When It Comes To Your Online Presence, Are You Blogging ?
Three Reasons You should Blog
1.Visibility
When it comes to a replicated site or a Blog it is essential to be found online with your own valuable content.
When you are found online with your own domain and/or your name it brands yourself as a authority.
Remember that people are looking for answers to solve their most pressing problems. It is good that they find you as that problem solving
go to person for the specific niche that they see value in your online presence.
2.Online Ownership
When you have a hosted blog with content that provides solutions, it will automatically allow the viewer to see you as a professional.
You can easily change or add whatever functionality you want, making WordPress a one-of-a-kind website.
You also can find plugins to grow your email list by using a lead magnet that answers questions your visitor has.
As long as you continue your domain hosting this content is evergreen and will remain in the online space placing you as the owner.
3. Monetization
When you use a free blogging platform, it will not allow you to implement third party advertising or anyway to monetize.
You will want to monetize your blog after all if you are going to be online why not get paid.
You can by selling direct ads or specific products that your audience find as a helpful tool that you recommend as a affiliate of the course or product.
When you use a self-hosted WordPress site, you own your site, and you can monetize it in any way you desire.
8 Blogging Platforms
1. WordPress.org (self-hosted)
This WordPress platform is the most popular blogging platform of them all and is currently powering more than 25 % of the entire web.
Statistics say that one in four platforms are established with this software.
This platform doesn’t cost anything although it’s self-hosted and you must get hosting from another source like Go Daddy Or Host Gator.
The reason I suggest this platform is that they are literally hundreds of themes that is offered with thousands of custom designs,
plugins and extensions. WordPress offers extreme versatility. Also, there are more than 42,000 free plugins in the official directory of this software.
2. WordPress.com (online)
This platform is hosted by WordPress and all you have to do is sign up for a site at WordPress.com and start blogging within minutes.
By default you get a sub domain like whatever.wordpress.com. You can add a custom domain on the free plan although it will cost you $18 a year keeping in mind you can get a paid plan within 3 plans that’s available: $0 – great for basic blogging, $99|year – great for professional blogging, $299| year – great for advanced business solutions
It’s easy to use and has a simple get started guide to assist you and after the setup phase it’s simple to operate.
You have couple of hundreds of themes to choose from, although if you opt in for one of the premium plans, you can the customize the design you’re using. Overall, they don’t have many design options as self-hosted WordPress.
They have features like sharing, stats, and comments that’s included, but no option to install third-party plugins or extensions.
3. Blogger
This is a Google hosted site that has several advantages such as it free and all you have to do is sign up with your standard Google account.
By default, you get a sub domain like whatever.blogspot.com. If you connect to custom domain you will have to acquire it separately. There are no special skills required? Blogger is easy to use although compared to modern solutions like WordPress.com or Medium it hasn’t been updated. You can set it up pretty easy and quick and start blogging.
It has a standard layout editor with a content/sidebar feature. Other than what is mentioned, there’s not much you can do to design your blog.
No external plugins available.
4. Tumblr
This platform is a micro blogging hosted platform with a social network aspect.
It is designed specifically for bloggers who want to publish short-form content, usually considered as micro-blogs.
Sometimes marketers post quotes, images, videos, and animated GIFs.
5. Medium blogging platform
This platform is designed as a publishing platform for your blog posts, stories and articles.
Medium has grown in popularity with more than a million registered people that have joined.
Being a community of writers and bloggers using a model that has the same looking site design.
They share their opinions and stories on various topics.
It doesn’t cost anything to operate and has it’s own hosting included. Your domain isn’t included and everyone is published under a profile
like ( medium.com/@name/). Lately they have allowed their users to hook up their own domains to individual stories. all you have to do is sign up and start publishing your stories/posts. There’s nothing to learning how to operate Medium. Also, there isn’t any plugins or extensions.
6. Ghost
Ghost was created to have a design that was a simpler version of WordPress. This platform was to just be a blogging platform, without all the advanced content management features that was introduced in WordPress.
It has a free version that you can download and a pro version that the cost ranges from $8 to $200 all depending on the number of blogs that you desire to run and the traffic volume that you’re expecting.
If you get the free downloaded version then it’s up to you to find a hosting and install the software there.
When you get the pro version, hosting is included.
Using the platform on a daily basis is very easy to grasp too, although the software can be a little cumbersome.
You can get different themes with a small price and can also find premium themes online.
This technology already has a built in SEO, social media, and comments section. There isn’t any external plugins for Ghost.
Still this isn’t the best platform to build a pro-blog or a business blog with. The software lacks some important features, and is really a beta project overall.
7. Squarespace
Squarespace is one of the best all-in-one website building solutions out there. It is used to launch blogs, business sites, and e-commerce stores.
Fun fact, Squarespace is the only platform on this list that invested in a Super Bowl ad (twice).
This platform is Subscription-based charging a range of $8-$24 / month.
Hosting is available with a custom domain that comes with your subscription.
You get a custom domain with your subscription.
You can arrange your blog content however you like through a drag-and-drop feature.
You have several modern designs to choose from.
You also have a range of the most important features built-in with external plugins available through another source.
8. Wix blog platform
Wix is designed and setup like Squarespace, but somewhat different.
It offers similar features in terms of its website-building and blog-building ability, but the execution is of a slightly different style.
It is based like Squarespace with a subscription price that ranges from $0-$18 / month.
Hosting is included with a monthly subscription and by default you will get a sub-domain like ( whatever.wix.com)
If you already own a custom domain you can add it.
With Wix launching a new website is easy. Although you will have to go through a couple of additional steps to add the blog module.
Wix has a step-by-step wizard to walk you through the whole process.
There are more than 500 designs that are available within there choices.
There are several site management features built-in, also you can extend your site through the Wix App Market.
