Are you thinking of beginning a blog and undecided about which blogging platform to use?
Making the decision can be difficult due to its significance and the abundance of distinctive choices available.
In this post, we have evaluated numerous blogging platforms suitable for beginners and will discuss them to help you choose the one that suits you best.
What is a Blog?
A blog is a type of web journal that allows you to share content on topics that interest you. Blogging can be done for personal enjoyment or as a professional pursuit. The pieces you create and publish on your blog are referred to as blog posts, and can be presented in various formats, including written articles, audio recordings, images, videos, or a combination of these mediums.
Why Should You Blog?
Blogging has transformed a lot in the past two decades. More than a hobby, blogging helps you network with like-minded people and share your opinions. It gives you a platform to voice your thoughts on various subjects and spread awareness among your readers. Writing blogs hones your creativity and fuels your writing skills. Blogging allows you to showcase your expertise in a particular niche, and it also brings you fame once you establish a prominent name in the blogging community. Blogging has opened a new avenue for earning for thousands of people. As your readership grows with quality content creation, you can start monetizing your blog through affiliate marketing, sponsored blog posts, and display ads. We will discuss more on this later in this article. Blogs are an indispensable part of most businesses that have an online presence. Blogging boosts customer engagement and helps businesses nurture their relationships with existing and prospective customers. Blogging generates demand by publishing content that is focused on solving customer pain points. It not only increases the trustworthiness of the customers but also develops their loyalty to a business. Publishing fresh content regularly boosts SEO and improves its ranking on SERPs. With consistent effort in blogging, brands can establish themselves as industry leaders in their target niches. This, in turn, can increase brand awareness.
How to Choose the Best Blogging Platform
It is crucial to have a clear understanding of your blogging platform requirements before exploring our compilation of excellent blog sites.
Consider these three inquiries about blogging platforms:
- Ease of use: If you’re new to blogging or even just thinking about starting your own blog, you may not be very technical yet (or may not ever be). So, you want to look for a blogging platform that’s easy to get started with.
- Supported plugins and tools: As your new blog grows, you’ll want to change the look of your site and add new advanced features to support your growing audience.
- Affordability: There are plenty of reasonably priced options out there. Whether you’re running a personal blog or a business, you can find options for any budget range.
Now that you have a clearer understanding of how to determine the ideal blogging platform for creating your blog, let’s explore our recommended options for novice bloggers.
Benefits of Business Blogging
Business Blogs Help Educate Customers
Utilizing a business blog can effectively educate your niche market audience and cultivate their interest in what you have to offer. Providing valuable insights to your customers is key, therefore, avoid using your blog solely as a promotional platform and refrain from selling your products or services. Use this space to educate both current and potential customers instead.
Business Blogs Help Address Commonly Asked Questions
As a business owner, you will encounter certain frequently asked questions regarding your industry. Rather than responding to them one by one, composing a blog entry that provides comprehensive answers and urging individuals to read it might be more efficient. To identify the most frequently asked questions in your sector, you might use the AnswerthePublic tool or peruse Google’s “People Also Ask” section. This will give you a sense of the typical questions individuals browse on the internet regarding your field.
Blogging Leads Search Engines to Frequently Index a Site
Regularly updating your business blog with fresh content can lead to increased indexing by search engines and improved online rankings. Providing new and enjoyable content to existing customers can also be leveraged to enhance the visibility of your site.
Blogging Promotes Thought Leadership
Devoting time to researching for your blog posts, offering precise information, and discussing a topic in depth can differentiate you from your rivals. As you expand your knowledge in your specialized field, individuals will begin to closely follow and value your viewpoints and opinions, regarding you as a leader in the industry. This will also reinforce the credibility of your business, fostering trustworthiness.
Blogging Helps Building Backlinks
Business blogging offers the advantage of creating backlinks from different websites, which can enhance your site’s SEO by boosting its authority and driving traffic. When diverse sites link to your blog content, search engines such as Google perceive your website as credible and improve its online ranking.
Blogging Helps in Demand Generation
Demand generation is the first stage of lead generation. Companies may employ their blog content to generate demand for a product or service by highlighting its qualities and advantages to readers. If the content resonates with the target audience, they will become eager for the product or service’s launch.
Best Blogging Platforms Compared
Our list comprises the top blogging platforms based on thorough testing and comparison of their features, functionalities, and user-friendliness.
1. WordPress.org
For various reasons, we prefer WordPress as our preferred blogging platform.
Primarily, WordPress provides the most wide-ranging selection of features and tools for modifying and overseeing various components of your blog. With more than 55k distinct plugins providing enhanced functionalities, there’s scarcely any task that can’t be accomplished by using WordPress.
WPForms plugins allow for the creation of personalized contact forms, while OptinMonster plugins provide the capability to execute more sophisticated marketing strategies on your WordPress blog.
During our evaluation and experimentation of various platforms for this article, we discovered that WordPress.org is less intuitive compared to alternatives such as HubSpot. However, this is only applicable when attempting to modify your WordPress site directly using its pre-installed tools.
Managing a WordPress blog becomes a lot easier when you use plugins. Most plugins are no-code and come with beginner-friendly graphical interfaces that anybody can use.
If you do not utilize the appropriate plugins, developing tailored landing pages on WordPress can present difficulties. However, incorporating SeedProd plugin enables you to design elaborate landing pages irrespective of whether you lack any prior knowledge in landing page creation.
WordPress is superior to other blogging platforms in terms of its power.
Overall, WordPress.org is the best choice if you want full control over your blog and nearly limitless customization options. While WordPress.org is a free platform, you’ll still need a WordPress hosting provider to take your blog live. We’ve found that Bluehost is by far the best WordPress hosting to get started with WordPress.org.
Pros:
- Complete control over your blog — You can build a basic blog or an advanced eCommerce site using the same WordPress Content Management System (CMS). You’ll also have your own domain name, which you can usually get from your hosting provider.
- Massive library of themes — You can use drag-and-drop site builder themes like Divi, Astra, or OceanWP to easily make your WordPress site look exactly the way you want it, choose from thousands of blog templates, and create a custom login form to improve your branding.
- Extensive plugin support — With over 55k plugins (most of them free), WordPress has the largest number of plugins that can enhance your website and offer super useful functions for running your blog or business online.
- Easy optimization for search — WordPress is the most SEO-friendly blogging platform with an excellent range of WordPress SEO plugins.
- Automation and integrations — WordPress readily integrates with third-party apps and platforms, and lets you set up automation between apps to simplify your workflow.
- Community — WordPress has the most closely-knit ecosystem consisting of active independent developers. Although there’s no direct customer support for WordPress itself, you can find tons of details on forums online.
Drawbacks:
- Not always beginner-friendly — Can have a slight learning curve for non-technical people.
- Doesn’t handle security — You’ll need to manage your own backups and security (like with a security plugin like Sucuri).
Price:
Although the service itself is free, in order to acquire a custom domain name, you must pay approximately $14.99 per year in addition to paying for hosting, which costs around $9.99 per month.
2. Web.com
Web.com is the most convenient website builder for budget-conscious bloggers who are looking for a speedy setup. Additionally, it happens to be one of the earliest and well-liked platforms for blogging, boasting over 3 million satisfied users since 1999.
While testing this platform, I noticed that the blogging feature on Web.com lacks the same level of complexity found on WordPress.org. Although you can conveniently drag and drop elements using the page builder, making any modifications presents a challenge.
Furthermore, image manipulation is restricted solely to resizing. Several customization options necessitate a supplementary acquisition, which can result in a significant increase in total expenses in order to match the functionality available on WordPress.org.
Advantages:
- Easy to use — A user-friendly drag-and-drop website builder to create your blog.
- Beautiful design options — Tons of professionally designed website templates and access to thousands of stock images.
- No page limits — You can add unlimited pages to your site.
- Freebies — Comes with a free domain name, business email address, website analytics, SEO tools, and more.
Drawbacks:
- Lacks some functionality — Blogging functionality is limited compared to WordPress.org.
- Limited eCommerce — If you want to add an online store to your blog, you’re limited to 50 products.
Price:
If you opt for an annual plan, the starter website package is available from just $9.99 per month.
3. Wix
If you’re looking to quickly begin blogging, Wix is among the easiest platforms to use.
For those starting out and looking to build a website with a blog, Wix is an excellent choice. No coding experience is needed to set up your site on Wix; simply drag and drop the elements you want. Wix provides various templates that can be adjusted to suit most brands’ needs. Additionally, Wix offers Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) which creates a website based on your blog’s purpose through a few basic questions. However, if you want to build your site alone, Wix ADI can assist with previews from different layouts to find what works best for you. With minimal effort, you can have a professional-looking website in no time. The Wix mobile app also allows you to design your blog on-the-go. Wix’s tools are not only user-friendly, but they can also boost your engagement and help you connect with your target audience.
- Leading SEO tools from the industry
- Social media tools
- Analytics
- Post scheduling
- 500 professionally designed templates
- Embed HTML codes
- Simple image editor
- Advanced Search
- Adding categories and hashtags
- Collaborators
Wix is more than just a blogging platform, with a range of offerings that extend beyond blogging. However, if your primary objective is to blog, then a free Wix account may be suitable. Wix manages everything and guarantees zero maintenance for its free account holders, and it can be helpful for smaller sites as it offers 500GB of bandwidth. The web address for your site will include “wixsite.com” if you choose a free account. One disadvantage of Wix is the advertisements, which can be removed by upgrading to premium. You can also get a free custom domain name for the first year if you choose an upgraded account, which could make Wix alternatives worth considering. In general, Wix has three premium plan options.
- Websites
- Business & eCommerce, and
- Enterprise.
For personal use, the $14 Combo plan is effective and users have the option to upgrade to the $339 VIP plan. The BIP plan offers more storage and features to help grow your brand, and also includes web hosting, which would usually cost $10 per month separately. The business and ecommerce plan starts at $23 monthly and allows you to take payments online. Wix is a good choice for small businesses and individuals, with a user-friendly setup process that even works well for complex websites. Wix websites have a 100-page limit for non-blog content and there are enterprise solutions available, starting at $500 per month. To try Wix Premium, there is a 14-day free trial or you can use the platform for blogging at no cost for as long as you wish.
