Top Blogging Platforms For SEO

Willing to get your web pages ranked through well-explained, informative, & SEO-oriented blog posts? Then, a good blogging platform is a perfect solution for you. Blogging is the best digital content marketing strategy being used by marketers today. 

Whether you are blogging for your business or as a hobby, publishing blog posts offers many amazing benefits. It helps you establish your brand authority, drive traffic to your targeted web pages, and convert them into leads. 

If you are looking to start your blog but are in a dilemma about which blogging platforms can give you desired results, this post can help you. In this article, we will help you choose the best blogging platform by comparing its pros & cons. 

Take a look:

How To Choose The Best Blogging Platform? - What To Look For?

Before getting involved in the pool of blogging websites, it's important to know what you should look for while choosing one. As a beginner, it should be easy to set up with no technical complexities like coding, etc.

The second thing you should pay attention to is to check whether the particular site has room for editing. It will help you make changes to the published content in case your site grows or adds more features. 

Third, you should look for a site that aligns with your business goals. For example, if you want to boost your online ranking in SERPs, you need a platform with built-in SEO tools. 

Here are some vital features to keep in mind while selecting a blogging website:

• Editing Features - Being a marketer or website owner, you make frequent changes in your web content. So, look for a website that has flexible editing features, otherwise, you won’t be able to update your published blog and it goes in the trash.
• Variety of Themes & Templates - Writing well-informed content has no use unless it has a pleasing appearance. Look for a blogging platform that offers a variety of attractive themes & templates. Find out how many are free or paid or if you can customize your theme by editing them. They will make your blog attractive & readable to the audience.  
• SEO Features - Unless your blogs aren’t capable of being searched by users, they are in vain. According to a study, sites visible on the first SERPs get more organic clicks by searchers due to their sound keyword density. So, find sites that have built-in SEO tools to optimize your content.

Top Blogging Platforms For SEO 

1. Wordpress.org

Wordpress.org is a most popular & free open-source blogging platform where you can post your blogs or build your website within minutes. It is a self-hosted solution ie. all you need to sign up with WordPress and post your blog. The company hosts your website and provides you with a subdomain. But you need to upgrade the plan to remove ads. It is a great platform for publishing customizable blogs. 

Pros:

• It is a cost-effective option with tons of amazing free themes to customize your content. This will attract users and keep them engaged with your content.
• It allows you to make your site more functional & appealing by offering more than 55,000 WordPress plugins. Choose your combination of plugins and themes to make the site look richer. Some of them are free as well as premium ones that you can buy. It can help with SEO, site security, and many more. 
• Added features like forums, Gutenburg block editor, online store, paid membership, or online courses, you can publish more attractive blogs
• It is the best blogging platform for off-page SEO. You can create SEO-friendly URLs, and tags for your site.
• Google Analytics works great here to help you review how your blog is performing or getting any traffic.
• The drag-and-drop editor of WordPress allows you to create any type of content. You can insert dynamic content such as videos, social media feeds, etc.

Cons:

• The availability of lots of plugins makes it a little bit difficult to maintain the site and content.
• Also, it requires keen attention to management & security.

2. Wix

Wix is the best drag-and-drop blogging platform, enabling beginners or first-time bloggers to create their one website without any technical know-how. The process of website creation is too complex. From setting up the home page & optimizing images to creating the logo & making it live, it is overwhelming. But with Wix, the whole process is simplified. The drag-and-drop button allows you to create web pages and insert creative designs in a few minutes. 

Pros:

• The platform comes with 975+ themes & templates to customize the look of your blog. 
• Amazing editing features, managing comments, and easy sharing posts on social media.
• Set up is easy and faster

Cons:

• You need to upgrade your plan to limit ads.
• Limited free third-party apps
• Once a template is chosen, it cannot be changed.

3. Squarespace

It is a website-building platform that allows you to create beautiful web pages using its drag-and-drop option. It comes with lots of pleasing templates, making it the first choice of visual-based businesses like photographers, designers, and artists. Squarespace is a great platform for small business owners looking to boost their online presence. You can create web pages without designers or developers. If you get stuck with any glitch, it has 24x7 available customer service.

Pros:

• It is tech-savvy. Simple & easy to use for beginners. 
• Variety of professionally-designed templates
• No coding required
• Built-in post scheduler
• SEO & social media tools
• Easy to set up

Cons:

• Limited integrations

4. Medium

Medium is a popular blogging platform where you can find some of the most striking and thought-provoking content online. To read those premium content, you need to pay membership fees. Bloggers prefer this site as they can connect with their niche people and create content for them. Just create an account and start publishing articles. You will get a URL for your website like this - https://medium.com/@yourname

Pros:

• Readers can explore a vast library of publications & topics. Subscribe to your blog channel and request you to send them an email every time you post something.
• Easy to set up an account and no coding is required to create a website
• Just pay all your attention to writing

Cons:

• Designing tools are limited
• Strict & rigid site. You can lose followers if your site gets blocked.
• The domain name cannot be used.

5. Blogger

It is a free blogging platform where you can post blogs for free without any knowledge of coding. It is a most popular platform among marketers for blogging, especially for those who are doing it for the first time. Owned by Google, it provides you with a subdomain. For example, your web address would be like this - yourname.blogspot.com. 

Pros:

• Blogger is easy to set up & manage where you don’t have to worry about hosting or organizing your files.
• You can also purchase your custom domain through the authorized domain registers 
• Your blogger website can be managed through using Google Adsense. All you need to do is fill a form with payment information.
• Features like add images, internal linking etc.
• Custom website templates for blog customization

Cons:

• The blog editing options are limited. You can make small changes but can’t change too much
• Limited blog functionality plugins & tools
• Limited templates & theme options
• Google can block your blog any time or even cancel the Blogger service 

6. Tumblr

It is one of the best blogging platforms for businesses indulged in the multimedia sector. You can find many amazing social networking features which enable users to - follow your posts, share/reblog, built-in sharing tools, and many more. Hence, it is one of the best social media platforms to promote your brand. Without any requirement of coding, you can create a standing apart customized, professional website and make it look richer through built-in plugins & multimedia tools. 

Pros: 

• You can add photos, GIFs, links, videos, chat dialogue, audio files, and many more things to make your content more engaging & appealing.
• It gives you a subdomain. For example, your URL will be like - yourusername.tumblr.com. However, you can also buy a custom domain name from registered domain sites. 
• Users can reply to or reblog your post on their Tumblr account and other social media accounts they have.

Cons:

• Users face various restrictions. For example, you can only schedule 50 posts in a day which might affect your content marketing strategy. 
• You can also upload videos only under 100 MB and in MP4 format.
• Google can suspend your Tumblr account at any time if there is any violation in T&C.

7. Web.com

It is a popular website creating a platform with a built-in feature of “adding blogs” to your website. The thing that makes it a popular choice among non-tech savvy users is its drag-and-drop feature at reasonable rates. Blogs can be customized through built-in plugins, SEO tools, templates, themes & designs. It is the easiest website builder platform with millions of satisfied customers.

Pros:

• Easy to set up with no coding required.
• Free domain is included with paid plans
• 24x7 customer support
• You can add unlimited pages to your site
• Tons of professionally designed templates and thousands of stock images

Cons:

• Limited third-party plugins
• Blogging functionality is limited 
• Limited eCommerce with 50 products 

8. Ghost

Ghost is a popular open-source blogging platform among marketers to build websites but there aren’t any 3rd-party plugins. It is available as a hosted platform that you can install/host yourself. 

Pros:

• It is completely made for writing & blogging
• User-friendly & intuitive interface, easy to manage
• Built-in SEO tools 
• Works on Javascript operates faster 

Cons:

• Limited customization as most of the templates are paid
• Branded domain

9. Weebly

Discussing the best blogging platforms and not including Weebly isn’t possible. The well-known blogging platform allows you to build a website with a drag-and-drop option. Hence, no coding is required. It contains everything that you need to post a blog. For example, built-in SEO tools, templates, themes, and hosting. 

Pros:

• Fully-hosted website & blogging platform, useful for marketers if they know writing SEO-friendly content for Google.
• Affordable & easy to use. 
• Drag-and-drop supports both blogs & web pages. So you can create complex layouts by inserting images and many more things
• You can add sub-levels to your navigation menu
• They are mobile-friendly
• You can enjoy plans with an SSL certificate 

Cons:

• Expensive paid subscription with limited features
• Limited SEO functionality
• Drag and drop elements don’t perform in source code
• Weebly it acquired by Square 
• Complex to export website to another platform 

10. Strikingly

It is another popular platform for building great websites, especially among designers & digital media creators. The platform comes with a template-based editor through which the site can be customized without any coding required. Apart from this, you can add text boxes and buttons.

Pros:

• The platform hosts your website and decreases the procedure of setting it up.
• You don’t have to hassle with backend servers. This allows you to completely focus on your content. 
• You can build a website faster with Strikingly. 
• It provides you with a subdomain. However, you can upgrade the plan to get rid of ads.

Cons:

• It is not suitable for multi-page sites
• Expensive plans
• Limited customization options 

CubicalSEO’s Pick On The Best Blogging Platform 

If you ask us about the best blogging platform to start, we would suggest WordPress.org. It is easy to use, easy to set up, and available with thousands of plugins, built-in SEO tools & templates. Moreover, how can we ignore the drag & drop website builder, easing website creation?