build a website in 2020

How to Start a Blog on WordPress in 2020?

I started blogging seriously in April of 2020. Blogging can be a really interesting and challenging experience, however it can also be daunting.

In this post I will discuss my personal opinion about blogging and why I choose WordPress as a platform compared to newer platforms like Ghost.

https://wordpress.org/

Why I Chose WordPress As a Platform?

WordPress is an Open Source Content Management Platform(CMS) that was released in 2003 and has been growing since then into a multiple user platform. The main features of WordPress is that it features a multiple plugin system and a theme architecture, that allows users to choose both free or paid themes.

WordPress is used not only as a blogging platform but also for e-commerce and business websites, there for it is a versatile CMS that allows users to run different kinds of websites using the same type of content management system.

Being an open source platform, various contributors can create and develop plugins, themes or directly contribute to the WordPress core, were a huge number of volunteers contribute from one release to the next.

If you just want to start out with blogging WordPress.com offers users a FREE hosting and domain that allows you to host the blog on WordPress.com. This is a good way of trying blogging however if you want something more advanced you would need to upgrade to the paid versions, use the other self hosted wordpress.org.

The self-hosted WordPress is in my opinion more versatile (although it is not free). If you seriously consider blogging or building a professional website then the Self Hosted version of WordPress is the way to go!

Although the free version on WordPress.com allows you to build a website it is usually limited for the following reasons:

  • The free websites usually display ads on them (If you want your site to be ad-free, you would need to pay)
  • Unless your site is receiving 25,000+ page views per month you cant sell advertising.
  • Google Analytics can’t be used on the free version
  • Unless you go VIP you cant install any plugins
  • Custom themes can’t be used on the Free version
  • You do not have FTP access to your files.

If your aim is to create a simple website, blog, or a place to host notes and share with students, collogues than using the free version can be a good idea. I had used the free version for a project at university and it worked out fine!

If you are looking at reaching out to more people, use different themes, use various plugins and want to modify the website yourself with page builders like Elementor than the Self Hosted route is the best option.

What About Other Platforms Like Ghost?

Ghost blogging platform
Ghost as a Blogging Platform

Lets talk about Ghost.

Ghost is an Open Source blogging platform that is based on Javascript and allows users to create a blog very similar to WordPress. However, the advantages of Ghost over WordPress are there but are limited.

In my opinion why someone would go for Ghost as a Blogging platform are the main features that make the platform advantageous.

Ghost Blogging Platform Review

Unlike WordPress, Ghost is a platform that favours blogging while WordPress has a more broader reach, and can be used to develop different types of websites.

WordPress initially started out as a blogging platform but over the years managed to branch out. You can create anything with WordPress.

Although Ghost’s main purpose is for online publications, such as a blog or a magazine this is not a limitation in my opinion. If you are a blogger looking solely to blog with an easy User interface (UI), Good ranking, and speed than Ghost might be the platform for you!

However as with every platform there are advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages Of Using Ghost

1. Simple Yet Elegant

Blogs on Ghost in my opinion look simple, clean and sharp in design. making them really easy to read and fun

2. It has built-in SEO

Unlike WordPress, which would need you to install plugins such as Yoast SEO, Ghost uses an inbuilt SEO and therefore no additional plugins are needed.

2. User interface is easy to use

Content creation on Ghost is super easy, with an easy to understand User interface it allows you to just focus on clean cut content creation with limited distractions.

4. Social Sharing is inbuilt

Again the social sharing features in Ghost are built in the system, so you don’t have to stay installing and researching about plugins.

5. Depending on what you want to use it for it can be affordable

Ghost offers plans from as little as $29/month (billed annually) and provides good SEO and organic search, good ranking, Worldwide CDN and SSL certification.

Ok well $29/month might not be that cheap, but if you compare it to serious bloggers using various other paid services it comes down to being cheaper than wordpress in comparison. This depends on what services you are suing it for (Remember WordPress has many free plugins)

6. Incredibly Fast

Because it uses a CDN (Content Delivery Network) which are globally distributed serves, the speed that Ghost offers is really nice when you want to access and scroll around a site. gone are the days or waiting for a page to upload.

Disadvantages

With all the advantages it has however disadvantages. The issues that I personally found with Ghost are the following:

  • If you are not going to blog or want to build an e-commerce site than Ghost is not the platform for you, WordPress or Shopify is the place to go
  • Plugins are not available, plugins are free on WordPress
  • Ghost has no free hosting services like WordPress
  • The number of images you can upload and use and the quality might be limited
  • It has limited themes and its limited if you are not intending to blog professionally

The Verdict

If you are just starting out blogging and want to create a small project for school or yourself or jsut to start out go with the FREE version on WordPress.com.

If you are a person who intends to start blogging or want to try also e-commerce or other types of websites i would suggest the self-hosted WordPress.org

If you really want to generate traffic and create a business around blogging and are not really interested in building your site or managing your site directly and just want an easy blogging platform that ranks well and is fast go with Ghost.

In my opinion i personally really like Ghost and the blogs and themes it offers, the speed is really nice and the SEO. However I prefare the versatility and the ability to modify my own site on the back end and the plugin features and search features related to using WordPress.

If you do your research well, look up and read SEO and install plugins like yoast SEO using WordPress is easy, and keeping your site light on images and plugin content can help boost speed and google rankings.

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