Blogs! Which site did you pick for yours?

Blogs! Which site did you pick?

  • Wordpress (.com)

    Votes: 13 40.6%
  • Wordpress (.org)

    Votes: 8 25.0%
  • Blogger

    Votes: 4 12.5%
  • Ghost

    Votes: 1 3.1%
  • Tumblr

    Votes: 2 6.3%
  • Medium

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Svbtle

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Jekyll

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Livejournal

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Squarespace

    Votes: 1 3.1%
  • Other CMS (Wix, Weebly, etc)

    Votes: 2 6.3%
  • Other Blog (Quora, Tinypress, etc)

    Votes: 1 3.1%

  • Total voters
    32

WriterTrek

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Hey guys! So I see a lot of people asking around about which blogging site to use, or how to get started, or what their options are, etc. And I see a sub-forum for posting your blogs, and getting feedback, and getting comments... but I haven't seen a thread yet about which blogging website everyone has actually chosen. If you have more than one, pick either the one you use most or the one you prefer of the ones you use at all.

And I'd like to know. I'm guessing that 75%+ will have picked either Wordpress or Blogger. I'm planning to go with Ghost. But I thought I'd do this thread to both provide information on the options and to showcase what other members of AW have picked.

Personally? I am 99% sure I'm going with Ghost, but Wordpress would be my second choice.

The biggest advantage to Wordpress is that it's super popular, a lot of people use it, and it has fantastic support. There's a free version (.com) and a more fully fledged version that requires hosting (.org).

Blogger seems to be popular with authors/writers on this site, and when you have a lot of people using the same platform it can be easy to cross post and visit others blogs. I don't know how interested Google is in keeping blogger up with the times, however.

Ghost is fairly new, and created via Kickstarter campaign by John O'Nolan, who worked extensively with Wordpress. I'm a big fan of it for various reasons, but it's not for everyone, and it's not completely free.

Medium has taken off in popularity lately, and I think it's affiliated with Twitter. Just in longer format.

Tumblr has been popular for ages, but I haven't seen a lot of people using it for serious blogging... but that might be just the people I know who use it. It's certainly possible to use it for a professional platform, I just don't see it as often.

Livejournal is... dated these days, but I still follow at least two bloggers there, and it used to be insanely popular.

...and lots of others! But rather than give my limited accounts of the ones I'm not as familiar with, check out the links. I'm leaving out CMS like Drupal and Joomla because I've never seen those used for pure blogging as opposed to creating a fully featured website. Don't forget to vote!

There are a lot of comparison websites out there on different ways to blog. Most of them are biased. But if you're debating which platform to use, it's worth doing a google search for Option1 VS Option2. Something will come up!


Wordpress (.com), Wordpress (.org), Blogger, Ghost, Tumblr, Medium, Svbtle, Jekyll, Livejournal, Quora, Tinypress, Wix, Weebly, Squarespace
 
Last edited:

conradhall

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Hi WriterTrek,

You've raised an interesting questions with a simple answer.

When your writing is a business, use a platform that allows to own it. When your writing is, and will remain, a hobby, use any platform.

Yes, there is a learning curve when developing a website. That's part of the fun of building a business. I use, recommend, and teach the approach of having a self-hosted WordPress site. It's easy to use, makes SEO simple, and guarantees you keep control of your content.
 

AW Admin

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Whatever you pick, please pay particular attention to:

1. Backup
2. Export

These are related but should not be considered identical.

You want to be able to backup your content—all of it—easily and reliably.

You want to be able to export content in a form that makes it relatively "liquid," that is, it can be re-imported or converted to another format/CMS
 
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ap123

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Wordpress. A couple of the reasons I went with it no longer apply, but I am and have been completely happy with it. I'm not tech savvy at all, and it's idiot proof. :D I've been running my blog about 3 and a half years now, never regretted the choice of WP.
 

WriterTrek

Boldy Writing
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Hi WriterTrek,

You've raised an interesting questions with a simple answer.

When your writing is a business, use a platform that allows to own it. When your writing is, and will remain, a hobby, use any platform.

Yes, there is a learning curve when developing a website. That's part of the fun of building a business. I use, recommend, and teach the approach of having a self-hosted WordPress site. It's easy to use, makes SEO simple, and guarantees you keep control of your content.
I'm a little confused, the only question I asked was "Which did you pick?" So the answer is simple, sure, but it's also potentially different for each person, hence the poll. But yeah, great advice! Thanks!

Thanks to AW Admin and ap123 as well!
 

ZachJPayne

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I run 4 different Wordpress sites and, while paying for the hosing is a bit costly, I love the simplicity of WP.
 

WriterTrek

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I self-host (JustHost) and use Joomla.

Oh nice! I thought about listing that (and Drupal) but left it for the other CMS category. Thanks for the post though - you liking Joomla? I haven't used it, but I heard it could be complex.

On another note, your "About Rob" page doesn't seem to be working. Cheers!
 

RKarina

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I maintain a variety of sites, and given a choice, I like Wordpress (free or hosted - more on that in a moment). Partly because it's what I started with, so I know it, partly because I like the combination of features available vs. ease of use.

I use pretty much all WP options: free WP sites, WP's "upgrade" version - where WP is the host (no .wordpress in the domain), and hosted sites elsewhere that use WP as the platform. I like them all for different reasons.
 

robjvargas

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Oh nice! I thought about listing that (and Drupal) but left it for the other CMS category. Thanks for the post though - you liking Joomla? I haven't used it, but I heard it could be complex.
I opted out of the "single-click" install. As a result, some of the streamlining that does for me needs to happen manually. And, because of some poor choices on my part, I don't have previous configs to apply.

So far, however, the complexity is giving me lots of options, which I want. Happy so far.

On another note, your "About Rob" page doesn't seem to be working. Cheers!
Add another item to the to-do list. Insert at #1. :cry:;)
 

AJMarks

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Went with a web hosting company, bought the web domains and use Wordpress due to the simplicity of uploading and maintain the website. Been maintaining a website now for almost 17 years now and modifying html was a pain. Now I can concentrate more on what I actually put into the site than coding. Although switching hosting sites for my story site ended up as one massive headache to go with the backache I had.
 

L. OBrien

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I've been using wordpress and it seems to run really smoothly, though I've only been at it for about two months. It's easy to use, looks nice, and requires minimal effort. The one hitch that I have noticed is that wordpress reader functions as a discovery engine but views in reader aren't counted, which means that you'll sometimes get a bunch of likes on an article but not a single view. This might not be as big a deal for people with larger followings, though, and it's only an issue if you're concerned with your page view stats.