Want to Start a New Blog? Pick the Best Blogging Platform
Blogs and blogging have become so popular in a social outlet. When you are not from the coding background, it is quite difficult to set up a website from scratch. On the other hand, setting a blog on online platform help you to impart knowledge with the public as well as merely for personal use.
But as a newcomer choosing the best blogging platform is a tough choice. Since there are numerous alternatives out there, some top blogging platforms are listed below
WordPress
World’s most popular host WordPress is an open source free blogging platform. As a beginner, you might find this blog host a touch bewildering initially.
However, it’s easy to manage tools, customization helps you to rapidly create a new blog entirely for free. Now there are two options available on the internet: wordpress.org where you can install the software on your own web server and wordpress.com that offer complete services on a single platform.
Popular Stats: WordPress powers 33.6% of all websites on the internet as per sources. Plus it holds a 60.5% global market share for content management systems. Initially released in 2003, WordPress is among the famous platforms on the web.
Blogger
Sign in with your Google id, and you can run a blog within a second. Blogger is a free service offered by Google to blog creators which is quick and easy for non-tech-savvy users.Before starting any blog, you should consider the niche for it and then target the keywords for it. You should also be cleared about the type of SEO you want to do for your blog, like local SEO or global SEO.
You can customize your blog with different themes and almost 60 languages available. Also, you can choose to create your own templates using CSS. Blogger also offers its services through mobile devices. You can post and edit blogs via smart small devices in your hands.
Popular Stats: According to one report, Blogger is used by 1.3% of all websites. It is the second most popular on the entire internet in the blog category. It was launched in 1999 by Pyra Labs and later owned by Google in 2003.
Tumblr
Tumblr is a micro blogging platform comes up with social networking features that are free and easy to use.
If you like the term re blogging then this is the best one to go for. Tumblr has an integrated social media component for both desktops and for mobile phones. There are also third-party themes and apps are available to purchase to customize your blog. You may optionally allow submitting questions to blog for a response.
Popular Stats: As the recent reports, this part blogging and part social networking platform have almost 463.5 million blog accounts in April 2019. Founded in February 2007, the site was later owned by Yahoo.
Wix
Wix comes up with the HTML5 capabilities and almost 500 designers made templates are available that worth a look. With plenty of additional features and apps, you will get 500 MB storage 1 GB bandwidth in your free Wix account. But if you need extra features, Google Analytics, own domain with an online store and you can go for its premium plans.
Popular Stats: According to the facts, Wix has 110 million users out of which 3.1 million are paid subscribers. This HTML based platform was founded in 2006 and nowadays used in 190 countries around the globe.
Joomla
This open source CMS is another popular choice among blog creators. Joomla is a powerful and flexible platform where you can build any kind of website or blog. It also comes up with web design features including the ability to render HTML for objects/ arrays of data. Joomla is self-hosted solutions and you need a domain name as well as web hosting to use it. You can also customize your blog’s design with the hundreds of templates available on it.
Popular stats: Joomla is 2nd widely used CMS around the world. Till now, it has been downloaded over 97 million times. Founded in 2005, this platform has a global CMS market share of 5.7%
What should be Ideal for you?
If you are novice or a beginner and you do not want to go through trouble of setting up servers and customize it; It is recommended that you should use – WordPress.com or Wix. Hosted Ghost platform can be an option for you too.
Alternatively, If you have played with few blogging platforms, want to take advantage of Google SEO, and you prefer complete control; You can choose to host your own WordPress.org or Blogger account and customize it.
In addition to the above, if you are seasoned and experienced; I would recommend setting up full platform using on premise WordPress.org platform.
One thing to note that, Matt Cutts (head of Google’s SPAM team) went as far as saying that:
WordPress takes care of 80-90% of (the mechanics of) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Concluding Idea
Apart from the above-given blogging platforms, there are numerous other service providers like Weebly, Ghost, LiveJournal, Jekyll, Yola etc. with those you can start your blogging career. A blog is such a short route through you can share your creative ideas with people.
Only you need a skillful mind to write and post prolific content which actually attracts the readers. All the platforms in this article are useful to non-technical blog writers to start as a pro. So, enjoy blogging!
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Co-Authored With
Jackson Edword is a professional writer and an SEO expert. He is working for a web design company los angeles and published several articles on the subject of Web Development and internet marketing.