Blogging platforms are communication systems with a broadcast format that enable anyone to publish articles, opinions, or product reviews. These can be distributed through the blogger's website, feed syndicating systems, and social networks.
Bloggers can publish a post, display the date it was published, and assign an author to the post using blogging platforms. These software or web-based services also enable users to categorize content, making it easier to locate all blog posts pertaining to a particular topic. Additionally, these platforms enable users to identify posts with multiple keywords as an additional means of searching for specific topics.
A blog-based Content Management System (CMS) like WordPress, which enables the creation of both static web pages and a blog that can be consistently updated, is the most popular arrangement among experienced bloggers at present.
Utilizing a blogging platform facilitates blog optimization for search engines, which is its primary benefit. Metadata fields, which you must fill out on platforms, provide information about your blog to search engines. This section contains the post's title, description, and associated keywords.
There are advantages and disadvantages to all blogging platforms, but at the time of writing, these are the best available.
CMS Hub: Best for Marketers
Drupal: Best for Developers
Medium is best for its built-in audience;
Squarespace is best all-in-one platform;
Weebly is best for e-commerce blogging;
WordPress is best for customization; and
Wix is best for drag-and-drop functionality.
CMS Hub is a HubSpot-developed, fee-based content management system. It is used to create, publish, and administer website content for businesses. It includes a drag-and-drop editor that makes it easy to create and update web pages, in addition to a variety of other tools for managing website content.
HubSpot's CMS Hub aims to enable developers to construct with flexible themes and content structures, marketers to independently modify and create pages, and consumers to receive a personalized, secure experience.
Drupal is a free, PHP-based, open-source, GNU General Public License-distributed web content management system. With Drupal's multisite functionality, it is possible to share resources across multiple websites, making it ideal for organizations, Managed Service Providers, and designers who manage multiple client resources.
Drupal has an advantage over other content management systems because virtually anyone can contribute to a website without knowing HTML. It is an ideal system for larger organizations because editors, writers, and website administrators with no computing experience do not notice any differences.
Medium is the only website that allows anyone to publish articles and receive instantaneous payment. Due to its combination of amateur and professional users and publications, the platform is an example of social journalism.
There is a modest monthly or annual subscription fee, and a portion of this fee is distributed to the authors each member reads the most each month.
Squarespace is a software-as-a-service website creation and hosting platform that provides users with pre-built website templates and drag-and-drop elements to create and modify webpages.
Squarespace is an all-encompassing CMS. You can create a website or blog, host your content, register your own domain name, sell products, and monitor your site's analytics, among other features, with a single subscription.
Weebly: Weebly, which Square now owns, is a basic CMS with blogging and eCommerce capabilities. It can be used to construct both standard and e-commerce-specific web pages.
The free online website builder provided by Weebly employs a widget-based, browser-based site builder. Each website's mobile version is generated automatically, and all site elements are dragged-and-dropped.
The free account includes the site builder and 500 MB of storage, but your website will include Weebly advertisements and be hosted on a subdomain (i.e. sitename.weebly.com).
The fee-based service is marginally cheaper than the majority of alternatives.
WordPress: WordPress can be hosted on a third-party server or hosted on your own server.
Wordpress is available for free, and there are numerous templates that can be customized. It includes a large number of modules that you can install yourself, in addition to spam blocking and integrated statistics.
Wix: Wix is an all-inclusive website builder that allows you to create attractive websites rapidly, even if you lack design or coding expertise. Wix is well-known among entrepreneurs, small business proprietors, and bloggers.
If you intend to write a large number of blogs and maintain an online store, Wix does offer affordable plans. Wix offers hundreds of design templates, integrated search engine optimization (SEO), and a comprehensive set of in-demand features that allow you to create a functional and attractive online presence.
Blogger is a free, hosted blogging platform. While Blogger lacks some of the usability of other platforms, it makes up for it with features like the Audioblogger service, which allows you to create audio recordings for your blog using your mobile phone. In addition, you can upload Blogger to your own website, so visitors will be unaware that you are using Blogger.
WordPress.com and WordPress.org
As the readership of your blog grows, you will likely need to modify the site's aesthetics and add more functionality to accommodate the expanding audience. Consequently, it is essential to select a flexible blogging platform with room for growth. Starting out on the incorrect platform can make subsequent movement difficult, but not impossible.
WordPress.org is the world's most popular blogging platform. It is twenty years old and is utilized by over 43% of all websites on the internet.
It is easy to conflate WordPress.com and WordPress.org, causing users to choose the wrong blogging platform for their needs. Even those who acknowledge that they are separate platforms are oblivious of their differences.
WordPress.org is the pervasive website platform for which you have only heard praise. Open-source software is entirely accessible to everyone. The only requirements are a domain name and web hosting. Consequently, it is also referred to as self-hosted WordPress. WordPress.org gives you complete control over your website. You are free to do as you please and to make as many changes as necessary.
Automattic, the company founded by WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, created the WordPress.com hosting service. Due to their shared origin, WordPress.com and WordPress.org are frequently confused by users.