Blogging is in contention to be one of the most popular forms of social media on the planet. Last count place the number of bloggers at over 31 million people. So, if you have any type of business with an online presence it is essential to include a blog as an option on the main page. Blogs are easily personalized and actually drive attention to your homepage through such means as membership or affiliate marketing. A blogger can also create a ‘landing page’, open an ecommerce site, develop an email service and much more – so they can be considered ‘big business’.
Now, it is important to note that at least some rudimentary skills are required for blogging. Chief among these is the ability to write engagingly. Blogs are written on any topic under the sun – so the blogger does not need to be expert in every field. Instead, it would be worthwhile to become knowledgeable in only a few. There are many nuances to the blog that will be considered in future entries. Perhaps the most important consideration is the blogging platform that you may want to choose and that could depend on how much you want to pay for the privilege of blogging – although it does not necessarily cost money to utilize these blogging platforms. For today – let’s briefly examine two of the most popular.
WordPress.org. Arguably this is the single most popular blogging platform. It is ‘self-hosted’ which means it is a web service that runs and maintains a website through the use of a private web server. As of the year 2020, WordPress.org is utilized by over 1/3 of websites worldwide. The reason for this is simple. WordPress.org allows for endless customizations of a site so that it is easily tailored to the needs of the blogger. The plugins are nearly endless with a variety of options for generating income and monetizing the blog.
The pros of WordPress.org include such advantages as the ability to add tracking scripts to collect analytics that can be used to track data that is pertinent to your success and the ability to maintain control from a personal perspective. However, you are in charge of maintenance and updates. Hidden costs include the requirement to purchase a domain and pay a web hosting organization.
Medium. This is a very popular blogging platform that is quite different from WordPress. Medium comes with a pre-made blogger platform in which the blogger need only publish content for others to access and read. This is advantageous for those who are not interested in purchasing a domain name or paying for web hosting. Medium offers the blogger the opportunity to share their content with what may be an eclectic audience. The advantages of Medium include the fact that it is simply to use, you are able to track your content and Medium already has an established presence on the internet. However, if you are looking to create a money-making blog then this is not the site for use. You have limited control of the site overall, but it is free.
Progressive Office is expert in all things related to blogging. Contact us for support.