy to use and it's a Google product so it's secure and reliable you know that the security of it is pretty high up there.
Some of the cons to it are you have limited features, it's not their main source of income, nor is it their main focus and so you have limited features. Also they can also suspend your account any time if you write about something that they don't agree with so again you don't own your information or your blog. Other things that they can just simply shut down the whole service so if one day they decide they don't want to deal with Blogger anymore then, then that's a real possibility. As I said blogger is free to use.
The next blogging platform that you can look at is Tumblr.
Tumblr is a micro blogging service, it's really geared towards like sharing images and videos. A lot of people really enjoy using tumblr for blogging and obviously some of the pros are that it is free and easy to use and get set up. It is integrated with social media so it's a lot easier to share things through there. It's a real easy platform to blog videos or images and audio as well.
Some of the cons for Tumblr are limited features, difficult to migrate the blog if you ever want to move away to a different platform and that's very difficult to do. The cost for Tumblr is that it's free and it's usually yoursite.tumblr.com or if you want to add a custom domain then there will be a cost for that.
The next platform we'll talk about is Medium
Medium launched in 2012 and it is geared more towards strictly writing and blogging and very little networking capabilities. Some of the pros are that it's free and easy to use. With Medium you can reach an existing community online since Medium shares your articles with people who have similar interests to what you're writing about. It allows you to focus solely on writing and that's simply because there's no themes involved in it at all. Now some of the cons on the flip side of those pros and the fact that there are limited features, you're not really going to set up, you can't set up an ecommerce, site you can't set up your own forum and things like that.
Next its Medium's audience and not yours so yes they can send you some traffic but if you ever wanted to do anything with those, that audience it's not really your traffic they're not coming to your site to read about your stuff. Also you can't run ads and you can't set up your commerce site. s
So if you're wanting to make money then this being your sole place of blogging is not going to be great for that. It is free to use although they are doing kind of a paywall for readers where people have to pay to continue to read and there will be some interesting changes over the next couple of years to see how this changes over the, over the months to come.
So the next one let's talk about Squarespace.
Squarespace is a great blogging platform and it's using great easy to use drag-and-drop features. Most of the people that they're looking for are more like small businesses to create an online presence so that's their main focus of their people. Some of the pros for Squarespace are that it's very easy for beginners it's great drag and drop feature, beautifully professionally designed templates for you to use, and a lot of people really like that. You can also add an ecommerce set up if you want.
The Cons are that it is a proprietary platform and so the features are pretty limited it's just based on what they're pushing out. So if you wanted something different then you might not get the feature that you want for your site. There are also limited integrations since it's a proprietary platform there's not too many third-party developers who can create something to integrate with your website and the personal plan it's pretty limited you only get 20 pages for your personal plan you do get your blog and then you only get two contributors. The price structure for this is it can range from $12. 99 a month to $18 a month depending on if you pay upfront or not and then if you wanted to add an ecommerce then it bumps it up to $26 to $40 a month as well, and you have to purchase your domain name separately
The next one is Ghost
It's a minimalist blogging platform and they've really pared down on all the features that they offer so that people just focus on writing and that's actually one of the biggest pros for that is you're only focusing on your writing and your blogging. It's also very clean and clutter-free and it's fast because it's built on JavaScript so it's fast. If you go with their hosting version then there's no setup that you have to worry about. Some of the things to consider is it's not easy to customize with apps because of the limited features.
there's limited integrations as well as limited themes, if you're trying to do the self installation it's complicated and not very easy to do. The price structure for this is $7. 99 a month and you also pay $14. 99 a year for a domain name. If you let them post it for you then it's $19 a month for one blog and you get a limit of 25, 000 page views.
Finally we'll talk about Weebly.
Weebly is another blogging platform that hosts everything for you and they have a great clean drag-and-drop feature for you to get up and running. Some of the pros are it's fully hosted, the drag-and-drop design for you you're able to test features on a free plan to see if that works for you and if you want to go up to a different tier. Some of the cons for Weebly are that they have limited features, like with Squarespace they have limited third-party integrations, and migrating the site is quite difficult if you ever decide to move to a different platform. The price for Weebly is it's free tier if it's yoursite.weebly.com. Other than that it's as much as eight dollars a month if you're billed annually with limited features and then it can go up to $49 a month if you want to unlock all of the features that they have and you have to buy the domain separately.
Now obviously for me, WordPress.org is the best one to do and we think the combination of WordPress.org and Bluehost is your best option when just getting started.
If you're wanting to take your blog seriously and you're wanting to eventually grow this into a money-making venture then WordPress.org is the best place to start and the beauty of WordPress.org installation is you can start as simply as you need to and then as you grow, as your needs grow it can grow with you and if you're ready to make that choice then go ahead and click on the next video in this playlist where I walk you through step by step on how to get WordPress installed for your blog.
I hope you enjoy this article?
Thanks
