Out of over 1.7 billion websites on the internet, active blogs make up 600M+. That’s more than one-third of internet websites. More so, there are two million blog posts published every year. According to reports, blogging has seen a 12% rise from 2015 with 31.7 million bloggers based in the United States alone.
Furthermore, 60% of consumers say blog posts are useful in the early stages of their buying process. In recent years, blogging has been the most effective tool by marketers and corporate brands for marketing and outreach. According to marketers, blogs have consistently outperformed other digital marketing formats such as emails and infographics.
Blogging has gone beyond been a medium for sharing personal experiences. It has seen a meteoric rise due to its use by marketers/brands. Individuals who effectively use blogging to promote products and services are reporting life-changing monthly income.
Huffington Post blog made $17M in total monthly revenue in 2020. These blog earning reports prove blogging can be profitable and it attracts more people to join the community too.
There are a handful of blogging platforms out there. However, which one is right for you? To find the right blog for you, you need to consider some factors. This article will highlight the best platforms that will meet your blogging needs.
Overview
| Tumblr | The most popular blogging platform with 488M active blogs |
| Medium | Known as the Twitter for long-form articles |
| Wix | Most popular easy to use blog site builder |
| Squarespace | Blog site builder with great customer support |
| Weebly | All-inclusive website builder |
| Joomla | Best WordPress alternative |
| Jekyll | The programmer’s blogger platform |
| Ghost | For those looking for maximum site performance |
| Blogger | For maximum revenue with little to no overhead expenses |
| WordPress | The most popular open-source blogging platform |
What are the best blogging platforms
1. Tumblr
The most popular blogging platform with 488M active blogs
Tumblr is the most popular blogging platform accounting for two-thirds of the internet’s blogs. It’s a free microblogging platform most suitable for artistic content. The microblogs are visually oriented and blog themes are image-centric.
Tumblr is popular among teens and young adults. It comes with a mobile app that makes blogging easier unlike many other blogging platforms with no dedicated mobile apps.
Another unique benefit of Tumblr is the social network features where users can follow each other and share posts. Tumblr is highly recommended for young bloggers who want some social appeal.
2. Medium
Known as the Twitter for long-form articles
Medium is for individuals who want to post long-form quality content. The blogging platform is engineered to reward well-written quality content rather than content images or the popularity of the content author. Oftentimes, people refer to it as Twitter for long-form articles.
Unlike Tumblr that places attention on images, Medium places attention on words. It comes with a minimalistic, clean, and simple design. More so, readers can comment, tag people, and link to other articles.
Medium’s algorithm can help your content reach a large target audience in a short period of time without you being popular. Medium is highly recommended for bloggers who want a Twitter alternative.
3. Wix
Most popular easy to use blog site builder
Are you a newbie who needs a website up and running in the next few hours? Wix is for you. Wix is a blog site builder. With Wix, you can build your blog by yourself and in a short period of time without writing codes. The platform is easy and simple to use. They offer free and paid versions.
The free version comes with some limitations such as Wix branding and Wix subdomain URL. Wix is definitely perfect for beginners. The platform takes care of technical aspects so you can focus on launching fast and manage your blog with less stress.
They offer drag-and-drop elements you can move around anywhere on your page. Wix is highly recommended for beginner bloggers.
4. Squarespace
Blog site builder with great customer support
As a newbie, you need all the help you can get when establishing your blog or brand. When you have regular engagements with your readers on your blog, support is very important.
Unlike open-source blogging platforms or Blogger where you’re on your own, Squarespace offers excellent customer support to bloggers.
They are highly rated by bloggers. The platform is easy to use and comes with detailed documentation and guides. Squarespace is recommended for newbie bloggers who need extra help.
5. Weebly
All-inclusive website builder
Weebly comes with a flexible editor bundled with drag and drop design, great functionalities, hosting and customer support. It is also ideal for newbies who want to launch their website instantly.
They offer very good site speed, simple to use editors, and mobile app integration. You can design your pages using available themes and customize your theme. More so, you can track your blog visitors with Google Analytics code.
However, it comes with its own limitations such as 500MB disk space and Weebly branding for the free version, limited blogging tools and you have to pay to get more help. Weebly is recommended for newbie bloggers who need extra features.
6. Joomla!
Best WordPress alternative
Joomla is an open-source content management system suitable for blogging. You can use their domain extension or configure your own domain name. Joomla is quite powerful and packed with lots of features.
In addition, you can extend your blog design with themes and also extend its functionalities with plugins and extensions. If you want to blog as a business, Joomla is a recommended platform to get the best out of your blog.
7. Jekyll
The programmer’s blogger platform
Jekyll is a static file-based blogger site generator. It was designed to be simple and easy to use. The platform works by transforming plain text into static blogs.
Jekyll is also open-source and suitable for personal, project, or organization blog sites. It’s designed to deliver blog pages very fast as it renders in HTML. Jekyll is definitely a recommended choice if you can write codes.
8. Ghost
For those looking for maximum site performance
Ghost is another free and open-source blogging platform. The platform allows you to publish content easily and build an audience with membership functionalities. The platform is designed with Javascript. So its performance is excellent with fast page load speed.
It is pre-built with email newsletters and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) features such as permalinks, sitemaps, tags, and metadata so you can appear on the front page of Google’s search page results.
9. Blogger
For maximum revenue with little to no overhead expenses
Google Blogger is one of the longest-running blogging platforms online. It’s been in operation since 1999 and was bought by Google in 2003. The blogging platform is a contender because it is owned by Google and the platform easily integrates with other Google products such as Google Adsense.
A significant drawback with Blogger is the time-stamped feature. For instance, your URL could be something like this mydomainname.blogspot.com/2007/09/my-blog-is-awesome. It remains the same even if you updated your post yesterday. It is aesthetically unpleasing and not SEO-friendly.
Unfortunately, despite being owned by Google, Blogger doesn’t do well for SEO, unlike WordPress or Joomla platforms.
10. WordPress
The most popular open-source blogging platform
WordPress powers over 60M+ blogs on the internet with 78M+ posts published on the platform every month. It is proudly used by many successful companies on the internet.
WordPress currently powers websites like Tech Crunch, The New Yorker, BBC America, Bloomberg Professional, Sony Music, Beyonce, Microsoft News Center, Time Inc, The Mozilla Blog, and many more top organizations.
The platform also has the biggest online community support with tons of extensions, plugins, themes, and documentations. WordPress is highly recommended for those who want to take blogging as a business.
Frequently Asked Questions
What to look for in blogging Platforms
Price
This is the most important factor to consider before choosing a blogging platform. For instance, it’s best to go for free microblogging platforms like Tumblr or Medium if:
- You’re not expecting to make any revenue from your blog
- You’re a newbie
- You can’t afford web hosting
- You don’t mind the limitations that come with free blogging platforms
Ease of Use
This is another important factor to consider if you’re a beginner. As a newbie, you want to focus on delivering high-quality content to your audience rather than spending considerable time writing codes or fixing server issues. In this case, you may want to try blog site builders like Wix or Weebly.
Coding Skills
With advanced tech skills, you can customize your blog with more features. If you have some decent coding skills, you may want to try advanced blogging platforms like WordPress or Joomla, or Blogger.
Revenue
All platforms do a fine job to help you monetize your blog. However, if you’re serious about making money, open-source blogging platforms like WordPress or Joomla are highly recommended.
Ownership
A limitation that comes with all free blogging platforms is ownership rights. For example, when you create a free blog with blogger.com, your blog name would look like this – blogamigo.blogspot.com. To get a unique name, you would have to purchase and configure a unique domain name to have blogamigo.com.
Even after you buy your domain name, as long as you’re using their free service, they have absolute ownership of your content. This can be a big deal. How? If their service shuts down or you breach their terms of service, your blog can be shut down anytime without warning.
Security
Open-source blogging platforms like WordPress or Joomla are vulnerable. Unless you protect your blog with security plugins or services, these open-source blogs can get hacked.
Web Hosting
You will need to get a web hosting service to run opens source blogging platforms like WordPress or Joomla. This can come at a heavy cost depending on how much traffic you’re getting.
In addition, web hosting service providers do have downtime where your blog can be temporarily unavailable. More so, you have to pay for your own security. However, free blogging platforms like Wix, Blogger, Tumblr provide you the maximum security at no extra cost to you.
Extra Features
Open-source blogging platforms like WordPress and Joomla enjoy a massive community of developers who contribute to development by creating plugins and extra functionalities and documentation.
These extra benefits help bloggers maximize their blog’s potential. Themes, plugins, and code snippets extend the basic functionalities of your blog to create a more unique and customized blogging experience for you and your readers.
Conclusion
The blogging platform you decide to use depends on your needs.
- If you want to try completely free microblogging platforms with some social network features, we recommended Tumblr or Medium.
- If you’re a newbie blogger who wants a unique platform you can call your own, we recommend you start with free blog site builders such as Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, and other blog site builders. You can scale your blog over time with premium features.
- If you want to blog as a business, we recommend open-source blogging platforms like WordPress, Joomla, Jekyll, Ghost, or any similar open-source blogging platforms.
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