How to Pick the Best Blogging Platform for Your Business Website
Blogging is considered as one of the best forms of marketing in this day and age. It is a great way to build brand awareness, brand advocacy, brand loyalty and sales. However, your success in blogging will depend mainly on the blogging platform used. For a business blog, it is important that you consider your long term goals before you start with your blog. The early part of your decision making process should be mainly about deciding which blogging platform you will use in order to meet your business objectives.
WordPress
If you choose WordPress, you must understand that there are two versions of this blogging platform that you can choose from. Both of these will offer the same blogging application but they differ mainly on the hosting services and features.
The first thing you need to understand about WordPress is that there are two “versions” of WordPress to choose from. Both provide similar blogging application but they come with two key differences and that is the hosting and the features.
WordPress can host your website for free and this means that they will store your content for you and then serve it to your target consumers. You do not need to do anything on your end but to create content and then add pages to it in order to turn it to a website. But then, the features of WordPress are limited and it is not recommended to those who will set up a business blog where you will have full control and flexibility. Hostgator is a great place to get WordPress hosting for cheap (and it’s reliable!).
- Pros – the main advantage of WordPress is that it is very easy to use. It handles everything, including the hosting services, so you don’t have to pay for anything or fix any hosting related issues. Above all, you will be able to create a blog and website easily and quickly.
- Cons – the functionality of WordPress is limited except if you are willing to shell out some money to pay for upgrades and other fees for using your own domain name, adding plugins, custom themes, and many more. Also, your site will display various ads from WordPress that might affect the perception of your customers on your site and branding.
- Recommendation – WordPress is definitely the best blogging application for those who are new in the world of blogging and is highly recommended to those who do not want to spend money on hosting since their hosting service is free. However, it is not ideal for businesses, especially large organizations and companies.
Blogger
Blogger is a blogging platform that is owned by Google, and as expected, it integrates seamlessly with other products of Google, such as Analytics, AdSense, Google Plus, and others. Blogger is so easy to use and is totally free. It comes with various customization options but it is not as flexible as WordPress. The Blogger post editor is fully streamlined and is very easy to use.
- Pros – just like WordPress, Blogger is easy to use. Another advantage is that it is totally free to use.
- Cons – one of the disadvantages of using Blogger is that it does not have any categorization feature for blog posts. You also cannot self host your blog or your website, and thus, the accessibility as well as the functionality of your blog will be at the mercy of the current offerings of Blogger which might not be something that you need for your business.
- Recommendation – like WordPress, Blogger is not ideal for a business blog or website. However, if you are new in the world of blogging and you cannot afford to spend a lot for a professional website, then Blogger might be fine for you. But as soon as you start earning money, go ahead and invest on the more sophisticated blogging platforms.
Tumblr
Tumblr is known to have a class of its own since it is not like WordPress and Blogger that have a traditional blogging platform. Tumblr is mainly intended for short quotes, mini blogs, videos, as well as images, and these contents can be used by other Tumblr users to re-blog just with a click of a mouse. Think of Tumblr as a combination of Facebook and Twitter. All it takes is to click for the type of content that you want to publish and then you can create a blog post via Tumblr.
- Pros – just like with the blogging platforms that were already mentioned, the great thing about Tumblr is that it is totally free. It is easy to use as well and the Tumblr community is huge so you can easily build your network and you can easily gather a lot of audience into your site.
- Cons – the disadvantage of Tumblr is that its customization features is very limited. Yahoo has actually purchased Tumblr so its future is not clear yet. Perhaps, the unavoidable ads will make it to Tumblr in the near future and that could distract your customer’s attention.
- Recommendation – Tumblr is not a recommended blogging platform for business sites. But, it is a great method to use for content marketing as well as social media marketing portfolio. And thus, Tumblr must be used along with other blogging platforms, such as WordPress.
Typepad
Typepad is another great blogging platform, that is, if you do not mind paying certain fees to use it. Unfortunately, there is no way around the fee and this starts at $8.95 for each month although a lot of people would still choose to make use of Typepad for business blogging. All of the blogs in Typepad are hosted by Typepad themselves, so there is no need to worry about the hosting.
- Pros – what’s great about Typepad is that they offer unlimited data storage and that they will host your business blog for you. It is easy to use as well even for first timers.
- Cons – the downside with Typepad is that the customization features are limited and that you have to pay certain fees to use the blogging platform.
- Recommendation – there is no need to pay for something if you can get it for free. For as long as you spend some time inn learning how to set up your website, then it is better to use WordPress or Blogger than Typepad.