Blogging has become one of the best ideas for making money online. Whether you want to enter the world of blogging as a writer to publish your opinions and ideas, to profit from it, or to create a professional blog for your business, we will pave the way for you to learn about the best global blogging platforms and the pros and cons of each to help you reach your audience more broadly.
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The most important factors in choosing the best blogging platforms
The types of blogs differ in several respects, such as the type of published content, the target audience, the size and purpose of the content, the design and the capabilities of the blog in terms of speed and performance. The most important factors for choosing the best blogging platform are:
1. Scalability
No one likes to start a blog without imagining a huge future for it, so scalability and spread is an important thing to consider when looking for a blogging platform, and whether the chosen platform supports the flexibility of expansion and provides additional features and features or not.
The expansion of blogs includes the possibility to develop its design and the features that are available in it, such as launching automatic newsletters, adding media to posts, the ability to edit and save them, and of course the efficiency of the blog in terms of download rate, speed and number of visitors per month.
All of this is determined depending on the efficiency of the platform you are dealing with, and the greater the capabilities required, the situation requires choosing special servers to run the blog to ensure the flow of traffic to it, especially as its numbers increase.
2. Design options
The more design options available on the blog creation platform, the better the blog's customization, which allows the blog to appear as a brand with a unique, professional design.
One of the options considered in the design of blogs is the way the content is presented, whether in the form of consecutive columns or individual articles, or ordered lists. The choice of colors, the shapes of menus and icons, and the responsiveness of the blog to different screens are important factors to test in the capabilities of the chosen platform.
Drag and drop platforms do not provide all the design features in a flexible way, and free platforms may not provide them at all, while they are available in content management platforms such as WordPress, and of course in programming a blog from scratch. Which is why most bloggers rely on professional options that are more responsive to design.
3. Cost
The cost of blogging platforms varies according to the number of features they offer, so measuring your potential budget is important before choosing a platform. Creating a blog may require hosting and a domain with an annual plan, in addition to the presence of platforms that support the monthly plan, some of which are free. Each of them has its advantages that it offers for the offered price, so it is preferable to go to the plans that suit your needs according to the capabilities you want to show in your blog.
4. Ease of use
Each blogging platform has a control panel that is different from the other, and the differences vary in proportion to the features in each panel. We find that the fastest and easiest control panels in managing the blog and its publications provide only a simple design panel for the appearance of the blog.
While platforms such as WordPress provide a multi-tasking dashboard, starting with publishing, customizing the appearance, plugins, managing accounts, and more. In the option of programming the blog from scratch, the owner of the blog chooses the form of the appropriate control panel in detail and programs it.
In the case of free platforms, bloggers face the lack of options available in publishing, attaching media, and designing the blog interface, so each feature may appear flawed in return. In this case, it is preferable to strike a balance between a platform that accurately achieves the desired goal and how easy it is to use.
5. Profit potential
Not all blogging platforms provide the possibility of profit through it, especially the free ones or hosted on a social blogging platform with an audience, in this case it is preferable to review the usage policies of each platform before relying on them and to ensure that the possibility of profit is provided if it is a priority for creating a blog.
The spread of internal marketing and the emergence of its results in previous years, led business owners and bloggers with small and medium enterprises to create blogs with programming from scratch or on professional platforms such as WordPress, with the aim of using content marketing on the blog as a means to increase sales and profits for digital products, especially such as e-books and courses.
Best Blogging Platforms to Launch Your Blog
Blogging platforms are divided into professional platforms, and personal platforms based on the function they perform, the way they work, and their prices as follows:
First: professional platforms
It is the most prominent option for business owners and medium enterprises due to the availability of many options and features such as the possibility of customizing the design, expanding the audience and speed of performance, including:
1. Programming a blog from scratch
If you want complete control over all the details of your blog, programming it from scratch is absolutely the best option. This paves the way for choosing the shape of the control panel, the method of publishing, managing accounts, and of course designing the blog's appearance and adding any necessary features to it.
This task requires hiring a professional programmer through an independent website, the largest Arab freelance platform, to carry it out from setting up the initial structure of the blog form, then implementing and operating it. It is worth noting that programming from scratch is the most professional way to create a blog, website or store, and is preferred by business owners or bloggers who want to lay the foundations for building a blog in detail and control it afterwards.
Advantages:
- Availability of full control over all the details of the blog.
- Programmatically modify the blog and develop it as needed.
- Keep your blog safe from attacks.
Defects:
- Starting a blog from scratch takes time and costs.
- Learn to work with the blog's control panel.
- Hire a programmer periodically to carry out maintenance of the code and eliminate faults.
2. WordPress (WordPress.org)
Being the world's best CMS, WordPress is one of the most important platforms that most bloggers rely on to launch their personal blogs and manage business and corporate blogs. WordPress accounts for more than 40% of global websites of all kinds. It also gives the ability to create a blog in a short period of time, as well as complete control over the type and design of the website.
In terms of appearance, the WordPress platform contains thousands of free and paid templates for designing blogs of all kinds, whether it is a personal blog, a news blog, business marketing, and more. The WordPress system needs hosting and a domain to create it, and a professional WordPress developer can be hired through a freelance site, which is the largest Arab freelance platform.
Advantages:
- Control most of the details of the blog.
- Lots of templates to choose from.
- Create a blog in a short time and at lower costs.
Defects:
- WordPress is an open source system, so it may be vulnerable to attacks.
- Learning the WordPress dashboard takes some time.
- Crash may occur due to plugins conflicting with each other or with templates.
Second: the best personal blogging platforms
For some, relying on programming from scratch or a content management platform such as WordPress can become a bit difficult, so they turn to easier options such as personal blogging platforms, including:
1. WordPress.com
If you want to create a free blog, WordPress.com is one of the best blogging platforms in this case. The difference between the system (WordPress.org) and (WordPress.com), is that the first is an open source system that can be installed on any hosting and create a dedicated site on it with full control, whether that site is a blog, an online store, or a service provider site.
While WordPress.com is a blog hosting platform that does not require the purchase of external hosting, yet it does not give you much control over it. In the case of obtaining more features, you will need to rely on a paid plan on this system, as the free one does not provide many advantages such as not having complete freedom to publish all kinds of content.
Advantages:
- You will not need to host.
- Availability of a free plan.
- Quick start.
Defects:
- The free plan will force you to show ads on your blog against your will.
- There is no control over the ownership rights of the content and it may be removed at any time.
- Adding more features requires a paid plan, in which case it is preferable to rely on professional platforms.
2. Blogger
Blogger is one of the first blogging platforms that Google has provided to users for free, and it was the first launch for most blogs on the Internet before other modern options appeared. So if you want a quick and simple blog, you can create a professional blogger blog without any costs in a few minutes.
Advantages:
- You only need a Google account.
- The possibility of linking Google Adsense and profit from it after fulfilling the conditions.
- Get started for free and create a blog in hours.
Defects:
- Possibility to delete the entire blog at any time and content loss.
- Double the possibilities of design and customization of appearance.
- It is recommended for beginners only and is not suitable for businesses and corporations.
3. SQUARESPACE
Square Space is one of the easiest platforms to create a blog, as it relies on the drag and drop feature and contains hundreds of ready-made templates that are used in blogs. You can rely on this platform if you want to create a blog quickly, as a professional programmer can implement it within two working days without any trouble, which speeds up your launch.
What's interesting in Square Space is also the ability to see the look of the post while it's being written and designed, without the need for a background control panel all the time, so you don't need to preview the post every few minutes to see what it looks like on other systems.
If you decide to start your blog with this platform, you will be charged with the paid monthly plans, and usually the paid monthly plans are the most expensive in the long run, but in return you get the speed of creation and ease of content management.
Advantages:
- Blog creation speed.
- It is pull-and-release which means easy styling.
Defects:
- expensive in the long run.
- Lack of many features in the appearance design.
- Not all aspects of the blog can be controlled.
- Difficulty adding features or linking them to other sites.
4. Weebly
Much like SQUARESPACE, Weebly is easy to use and offers plenty of features such as an App Center that provides additional blog features, dedicated team managers, and SEO capability.
One of the disadvantages of the platform is the limited design capabilities on it and the inability to transfer the blog or create a copy of it, which means the possibility of losing information as a result of a technical failure. However, Weebly offers a paid monthly plan and does not require any programming skills to start creating a professional blog on it, speed and ease are its first competitive advantages.
Advantages:
- Suitable for personal blogging.
- Depends on drag and drop.
Defects:
- expensive in the long run.
- Not recommended for businesses and companies.
- Poor scalability and controllability.
Third: The best social blogging platforms
Social blogging platforms connect social media audiences and blogging at the same time, but they do not provide any design or expansion advantages, in addition to the lack of ownership rights towards the published content, which makes them preferred for social bloggers interested in publishing medium posts and interacting with the audience, and among the most important of these Platforms:
1. Medium
Medium is one of the most controversial blogging platforms in the recent period, especially after the appearance of glossy articles by some writers on it and its gaining great fame in the cultural milieu.
Medium is the home for bloggers who want to write about cultural and intellectual opinions. What distinguishes the platform also is that it has a huge number of millions of followers that make it easy for the writer to create an audience. With one click the reader can follow the writers blogs, so there is no difficulty in getting an audience.
Advantages:
- The possibility of profit when you get many posts.
- Ease of creating an account and building an audience.
Defects:
- Review articles before publishing them.
- There are restrictions and posting policies that may lead to account closure at any time.
- Lack of design control and no add-ons.
- There are problems in obtaining profits in the Arab world.
2. Calculation of I/O
Although posting content on I/O accounts is more social, it has a great two-way benefit for professional bloggers. It is easy to get followers when posting on social media, as well as to demonstrate the professionalism and expertise of the blogger through his writing.
The advantages of the platform are that you only need to create an account to get started. It also allows you to share posts with an audience and create discussions, which helps you enrich your content and promote more ideas.
Finally, launching a strong blog starts with choosing the right blogging platform for the job. Whichever platform you choose, the common denominator of your success is the quality of your content and how relevant it is to your audience. To achieve this, you can hire professional content writers through a freelance site, to prepare rich, solid content that helps in strengthening your presence, and targeting you to a carefully selected audience.