Whether you are already a blogger or looking forward to start your own blog, this post is for you to know deeper about various blogging sites which offer platforms to create a blog for you. With social networks making the headlines for every cause, this is being considered the best time for bloggers even for those who had established their blogs years ago.
So, keeping this in mind, creating blogs on an extensive platform will be a wise decision if you really want to make good money blogging without bothering about petty things.
I have created a list of sites offering blogging platforms for newbies. However, if you are an existing blogger, you must be knowing about many of these blogging sites I am about to mention beneath.
Still I have tried to add some pointers for existing bloggers' knowledge as well in case they would like to start another one. So, please let me know if you really find something useful in this post for you. It is going to motivate me, you know!!!
1) Blogger.com
If you are looking for free and reliable platform, Blogger is often considered to be the best. You simply need a Gmail account to start your blog. With wonderful layouts and backgrounds available, this platform is often found to be easy for new bloggers who have started their blog for hobby.
With extensive editor, you can add posts, images and format them. We often hear people starting their blogging journey from Blogger.com. So, it does not lack in functionality at all.
However, the limitation that lies on this site is that you do not have your own domain name and thus no control over your site name.
Check out this video to know how to start blogging on Blogger.com
Pros:
- Easy to Use
- Once users have fabricated their domain name, normally Blogger also offer custom name option. This is one of the best elements available, which makes users choose it as compared to others.
- Changing the domain name is quite reasonable, which cost around 10$ per year. So, if you are thinking of buying a Domain name, then check out blogger to gain more.
- It also provides the option, in which you can select Whols Directory. Well, it is a private registration, which is used to protect the private information about the users from unwanted eyes easily.
- This is free of cost blog hosting platform, which is quite easy and straightforward to allocate.
- It also allows users to share the server and its stuff with other blogs effortlessly.
- In order to encourage users, it offers 1 GB free picture saving space. So, there is no need to worry about storing images anymore.
Cons:
- The customizations options available on Blogger are dull and layout seems to be outdated as compared to other recent platforms.
- Blogger hosting platform also has few limitations, which creates a hassle for users while using it.
- People are facing tons of complications regarding size limit of a homepage. If you post a big size image, then the page size limit will be overruled, which is not a good sign for users.
2) WordPress
The most used and loved content management system is WordPress. Popular amongst all bloggers, WordPress is considered to be daddy of blogging. Downloaded more than 45 million times, the platform is famous for its community of creatives who have developed thousands of customizations which allows users of WordPress to add plugins and sophistication on their blogs.
Pros:
- Just one single word goes - 'Customization' at its best
- WordPress offers a great rage of the domain and hosting plan together, which help users to save some amount conveniently.
- You can also buy a domain only by making a private domain registration.
- It is an open source tool, which means there are hundreds of thousands of potential people working on it.
- The dashboard is a little bit complex, but due to tons of features, it makes folks use it for a long time than others.
- There are daily security and maintenance release updated, which helps users to feel secure and safe with WordPress.
- You can conveniently install both premium and free themes from WordPress and make your website innovative conveniently.
- There are over 30000+ themes present in WordPress. If you are looking for one, then spend some amount of money and use it systematically.
Cons:
- The wide range of customization options and involvement of plugins can become daunting for bloggers who lack experience. This is mostly for those who want to build blogs for earning money or for companies. Those using it for hobby sake may find it difficult.
- There are some issues noted related to adding advertisement on your blog. Most importantly, if you are unable to post an Ad on the blog, then it's a waste of both time and money with WordPress.
- The WordPress doesn't allow users to add lots of plugin to blogs. So, it is advisable that do not end up getting stranded in trap and face complications in installing several sorts of plugins.
- The security code is divided into several files, which create a problem for beginners to locate it.
Tumblr comprises a huge community of users like Facebook and Twitter. It is often considered as social media site rather than blogging platform. Users normally focus on other blogs , get their posts liked and follow other blogs.
So, for all those who are looking for social component rather than sheer blogging, this can be a nice option. However, whatever may be your concern, this platform has no dearth of pre-designed themes with limited customization.
Pros: A great option if you are looking for easy and quick platform to start with and try your hands on blogging without spending a penny. At the same time it is a wonderful social network which even provides custom domain names.
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Cons: This is not for you if you are looking for full customization and intensive and in-depth blogging.
Are you wondering how am I mentioning a popular question and answer site in the list of blogging platforms? It is right, Quora added this feature for users to add blogs in 2012.
Since this is a wonderful platform for sharing knowledge and ideas, it has opened a way for users to share wisdom and tell stories on useful topics. However, Quora is dedicated to imparting knowledge and should be better used as a platform for knowledge rather than your web page.
Pros: Huge community of people indulged in same interests.
Cons: There is no personalization or a possessive feeling attached to the information you impart. This can be better to use as secondary blog.
Medium is another platform started by founders of Twitter, Ev Williams and Biz Stone. Integrating well with Twitter, this one is cool enough fro those looking for a raw and not so engaging platform. In other words, this is for those who want to indulge socially in blogging.
Pros: An option for blogging if you want to showcase your posts to huge number of audience.
Cons: This platform is better for those who want a secondary blog due to some content discovery issues and lack in content discovery.
Well, this is something I came across recently. I am not sure if you people have heard about this, but the look and feel of the platform attracted me the moment I landed on this. With simple and responsive layout, this seems to be the best yet to be popular platforms.
Pros: With the most simple and easy way, it often attracts bloggers. Roon ensures that instead of focusing on so many things like customization, plugins and other complex activities on your blog, you focus simply on your words.
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Cons: It is yet to integrate analytics and commenting system which is essential for bloggers if they want to ditch their existing platforms.
7) Posthaven
Posthaven replicates the Posterous which disappeared few months back. This is a light blogging experience and helps in easy publishing of posts at affordable cost of $5. The team promises that this platform will never go offline or acquired, the two factors that hard hit on Posterous.
Pros: Will never go offline.
Cons: Since the platform is still in its initial stage, it is adding features which other platforms already offer.
Sett is again a new community oriented blogging platform which offers great engagement. Much similar to Medium, it claims to get 98% more comments on the posts contributed. The users on this platform can follow blogs, find bloggers and blogs with similar interests and even communicate with each other. So, it offers a blend of the social and blogging platform.
Pros:
- Remarkable engagement and opportunities to hit the audience.
- Discoverable material available, which helps to move forward without facing too many hassles
- The focal point of Sett is to bring people's attention and support them to participate in improvising articles conveniently.
- There is no need for any sorts of an email address or other information to write a blog. You can easily start your work with the Zero Setup feature.
- You can also track your visitors, comments, and lastly subscribers. This element will help you to make a marketing strategy accordingly and move forward without end up facing disappointment.
- Most importantly, there are several sorts of advanced blogging tools available, which can be used to post your blog automatically and manually as well.
Cons: Lacks features of other platforms.
9) Squarespace
Squarespace is another blogging platform which is more popular amongst business users, this is one such blogging platform which can be used for creating business websites as well as e-commerce sites. However, they do not offer any free service except the 14-day trial. Their payment plan starts from $8 per month and comprises of all essential elements your blog or website requires.
This cost includes cloud-based hosting as well as maintenance. This is something that attracted me to write about this wonderful platform available for real serious bloggers or start-up entrepreneurs.
Pros: Beautifully designed with a comprehensive range of features and services.
Cons: A bit pricey and primarily suits business needs or large scale set up.
Pros: A new and fresh approach with a range of packages that impress the enterprise and business users.
Cons: It is not free and those who lack technical skills may face some issues or find it complicated.
Live Journal is available in free and paid version. You have to pay money if you want to keep your LiveJournal blog via free advertisement. Features like multiple author blogs, polls and calendars, commenting are available. Also, it has lots of social media features which can be differentiable from other free blogging websites.
To create their free blogs, more than 16 million people are using LiveJournal. Dutch, French, German, English are some of the languages in which blogging can be done. Not good at English? Don't worry, just try these languages, you will feel lucky using LiveJournal free blogging site.
Some of its' advantages are: It is free for all the users. As mentioned above, it is available in various languages so that one can blog anonymously. With some disadvantages such as it is not for business and professional blogs and the ads in the free version.
12) Weebly
Instead of buying and owning your own house, you can use Weebly is sort of like customising an apartment in very particular developed manner. The construction, plumbing, security, and infrastructure is not your concern it depends on the property owner. All you need to keep on point is control of decor, cleaning, and everything living-wise. It points the key because a direct trade-off between convenience and control is usually held.
Weebly work as a platform by providing all the functionality and design. That's what allows them to have drag and drop design, layout and content.
Weebly competes directly with the most common and famous website builders such as Wix.com and WordPress.com.
Pros:
- It is an easy user interface with fair and competitive pricing plans and features for store owners and bloggers along with branding and marketing options. Also, it has free website option with features with unlimited storage, hosting, and domain name with all three plans.
- As we know that Weebly is also a better platform available for people to use. It offers better speed and performance, which help users to move without facing too many obstacles.
- There are also needs to be concerned about security issues. It is secured enough to offers better performance and prevents user's personal information from unwanted eyes as well.
- Overall Weebly is a low price tag platform, which anyone can use to start blogs conveniently. There is a free trial option available, which can be utilized to check out the performance of Weebly with ease.
- There are a variety of options present that you can use in order to make the best blog. Most immortally, try to gather information about each and every feature. With this, you can use these elements conveniently.
- It also offers better customer support service, which will help you to overcome your hassles without worrying about anything.
- You can also use video overview option to use Weebly in an appropriate manner. So, give your best shot and gain success in commencing in blog system with ease.
Cons:
- There is no direct newsletter feature and editing photos is a bit in-depth. The content sorting is not super smooth. Some multi-language features are lacking
- There are some cases noted, in which folks are facing problem in managing their content in Weebly.
- Due to several types of filter, edit and other option, it is too much complicated to handle stuff on this platform.
- With the advancement in technology, there are some advanced tools available for users to use. But they are also daunting enough to create a new problem.
- The software is heavy enough to take too much time in loading a blog. Due to this, potential visitors are unable to wait for a long time.
Want to make a website without much effort? Then using Wix.com with a minimum of effort and maximum creativity, you can create a website. It's a leading and growing group of website-building services with the user interface is the most special features.
It offers standout features such as online storage for your site assets, cool video backgrounds, animations for titles, and mobile apps. It provides the free account option with a gallery widgets for any third party for your site. The Editors' choice website builder.
The only thing Wix requires for you to get started is an email address. A site with a custom URL and no promotions for Wix.com. It's a custom favourite part because the Web store is must upgrade to a paid account. These range from the $5-per-month Connect Domain account, which allows you use a site address that you already own with $25-per-month VIP plan, which includes a shopping cart, 20GB storage, domain name, unlimited bandwidth, professional site review, and priority support.
Pros: You can create a business website in 1 hour, it's that fast and simple. You just need to drag and drop for making the website. You can be a member of such a large community. It's one of the largest online stores with basic features for creating your website.
Some disadvantages include the limited number of plugins and design options in pre-built themes.
The online journaling tool that permits users to create a personal online diary. Penzu allows users to choose the posts that they wish to share and where its' for those who don't wish to share their innermost secrets with the world.
Penzu provides uttermost privacy controlling system that may not be available with similar sites.
- Smartphone access
- Multiple journals
- Auto-saving feature
- Easy to use navigation
- Rich text formatting
- Search, tagging and military grade encryption to save your files are some of its features.
- It is very easy for teachers to become dependent on the resources and lesson plans provided.
- It is also easy for students to become dependent on the use of this technology.
- What happens if there is a power outage?!
- Although these resources are cool and useful, teachers will need to learn how to balance the implementation of this online curriculum into their own lessons so as to not create this environment without critical thought and social interaction.
