Friday 26 August 2022

Compare The Best Blogging Platforms and Blog Sites of 2022

Our recommendation for most people is WordPress with Hostinger because it’s easy to set up and there are no limits to what you can do. Host your WordPress site on Hostinger for $1.99 per month. Building a great blog starts with choosing the right platform—and there are only a handful truly worth considering. Here are the five best options, complete with in-depth reviews and a guide to help you decide which works best for you. The Top 5 Best Blogging Platforms and Blog Sites for 2022 WordPress with Hostinger — Best overall Wix — Best for beginners building a professional blog Squarespace — Best for artists, and designers LinkedIn — Best for networking Medium — Best for writing to a built-in audience How to choose the best blogging platforms. Quicksprout.com's methodology for reviewing blogging sites. If you want to turn a profit on your blog, use WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace. You’ll be in complete control of your site and everything that’s on it. For people who want to blog with WordPress, we recommend using Hostinger as a web host to keep your speed high and costs low. Medium or LinkedIn are great for hobby blogs and making connections. but not making a living. They are free, but you don’t get to choose how your blog looks, and adding your style is half the fun. What makes these blogging platforms great? Where could they be better? To find out, we interviewed active users of each platform about where these platforms excel, and where they are falling behind. WordPress with Hostinger – Best Overall WordPress Visit Hostinger Highly customizable Create your blog in minutes Plugins for boosting monetization Tons of growth potential Try Hostinger today WordPress is the most popular blog platform out there—and for very good reason. it’s free, you just have to pay for hosting. We recommend Hostinger for WordPress hosting because it’s the best price for a simple setup. You’ll have a WordPress site in a few minutes with Hostinger. It’s a highly customizable content management system (CMS) for bloggers who want to build out a site for their business. It’s also great if or if you plan to scale your blog for profit. The reason? WordPress is open source. That means they don’t keep their source code a secret. Developers can go in and create widgets, plugins, and other tools to customize WordPress blogs—so you can create any kind of blog you want. One user on our panel, who has stuck with WordPress for four years, describes the CMS as “blogger-friendly” with plenty of SEO features baked in. Their experience is echoed by many of our other users. That said, there is a bit of a learning curve. To get the most out of WordPress in terms of customizability, you’ll need to be more hands-on with the plugins and widgets you choose and how you manage the backend. However, even this is fairly straightforward in WordPress—and it didn’t take long for our users to learn the ropes at all. “With no knowledge of WordPress when I started, it was a bit of a steep learning curve but I figured everything out quickly enough,” said one user. “WordPress is very intuitive and if you can’t figure something out, you just have to Google it or check on YouTube and you will likely find an answer.” Another echoed that sentiment. However, they also said that “it’s fairly easy to use” after blogging on the platform for a few days. Wordpress home page. The tradeoff is well worth it, as you’re able to get a fantastic website fully customized to your exact specifications. That’s what makes it perfect for creating a website that’s primed for audience growth and profit. One user was also able to promote items for third parties in order to generate even more revenue. “I was able to monetize my blog using affiliate marketing, along with info products like ebooks and minicourses once my audience got big enough,” they said. They were also able to leverage plugins to help them build their audience—and generate revenue growth. “One thing that helped with that was creating an email subscriber list and a newsletter using the Mailchimp plugin,” they added. “It’s a must-have if you really want to monetize your blog.” With the sheer number of plugins and the ability to customize your site, you will be able to find any option you want to include on your site. As your blog and audience grow, you can continue adjusting your site to accommodate it in whatever direction you want to go. Blogging with WordPress Confession time: WordPress is actually the CMS we use here at Quicksprout—so we’re a bit biased. In fact, we’re very biased. If you plan on building out a blog that draws in thousands or even millions of readers—not to mention monetizing it—we can’t recommend WordPress enough. But the users are right when they say it’s a bit tricky to learn at first. At first blush, the blog dashboard for WordPress seems more complex than most. But once you jump in, it’s fairly easy to wrap your mind around. And you’ll get used to it relatively quickly. The WordPress Gutenberg editor makes the blogging and editing process very straightforward. You really don’t have to know HTML unless you want to get crafty. All the fundamentals you need to publish a blog are point and click. Sure, it’s not quite like the drag-and-drop functionality as Wix and Squarespace have since you can’t edit the entire page—but it’s pretty darn close. Wordpress blogging platform editing screen and tools. I’ve also found WordPress to be incredibly scalable. No matter what you want to build or how big you get, the platform will grow with you as long as you choose the right plugins. A quick tip: Don’t make the rookie mistake of downloading a ton of plugins and widgets. It’s easy to think you need everything—but sometimes, less is more. Plus installing a ton of plugins is an easy way to sloooooooow down your page’s loading speed. One plugin we do recommend you get is the Yoast SEO plugin. This is an incredibly popular WordPress plugin that helps you set up your posts to be as SEO-friendly as possible with a few guided steps. It’s honestly a must-have if you’re using WordPress. And if you really want, you can start changing the code yourself. Since WordPress is open-source, that means you can do whatever you want with it. If you know PHP or are willing to hire a developer, you can change WordPress however you like. One user put it best: “WordPress gave me everything I needed to create the blog I wanted. It gave me an easy interface to post my blogs, as well as everything I needed or wanted in my blog: a subscription box, an author area; just the look I wanted and the flexibility to change things as needed.” Choosing a Host To build your own site using WordPress, you’ll need to buy a domain name, get web hosting, and set up your account. There’s more information on our posts about the best web hosting and the best web hosting for WordPress, which is about selecting a managed host that’s designed for WordPress. The quick answer: Go with Hostinger. Hostinger landing page for WordPress hosting Hostinger is one of the most popular web hosts, especially for WordPress users. That’s because they run servers that only have WordPress sites on them–this allows Hostinger to configure servers specifically for WordPress security and performance. This means–with no extra work on your part–you can have a faster, safer WordPress site simply by signing up with Hostinger. With just one click, you’ll be able to get your WordPress site up and running within minutes. I’m serious. You simply select WordPress as your desired CMS during the signup process, and it’s automatically installed for you. The price was a big factor for most of the users we spoke with. Hostinger comes in at the very low end price-wise, yet it’s jam-packed with features to help you grow. Starting at $1.99 per month, you’re going to get the ability to: Use your own domain name for free for the first year Create up to 100 different websites Create up to 100 email accounts tied to your domain If you want to create additional sites or email people from a professional address @yourdomain.com, that’s going to cost extra with some of the other platforms. Another helpful aspect of going with Hostinger is the 365/24/7 support via live chat. Most of your WordPress-related questions can be answered with a simple Google search–as the world’s most popular blogging platform, there’s a ton of info out there. Cons of Blogging with WordPress The user panel gave me varying feedback about WordPress’s beginner-friendliness. Some said that it was easy enough, while others pointed out that it was tough on novices at the beginning. “I don’t like how it does take a bit of a learning curve to use,” said one user. Their thoughts showed that WordPress won’t be the easiest option, especially when building your first site. “Sometimes I’d like to have my hand held more through the blog creation process rather than having to look up a bunch of YouTube how-to videos to learn how.” After testing and building sites myself using WordPress, I can say that it takes a bit to get the hang of it—but once you do, you’ll be glad you put the work in. But even if you’re uncomfortable with it at first, it’s still the best option if you’re willing to learn and grow into the role of managing your website site. Another flaw that one of our surveyed users mentioned is that WordPress lacks comprehensive customer support. “I wish there was a help desk that you could contact either by email or by chat,” one user told us. That is one other good aspect of signing up with Hostinger. There is someone you can reach out to via live chat any time of day or night. Their support teams handle a lot of common WordPress questions and may be able to help you out. Final Thoughts on WordPress Along with performing very highly across all criteria, WordPress with Hostinger is a great place to start if you really want to build a blog that will grow with you no matter how big you get. This is especially good if you plan on monetizing your blog and optimizing it for traffic/growth. Eventually, you’ll need to add more resources some other platforms might not be able to offer you. WordPress and Hostinger can do that. Some WordPress users had minor issues with the platform’s learning curve, they all said that they were able to create their ideal blog once they got the hang of it. They especially liked WordPress’s level of customization — with some of them monetizing their websites using the site builder’s many plugins and widgets. Bottom line: Building a WordPress website takes more time than a Wix website. However, the tradeoff is your website is much more customizable (and powerful). And Hostinger makes it easy to host your WordPress site. As such, we highly recommend this combination for bloggers who want to really grow their traffic and/or profit margins. Wix – Best for Beginners Building a Professional Blog Wix Visit Wix Easy to make a beautiful site No coding required AI-powered site builder Tons of great blog templates Try for free Wix gives beginners a way to make it look like professionals designed their blogs—all without needing to learn code or web development. In fact, our panel of users gave it high marks for ease of use, praising the platform for its usability and relatively simple learning curve. One user told me, “I think it’s as straightforward as it can get for people with no coding background.” They created their site with ease without running into any stifling restrictions. Another user called out the drag-and-drop editor’s intuitive UI and its tools to create individualized layouts and designs. We jumped in and tested it out for ourselves and found they were right. You can create a blog in just a few minutes. Wix even walks you through the entire process step-by-step if you need it. Wix Blog Templates They offer hundreds of templates across many different categories of websites. For example, they have templates for travel blogs, simple portfolios, or photography galleries. We love how you don’t need to have any coding knowledge to move assets around and create the blog you want. Another user agreed that Wix offered a very intuitive blog-building experience while adding, “If I’m unsure about a certain topic, it’s quick to find it via their support.” Wix offers both live support via a 24/7 callback service (if you’re in the United States) and a massive knowledge base with articles to help beginners out when they’re stuck. But you can also just let Wix’s ADI builder handle most of the dirty work entirely. This tool leverages artificial intelligence to help you build the exact website you want by just answering a few questions. And, if security or reliability is a concern, Wix nails both with a robust 99.98 percent uptime rate and a team of security professionals on the job 24/7 monitoring the Wix ecosystem for potential cyber threats. All this protection lets you focus exclusively on creating great blog content. Blogging with Wix Wix’s blog manager is indeed simple and intuitive, with analytics and SEO built right in. It’s simple to add the basic features you might want on your blog, too—elements like social tools, likes, comments, hashtags, categories, and subscriber forms. Editing a Wix Blog There’s a blog template category, which is a great place to start. Once you have your template selected, I suggest updating the font, colors, and logo to personalize your template and help it stand out from the rest. Writing a post is as simple as clicking Create a Post, writing your copy, and adding images. You can save drafts or even give other contributors writing privileges for your site. This is all just as easy from a mobile device as from a desktop—no app required. The blogging process is as intuitive and easy to use as folks described—but there were also some other additions that surprised me. Create a blog post with Wix You can easily add alt tags to images and nofollow tags to links without getting into the HTML. This stuff is really important for ranking high in search results, and with Wix, you don’t have to know a whole lot to get your SEO ducks in a row. All your posts automatically get a read-time count to show readers roughly how long it’ll take to go through your post (something Medium also offers) and is a great feature to have for readers. We also like the ability to use live chat to interact with your readers in the Wix app. If you build a real community in your blog or are open to answering reader questions in real time—say, about an online course you’re offering or a webinar that’s coming up—then it’s a cool feature. Most Wix blogs tended to look great across mobile, tablet, and desktop—something our users said helped them draw in readers. “Since my website runs very smoothly on any device,” said one user, “it made it easier for an audience to browse through my work and contact me immediately.” Cons of Blogging with Wix There are a few downsides to Wix — but even from our panel of users, it seemed their major complaints boiled down to a couple of points. The platform sometimes doesn’t play well with mobile devices if you’re trying to do more ambitious scrolling designs, like parallax scrolling. One user said that “my scrolling effect cannot be achieved on mobile so I had to make a simpler version [of my website] separately.” There’s also the matter of the subscription fee that—while fairly affordable—could cause some burgeoning bloggers to cringe (especially if you plan to be more bootstrap). If you plan on recouping some of that money with their ecommerce tools, you’ll still have to account for paying for a pricier plan for that functionality. The panel of users rated Wix fairly low on monetization too—but that’s not to say it can’t be done. Occasionally Wix will feature stand-out blogs that use their platform, and that can lead to new opportunities as was the case with one of our users. “Being featured on Wix did get me some freelance opportunities, and ultimately landed me my full-time job,” they said. Ultimately, we think that despite the downsides, Wix is absolutely worth it for the platform’s ease of use and out-of-the-box blogging features. Final Thoughts on Wix Wix offers the best blogging platform for beginners. It offers a wide array of themes that’ll fit any type of blog and website you want to build. You’ll also be able to easily change the look and feel of those themes to make your blog look the way you want it to—no coding knowledge needed. The users we talked to praised Wix’s ease of use and the ability to customize their blogs on the platform. Our own hands-on research verified that. We could create a great-looking blog with zero experience with Wix in literal minutes. Imagine what you could do with more time. And if you really want to take the guesswork out of designing your website, you can even let Wix take care of it for you by answering a few questions and letting their advanced AI take care of the rest. Bottom line: We highly recommend Wix to beginner bloggers who want to easily build a great-looking blog that’s both reliable and secure. Even experienced website builders will find there’s a lot they can get out of Wix. And with tools like its ecommerce functionality and Wix email marketing, you can grow and shape your website to optimize for things like profit and audience growth. Squarespace – Best Blog Builder for Artists and Designers Squarespace logo Visit Squarespace Gorgeous templates Get your site set up quickly Free version + affordable paid plans Ecommerce tools and integrations Try Squarespace for Free The first thing I notice whenever I go onto a Squarespace blog is how gorgeous it typically looks. Photography and graphic designs seem to leap off the screen. The blog owners themselves seem to always be artistically-minded like illustrators, photographers, graphic designers, home decor experts, and more. Our panel was no exception. They were made up of a website design expert who teaches readers how to make stunning sites, a gardening influencer who frequently showcases mouth watering photos of his homegrown vegetables, and an interior designer who likes to flex their room designs off in gallery posts. And there’s a reason they all chose Squarespace as their platform. The trio rated Squarespace very highly across the board. Many of the users had glowing words to say about its ease of use and designs. “I think I had my blog up and running within a day,” said the user who runs an interior design blog. Their site frequently showcases captivating photographs of eclectically designed rooms. “Squarespace offers clean, beautiful templates that you can easily tweak.” Their claims are backed up by my own research of hundreds of Squarespace blogs. Each of the platform’s templates is created by their team of exceptional designers—and they all look stunning. Create a blog with Squarespace Blogging with Squarespace Editing your blog—from the contacts page, to the about page, to the home page, to your portfolio, to the actual blog itself—is very easy with Squarespace. Like Wix they have a drag-and-drop tool. And unlike WordPress, users don’t have to deal with an occasionally confusing backend editor. “They have a great What You See Is What You Get builder,” said one user. “That means when you’re building the page, you see what the page will look like as you’re building it.” That user is also known as Paige Brunson. She discovered the wonders of Squarespace years back and loved it so much she created a thriving career helping other people design on it too. She believes that Squarespace’s backend editor is superior to that of WordPress because you can see changes as you make them. “Sometimes, like in WordPress, you’re editing your site in the backend, but then you have to go to the front end to see what it’ll look like when you’re finished,” she said. “With Squarespace, as you’re building the blog post, you’re seeing the changes happen at the same time. And I think that’s really, really useful. That’s one aspect that makes it really easy to use.” Squarespace blog template and editing function. Squarespace also gives you tools to add an ecommerce portion to your blog along with a newsletter integration. That can really help you scale and transform your blog for profitability and audience growth. “There are quite a few built-in features in Squarespace to build your business the way you want like a shop, integrated email marketing, a members area and podcast support,” said another user. “Plus they have many resources on their website about every feature and how to use them.” Cons of Blogging with Squarespace Where our panel of users found Squarespace lacking can be boiled down to one word: Customization. While the platform does offer ways to add email marketing, ecommerce, and membership functions to your site, it’s still relatively limited when it comes to overall customization when compared to a CMS like WordPress. “Custom CSS is only available in the Business Plan,” said one user. “It’s doable for my website, I found some great tutorials on the internet for extra CSS customization and I had to buy a sidebar plugin because it wasn’t integrated in my template. For more complex websites this might be a problem.” While Paige is an evangelist for Squarespace, she believes that it could be better when it comes to its mobile customization. “The mobile editor is the thing which my students find the most annoying,” she says. “With Squarespace, building a website takes time [on desktop], and then you have to literally go build the thing a second time [for mobile]. It’s just a lot more time consuming of a process.” Another user also had minor issues with Squarespace’s intuitiveness saying, “It could be more obvious what to perform certain actions. Sometimes you have to hunt and click here and there. Every now and then I’ve accidentally deleted a blog because I’ve clicked the wrong button.” Final Thoughts on Squarespace Squarespace users had extremely positive things to say about the platform’s stunning templates and overall usability. Users might be turned off by the platform due to its lack of features. You also can’t access tools like the Yoast SEO plugin from WordPress. On top of all that, you need to pay a higher price for access to custom CSS. It will cost you a bit more to maximize Squarespace’s ecommerce capabilities, as you need to opt into a more expensive plan. Bottom line: Squarespace offers great looking templates, easy drag-and-drop designs, and an opportunity to show off your art, photographs, and more. Give Squarespace a try today. LinkedIn – Best for Networking LinkedIn Visit LinkedIn 740+ million users to reach Ideal for B2B content Great for establishing expertise Free to use Try LinkedIn for Free LinkedIn gives you a built-in audience for business professionals of all stripes from HR, digital marketing, finance, tech, and more. Many of them are highly active on the site, frequently sharing thought leadership and articles with one another via their LinkedIn feed. So if you’re interested in establishing yourself as an influencer or thought leader in your business space, the audience on LinkedIn is your bread-and-butter. The platform has a ready-made culture and set of expectations that a business blogger would dream of creating on their own site. The challenge for you is creating compelling and share-worthy content to build a following. Publishing blog on LinkedIn After all, LinkedIn is a social network. Your influence grows in proportion to the size of your network. The more posts you publish, the more connection requests and followers you’ll attract. Since it’s a social network for industry professionals, that makes it a great channel to access prospects and get quick feedback from peers on your articles. You have an opportunity to put your thought leadership in front of everyone from potential clients and customers, to recruiters, to influencers in your field. And, you can turn your audience into partners and customers. Each of the users on our panel leveraged LinkedIn blogging to make key networking connections and develop an audience. “So far, I have experienced getting higher-quality clients through LinkedIn by blogging and writing content on the platform,” said one user I talked to. It might seem painfully obvious, but not a lot of people realize that the platform can be incredibly lucrative if you’re in business. The folks on LinkedIn are typically high-earners. They’re C-Suite executives. They’re industry movers and shakers who want to innovate and build lasting businesses. And they’re willing to pay a premium to the right person who will get them there. Said one user, “I can probably make $1,000 or so from LinkedIn every month indirectly if I really tried.” Blogging on LinkedIn Creating a blog on LinkedIn is very simple and just requires a profile. From there, it’s just a matter of clicking on a Facebook-like status button and creating an article. Like Medium, LinkedIn uses that Gutenberg-style editor that’s fairly intuitive. Our panel also found it very usable, with one saying, “The article feature is pretty easy to use. I simply add images, write the text, and publish—and I’m done. No crazy misalignment or formatting issues.” It’s also worth noting that there are differences between a LinkedIn post and article. A post is a smaller update you’d share with your feed and connections. Think along the lines of a quick anecdote or pro tip. They’re limited to 1,300 characters, which is about 5 lines. Articles are longer and more in-depth, of course. They’re something that the broader LinkedIn audience would be interested in reading. And who knows, maybe your post will get picked up by one of LinkedIn’s blogs on marketing or sales.

Compare The Best Blogging Platforms and Blog Sites of 2022