Home Blogging Tips What Blog Platform Should You Use?

What Blog Platform Should You Use?

October 23, 2010 By 30 Comments


What's the best blog platform

The great thing about blogging is that there are several platforms to choose from when you first start. Not only that, but cross-connection now means it’s easier to switch from one platform to another as your needs change.

But what blog platform is best for you? Does one offer more than the other? Do more users prefer a specific blog platform over another, and if so why?

Well, yes and no. Like most things when it comes to blogging, it really boils down to two things – time and goals.

Frequency and Future Goals

The reason blogging is so popular is simple – there are no hard and fast rules as to how you should blog. You choose what you want from blogging and the rest will follow naturally.

  • Say you want a personal blog but your time is limited – then you may just want to post once a week, and use a free blog platform.
  • Say you want a business blog with frequent news and offers – you’ll need a platform that can grow with you, so a self-hosted blog platform would be better.
  • Say you have a design or portfolio blog, or a video or multimedia blog – a dedicated platform suitable for large image or media files or podcasts (audio blogs) would be better.

Choosing the platform comes down to the two reasons listed above. So with that in mind, which blog platforms are better for you? Below you’ll find the pros and cons of several of the most popular platforms – hopefully they’ll help you decide your best option.

Free Blogging Platforms

When you first start blogging, it’s usually best to start off with a free option. While self-hosted (see below) is definitely the preferred option, you just don’t know if blogging is going to be for you. Why waste money on a monthly web host and domain name if you’re going to give it up after a few months or less?

The word on blogging

The great news is, there are a ton of free blogging platforms available and each have solid blogging options both built-in and as add-on features. These free platforms are similar, but differ slightly in user-friendliness and upgrading at a later date.

  • WordPress.com – One of the most popular blogging platforms around (both from a free and self-hosted angle), WordPress is a great free starting point. There are a ton of design templates to choose from; widgets to help you make your blog more interactive (like Twitter and Flickr boxes, for example); stats to track your blog’s popularity; and many more. It’s also easy to migrate your existing blog over to your new WordPress one.
  • Blogger – The blogging platform from Google, Blogger is one of the oldest and still most popular for new bloggers. Much like WordPress, Blogger has a ton of templates to choose from; uses Google Analytics to track your visitor stats; create a team blog for multiple authors; add monetization to your blog easily throgh Google AdSense; and more.
  • Tumblr / Posterous – While many see both Tumblr and Posterous as “mini-blogging” platforms, they’re growing in popularity with both casual bloggers as well as more “professional” bloggers. The reason is simple – you can have a blog running in minutes; you can email posts in and the platform will post for you; you can have simple social sharing options; and there’s a huge growing community of users ready to connect with. Expect to see more features soon.

Pros of free blogs: You don’t need to worry about hosting or domains. You’re not committed to regular blogging. There are a ton of upgrade options. They allow you to see if you like blogging.

Cons of free blogs: You don’t have control over your content. You don’t have as many design options as a self-hosted platform. You may lose your blog if the platform goes out of business.

Self-Hosted Blog Platforms

While free blogging platforms are a great introduction to blogging (and can still be sued even when you start blogging more “seriously”), the preferred option for most bloggers is the self-hosted one.

Being in control

There are numerous reasons (see the Pros overview below), but the main one is you’re in complete control. For any blogger, this is the biggest plus point of any platform. So, what are your options here?

  • WordPress.org – Often confused with the free version, the self-hosted version of WordPress is still free to use – you just need to have a host to run it on. Someone like BlogOnCloud9 (affiliate link) is ideal, as they’re dedicated to WordPress bloggers. The benefits of WordPress include a huge range of premium themes to choose from; plug-ins to add functionality; perfect for personal, business, portfolios and more; great search engine visibility; and the ability to grow with you. This is my preferred platform every time.
  • Typepad – Hugely popular with professional bloggers, Typepad is used by the likes of Seth Godin and Valeria Maltoni, which speaks volumes for its business use. Typepad also has hosting built-in to its price, so you don’t have to worry about choosing a web host. Its features include widgets to add functionality (much like WordPress plug-ins); domain mapping; and professional support as opposed to community support.
  • Squarespace – A platform I’ve dabbled in before moving to WordPress, Squarespace is a pretty cool platform that offers some great options for bloggers. Using a drag-and-drop feature for blog layout, you can get a blog up and running fairly quickly. Like Typepad, its pricing includes hosting; you can import your social network functions into Squarespace; you can track visitors; and there’s a cool built-in form builder to use across your blog.

Pros of self-hosting: Full control over your content. Choice of web hosts (with WordPress). Added layers of design options. Viewed more seriously for business blogging. Unlimited growth. Oodles (yes, oodles!) of functionality.

Cons of self-hosting: Monthly or annual investment financially. Less ready-made features.

Time to Blog

These are just some of the options available to help you either get started blogging, or become a more “serious” blogger. There are many more as well. Drupal and LoudBlog (perfect for media blogs and podcasters) are two, for instance.

Even Facebook Notes and MySpace blogs are useful for beginners (MySpace is ideal for up-and-coming bands that want to share their daily lives with fans, for example).

As I mention in the post, I believe that self-hosted WordPress is the best blog platform around. Which option you choose is up to you and your needs. If you think it’ll just be a hobby, maybe one of the free platforms is better. If you’re looking to invest time and use a blog to build your brand, then self-hosted is ideal.

The best thing to do? Look at your favourite bloggers and see what they’re using/recommending. Chances are, their reasons won’t be too different from the ones you need to decide with.

How about you? What’s your favourite blog platform, and why? Which ones aren’t covered here that you prefer? Share your experience in the comments.

image: Maria Reyes-McDavis
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Patchi
Patchi 5 pts

Very helpful words of wisdom here! If I was to start a blog via Word Press free, is it cumbersome to upgrade to Word Press paid later down the track once my blog starts booming?

Patch

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DannyBrown
DannyBrown 2711 pts moderator

Patchi The transfer is pretty seamless. However, if you're going by Wordpress.com (hosted) versus WordPress.org (self-hosted with monthly web host), I'd recommend buying the domain you want to use long-term and use that. It means when you switch platforms, the posts you've written shouldn't lose any link love, social shares or Google juice because the domains will be the same.

My latest conversation: Wordle_tag_cloud | For Bloggers By Bloggers

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Patchi
Patchi 5 pts

DannyBrown Thanks Danny. I think I'm a little confused. So if I have or want to use my own domain (i.e. I already have a domain in use) then I go via wordpress.org?

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DannyBrown
DannyBrown 2711 pts moderator

Patchi It depends. The cool thing about Wordpress.com is it allows new bloggers to test the water, before going the full route and paying for hosting and themes and all the other cool things WordPress.org is.

However, Wordpress.com was smart, and realized not everyone wants a URL with SITENAME.wordpress.com, so what they allow is a premium service (around $15 a year, I think) where you buy a domain from the likes of GoDaddy, and switch your Wordpress.com to the purchased domain.

So, patchi.wordpress.com would be patchi.com, yet still on Wordpress.com, with no monthly hosting fees.

Because of this, a single post would be something like patchi.com/POSTNAME.

Now, if you swictched to the self-hosted WordPress.org platform, you could transfer the domain, so everything would stay the same.

Compare that to patchi.wordpress.com/POSTNAME, and losing all the posts you'd written because they'd be patchi.com/POSTNAME on a self-hosted WordPress.org set-up.

Hope that makes sense and helps!

My latest conversation: Wordle_tag_cloud | For Bloggers By Bloggers

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Kacem Jlidi

Glad I landed here Danny!
Your post answered greatly some of my questions but it still have a couple more :-)

I'm planning to start a business blog and I'm more into choosing wordpress but does the paid version (wordpress.org) require some IT knowledge or PHP, CSS ? In other words, will I need to higher a programmer?

How difficult is it to host it and how much would it cost?
Would I still need to get a domain name if i go with wordpress.org ?

A friend of mine is pushing me to having a domain name on blogspot, but to me I think it's a platform that works better for personal type of blogs!?

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Danny Brown

Hi Kacem,

Thanks for finding us, and glad you found the post useful. :)

While having PHP or CSS knowledge can help, it's definitely not necessary. There are a ton of theme options that you can choose from, from free to paid. For Bloggers By Bloggers uses the Genesis framework, and I didn't need to add any coding at all. :)

Hosting's very simple. We recommend BlogOnCloud9 (you can find a link in the post), because they're dedicated to WordPress users and the support is second-to-none. I use them on my own blog, as well as a few others and some clients, and never had anything but great service from them.

BlogOnCloud9 is a little more expensive than standard hosts like Hostgator or Bluehost, but worth it. They use cloud technology so you're not worrying about servers. Additionally, each install is unique to your blog, as opposed to being on a shared server, and this improves load time.

However, if they're a little out of your monthly budget, then Bluehost and Hostgator offer decent alternatives. Set-up is pretty easy, and can be done via one click once the hosting is set up (BlogOnCloud9 set everything up for you, as well as the most crucial and important plug-ins to use).

BlogOnCloud9 is $25 per month, though they're currently on invite only. Hostgator and Bluehost average around $10 per month.

You'd still need a domain name, but you can grab that while setting up your hosting account, making it a smoother set-up as opposed to getting the domain, then the host, then joining the two together.

Blogspot is okay, but you don't have full control over your content because it's still being hosted by Google. Always go for the option that offers you the most control - which is why we recommend self-hosted WordPress every time.

Hope that helps! :)

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Kacem Jlidi

Thanks for taking the time to explain all that :-)
Indeed it's too helpful and you cleared up many things. thanks a lot ;-)

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Danny Brown

Hi Kacem,

Thanks for finding us, and glad you found the post useful. :)

While having PHP or CSS knowledge can help, it's definitely not necessary. There are a ton of theme options that you can choose from, from free to paid. For Bloggers By Bloggers uses the Genesis framework, and I didn't need to add any coding at all. :)

Hosting's very simple. We recommend BlogOnCloud9 (you can find a link in the post), because they're dedicated to WordPress users and the support is second-to-none. I use them on my own blog, as well as a few others and some clients, and never had anything but great service from them.

BlogOnCloud9 is a little more expensive than standard hosts like Hostgator or Bluehost, but worth it. They use cloud technology so you're not worrying about servers. Additionally, each install is unique to your blog, as opposed to being on a shared server, and this improves load time.

However, if they're a little out of your monthly budget, then Bluehost and Hostgator offer decent alternatives. Set-up is pretty easy, and can be done via one click once the hosting is set up (BlogOnCloud9 set everything up for you, as well as the most crucial and important plug-ins to use).

BlogOnCloud9 is $25 per month, though they're currently on invite only. Hostgator and Bluehost average around $10 per month.

You'd still need a domain name, but you can grab that while setting up your hosting account, making it a smoother set-up as opposed to getting the domain, then the host, then joining the two together.

Blogspot is okay, but you don't have full control over your content because it's still being hosted by Google. Always go for the option that offers you the most control - which is why we recommend self-hosted WordPress every time.

Hope that helps! :)

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Carlos Smith

I use Blogger since I got hang of it ever since 2005.I tried Wordpress but it was a bit complicating for me.

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Joe Hage

I was under the impression that blogspot was particularly bad for you from an SEO standpoint. And I wouldn't want to have "previous blog" and "next blog" advertised on my site. I'd rather have them stay with me for a while.

P.S. I like how your responses are a different shade than ours. Do you use a plug in for that? Details, please.

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Danny Brown

Hi Joe,

I've heard a ton of conflicting reports about Blogger as far as SEO goes. Some say it's great because it's Google and they give preference; some say it's not as good since you're working just with tags as opposed to meta descriptions and keywords (unless it's changed since I last used). But you're right about the Next/Previous option - okay if it's taking them somewhere on your blog, but off your site? Meh.

It is a plug-in:

http://rmarsh.com/plugins/highlight-comments/

Then just mess about with the hex colour settings until you're happy.

Cheers!

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Patrick Garmoe

Great post Danny. I've tried just about every platform you mention.

I've always liked the look and feel of Tumblr, for newbies, but it always seems to run slow.

Don't you think SquareSpace and TypePad is ideal for bloggers who want to be professional, but don't want to higher a designer etc., or don't know code? That's the one advantage I see to those sites, over Wordpress.

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Danny Brown

Thanks Patrick,

It's a good question - the drag-and-drop of Squarespace does make it pretty easy to get running quickly.

Mind you, if you're on WordPress, you have some great options like the Headway theme (that I use on my personal blog as well as the Bonsai Interactive site and some client sites). It's a non-coder's dream and really gets you running with an individual design pretty fast.

Then you have the Genesis framework that we use on here (and that I've just started digging into), and its array of child themes, which give you a professional look off the bat. Not to mention Woo Themes, Press75, etc. :)

That's the beauty of the self-hosted option on WordPress, and one that I see as a huge advantage over the other platforms, the community of developers making it easy for us non-developers. :)

But like I said, I'm biased when it comes to favoured platforms. ;-)

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doug hay

Good summary of the options. For people blogging for business, they need to host it otherwise there is not much benefit from a SEO point of view. I personally prefer WordPress for my clients and used it for my new site.

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Danny Brown

Couldn't agree more, Doug. No matter what platform you choose, self-hosting is the only way to go from both a business and dedicated SEO approach. You could buy a domain and map it to a free account, but it's still being forwarded so it's second-stage SEO.

Like you, I'm a huge WordPress fan. For this site, we're already seeing great Alexa and Google authority, and I place a big part of that being down to the way WordPress is simple at getting you visible. Of course, having great bloggers as part of the team and a theme that has a strong built-in SEO tool helps as well. :)

Cheers for dropping by, sir!

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Eric Herberholz

Posterous knocked my socks off!!!

I've used mostly blogger, and some wordpress, but Posterous blows them all away. I can't telll you how often I discover yet another Posterous feature that makes we say "wow!"

Besides, AllTop.com is built on Posterous, and Guy Kawasaki knows how to do things right!

Thanks for asking this question. Very timely for me.

BTW, I just recently returned to using ScribeFire, which is now integrated with Zemanta!!! And ScribeFire is Posterous-aware/capable.

I'm in heaven.

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Danny Brown

That's what I love about blogging, Eric - there's something that's perfect for everyone. :)

I used to use Posterous for short-form blog posts, until I decided to move everything to my own blog. But I agree, they have some cool features - though not sure about blowing self-hosted WordPress away, but then I'm biased. ;-)

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Holli B

I have used all of the platforms you have mentioned above, WordPress (free and paid) and Blogger being used most often. Of all, I am with you when it comes to WordPress - paid. It's simple to install and customize and the number of extensions are endless. I would recommend it to any person who wants to be a blogger - whether amateur or professional.

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Danny Brown

I think what I like most about WordPress, Holli, is the open source approach. Anyone can develop for it and, like you say, that's made it incredibly versatile when it comes to flexibility and features.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your take. :)

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