Top Platforms To Start A Successful Blog

Looking to start your own blog however unsure of which platform to use? When it comes to choosing a blog platform to start a successful blog, you have plenty of options. But each one has different pros and cons, so where’s the best place to start a blog in 2020 and beyond? That’s the question I’m going to try to answer in this post.

Top Platforms To Start A Successful Blog: What To Look For?

Before diving into the list, it is helpful to know what you’re looking for in a blogging platform. As a beginner, you’ll want a blogging platform that’s easy to set up, has a low learning curve, and doesn’t require any coding skills.

You’ll also need to think about what kind of blog you want to create, now and in the future. As your blog grows, you may want to change the look of your site and add more features for your growing audience. That means it’s important to choose a blogging platform that’s flexible, with room to grow. Starting off with the wrong platform can make it very difficult to switch later on.

WordPress

WordPress.org is the world’s most popular blogging software. Started in 2003, WordPress now powers more than 30% of all websites on the internet. Note: It’s easy to confuse WordPress.org with WordPress.com, which is a blog hosting service mentioned later in this list. See our guide on the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com.

WordPress.org is an open-source free blogging platform that allows you to build your website or blog within minutes. It is a self-hosted solution which means that you will need to sign up with a WordPress hosting provider. WordPress is a great option if you want to have full control over your blog’s future.

Wix

Wix is an intuitive site builder that lets you integrate a blog at the click of a button. Put simply, Wix is one of the top-rated blog website builders around. It’s not hard to see why the Israel-based company boasts over 80 million users.

You can launch a blog with your Wix site on any plan, from the Free plan upwards. However, to connect your domain name you’ll need to sign up to the $13/month Combo plan. This will also enable you to get rid of Wix ads. We’d recommend upgrading to a paid Wix plan. It’s a small price to pay to make your blog look professional.

The more professional your blog, the more readers will trust you. Think about it. When you go into a book shop, would you pick up a book that had adverts stuck all over the front cover and different authors’ names on it? When it comes to templates, Wix has a great selection of stunning and up-to-date templates for you to choose from.

Top Platforms To Start A Successful Blog: WordPress.com

A blog hosting service from the same company, Automattic, that’s behind WordPress.org. It’s free to launch your blog on WordPress.com, but you have to pay for extra features like storage and your own domain name. Like Wix and Weebly, to remove the WordPress.com logo you need to upgrade to a paid plan, which starts from $4 a month. WordPress.com works in the same way as drag-and-drop builders. You construct your blog by selecting and moving elements around on your screen

SEO is one of WordPress.com’s big strengths, with sites loading quickly and backed up by powerful infrastructure. Set up is fast and the platform is straightforward to get to grips with. On the downside, customization opportunities are limited – especially when compared to WordPress.org. You can’t edit the code and you don’t have complete control over your blog.

Medium

It’s hard to pin down how many users Medium has. Once they focus on sharing how much time is spent on the platform reading instead. I dig it. The platform, was founded by Twitter co-founder and former CEO Evan Williams as a response to the hyper-short limits of Twitter, hence the name Medium. Medium category page

At one point, there was some distinction between even longer blog platforms, but that’s dissipated by now. In 2017, Medium had 60 million unique visitors. From personal experience, I know that when I read on Medium, I read with curiosity and intent. I’m ready to put in some time reading, and the read times on each article get me to commit to sticking it out for the whole thing.

Posting with Medium is super simple. There’s a clean, very white WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. Basically, as you type, you see what the post will look like when it’s published. You’ll find that tips and tricks to format your post are a little hidden in the simplicity of the interface.