Within a week or two, anyone can become a Squarespace master even if they are starting from scratch. It’s the perfect platform for an individual or small company that wants a professional-looking blog without hiring a professional to get it.
Getting things set up is as simple as using the drag-and-drop editor to design your site. There’s no code necessary.
Alternatively, you can download the platform for free at WordPress.org and use it on a site you host yourself. Hosting isn’t free, but if you go with a high-quality WordPress host like Hostinger, the whole thing winds up being less expensive than going with a similar website builder.
Try Wix Premium today free for 14 days, or blog free as long as you like.
#3 – Squarespace Review — The Best for Bold Branding Without a Web Designer
Do you want to skip the read and get right to my top pick? The best blogging platform for most people is WordPress with Hostinger hosting.
One such cost is utilizing themes and plugins. Many free ones are available, but premium ones will usually cost you some cash.
Alternatively, you can use Wix Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI). Just answer a few questions about who you are and the purpose of your blog, and Wix ADI will create a website for you. I’m not kidding:
Get everything you need in one place and let Hostinger take over some of the basic maintenance.
Tools for Growing Your Audience
Website builders can do a whole lot more, though they aren’t free like the traditional platforms.
Don’t get me wrong. Graphic design gurus can take Squarespace to amazing places, but I think the draw of the platform is that non-technical folks can spin up a striking site themselves.
Adding ecommerce functionality to your Squarespace blog is extremely easy. Launch an online store, book appointments, or create and sell member’s only content.
Customize the look and feel of nearly every aspect of your blog instead of having to color inside the lines someone else drew.
Or put it this way: How much time are you willing to spend making sure your blog is up and running?
WordPress, on the other hand, is free to download, but you have to pay for hosting. Wix and Squarespace take care of the hosting and lump the cost in the total package.
WordPress is the most popular blogging platform in the world. It’s free to use and the potential to create is boundless.
This freedom is why a lot of artists, designers, and creatives flock to Squarespace.
If you start building out a really complex site with a lot of plugins, sure, it’s going to be more work to maintain, but you’ll also have a blog that’s much more unique than what you could assemble on Wix.
If you are just starting your blog, I’d recommend Hostinger’s WordPress Starter hosting plan. It starts at $3.99 per month. They give you a free domain name for the first year, automatic WordPress installation and updates, and a fantastic site building wizard.
If you are just starting off, this isn’t too much of a concern. But performance can suffer once you start to see a lot of traffic or add a lot of features to your site. No one reads blogs that take a long time to load.
Branding Your Blog Your Way
In order to read a lot of the premium content on Medium, you need to pay a monthly membership fee. Some of that money goes to sustain the site, but some goes to the writers whose stories are being read.
For a company that wants a beautiful blog, but doesn’t want to hire a designer to babysit it, Squarespace is perfect.
Turn your blog into a social media forum or host member’s only content behind a paywall. Anything you want is as simple as finding the right plugin.
Try Squarespace free for 14 days and give your company the on-brand blog you’ve always wanted.
#4 – Medium Review — The Best for Reaching Readers with Minimal Effort
In other words, you are not going to be able to create a really unique experience for your readers with interactive content and dynamic pages as easily as you can with a website builder like Wix.
In terms of free blogs, I highly recommend Medium to people looking to broaden their audience without investing too much time. The built-in readership is unlike any other platform and offers a great way to connect without spending more money.
Squarespace is an all-in-one website builder, like Wix. However, it’s famous for aesthetically pleasing templates, making it perfect for visual-based businesses like photographers, designers, and artists.
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The whole WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org concept can be a little confusing, but both options work on the same platform. Personally, I prefer WordPress.org, because you are unrestricted in how you can bend and shape the platform to make it look and function exactly the way you want it to.
Get these features set up in minutes and drive the right type of traffic to your blog with Squarespace’s excellent marketing and SEO tools. Everything you need for a complete website for your business is just as easy to set up as your blog, and it’s all going to look sharp.
And if you aren’t worried about turning a profit, Medium is one of the best free blogging platforms available.
Looking at the clean, beautiful brand presentation on Squarespace blogs, you might think that everyone hired a designer to get there. In reality, it might be that person’s first website ever.
You can get plugins and themes to take your site wherever it needs to go, and if you can’t, there is probably someone working on a solution right now.
To increase traffic, you’ll want to cast a wider net across social media and other channels. All these products can help, but which one aligns with your audience?
Blogging Platform FAQ
What blogging platform features should I consider?
If you are trying to create an on-brand blog, and you want to get rid of the blogspot subdomain, simply purchase your own custom domain through one of the best domain registrars. It’s very easy to set everything up, especially if you use Google Domains.
There are gadgets to add functionality to your blog, but nothing remotely close to the power and diversity of WordPress plugins. You also have no ecommerce options, as you would with other website builders.
I like it best for personal use as the platform is limited in some ways that can hamstring a blog built for business purposes. You have options to tweak the blog presentation, but you can’t change too much to make it your own.
There’s a good bit of design freedom, though definitely not as much as you get with website builders like Squarespace. You can play with the layout and fonts to capture your online persona, and you never have to worry about advertisements disrupting your flow.
Squarespace is another excellent choice for those without a ton of web design or development resources. It’s not quite as easy as Wix, but it does provide more artistic freedom. Along with the top-notch customer service, Squarespace can help you handle all of your website and blogging needs without having to hire someone.
This is a potentially monster avenue for targeted outreach within your niche. And a way to gain clout quickly by publishing alongside some bigger names in your topic of choice.
If you upgrade, Wix removes the ads and gives you a custom domain name free for the first year. Your blog is fully yours, which I think is more than worth it.
Your story could be about your life, your product, your community, whatever you want. Blogger gives you a venue to broadcast your message, and Google handles all the technical legwork. You don’t have to worry about backing up your site or getting hacked.
You can even add affiliate links to your Medium posts to generate your own source of revenue. Some free platforms don’t let you do this.
Now it’s not entirely clear just how Medium curates your posts for other readers, which can be a little frustrating for bloggers who can’t find traction on the platform. That said, Medium does provide helpful stats about your visitors so you can get a sense of how traffic is arriving.
Blogger and Medium offer simple tools to create, organize, and share posts. There’s not a ton you can do with the layout, but it’s always going to look sharp.
If you are looking for a low maintenance venue to share stories with the world or advocate for a cause, traditional blogging platforms are perfect. They can also work as a simple portfolio for businesses that want to share wins and finished work.
One thing most blogging platforms don’t include is a built in audience. Medium does.
But a lot’s changed since I started. Site builders have become more powerful while also making it easier to start a blog than ever. And now you can sell products within your blog posts, instead of just leaning on them to market your business.
Even the free platforms. Blogger analyzes traffic on your site and lets you know how visitors arrived. Connect Google Analytics for a deeper picture of what’s happening.
Squarespace is very approachable in terms of design. It might take slightly longer for the novice user to build their first site than with Wix, but the tradeoff is greater control over your blog’s layout and design.
This is going to be less work than managing WordPress plugins and themes.
It’s one of the reasons that Squarespace is the website builder of choice for many artists, architects, photographers, and the like.
Premium Wix plans are broken down into three groups: Websites, Business and Ecommerce, and Enterprise.
And if something does go wrong, Squarespace has highly-responsive customer service available 24/7. The relatively small monthly fee for the sitebuilder is probably a lot less than keeping a professional designer on retainer.
To decide between the paid platforms, look at how they offer services, as one may have a better pricing set up for your needs.
Below, you’ll find the five best tools for starting your blog today. Some of them I’ve used myself and like a lot–others are really good for bloggers with different needs and goals than my own.
You also can’t make a million dollars on Medium, like you can with a website builder that has more ways to monetize your content.
But WordPress.org is completely free forever. It’s just about keeping in mind the associated costs.
If this is a concern, I’d just go with WordPress, which can grow as big as you need. That said, Wix offers custom solutions for enterprise clients that start at $500 per month.
For most users, especially those looking to get their blog up and running without any stress or frustration, Wix is fantastic.
The bottom line is this: If you want people to read your blog, you can’t just curate posts and expect the world to figure it out.
The Blogger templates are repeated everywhere on the web. If that doesn’t bother you, Blogger is going to be one of the easiest and cheapest ways to get your blog off the ground.
Wix keeps SEO front and center. At a glance, you can monitor blog performance on the dashboard. To get a richer understanding, there are integrations with Google Analytics and Ubersuggest, which could be the best tool you can get for understanding how to improve SEO on your blog.
WordPresss, Wix, SquareSpace, Blogger, and Medium.
How do I design my blog?
It could be readers, customers, fellow enthusiasts—whatever your blog audience, you can build it bigger with these solutions.
Not that you need to be a designer to achieve an elegant blog on Squarespace. People without an artistic bone in their body are creating amazing sites on the platform every day.
That’s another big draw with Medium: you hardly have any work to get perfectly formatted, mobile responsive blog posts. Everything lands on feed curated beautifully for readers:
WordPress lets you broadcast your message and engage your audience along any conceivable vector. Use plugins to turn your website into an SEO powerhouse or double your blog’s traffic. There are thousands of plugins and a giant community of users building new solutions every day.
Start using Medium today for free, and who knows, maybe you can generate a little cash on the side.
#5 – Blogger Review – The Best for Sharing Your Story
No matter what plan you choose, you get access to Squarespace’s customer service any time of day. For companies looking to get by without a web designer, the always-available assistance is a huge relief.
Most blogging platforms have plugins or add-ons that do some SEO automatically for you, like creating a sitemap. However, it is good to know some basic SEO that will help you when you’re writing content.
Conclusion
What’s your go-to blogging platform and why?
If you are using the platform for a business or want to make serious money blogging, I’ll steer you toward Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress. These options aren’t free, but there is a ton of value in what they provide.
With WordPress you’ll need to get web hosting and a domain name to get started. Over time, you’ll have to update WordPress as well as any plugins and themes you use. As the most free-range, customizable platform, it requires the most attention.
I’ve been making a good living as a blogger for over a decade. This is an area of the internet I know really well.
With Wix and Squarespace, you are paying for an all-in-one platform. With WordPress, the platform is free, and you can purchase what you need à la carte. Choose your own mix of plugins and themes to get exactly what you need.
If you fall in this group, I strongly suggest checking out Medium and Blogger.
By the end of this article, you’ll have found the right tool for starting your blogging journey.
#1 – WordPress Review — The Best for Creating a Unique Blog
Start your blog for free today.
What I Looked at to Find the Best Blogging Platform
If you are looking for a straight-up blogging platform, Wix has a few different plans that get the job done:
For the first time blogger who wants an original site, I highly recommend Wix. There’s virtually no learning curve and you can drag-and-drop your way to a site you love.
I’ll say more about the benefits of premium blogging platforms throughout this post, but it really comes down to this simple truth—the more you want your blog to do, the more it’s going to cost.
For any topic you can think of, there is a Medium audience waiting to read more. You can share your posts easily, and check out what other bloggers in your space are doing. People who read similar types of posts to yours will see your posts if you join the Partner Program.
A free Wix account keeps things simple and still gives you access to the world-class site building tools. But your site will have wixsite.com in the web address, and you’re limited to 500GB bandwidth, which basically means it only works for small sites without too much traffic.
The other drawback of the free-forever plan is the Wix ads, which enable the company to offer the free version. If you are running your blog as part of your business, do you really want another company’s advertisements?
These two traditional blogging platforms are free forever. You don’t have to pay for hosting, web design, or worry about the site staying online. These providers handle all of that.
Let me walk you through the major criteria you need to figure out which type you want, and how to weigh your different options from there.
Cost and Revenue
With the website builders, you get a lot more freedom to create your site your way. It’s easier to align your blog with your brand when you have more control.
Design Freedom
In that sense, Medium makes the initial hurdle to getting paid for blogging as easy as possible.
In terms of growing your audience, Wix comes packed with powerful tools to help you increase your reach and engage meaningfully online:
- Industry-leading SEO tools
- Social media tools
- Visitor analytics
- Post scheduling
- Embed HTML codes
- Categories and hashtags
- Advanced search capabilities
- Collaborators
- Easy image editing
It’s a little more legwork on your part, but you also get a lot more control. Instead of purchasing a package of features and templates, you can add WordPress plugins and themes at your own discretion.
With Wix, for example, you can purchase all-in-one plans that include literally everything you need to get a site up and running. You can choose plans for simple blogs or plans for ecommerce and you are good to go.
You don’t have a techie bone in your body to start drafting, editing, and embedding your own pictures or third-party media.
For instance, you’ll be able to accept payments for products, services, and put content behind a membership paywall. The free platforms don’t support ecommerce, even if you do get a few avenues to monetize.
There are also premium plugins and themes you can buy to add rich capabilities or custom looks for your site.
For the entrepreneur or small business looking to build their online presence, Squarespace is a phenomenal choice. They can get the sleek blog they want without having to hire a web designer or developer.
Depending on what you are trying to do, one of these is going to make a lot more sense than the other.
Is your blog part of your brand? This is important when looking at blogging platforms, as some of your free options are going to limit the branding control you have.
Business and ecommerce plans start at $27 per month and allow you to accept payments online and sell products and services directly from your blog. Even for more complex sites, the Wix set up process will still be very user-friendly.
Either route you choose, it starts with choosing your WordPress theme. Think of it like a template that formats your whole site as opposed to just one page. There are a ton of amazing free themes to promote your content. These will keep your blog on brand and help you curate posts for your readers.
You can blog for free at WordPress.com. The company hosts your site and gives you a subdomain. The downside is that it’s supported by running its own ads unless you upgrade your plan.
Consider security, ease of use, price, customer support, and if they offer features you need for your specific website.
What are some of the best blogging platforms?
It’s owned by Google, and offers the same level of dependability and intuitive navigation as Chrome and Gmail. If you can write an email, you can write a post on Blogger.
Now this isn’t your ticket to a full time salary, but a little revenue coming in the door from your blog can’t hurt. All of the essentials you need to get started are included, like:
- Image storage with Google Photos
- Integrated ad campaigns
- Simple text editor
- A free SSL certificate and free domain mapping
- Google integrations
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