According to a recent study by Hubspot, almost 80% of companies who use blogs as a neighborhood of their marketing tactics, report having acquired new customers through their blogging efforts.
Another 82% of companies responded that maintaining an educative and informative blog is crucial to promoting their business. It’s an incontrovertible fact that regardless of what line of business you’re in if you’ve got a web store, you ought to definitely have a blog alongside it.
Fortunately for us, with the supply of tools out there, anybody can start with a web blog.
It really doesn’t matter what proportion the technical knowledge you’ve got.
Suppose you’re a stay-at-home mom who’s recently got a while on her hands, especially when the youngsters are asleep. you would like to contribute to the household and you think that your hobbies might actually bring good business ideas.
Suppose you wish baking and you started selling cakes online. You’ve uploaded a couple of juicy recipes and you think that they’re going to sell well.
Now that you’ve built it, you’re expecting orders to return in. But you don’t want to stay waiting, you would like to urge more orders, right?
This is where having a blog comes in – for instance, you’ll write on baking, cakes, sugar, spice, and everything nice.
What do you have to Choose?
So, How Will, The Blog Help Your Business?
Table of Contents
1. IT HELPS YOUR SEO
If you’ve got good SEO, your website is certain to point out among the primary few search results. Blogs are an ideal way of targeting keywords relevant to your industry, and over time, the more relevant content you’ve got on your website, the higher its SEO rankings are getting to get.
Better SEO means more visibility means more traffic means more potential customers. Therefore if you write a blog post like “How to form a Blueberry Cake”, you’ll be targeting tons of individuals who want to find out the way to make or buy blueberry cakes.
They’ll land thereon article of yours then maybe they’ll buy a cake (or a recipe book!).
2. IT ESTABLISHES YOU AS AN AUTHORITY
If you often churn out informative and academic blogs, people will start to know that you simply know what you’re talking about. for instance, if you’ll write intimately about what goes into making a cake, people are more likely to believe that your cakes will taste good.
Gradually people start to actually value your opinions and begin thinking of you as an expert on the subject. At now, you’ll be referred to as a reliable source of data, which can further boost your popularity on online.
3. HELPS WITH CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS
Most of the guides and some other informative articles are free content that you are providing to your customers. In some ways, it’s an excellent thanks to building relationships with new customers.
It’s a superb thanks to gain your audience’s trust and keep your leads warm.
How To Choose the simplest Blogging Platform
There are many services out there with varying learning curves. If you’re a beginner without a technical background, you’ll want to start out off with something straightforward.
As your blog matures, you’ll also want the liberty to feature in additional features and customizations to raised monetize your blog.
It all boils right down to how serious you’re about running your blog and the way much time you’re willing to place into the style it. during this guide, we’ll undergo the pros and cons of every platform in order that you’ll find just the proper one for your needs.
So here is our list of the simplest blogging platforms for a beginner.
1. Self-hosted WordPress (WordPress.org)
WordPress is far and away, the foremost popular tool on this list, as quite 32% of internet sites online are using WordPress – not just blogs; all websites.
There are two versions of WordPress. during this case, we’ll be that specialize in WordPress.org. WordPress.org is that the self-hosted, open-source version. and everyone you would like to try to do is download the WordPress software then install it on a server. Here may be a nifty checklist on how you’ll start creating your WordPress site!
WORDPRESS.ORG PRICING
It’s a self-hosted service, which suggests WordPress won’t provide you a server or a website. Thus, albeit the service is free, you’ll still need to buy an internet server and name.
However, there are many hosting plans available on the web (some of which start as low as $6 per month), and a website name will cost you about $15 a year.
Check out Bluehost, HostGator Cloud, Siteground, or WPX Hosting.
Apart from that, WordPress also features a lot of themes and plugins which require to be purchased. None of those are absolutely essential, but purchasing them can assist in giving that extra polish on your website to form it substantially more legitimate.
WordPress is popular because it’s super easy to start out with, completely customizable, and you’ll have complete control over your website. Let’s take a better check out the pros and cons.
PROS
-WordPress allows you to completely customize the entire look and feel of your website to suit whatever fits your brand image. you furthermore may have literally, thousands of themes to settle on from.
-WordPress is often easily monetized because you’ll add features like forums, online stores, and paid membership. There are not any restrictions in the least on what payment methods you would like to permit or what payment gateways you would like to try to to it through.
-You get access to many free plugins like contact forms, galleries, or analytics. the entire number of plugins available are overflow 50,000.
-It is excellent for SEO. WordPress is excellently optimized for SEO, and plugins make it even more so. you will have no issues whatsoever organizing your website’s categories in an SEO friendly way then arising with SEO optimized links, URLs, meta tags, etc.
CONS
-Backup, security and everything else is entirely up to you. Because it is free software, there’s no team of engineers searching for you.
-It’ll take you a while to urge users to the way everything is laid out, and therefore the learning curve takes a while to master.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON WORDPRESS.ORG
WordPress is the clear leader of the pack with a majority of internet sites being designed with it. WordPress is our pick for the simplest blogging platform.
However, simply because it’s the simplest doesn’t mean it’s the simplest. There’s a learning curve to work things out on WordPress, and you’ll get to spend a while to fiddle around some settings to urge WordPress to seem exactly such as you want.
2. Wix
You’ll likely have seen a billboard for Wix on YouTube. Wix is basically known for building websites, however, it doesn’t have a blogging module. Wix hosts your website for you, and you don’t get to purchase a website or a server.
They started up back in 2006 and features a user base of 110 million worldwide. the rationale for its popularity is straightforward – it’s super easy to use. it’s simple drag and drop tools that allow you to add items to your website, otherwise, you can select any item and customize it how you would like.
This saves you the difficulty and money of hiring an internet designer. As far as ease-of-use cares, Wix is even easier than WordPress. WordPress features a visual editor, but no drag-and-drop functionality.
On top of that, Wix has about 500 pre-made templates for you to settle on from. These templates are grouped into eCommerce, hobbies like arts & crafts, or personal, etc. you’ll further customize the designs using built-in tools.
The only problem is, once you select a template, you can’t change it easily.
WIX PRICING
Wix gives you the choice of getting a free account, but it comes with several caveats. First of all, your website name will show up like this:
https://yourname.wixsite.com/pagename
Your website also will have the Wix branding thereon, and it’ll show ads for Wix. Also, if you would like to form money out of your blog or website, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
There are many plans ranging from $11 and rising to $35 per month. the foremost popular though is that the $25/month Business Unlimited Plan. It gives you unlimited bandwidth, a free domain, and Wix’s marketing tool called Wix Ascend.
But most significantly, it provides you eCommerce features that permit you to create your own online store.
PROS
-Super easy setup, no coding knowledge required.
-Plenty of themes and drag-and-drop allows you to customize your websites the way you would like.
-You don’t get to buy a server or domain.
CONS
-Does not have many plugins and third-party apps as WordPress
-Free account prominently displays Wix branding.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON WIX.COM
Wix is great if you would like to leap into the sport as fast as possible. But it’s worth remembering, Wix is primarily an internet site building platform and blogs aren’t the main focus here.
If you would like to urge your website up and running ASAP, definitely accompany WIX since it’s far and away the simplest to use, while still supplying you with room to grow your blog.
3.BLOGGER BY GOOGLE
Blogger is perhaps the oldest blogging platform, which was launched way back in 1999. In 2003, Google acquired it and made it their own.
As a result, anyone with a Google account can use Blogger to form a blog that can have a URL like this: yourname.blogspot.com. it’s totally free, and you’ll start during a matter of minutes!
Blogger is primarily for people that just want an outlet for his or her stories because it’s all very fundamental and bare-bones. you’ll upload custom themes and widgets, but there isn’t much to figure with. If you recognize enough javascript, you’ll also edit the ASCII text file.
By logging onto Blogger, you get access to a dashboard that performs analytics of your blog and tracks the number of tourists, what posts are hottest, etc.
BLOGGER PRICING
You don’t need a website, a server, or a hosting plan – which makes it a 100% free solution. But that’s because you don’t truly own the content you’re writing – it’s on Google’s servers.
What this also means if you can’t use the blog to sell anything online, it’s simply a medium for posting content. You can, however, enable Google Adsense and make money off ads.
PROS
-You’ll be ready to create content immediately during a matter of minutes.
-There is no learning curve, and you will not need any technical skills to maneuver it.
-It is absolutely liberal to use.
CONS
-Lack of plugins and advanced features.
-Limited design options.
-Due to the shortage of updates, Blogger’s future is uncertain.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON BLOGGER
The primary problem with Blogger is that albeit it’s an excellent platform to urge started, you can’t really repose on it an excessive amount of due to the shortage of features and functionalities.
Ultimately, as you become more popular, otherwise you want to monetize your blog, you’ll need to advance to other blogging platforms that permit more customizations and add-ons.
4.GATOR BY HOSTGATOR
Hostgator may be a popular web hosting company that also features a website builder. you’ll even just use the hosting service to host a WordPress Blog.
But if you would like, you’ll also go the entire 10 yards with Gator itself.
The Gator tool is another drag-and-drop function which you’ll use to make any sort of website – business, or blogs. On top of that, you get specific templates for several different types of internet sites, making it a reasonably good option if you would like full control but without the training curve of WordPress.
However, the simplest bit is that they need their own inbuilt analytics and optimization software! Social sharing tools and G-suite productivity tools also are a part of the discount. You don’t need any separate plugins for that.
HOSTGATOR PRICING
They have 3 Kinds of plans – which is: the starter ($3.84/mo), the premium ($5.99/mo) and eCommerce ($9.22/mo). All of them provide free name registration for 12 months, unmetered bandwidth, and access to analytics.
PROS
-Easy to line up, no coding knowledge required.
-HostGator takes care of performance, security, and backup.
-All plans include SSL certificates
CONS
-No free accounts.
-A limited number of extensions.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON HOSTGATOR
HostGator features a lot of useful features in it, and if you would like an easy blog which you’ll also use for eCommerce, it’s a reasonably good selection. However, if you would like tons of customization and plugin support, you’re happier with WordPress.
5.MEDIUM
Medium has also emerged as a platform of expression for tons of talented writers, bloggers, journalists, and material experts. it had been launched in 2012 by Evan Williams, who also started up Blogger before it later got acquired by Google.
In some ways, Medium resembles social media as you’ll have a page with a URL like https://medium.com/@yourpagename. you can’t have a website of your own.
On Medium, the main target is on content – hence you’ll publish stories about your brand but not build the brand itself. you’ve got two options: either write and publish posts related to your username or produce a publication, during which case you’ll customize the layout.
As far because the customization goes, you’ll add your brand’s logo, brand colors, or image to the header. For the layout, you’ll choose either a grid or a stream-based layout. That’s the limit of what proportion you’ll personalize your posts.
If you would like to succeed in bent similar minded people or people that are within the same industry as yours, Medium is a superb place to get on. it’s no ads, no distractions, and attracts serious readers who care about the standard of your writing.
MEDIUM PRICING
Medium is completely liberal to use if you’re a publisher! Readers have a subscription model though, where you pay $50 a year, to urge personalized, and well-reviewed content.
How does one Make Money Off Medium?
You need to check-in for the partner program. Once you are doing and you begin writing quality posts that are well-reviewed by Medium’s editors, then your posts will get recommended to subscribed members of Medium.
Whenever these members read or applaud your work, you’ll get paid. all this payment actually comes from the readers themselves, not just through ads or social shares.
PROS
-Easy to use and setup.
–Medium pays you permanently content.
-Allows you to succeed in people of comparable interests and industries.
-You can focus solely on your writing without the remainder of the effort of building an internet site, etc.
CONS
-You can’t start up ads or construct a brand through Medium.
-You don’t own a website.
-Very limited design customizability.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON MEDIUM
Medium is the best platform online for reading high-quality content, little question about it. However, its features are limited than are its money-making capabilities. You don’t either have your own audience or your own domain.
Thus, it’s okay to use Medium for once-in-a-while posts. Your main aim with Medium should be getting into the audience which is already there. If you write a well-informed piece about something they’re curious about, they’ll want to understand who wrote it and eventually find themselves on your website.
6.WORDPRESS.COM BY AUTOMATIC
WordPress.com is that the commercial version of WordPress. In essence, it’s a blog hosting service that supported the WordPress engine. This service is obtainable by Automattic, which may be a company co-founded by WordPress.org founder, Matt Mullenweg.
It was started in 2005 with an aim to bring WordPress to a broader audience – an audience who didn’t want to bother with the advanced features of WordPress.org like hosting your own domain and server and fixing your website.
It was pitched as an all-in-one solution where you merely go, follow the steps, and you’ll be ready to create your own website or blog.
The significant difference is that each one of the main aspects of your website – security, backup, performance- is handled by the WordPress.com team.
As far as customization goes, it’s also far more limited than WordPress.org as you’ll only choose between the themes and templates they need on offer. you’ll also add widgets and menus.
WORDPRESS.COM PRICING
The best thing about WordPress.com is that they allow you to build and host a blog or an internet site completely freed from cost.
However, your URL will appear as if this: yoursite.wordpress.com. it’ll also bear the WordPress watermark and can show ads for WordPress. But the worst bit is that your storage will only be limited to 3GB.
If you would like more room, and you would like to get rid of the ads and you would like to use more advanced features, you’ll need to get one among the paid versions – the private at $4/month, the Premium version at $8/month, and therefore the Business version at $25/ month.
If you’re running an eCommerce store or you’re selling a service, you’d definitely got to utilize third-party plugins for lead generation forms, SEO, etc. That functionality is out there only within the $25 per month plan.
PROS
-Can be employed by newbies and takes little time to line up.
-You will get technical support and also a backup and regular updates.
-You don’t need to affect servers and domains.
-Easy to use and manage.
CONS
-Limited customization options.
-Don’t have complete autonomy over your website as you’re essentially renting a website from WordPress.com.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON WORDPRESS.COM
WordPress.com is ideal if you don’t have tons of experience with website building. In my opinion, it’s okay to start out off with as a private project or a small-time store, but you can’t make it permanent because you don’t have ownership of your website.
In my opinion, if you’re just trying to find a side hustle that you’ll continue for a few of years, WordPress.com may be a good selection. If you wish your side hustle such a lot that you simply want to stay with it, even afterward, then you ought to advance over to the self-hosted WordPress due to its customizability and since you get full freedom and possession over your blog.
7.GHOST
Ghost may be a minimalist blogging platform created by a former WordPress developer in 2013. It aims to supply clean and slick writing and publishing experience without all the added clutter.
It is entirely made out of Javascript and requires quite a little bit of technical expertise to line up and run. But once you are doing, it runs super fast!
Because of its open-source nature, you’ve got the liberty to customize the design and feel of your blog any way you would like – you’ll even add custom code to your website for advertisements.
It’s notoriously hard to seek out a working link to download the ghost software, and your only option is via this GitHub link.
However, the simplified interface means you don’t have much variety when it involves downloading pre-made themes and plugins.
GHOST PRICING
Ghost is out there in two formats – the self-hosted version where you download the software on to your server and obtain a website of your own. that might cost you about $15/year and $7.99/month for the web-hosting.
Or you even have the choice of getting the commercially hosted version which is priced at $29/month. However, you’ll find yourself getting a website that ends with ghost.io.
PROS
-The prime focus is on blogging and writing.
-Clean, bloatware-free software.
-Fully written in Javascript, so it’s highly customizable.
CONS
-Self-hosting requires technical expertise.
-Limited options when it involves changing the looks of your website.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON GHOST
Ghost was made for the express purpose of blogging, and it’s an honest platform if that’s all you would like to try to to. If you value simplicity over versatility and you don’t want to use your blog or websites for selling any products or services, Ghost may be a good selection.
What Should You Choose?
We have reviewed quite a few blogging platforms today. However, when choosing the simplest blogging platform, you would like to stay in mind what your end goal is.
The most popular and most versatile choice is far and away, the self-hosted WordPress.org software. regardless of what the aim of your blog is, you’ll set it up with WordPress, and therefore the innumerable themes and plugins will assist you with customization.
However, it does have a touch of a learning curve, and if you would like to urge it done easier, I might suggest using Wix or Gator. Wix may be a particularly good selection if your blog may be a small part of a bigger and more complex website.
If you’re just looking to urge your voice heard and your views across, you’ll go old fashioned and found out an account on Blogger. This won’t fetch you tons of cash though. Blogger or Ghost is more sort of a pastime than a business.
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