Which One is Best? How to Choose a Blogging Platform?

Are you launching a website and starting a blog simultaneously? A blogging platform is a software or service that allows you to publish content onto the internet as a blog. Your business's blog can be contained within the company website, or it can be hosted somewhere else. Maybe you want to keep the blog more personal to you, the CMO, or the marketing lead and link it to the company website as you decide what you want it to be.

Many smaller companies prefer a complete website solution, seeing that as simplifying their world. Popular blogging platform choices include WordPress and HubSpot. Medium or LinkedIn provides some of the best third-party platform options if you prefer a more personal blog. Descriptions of their offerings, pros and cons, and ease of use will be addressed below. Let's dive in and see what you can do to take your blogging efforts to the next level:

WordPress

Before discussing WordPress further, be aware that this is all about WordPress.org. This is not to be confused with WordPress.com, which does not offer all the functionality or flexibility of the original WordPress.org. WordPress.org is the most popular blogging software in the world, an open-source platform that allows you to build your website or blog in minutes. It is said to power a full third of all the websites on the internet.

Pros of WordPress

• Expandability: You can expand your platform and add features like an online store or forums.
• Customization: There are thousands of themes to use in designing your blog or website.
• Functionality: You get access to over 50,000 plugins, which are applications that expand what you can do with WordPress. Many of these plugins are SEO-specific.
• Built-in SEO: The functionality that allows you to create SEO-friendly tags, categories, and URLs is built-in.

Cons of WordPress

• Learning Curve: A learning curve is involved if you manage the platform alone.
• Maintenance: You have to take care of backups and security (both of which your host should provide).

HubSpot

HubSpot is a developer of software for inbound marketing and sales, but that description does not do the company or its platform justice. HubSpot describes itself as an all-in-one inbound marketing solution. The aim is to provide tools for social media marketing, content management, web analytics, and search engine optimization. Everything related to your business's marketing is available in one place, whether as a built-in feature or an integration available via the extensive ecosystem.

As an all-in-one growth platform, HubSpot Content Hub helps companies grow by being better able to attract visitors, engage leads, and delight customers. The platform encompasses marketing, sales, and support. All the pieces use the same database, so everyone in your organization works off the same system of record. The smooth handoff between marketing, sales, and support leads to a better customer experience.

Key Features of HubSpot

• All-in-One Platform: For a business with a strong content marketing focus, HubSpot offers one of the most robust ecosystems, including CRM, CMS, social media marketing, and analytics by default.
• Integrations: If the default tools are not enough, additional integrations with other industry-leading solutions like Salesforce fill in any gaps.
• Scalability: You can start with free versions and work up to premier marketing automation solutions.

In short, if the focus of your blog is content marketing, use HubSpot. If you want more information on the differences between HubSpot and WordPress, this is a thorough comparison.

LinkedIn Pulse

LinkedIn Pulse is a content publishing platform integrated within LinkedIn where any member can create and publish their content. This platform allows you to track the demographics of your readers, including their industries, job titles, and locations. Using LinkedIn Pulse can help build your reputation online, increase your credibility, and reach a large built-in audience. There are many things you want to accomplish when blogging for business.

Benefits of LinkedIn Pulse

• Audience Insights: Once you publish a post, it becomes part of your profile and appears in your Posts section, where you can track reader data.
• Notifications: Your followers and connections receive notifications of your new content. Members who don't follow you but fit your industry or share connections can also receive an update.
• Engagement: You can connect with your target audience, write and publish useful content to engage customers, and establish yourself as an industry thought leader.
• Discoverability: Pulse recommends content to users based on their connections, interests, and industries.
• Audience and SEO: LinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals, so it brings an immediate audience and has SEO pull.

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Medium

Medium is an easy-to-use blogging platform that has limited social networking features. It has become a community of writers, bloggers, journalists, and experts. Medium works like a social networking site in that you start by creating an account, setting up your preferences, and then can immediately start publishing.

Medium lets you have a blog separate from your company site, but you can link back and forth or to a page on the website.

Pros of Medium

• Ease of Use: No setup is required, and no coding skills are needed.
• Community Access: You immediately have access to an online community of people with similar interests.
• Focus on Writing: You get to focus on your writing without needing to design a website.
• SEO and Audience: The platform has a built-in audience and the additional SEO pull of being on a worldwide platform.

Cons of Medium

• Limited Branding: Very limited features for designing or building your brand exist.
• Audience Ownership: Medium owns your audience, so you will lose your followers if you cease your blog on the platform.

So, while we can't tell you what to do or which blogging platform perfectly meets your needs, hopefully, reading through this will help you figure out what platform or combination of platforms will work best for you when blogging for business.

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