So, you decided to make the plunge into blogging? First things first: you have to decide which blogging platform you’re going to use. Choosing a platform that works for you is one of the most important decisions you’ll make when it comes to blogging. You have to choose one that’s going to be easy for you to use, otherwise it’s just going to be a frustrating experience. So to help with that decision, I’ve gone through the top 3 blogging platforms and 2 microblogging platforms and why they have become the most popular ones to use.

 To start, we’ll go through three of the top traditional blogging platforms. Traditional blogs are characterized by longer blog posts with pictures and graphics to accompany the posts:

1.Blogger

Blogger is one of the easiest platforms for beginners with no web experience to get started using. The site is owned by Google and Google has done a good job of setting it up so that navigating around is a cinch and easy to learn.

2.Wordpress

This is a great site to start on for beginners and to move forward with once you become more familiar with the blogging process. There are two different Wordpress sites: Wordpress.com – which is a basic blogging platform, and Wordpress.org – which allows you to self-host your own website on it. The dashboard isn’t quite as aesthetically pleasing as Blogger, but Wordpress is more customizable.

3.LiveJournal

Like Blogger and Wordpress, LiveJournal is very easy to learn and navigate and was once the most popular blogging platform, though Blogger and Wordpress have slowly taken that title from it. If you aren’t interested in writing long, drawn out posts though, there is another form of blogging called “microblogging”, which is a much more concise approach to blogging:

4.Twitter

You’ve no doubt heard of Twitter – it’s exploded in the past few years and with good reason. Twitter has very successfully taken the concept of blogging and turned it into microblogging – in this case you have 140 characters to get out your message. It helps you get out messages in a quick, concise way and has a social network that is nearly unparalleled – in fact many people who blog on the more traditional platforms use Twitter to microblog about their blog.

5.Tumblr

Tumblr touts itself as the “easiest way to blog” though it’s not the same sort of blog as Blogger, Wordpress and LiveJournal – Tumblr is a microblogging website kind of like Twitter except you aren’t confined to 140 characters. It allows you to customize your site and allows you to easily post through less traditional sources such as SMS, email and phone.
Whether you want to write in depth blog posts or just bang out short posts, there are platforms for just about everything. With so many different platforms out there it’s almost a guarantee that you will find the perfect fit for you – it all just depends on what you want to do with your blogging experience.