Dorit Sasson — January 20, 2017 Follow @VoicetoStoryWhether you’re new to blogging as a business owner or an experienced blogger, choosing the right blogging platform can expand your social reach considerably, but thinking smart is key.
A blogging platform is how you’ll reach your target audience, but there’s much more to consider than just setting up a blogging platform.
To keep your followers engaged, bloggers need to write high quality posts and incorporate more visual and audio. To do that, you’ll need to figure out which blogging platform best suits your needs. Read on for 5 top things that will help you figure out blogging platform to expand your business.
Use Social Networking to “Test” Your Blog Content
Think about where your ideal users “hang out.” Chances are, they most likely hang out on Facebook and Twitter to catch-up on the latest trends and developments. Social media has become the latest craze of blogging, but the key is to know which social media platform works best for your purpose. Hop over to Twitter for example, and you’ll notice that each tweet is a mini-blog that can be digested in bite-sized chunks.
This is the kind of exposure you’ll want to start gaining. So before you begin spending hours writing blog posts, engage your audience first over on social media to see which kinds of content resonate with them most. Then capitalize on this content of your personal blog.
Flexibility
A good blogging platform gives you the room to professionally grow and expand. As you and your blog grow, you may consider changing the look of your site and adding additional features for your growing audience. It also pays to get clear about the kind of blog you want to create. Do you want to generate income from your blogging endeavors? Some of the free blogging platforms like blogspot.com, may not offer all the functions needed for monetizing your blog. So even if you are not monetizing your blog, it’s a good idea to invest in a platform that has this functionality.
Easy Set Up for All Kinds of Content
More website, less blogging. That’s one of the blogging trends forecasted for 2017. Keeping up with good quality content doesn’t have to be in the form of maintaining a personal blog. Videos and infographics still capture that personal voice that made your blog popular in the first place. To start a blog, you’ll want less hassle and a user-friendly set-up that also caters to mobile users and ultimately, get your blog indexed in the search engines.
Be Able to Drive Traffic to your Blog
Although keyword stuffing won’t get your blog indexed by the search engines, good SEO requires relevant content that can also be easily trackable by other SEO tools.
A good blogging platform should offer SEO (Search Engine Optimization) friendly tools. WordPress SEO by Yoast one of the most downloaded WordPress plugins, is compatible with SEMrush and Google Keyword Planner.
Optimizing your keywords with SEMrush for example, gives comprehensive listing of all your site’s backlist – important for building ranking and visibility.
Hosted or Self-Hosted Solution
Another important and yet overlooked aspect for choosing a blogging platform is to choose either the hosted or self-hosted route. A hosted solution does not require any technical knowledge such as coding skills, but in today’s digital age of content overload, you still need to stay abreast of blogging trends and SEO best practices for building visibility. Additionally, a hosted solution requires monthly fees. Self-hosted solutions require a website hosting (in many cases, free) and a domain name.
Although the self-hosted solution is obviously cheaper and in many cases, free, a hosted solution is a better platform for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) especially if pursuing an e-commerce blog. SEO ranking factors such as independent navigation links, independent page titles, independent page URL’s, independent meta descriptions, social sharing buttons, and integrated blogging platforms are not always readily available with free self—hosted solutions.
As you can see, a lot of thought needs to go into choosing the right blogging platform. It’s not only about starting a blog to share your passions, curiosities and ideas.
In short — choose the platform that will serve both you and your business as you grow and expand.
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