Inside this Article
- Small-business blogs generate over 125% more leads
- In the U.S., around four out of every five consumers trust advice on blogs
- Blogging-focused marketers are typically 13x more likely to see a positive return on their investment
Step 1: Choose a Website Builder
There are dozens of popular website builders available online, and each has its own strengths. Therefore, when choosing a website builder for your blog, it pays to do some research. By all means, don’t make a choice hastily. Someone who’s building a blog, for example, will have different needs than someone building an e-commerce website. What are some features that blog owners should look for in a website builder? For starters, it should boast add-ons that can powerfully expand the functionality of your blog. Make sure the platform you choose has a variety of useful apps specifically designed for blogs. Some examples include:- Social media integration apps
- Analytics apps
- Comment-focused apps
- Apps for embedding media
For Beginner Bloggers, We Recommend Wix
Wix is a giant in the website-building industry. The platform is well known for its beautiful, customizable, and mobile-responsive templates; easy-to-use editor; and an extensive range of powerful add-ons. And you’ll be happy to know Wix is ideal for bloggers. Here are some Wix features that explain why:Drag-and-drop Interface
As a blogger, you should be focused on creating content and getting it out to your audience. You shouldn’t have to waste countless hours learning complicated features on your website builder, or even worse, learning coding languages like HTML. It’s just not necessary anymore. Drag-and-drop functionality means that all you need to know to design and maintain a website is how to drag, drop, and click. Furthermore, as you reposition your content elements, Wix provides useful rulers to ensure you get those elements aligned exactly as you want. Editing your blog couldn’t be faster. Other platforms like WordPress only provide a container for your content. You need some knowledge of HTML to expand the functionality of your blog.Blog-Focused Apps
Apps are an easy way to improve a website’s functionality. When choosing your website builder, don’t just look at the number of apps offered — make sure there are apps that can actually enhance your blog. Wix boasts 30 blog-focused apps. Here are my favorites:- Wix Video
- Visitor Analytics
- Wix Forms
- Contact Collection
- Site Search
SEO Capabilities
You might produce the best content that outshines your competitors, but you actually need eyes on it first for your blog to succeed. That’s where SEO steps in, and fortunately, Wix can improve your blog’s rankings on search engines. For example, Wix can directly optimize your webpage titles, meta descriptions, headings, image alt attributes, and URLs for SEO. By contrast, platforms like WordPress offer some of these features only through outside plugins. And that’s not all. Wix boosts its SEO capabilities with its SEO Wizard. Just answer a few questions about your business, including what five keywords describe it best. If you need help along the way, there are video tutorials to guide you. For example, the screenshot below is of a video about how to pick the keywords that will get your website found:In minutes, you’ll have a customized SEO plan, complete with a checklist giving you step-by-step instructions on how to get your website found on the internet.
Mobile-Optimized Layouts
Wix layouts are optimized for mobile. A mobile-friendly website is automatically created for you based on your desktop version. You can view and edit this right in the Wix editor. Tweak your mobile layout exactly to your liking quickly and easily. This is essential, because again, a huge segment of your blog visitors will read your content from their mobile device. You need to make sure your readers’ experience will be as smooth on mobile as it is on a desktop.Not Sold on Wix? Here are a Few More Website Builders to Consider for Your Blog
Wix is our choice for the best website builder for bloggers, but that doesn’t mean it’s yours. There are some other good options on the market for beginner bloggers. You should take the time to research multiple platforms before making a final decision.1. Zyro
Zyro might not be the best-known name in the website-building industry, but it’s one of my favorites for a few simple reasons. Not only does it offer competitively-priced plans and an easy-to-use editor, but it also has a great selection of beautiful, customizable, and mobile-responsive templates. Rather than offering a vast selection of tools, Zyro focuses on a core set of features to help even complete beginners get a website up and running quickly. For bloggers, there’s more than enough on offer:- A super simple blog editor, so you can start writing in minutes.
- Fully responsive templates that ensure your blog looks good across all platforms.
- Built-in SEO, which means that Zyro helps you optimize your webpage titles, meta descriptions, headings, image alt attributes, and URLs for search engines.
- Easy-to-use monetization tools, so you can easily sell memberships and premium content.
2. Squarespace
If you were attracted to Wix’s good-looking template designs, but want a builder with a few more powerful tools up its sleeve, Squarespace could be right for you. Well-known as the home of gorgeous website designs, Squarespace also offers a robust suite of blogging tools and other features:- Hundreds of customizable settings, including fonts, colors and padding, to make your website look totally unique
- Loads of options for customizing blog posts, including text, audio, video, and more
- Integrated commenting system, supporting threaded comments, likes, content moderation, reader feedback, abuse filters, and customizable settings
- Option to publish content by different authors on your blog
SITE123
SITE123 showcases its standout feature right in its name: speed. SITE123 wants to make designing your blog as easy as one, two, three. They do this a few different ways:- A website builder that only requires you to input your content — no coding or even dragging and dropping required
- Ready-made layouts you can use in minutes
- Mobile optimization
- Free hosting
- Affiliate link program so you can make money while blogging
Step 2: Get a Domain and Find the Right Web Hosting
To get a website up and running, you need two important elements:- A domain name (YourWebsiteName.com)
- A host to connect your website content to the internet
Step 3: Set Up and Design Your Blog
Now, it’s time to design a blog. On Wix, log in and click Build Your Site. Then choose your website type: Blog.Choose a Layout/Theme
Wix has blog layouts separated by category. You can start a blog about anything you like, but there are blog layouts specifically designed for topics like Lifestyle, Fashion and Beauty, Entertainment, and Food. There are around 50 to choose from. I used a basic Lifestyle blog template:Create a Blog Post
On the left-side menu, click My Blog and then Create a Post.This is what the blog editing screen looks like. I simply clicked on an image icon at the bottom of the screen to add an image: Along with images, you can add video, dividers and HTML code to your posts if you want to. Click Publish and exit the blog editor. This is how the post looks on the website:
Add Apps
Add apps from the menu on the left side of the screen. I recommend concentrating on social elements and commenting apps. Analytics apps will also provide concrete data to tell you how your blog is doing. Wix offers forum, music, and quiz apps. As fun as those might be, if you don’t need them, don’t add them. There’s no need to overwhelm readers. Similarly, don’t add apps to your website that you plan to use later but aren’t using now. Even if you might start adding videos to your blog, don’t overwhelm yourself with the app until you absolutely need it.Start Designing
Apps help with functionality, but design elements are important, too. I changed the background color of my blog just by clicking on it:Wix’s rule of designing is simple: Just click, and you’ll find all the menus you’ll need.
Optimize for Mobile
Remember, Wix makes it easy to optimize your website for mobile. Just click the icon at the top to enter that editor: Wix will ask you some style questions before you enter the mobile editor: Otherwise, just drag and drop the content elements as you would on the desktop editor. I moved the Twitter handle to illustrate this point: Learning Wix doesn’t take long, but as with learning any system, you’ll have to experiment for yourself to become an expert.Short on time?
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