How to Choose the Best Blogging Platforms?
By: Manoranjan Sahoo
Tags: Blogging Tips, Blog, Blogging, Blogging Platform, Blogger

Do you want to earn money online? Blogging is the best way to earn money online. And to start blogging, you need the Best Blogging Platform where you can create your bog.

There are many blogging sites, where you can start your blog. Some blog sites are free and some are paid.

But it is very important to choose the best blogging sites where you can take your blogging career to the next level.

If you are new to the blogging world, you do not know which blogging platform will be right for you, then we will help you here in choosing the right platform.

Why is it important to choose the Best Blogging Platform?

There are a lot of reasons to choose the right platform.

If you are new to the blogging world, then you have to learn all the essential things about blogging, a good platform gives you the opportunity to understand blogging very well.

A good platform should be one that is easy to set up.

It is very difficult for a new blogger to set up a blog due to a lack of prior knowledge. Therefore, a platform should be user-friendly which will help to set up the blog.

Earning money is the goal of almost every blogger. Nowadays blogging has become a popular way to earn money online. So you should choose a platform that will help you to make money from your blog.

If you want to make blogging your career, then You should have complete control over your blog. Many Blogging platforms give you full control, to design and customize your blog the way you want to show the audience.

Types of Blogging Platforms

There are various types of blogging platforms.

Free

Free blogging platforms have some limitations. These are very limited in customizing and designing. You can’t design your blog the way you want to show your audience.

These are very limited in monetization.

These are not suitable for professional bloggers. But these are perfect for personal bloggers who want to share their hobbies and interests.

Paid (Website Builder)

The website builder is suitable for those who do not have much knowledge of blog set up, coding especially for new bloggers. They just want to show their works on a good looking and easy setup website.

These platforms are not free but web hosting, a domain name (for a specific period) is included with the website subscription.

Open Source

Open Source platforms are flexible to customize and design. Bloggers are free to design their website the way they want to show the audience.

It’s a little tough to design a blog, but when you learn to use and customize, it becomes very easy. To create a blog on open source platforms, you need a Domain name, web hosting, a blog theme, and essential plugins.

Best Blogging Platforms to start your blog

WordPress.org

WordPress.org is a free and open-source blogging platform.

It is the most popular platform in the world to create your own blog or website. It started on May 27, 2003.

With WordPress you can create websites like forums, media galleries, online stores, learning websites, business websites, professional websites. WordPress is used by more than 60 million websites.

Many famous bloggers, businesses use these platforms to create their powerful websites.

It is a little difficult in the beginning, but when you learn to use it, it becomes very easy to customize and design your website.

WordPress gives full control over your websites.

Advantages:

It is easy to set up

It’s a completely self-hosting platform. You can use it the way you want to show your blog.

You are free to build anything you want with its beautiful design and powerful features.

Easy to customize and design

You can rank your blog content with SEO Friendly tools.

With its high-performance features, It is responsive for mobile Sites and blogs.

It is the best place to keep data safe from malware with its highly secure and powerful management system.

There are more than 58,000 plugins available on WordPress, you can use those plugins to enhance your site.

Pricing & Plans

WordPress.org is a free open-source blogging platform to use. But you need to purchase some essential things for your blog.

To create a blog on WordPress, you just need the below essential things:

A domain name that costs around $8 to $15 (₹600 to ₹1000) per year.

A web hosting that costs around $3 to $7 per month and $40 to $80 (₹3000 to ₹6000) per year.

WordPress theme that costs around $40 to $50 (around ₹4000) yearly subscription. There are more than 7900 free themes available on WordPress, you can also use a free theme for your blog.

You can get many SEO optimization tools here that can help you to rank your blog.

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is a modified version of WordPress.org. It was established in November 2005, owned by Automattic, Inc.

It is a self-publishing platform that offers free hosting to users. Around 39% of the web is using WordPress.com. You can create any kind of website here without any knowledge of coding.

When you create your blog in it, wordPress.com will be added with the blog name and your blog URL will be https://yourblogname.wordpress.com.

If you use the paid version, you will get a custom domain name and your blog URL will be https://yourblogname.com.

Advantages:

You can easily set up your blog without any coding or technical knowledge.

You can make a free blog here without spending any money.

With paid plans, you can get your own custom domain name.

You can create beautiful and attractive blogs with professional themes and pro layouts.

Without any designing knowledge, you can create a great looking website with Photo carousels, tiled image galleries, maps, forms.

Here you can get SEO and Social media tools that will help you to grow your readers and audience.

Limitations:

If you use the free version then you will get a subdomain, and your URL will be like https://yourblogname.wordpress.com.

WordPress.com has some limited options. So you can’t use custom plugins and themes. You can only use themes and plugins available on WordPress.com.

WordPress.com only shows ads to monetize your blog. You can not use other platforms to monetize.

WordPress.com will control your blog. If you violate the terms and conditions, they will suspend your blog.

Pricing and plans

You will get 5 different plans in WordPress.com with different features.

Free plan

You only get a subdomain name and access to all free themes with 3 GB storage space.

You can start a blog but the free plan has some limitations. You only get a Pre‑Installed SSL Certificate and Jetpack Essential Features to access detailed records of all activity on your site.

Personal plan

The personal plan comes with ₹200 per month, and the yearly subscription will be ₹2400 (Discounted price is ₹160, and the yearly subscription is ₹1920).

In this plan, you will get some additional features with the free plan. Additional features are:

A free custom domain name for one year

Unlimited mail support

6 GB storage space

You can remove WordPress.com Ads

Premium plan

The premium plan comes with ₹350 per month, and the yearly subscription will be ₹4200 (Discounted price is ₹280, and the yearly subscription is ₹3360).

In this plan you will get some additional features with a personal plan:

Live support to solve issues on your website

13 GB Storage Space

Access to unlimited premium themes and advanced design customization

Paypal integration

Access to monetize through WordPress.com word ads

Advance social media features, video uploading, and stats

Google analytics integration

Business plan

The business plan comes with ₹800 per month, and the yearly subscription will be ₹9600 (Discounted price is ₹640, and the yearly subscription is ₹7680).

In this plan, you will get some additional features with the Premium plan to power your business. Additional features are:

24/7 Priority Live Chat Support

SEO tools to rank bog contents on search engines

Business-class features with installing a plugin and uploading custom themes

200 GB Storage Space

eCommerce plan

eCommerce plan comes with ₹1440 per month, and the yearly subscription will be ₹17280 (Discounted price is ₹1152, and the yearly subscription is ₹13824).

In this plan, you will get some additional features with the business plan to create a powerful eCommerce store. Additional features are:

Expert live session

Access to all advanced eCommerce features

Wix.com

Wix is the best blogging platform that provides drag-and-drop tools to build a beautiful and great looking website for bloggers and small businesses.

Wix was founded in 2006 by Israeli developers Avishai Abrahami, Nadav Abrahami, and Giora Kaplan. As of June 2020, Wix has more than 180 million users from 190 countries around the world.

Wix is the best website builder suitable for beginners who don’t have any prior designing knowledge. You can create, customize, and design your blog using its templates and third-party applications.

Advantages

You can customize your blog with more than 500 pre-designed stunning templates.

Change or add anything to your site with its Drag-and-Drop tools.

Make your site mobile friendly with its mobile responsive editor.

Limitations

If you use its free version then you will use Wix’s subdomain. Your URL will be http://yourusername.wixsite.com/yoursitename.

Wix ads will display on every page and Wix’s favicon will show on your site with the free version.

You only get 500 MB of storage space for your site in the free version.

Pricing & Plans

Wix.com has 8 different plans.

Free Plan

With the free plan, you will get:

An Assigned URL (username.wixsite.com/sitename)

Wix ads will show on your blog

Storage and Bandwidth up to 500 MB

Website Plans Connect Domain Plan

Cost: ₹80/month (around $1.1/month) and the yearly subscription will be ₹960 ($13).

In this plan, you can connect your domain name.

Combo Plan

Cost: ₹125/month (around $1.7/month) and the yearly subscription will be ₹1500 (around $21).

This plan is best for personal use.

In this plan, you will get a custom domain name, storage space of 3 GB, a bandwidth of 2GB, and Wix ads will be removed.

Unlimited Plan

Cost: ₹185/month (around $2.5/month) and the yearly subscription will be ₹2220 (around $30).

This plan is best for Entrepreneurs & Freelancers.

In this plan, you will get unlimited bandwidth and increases storage space.

VIP Plan

Cost: ₹325/month (around $4.4/month) and the yearly subscription will be ₹3900 (around $53).

In this plan, you will get all features of Unlimited Plan, some additional storage space, First Priority VIP Support from Wix.

Business Plans Business Basic Plan

Cost: ₹225/month (around $3/month) and the yearly subscription will be ₹2700 (around $37).

In this plan, you will get all features of Unlimited Plan, and you can accept online payments

Business Unlimited Plan

Cost: ₹300/month (around $4/month) and the yearly subscription will be ₹3600 (around $49).

In this plan, you will get all business basic features with increased storage and Pro eCommerce Features.

Business VIP Plan

Cost: ₹500/month (around $7/month) and the yearly subscription will be ₹6000(around $81).

In this plan, you will get all business unlimited features plus increased storage space, Full Suite, VIP, and priority support.

Blogger.com

Blogger is a self-publishing blogging platform with free web hosting provided by Google.

Blogger was founded in 1999 by Pyra Labs co-founder Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan and later acquired by Google in 2003.

It’s completely free to use. You don’t need any hosting provider to create a blog here, because Google provides free hosting in it.

You only need a domain name for your blog. Otherwise, you can use the name of your blog as a subdomain. Your blog URL will be like https://yourblogname.blogspot.com.

Advantages:

Blogger is easy to use for new bloggers.

It’s completely free to use without any hosting provider. Only a domain name is required for a custom domain name.

It is the best blogging platform for beginner bloggers who don’t have any knowledge about blogging.

You can customize your blog with Blogger’s free themes, easy-to-use templates, flexible layouts, and hundreds of background images. You can use third party blogging themes.

You can get a free SSL certificate here.

You can use Google AdSense to monetize your blog.

Limitations:

Blogger has some limited features. You can’t use advanced features like WordPress to customize or design your site.

You can only use Third-party blog themes that are of low quality. You can’t use plugins to your site.

Blogger is not suitable for professional and business websites.

You can only use Google AdSense to monetize your site with limited features. You can’t use other monetized methods in it.

Pricing & Plans

Blogger is completely free. You can purchase a custom domain name that costs around ₹400 to ₹800 ($5 to $10) per year.

If you want to use a third party premium theme, then you have to spend only ₹700 to ₹1500 ($10 to $20). Otherwise, you can use free third party themes.

Tumblr.com

Tumblr is a social networking and microblogging platform founded in 2007 by David Karp. Now, this platform is owned by Automattic Inc.

You can post your content in various formats such as Text, Photos, Quotes, Link, Chat, Audio, and Video format.

You can make your private blog here. So far, Tumblr has 512 million blogs.

Advantages:

It’s completely easy to use.

You don’t need any spend any month to create a blog on Tumblr. But you can connect a custom domain of your own.

Tumblr has 7 post types, You can post anything you want.

It is suitable for beginner and personal bloggers.

Limitations:

Tumblr has limited features. You can’t grow your blog on a professional level.

You can customize or design your blog with available themes on Tumblr.

Pricing & Plans

Tumblr is completely free.

If you want to use a custom domain name then you can purchase a custom domain name that costs around ₹400 to ₹800 ($5 to $10) per year.

Medium

Medium is a social journalism publishing platform where you can get the best ideas, thinking to understand the world from professionals, experts.

Anyone can write on Medium. Individuals, experts, journalists, bloggers, anyone can share their thinking.

Medium was founded in August 2012 by Evan Williams who developed Blogger and Twitter. So far, more than 170 million readers reading articles on it.

Advantages:

Medium is easy to use and easy to set up.

Medium is the best platform that helps both readers to grow their knowledge and writers to share their ideas with millions of readers.

It is a digital publication where you can repost your content free of cost.

Limitations:

You can’t use your custom domain name. Your profile URL will be like https://yourusername.medium.com/ and your publication URL will be https://medium.com/publication name.

It has limited features to earn money from it. You can’t run ads to earn money. You can only monetize your Medium blog with Medium’s Partner Program.

Pricing & Plans

Medium is free to use. But it has a membership program that costs $5/month or $50/year.

You will get the benefit of unlimited access to every premium story.

Weebly

Weebly is a power website builder that helps businesses to grow their business online. It was founded in 2006 by David Rusenko, Chris Fanini, Dan Veltri. Weebly was acquired by Square, Inc in 2018.

Weebly’s free online website creator uses a simple widget-based site builder that operates in the web browser.

Weebly gives a drag-and-drop powerful tool to create your blog.

Advantages:

You can create a beautiful website with its customizable webpage designs and useful drag and drop tools.

If you want to create an online store on Weebly, then with the help of Weebly you can create a beautiful store and with the help of Square, you collect payments from your customer.

Limitations:

In the free plan, you will get a domain name with Weebly branding.

Very limited features available in it compared to WordPress.org.

You can’t use third-party apps in it.

Pricing & Plans

Weebly has different plans like Free, Connect, Pro, Business, and Business Plus.

Free Plan

You will use basic features like 500 MB storage, Free SSL Certificate, Domain with Weebly branding.

Connect Plan

Cost: $5 per month, billing will be made for $60 as a one-time payment.

In the connect plan, you can able to connect with a custom domain name.

Pro Plan

Pro plan is suitable for groups and organizations.

Cost: $12 per month, billing will be made for $144 as a one-time payment.

Business Plan

A business plan is suitable for small businesses and online stores.

Cost: $25 per month, billing will be made for $300 as a one-time payment.

Business Plus Plan

The business plus plan comes with a Business plan and some extra power selling features.

Squarespace

Squarespace is a website builder that provides website building opportunities to beginners with its drag and drop tools.

It also the best blogging platform for small businesses, photographers, artists, designers, and all creative bloggers who want to show their creativity and idea.

Squarespace was founded in 2004 by Anthony Casalena.

Advantages:

Squarespace is easy to use for new bloggers.

With the help of Squarespace, users can create websites like portfolio, blog, online store, personal, events & weddings, small business, etc.

You can create a beautifully designed blog using drag and drop tools, professional templates, and designed fonts. You can also add your favorite third party extensions to it.

Pricing & Plans

Squarespace comes with different plans like Personal, Business, Basic Commerce, and Advanced Commerce.

Personal Plan

Cost: $12 per month. You will get 25% off when it will be billed annually.

With this plan you will get unlimited storage space and bandwidth, a Free SSL certificate, SEO features, designed and mobile responsive templates, extensions to manage and optimize your online business.

Business Plan

Cost: $18 per month. You will get 30% off when it will be billed annually.

With this plan, you will get all features of a personal plan, and additionally professional email from Google, premium web blocks, marketing features, some eCommerce features to sell the products.

Basic Commerce Plan

Cost: $26 per month. You will get 13% off when it will be billed annually.

With this plan, you will get all features of the business plan, and additionally, some powerful E-Commerce analytics and marketing tools, and social media tagging features.

Advanced Business Plan

Cost: $40 per month. You will get 13% off when it will be billed annually.

With this plan, you will get all features of the basic commerce plan, and additionally, you will get all eCommerce features to grow your online business.

Final Thoughts

Choosing the best blogging platform depends on you, depends on your work, and on your area of work.

If you are a beginner blogger, and you do not have much knowledge about blogging, then I would advise you to start your own blog on Blogger.com.

Why I’m telling you to start your blog on Blogger? Because Blogger is a self-hosting blogging platform managed by Google.

This is a free platform in which you do not have to spend single money. You can start a free personal blog on it for learning purposes.

You will learn about blogging in it such as how to create a blog, how to do SEO, how to create custom pages, how to customize a blog, and more.

When you learn all this then you need to go to a professional level and Blogger is not suitable for professional bloggers who want to share their knowledge, ideas.

For professional blogging, WordPress.org is the best blogging platform. You can create here every type of website. You need to invest here some money for a domain name, good hosting, professional-looking themes, and essential plugins.

If you are looking for an alternative to WordPress, then Wix is the best platform.

If you want to create an online store then Squarespace is the best alternative for WordPress.

If you want to share your ideas, knowledge then Medium is the best alternative.

Choose the best blogging platform according to your need.

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