Blogging is a great way to connect with the world. Whether you blog to express your passion for your hobbies, blog to connect on a personal level with others or blog to help promote a business, it can be a great way to connect with the world. In this article I’ll be reviewing each of the popular blogging sites available today.
Since blogging is much more than writing or posting photos, finding the best platform for your needs is important. You will want to have a platform that is easy to use and provides you with the customization tools you are looking for to give your audience everything they need to read and interact with your blog.
If you have never blogged before, you will want to choose blog platforms that cater to beginners. This means in many cases you will be giving up the option to change HTML or CSS code. If you who have been blogging for a while, these options for coding may be more important to you.
As a blogger you will also have to decide whether you want to pay for the options that come with some platforms or stick to the free platforms that may have less options available. This choice can be determined by what your blog’s focus is and whether you plan to make money from the blog itself.
There are also blogging sites that provide both free and paid services, which can be useful when your small blog turns into a big hit. Here are some of the top blogging sites that are available and the pros and cons of using each to create your next home on the Internet.
THE MAJOR BLOGGING PLATFORMS COMPARED ( FREE & PREMIUM BLOG SITES )
These popular blogging platforms all have positives and negatives, especially when you take into consideration your level of skills as a blogger and as a coder. The longer you blog, the more skills you will pick up, so it is important to either find a platform that meets your needs at the time, or to find a platform that gives you the ability to change the type of services you get to better serve your needs and the needs of your blog’s audience.
The .org version of WordPress provides many of the same features as its .com counterpart, but it also provides additional customization features for any blogger. This WordPress option works out well for folks who want to have complete control over the customization of their blog, but it is not a platform that is easy for beginners to use effectively but there are lots of free and paid options to learn WordPress.
WordPress.org lets you install your own custom plugins and themes to make your blog look exactly how you want. To use this platform for your blog, you will have to find your own web host, perform routine backups and maintain the blog on your own.
For people who are just starting their blogging journey I recommend that they use BlueHost as they offer an easy WordPress installation process, reliable up time and excellent support.
Use this link to get a free domain name with your hosting.
In fact, I use BlueHost for this site and many others that I own.
UPDATE 7th February 2018
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Ghost is an open source blogging platform that provides a simple, clean interface that makes it very easy to use. It also provides a live preview of your post while you are writing it, so you can easily correct any writing or coding mistakes as you go along. This platform can be great for beginners because of its ease of use, but expert bloggers may also prefer it because of its interface compared to other blogging services. The downside to Ghost is that it can be difficult to install at first but once it is, it can be a great tool for any blogger.
Again for running a blog on Ghost you will require web hosting – I recommend BlueHost.
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Drupal is a great option for blogs associated with businesses because it is not just a blogging platform, but a complete content management system. This means that along with your blog, web pages and other online content can be created and organized within this platform. Drupal does not host blogs for users, so bloggers using this platform will have to find their own host someplace else. Drupal is also not a platform that readily accommodates beginners, so it is better for those upgrading from a free blogging platform rather than for the blogger just starting out.
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If you are looking for a full content management system, Joomla is another great option for bloggers. In terms of the ease of use, Joomla may have more of a learning curve than WordPress, but can be much easier to use than Drupal. Many businesses and large corporations prefer this type of platform because it can give you flexibility with a wide range of content options.
Joomla, however, can be expensive. While the first month is free, after that a blogger can be charged anywhere from $20-$100 per month depending on the options and upgrades they want. For many novice bloggers, this can be a high cost unless the blog is attached to an existing business that already generates a profit.
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There are many great platforms out there for starting your own blog. They include sites with customizable HTML and CSS for those with more advanced skills. Medium is a place to share your thoughts and writing with a wide audience. Unlike some of the other blogging platforms, Medium has a built-in audience, which makes it often debatable whether it’s a publisher or a platform.
Signing Up
Individuals or businesses can sign up for a Medium account since it’s free. Those individuals or businesses can publish their own posts, add their voice and style to other publications or curate posts or publications. Publications are collections of posts that are curated by users and Medium itself.
Posting and Commenting
Readers can comment on other’s posts, recommend posts and follow and share their favorites. The process is like many other blogging platforms except Medium has a slight twist on the commenting process. Readers can highlight and focus parts of the text and make their comments in the margins.
Embedding
Medium allows third party embedding from other sites around the web. Creators can embed videos from YouTube or Vimeo. They can add content from Twitter, Vine, Instagram and SoundCloud.
Traffic and Views
On every post, readers get to see how many minutes it would take to read a post. They’ll immediately know whether they have time to read through the story or whether they should bookmark it for later. Another feature on the front page for viewers to see is how many views it’s gotten on the platform. Recommendations and reads are also available to creators. The dashboard allows creators to see where traffic originated from too.
Best Practises to Create Posts
There is no minimum word count for posts, but Medium suggests that content over 400 words are popular. The headline should be compelling and clickable, but should also stick to the topic of your content. They recommend high quality photographs for the content as well.
Great for Beginners
The platform is a terrific starting point for beginners to the blogging world. It’s simple to use and doesn’t require coding knowledge. It’s also used by brands to recycle their content onto another platform to gain further reads and new readers of their content. A highly recommended free blog site for small business owners and freelance professionals.
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When it comes to customization, Squarespace is a platform that offers a wide variety of options. The best part about customizing your blog on this platform is that you can change everything without knowing how to code. It is also a platform that lets your expand your services which is a great option if you are using your blog for your business. The downside to Squarespace for bloggers is that theme and plugin support is not a great as it could be. If you want these options on Squarespace, knowledge of code will be necessary.
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Another blogging platform that is great for businesses who want to maintain a blog on their website is Weebly. This platform provides a wide range of easy-to-use features, including drag and drop options for those who do not want to learn coding to make simply changes. Since Weebly can be used for blogging and web building, business owners find this platform a lot easier to use than other platforms where blogs and websites are created separately. Expert coding options are also not available on this platform. If you are a blogger who wants to be able to change and customize HTML or CSS on the blog, this Weebly makes it difficult to do so because it focuses its services on those who want to quickly create and update a blog without a lot of hassle.
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