“Start a blog about what you love, and you won’t have to worry about money in the next 5 years!” 

You must have heard this in a YouTube video, a blog or a webinar about passive income or making money on the internet, sometime in life. 

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Every internet guru tells you to start a blog. But every time you make up your mind, you’re stuck in the pool of information on how to start blogging in 2021. 

Well, I have been blogging for a while and I won’t bore you with exact steps that you can get easily through a Google search. 

But rather, I would help you choose the right platform for blogging that will help you focus on just what you love, and leave the rest – technical, design, and other aspects to technology. 

Best Platforms to Start Blogging as a Beginner 

Everybody knows about Wix, Blogger and WordPress, so I won’t cover them. Rather, I would cover some interesting platforms that are more relevant in 2021, considering the SEO algorithms and core vital updates from Google. 

The platforms I will cover would help you begin your journey even if you are not proficient with technology, coding, SEO, design and other aspects. 

Qualification Parameters for This List 

• Ease of Use 
• SEO & Core Web Vital Benefits 
• Time to Launch a Blog 
• Technical Proficiency to Publish 
• Security 

In short, you can start writing about what you love by choosing any platform (or solution) mentioned below: 

Publii

This was a pleasant discovery during the lockdown. 

Publii is a static CMS that allows you to create a secure, fast, and reliable blog within minutes, without getting into the specifics of setting up a blog. 

It is just like a word processor that you can download on your laptop and get started with your first blog, right away. But this doesn’t mean it has lack of features. Instead, it is the easiest platform that I migrated to, after working years on WordPress. 

After I migrated two websites to Publii, I even helped another blogger friend migrate her 1-year old blog on WordPress to Publii. She exported all her previous posts to Publii within hours. 

Publii gave me full control over my blog’s SEO parameters and solved my age-old problem with WordPress – page speed issues. 

While I couldn’t achieve even 70-80 score with WordPress, I managed to get a 90+ score on Google PageSpeed Insights with my first blog on Publii. And the organic ranking benefits are amazing, too. 

If you don’t like getting your hands dirty, but still want some sort of customization, Publii can be a great static CMS for your blog. It has a marketplace consisting of several themes to get you started. 

Medium.com

If you have ever thought of blogging, you must already know Medium. After all, it is one of the largest hubs for independent publishers in the online world. 

Well, after its recent update, you can now use Medium to launch a blog with your logo/branding and a customizable profile page.

The best part- it takes just 15 minutes to set up everything and you can start writing your first blog right away.

I wrote on Medium a lot during the lockdown and even now, I love the clean UI of the Medium post editor. You get in-built integration with Unsplash for images and Medium has an existing reader base for almost any category/niche you can think.

If you don’t want to spend a lot of time to start your blog, you can begin on Medium. Also, it can be a great start to your future blog. You can test waters on Medium to understand what the audience wants. 

Also, the writing community on Medium is amazing. You get lots of options to increase your reach and get visible in front of the world with Medium Publications.

Ghost

Ghost is a popular publishing platform for writers, bloggers and people who like to share their thoughts through words. 

Ghost as a platform focuses on the writing and content experience – something that I love a lot.

Right from the text editor to distribution, SEO, customizations and more, it is an ultimate package. Something, I’d love to call a viable WordPress alternative if you want to just run a blog and not a corporate website. 

If you check its official website, you’ll see there are pricing packages associated with using Ghost as a platform, but the best thing about Ghost? 

It is free and open source if you choose to self-host it on your own server.

This means you don’t need to pay for their commercial plans when you fork it via GitHub and install it yourself on your own server. Though this would require a few hours of technical work, but it is completely worth it.

Write.as 

‘Less distraction, more writing’ You’re greeted with this message when you open the Write.as website. And that’s exactly what write.as is all about. 

A relatively lesser known platform in India, write.as helps you write independently with a clean reading experience for your visitors. 

The minimalistic design with markdown editor works great if you are a ‘no non-sense’ writer/publisher who just wants a platform where you focus on your work. 

You can start one blog for free with unlimited posts on write.as and if you want to integrate a newsletter or other features, you can take a look at their pricing options. 

Final Verdict 

Based on the flexibility, pricing, security and the convenience, Publii seems to be a viable option if you are tired of customizing WordPress and still not getting required results from blogging (or you get overwhelmed looking at the WordPress dashboard, themes and plugins as a beginner).

Publii can be used to start your blog on your desktop first and then you can connect to a hosting or a server to make it live. So, you can always be sure of not ‘goofing up’ your live blog on the internet. 

What are you waiting for? Start a Blog Today 

The creator’s economy is on the rise in 2021. And if you want to make it big, blogging can be the gateway to success for you. 

So, what are you waiting for? Launch your blog using any of the platforms mentioned above and begin a new digital journey today.