Showing posts with label how to blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label how to blog. Show all posts
Sunday, 26 April 2015
Thursday, 1 January 2015
Friday, 26 December 2014
Why Most Bloggers Choose WordPress as a Content Platform
I use Blogger and am very happy with my choice but the Author of this article obviously thinks Wordpress is a better choice ? What is your preferred blogging Platform ?
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People often misinterpret WordPress as just a simple blogging platform. However, it has evolved as a complete content management system in the past few years. Packed with a set of stunning features, this ultimate software is especially designed to make your blogging experience pleasant and convenient. WordPress is a fast, light, standards-compliant and freely distributed content management system with default features and settings as well as 100% customizable core.
Reasons Why WordPress Is A Top Choice Of Bloggers
WordPress CMS comes with various appealing features and thousands of plug-ins. So, the functionality of WordPress is endless as it can be extended unlimited times using the available or custom plug-ins. It gives you complete flexibility to extend or modify it in any way and have full control over it. You can even use it for your commercial or personal projects without paying licensing fees. Let’s have a quick look over the impressive features that make WordPress an ideal choice for website development:
- Easy-To-Use CMS: The interface of WordPress is as simple as today’s desktop publishing tool is. You do not require any coding experience or deep knowledge to run a WordPress powered website. The whole learning curve is usually as easy as entering your website’s URL & logging in to your site. As a consequence of years of refinement, the interfaces are well designed and user-friendly.
- Search Engine Friendly: The web spam team of Google says that WordPress is an optimal choice as it takes care of 80 to 90 % mechanics of SEO for you. For fine-grained search engine optimization control, various SEO plug-ins are available in the WordPress’s library.
- Extensive Plug-in Directory: Though WordPress comes packed with a wide range of attractive features. For every other attribute, there is huge plug-in directory, which consists of numerous plug-ins. You can use these plug-ins to add forum, social networking feature, complex galleries, calendars, spam protection, fine-tuned controls for SEO, etc.
- Customizable Platform: WordPress can be customized easily in the context of its features and design. It allows you to add custom designed themes to modify the look and feel of your website. This robust CMS is extremely easy to customize to suit your business needs.
- Support Responsive Behavior: Become responsive with WordPress content management system. Since, the platform has been created by considering the latest web standards. It enables you to develop 100% responsive website, which looks wonderful everywhere from large desktop screens to small mobile screens.
- Availability & Affordability: Since, developing a WordPress website requires the assistance of professional developer. This brings the need to approach a reliable company, which promises cost-effective as well as quality solutions. Fortunately, a large number of developers are involved in this technology and offer great services at the affordable prices.
How WordPress Is Distinct From Other Platforms!
Having complete control over your website is one of the primary advantages of using WordPress. Unlike other remote-hosted scripts: LiveJournal & Blogger, you can host WordPress software on your server. The installation and configuration of this tool is simple. You do not need to edit large number of templates to set up your site. Today, many websites run on this outstanding platform, such as People Magazine and Wall Street Journal blogs. WordPress is preferred over other content management systems for the following reasons:
- It provides flexibility to run anything from a simple blog to an e-commerce site and a video-focuses tumbling
- Sever & domain costs are the only outlays associated with setting up a WordPress blog
- Since its inception in 2003, WordPress has undergone through endless updates and modifications to offer incredible experience to its users
- With a wide array of themes and plug-ins available at its end, WordPress allows you to change the appearance of your site as per your preferences
Though a large number of blogging platforms and content management systems are available nowadays. Still WordPress remains the most preferred choice of people. This is due to the limitations that other platforms have, which are listed below:
- Blogger: With a blogger, you cannot customize your site by modifying the back-end code. It does not provide a good number of themes and plug-ins. Even, it is quite difficult to establish it on your domain.
- Tumblr: Here, text-heavy blogging is not supported by highly visual design. There is lack of all-inclusive caching, CDN and anti-virus plug-ins.
- SquareSpace: It is expensive to set up online presence using SquareSpace, especially businesses with e-commerce solutions. Lack of developer community, limited flexibility and inability to modify the back-end code are other disadvantages of this platform.
Popular Blogs And Magazine Websites That Run On WordPress
Although small and mid-sized businesses prefer WordPress CMS for developing websites. Still, there are some misconceptions and myths about using this platform for the high traffic sites or large enterprise level websites. Matt Cutts from Google is a leading web optimization industry, which has its personal blog created in WordPress. Still not convinced? Here is a list of popular brands that have their website built on WordPress CMS:
- BBC America
- The New Yorker
- Sony Music
- Variety
- MTV News
- ebay Inc
- Best Buy
- Beyonce
- Bata
- Xerox
Conclusion
Thus, WordPress is the perfect CMS platform to use for most of the businesses. However, you may require assistance of competent designers & developers to create your website and maintain it on a regular basis.
Thursday, 25 December 2014
5 quick ways to shine on social media
At Fortune’s MPW Next Gen Summit, LinkedIn career expert and the woman who led Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In PR campaign sound off.
Admit it: Social media can be a little overwhelming.
With everyone from your boss to your competitors and everyone in between checking your LinkedIn profile, Twitter feed and Facebook page on a constant basis, there is a lot of pressure to self-promote. Yet despite the expectation to blog, tweet and ‘like’ as much as you can, who has the time to sit on social media all day? At Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Next Gen Summit,about 100 rising women leaders tackled this very question.
On a panel discussion featuring Nicole Williams, the career expert at LinkedIn and Brandee Barker, a co-founder and partner at Pramana Collective, these experts weighed in on how time-strapped execs can most effectively use social media to promote themselves.
1. Be passionate or lie
It needs to come across immediately that you are interested and engaged in the work you are doing, says Williams from LinkedIn. If you don’t convey a true passion for your job and what you are doing on a daily basis, then no one is going to want to engage with you on social media in the first place. What if you’re not passionate about work? Your options are simple, says Williams: Find a new job or lie about why you’re passionate.
It needs to come across immediately that you are interested and engaged in the work you are doing, says Williams from LinkedIn. If you don’t convey a true passion for your job and what you are doing on a daily basis, then no one is going to want to engage with you on social media in the first place. What if you’re not passionate about work? Your options are simple, says Williams: Find a new job or lie about why you’re passionate.
2. Pick your points
You can’t be an expert at everything. At the same time, you don’t have the time to tweet, blog and post about a myriad of topics on a daily basis. A better strategy is to hone in of what is truly important to you, says Barker of Pramana Collective. Also, all of your “talking points” don’t necessarily have to be about work. In fact, it’s good to show your human side by showcasing your hobbies and interests outside of the office. Ask yourself what your big focus areas are and create a social identity around them.
You can’t be an expert at everything. At the same time, you don’t have the time to tweet, blog and post about a myriad of topics on a daily basis. A better strategy is to hone in of what is truly important to you, says Barker of Pramana Collective. Also, all of your “talking points” don’t necessarily have to be about work. In fact, it’s good to show your human side by showcasing your hobbies and interests outside of the office. Ask yourself what your big focus areas are and create a social identity around them.
3. Speak in first person
One of Williams’ biggest LinkedIn pet peeves is when people write their profiles in the third person. It sounds so impersonal and like you are farming out your writing to someone who works for you, she said. Changing your summary on LinkedIn to the first person makes you sound more human and tells readers that you are connected to your work.
One of Williams’ biggest LinkedIn pet peeves is when people write their profiles in the third person. It sounds so impersonal and like you are farming out your writing to someone who works for you, she said. Changing your summary on LinkedIn to the first person makes you sound more human and tells readers that you are connected to your work.
4. Tell a story
People love telling and hearing stories, says Barker. That’s just a fact of life. Take that notion and apply it to what you do on social media. A blog post is best when its filled with real life anecdotes. The best tweets are those that give context as opposed to just straight links and headlines.
People love telling and hearing stories, says Barker. That’s just a fact of life. Take that notion and apply it to what you do on social media. A blog post is best when its filled with real life anecdotes. The best tweets are those that give context as opposed to just straight links and headlines.
5. ‘Beat your chest’
This one is particularly difficult for women, says Barker, but it’s extremely important to own and showcase your accomplishments to their full extent when thinking about an identity online. Women tend to downplay their leadership on a specific initiative or project. “Beat your chest,” says Barker, because you’re the only one who really knows the true extent of your power or authority in a particular field.
This one is particularly difficult for women, says Barker, but it’s extremely important to own and showcase your accomplishments to their full extent when thinking about an identity online. Women tend to downplay their leadership on a specific initiative or project. “Beat your chest,” says Barker, because you’re the only one who really knows the true extent of your power or authority in a particular field.
Saturday, 20 December 2014
10 Brilliant Strategies For Writing Viral Content
There are certain websites, writers, marketers and content creators who seem to rule the internet. Everything they put out there seems contagious, capturing an audience of millions and sparking conversations on social media.
These days, unpacking the secrets to viral success has been the mission of researchers, media organizations and businesses alike. After all, infectious content leads to major rewards in the form of readers, subscribers, advertisers, raising awareness for an important issue, brand recognition and financial success.
If you’re looking for ways get people talking, check out these 10 strategies from the experts themselves.
Grumpy cat. (George Pimentel/WireImage)
1. Write good content
Bottom line: Tell a good story and tell it well. Readers qued)
There are certain websites, writers, marketers and content creators who seem to rule the internet. Everything they put out there seems contagious, capturing an audience of millions and sparking conversations on social media.
These days, unpacking the secrets to viral success has been the mission of researchers, media organizations and businesses alike. After all, infectious content leads to major rewards in the form of readers, subscribers, advertisers, raising awareness for an important issue, brand recognition and financial success.
If you’re looking for ways get people talking, check out these 10 strategies from the experts themselves.
Grumpy cat. (George Pimentel/WireImage)
1. Write good content
Bottom line: Tell a good story and tell it well. Readers quickly abandon stories with weak content and bad writing.
Begin by making sure your story clearly communicates the five W’s: Who? What? Where? When? Why? This grounds your reader in the story’s basic premise and why it matters.
Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick, co-authors of The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users, explain in a recent Harvard Business Review articlethat stories should accomplish one of a number of tasks: explain what happened, explain what something means, explain how to do something or surprise the reader.
2. Elicit strong emotions – positive is better than negative
Stories that evoke intense emotions tend to drive popularity, according to a 2011 study by University of Pennsylvania professors.
Content that triggers “high-arousal” emotions performs better online, whether those emotions are positive (like awe) or negative (like anger or anxiety). Whereas content that sparks “low-arousal” emotions (like sadness) is less viral, write Professors Jonah Berger and Katherine L. Milkman, who studied the viral nature of New York Times articles over a three-month period. And though there’s much complexity at play, in general, “positive content is more viral than negative content.”
When Jack Shepherd, editorial director at BuzzFeed, wrote 21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity, it generated millions of hits. The list evoked the emotion felt when “you’re in the presence of the triumph of the human spirit,” says Shepherd. Today it has 15.4 million views. (Full disclosure: Shepherd has been a friend for years.)
“When people share something like that, they’re not just sharing the story, they’re sharing the strong, positive emotional experience they had. You can’t really fake that,” says Shepherd. For more tips from Shepherd, check out the companion piece, BuzzFeed’s Guide To Viral Content (Cats Optional, But Encouraged).
3. Be brief
Get to the point quickly and keep the reader interested.
“Our experience is that the sweet spot for posts of curated content is two or three sentences on Google GOOGL +1.56%+ and Facebook and 100 characters onTwitter TWTR +3.26%,” say Kawasaki and Fitzpatrick.
“The sweet spot for created content is 500 to 1,000 words.”
4. Write irresistible headlines
Headlines are the gateway to a story – your one chance to pique your reader’s curiosity and convince them to stay with you. Headlines can make a story a smashing success or a total flop, even if the content is fantastic.
Capture your reader’s attention with headlines that
- Clearly and concisely state the article’s purpose
- Use intriguing adjectives
- Communicate the value and ease of the story
In other words, tell your readers upfront that they’ll be getting a lot out of your story with little effort on their part. (For example, my headline This One Smart Habit Can Slash Your Airfare told readers that they could save a lot of money by learning one habit. Tons of value and so simple.)
Twelveskip.com offers this list of eye-catching title templates that will help you develop great headlines.
5. Be visual
Visual content increases engagement. So pair that compelling headline with a striking visual. Always. This is key to capturing reader interest.
Buzzsumo, a content analytics company, found that having at least one image in a Facebook or Twitter post leads to an average of twice as many shares compared to a post without images. A study by content marketer Skyword found a similar correlation between images and engagement, write Kawasaki and Fitzpatrick. “Total views of its clients’ content increased by 94% if a published article contained a relevant photograph or infographic, when compared to articles without an image in the same category,” the co-authors write.
6. Play the numbers game
The more you post, the greater your chances at going viral. Neetzan Zimmerman, who the Wall Street Journal called possibly “the most popular blogger working on the Web today” blogged for Gawker until 2014 and routinely drew the most unique visitors to the popular site. In an interview with HubSpot.com, Zimmerman shared that he posts 10 to 15 times per day. Not every post went viral, but the larger the volume of stories, the greater the chances of one taking off.
And don’t stop once your work is out there. Promote it actively on social media and do so repeatedly on different days at different times so you can capture different audiences. Tailor your posts for the social media platform.
Sure, you may lose some followers who don’t like repeat shares. But Kawasaki and Fitzpatrick found that this practice pays off. “When we decided to test the effect of repetition by sharing four identical posts with four different links to track clicks, we got about 1,300 clicks on the first, roughly the same on the second, 2,300 on the third and 2,700 on the fourth, for a total of 7,600 clicks. Would you be willing to risk complaints about repeated tweets to achieve 5.8 times more clicks?”
7. Play nice with others
Give credit where it’s due by linking to sources you site in your articles. “Links send traffic to the source as an act of gratitude; enable readers to learn more from the source; and increase your visibility and popularity with bloggers and websites,” write Kawasaki and Fitzpatrick.
And keep the gratitude flowing after your work is out there. Thank and retweet those who tweet your content. Follow them back. Retweet and favorite their stories. Offer thoughtful comments. Be engaged.
8. Study your stats
Check out how your stories compare against each other. What works? Why?
Pay attention to the stories that flopped and think about tweaks that could have made them better.
9. Time the release of your stories
Zimmerman recommends posting at 9 a.m. and noon EST. At 9 a.m. you’ll capture workers reluctant to dive into work at the start of the day.
At noon, you’ll capture West Coast workers arriving to the office and East Coast workers on their lunch break.
10. Give the reader a practical takeaway
You’ve written a compelling story with an irresistible headline. Now read over it and make sure it includes practical, actionable takeaways.
A key component of contagious content is getting readers to share content with their friends and followers. And since everyone from journalists and marketers to high school students to your aunt on Facebook is crafting their online brand, readers are more likely to share material that they find useful and makes them look good.
Demonstrate the value of your content, and watch your numbers soar.
Friday, 19 December 2014
Expand Your Pinterest Strategy Beyond Images Using Dashboards
You may be surprised to know just how much Pinterest has grown in the last year. Sure, it had a meteoric rise from the very beginning. But new statistics released in October 2014 blew those figures out of the water. Some of these stats include:
- More than 70 million users are now on Pinterest.
- At least 67 percent of users on Pinterest are women, most from the United States.
- Mom’s post on Pinterest three times more than anyone else.
- The number of men, especially those in creative fields such as design, are growing on the site.
- Average users spend around 98 minutes per month on the site, at 14.2 minutes per visit.
Pinterest has been reported to be an efficient marketing platform in many verticals:
- According to RJMetrics, the fashion industry is booming on Pinterest with Urbanoutfitters.com and Brides.com being among the top pinned domains.
- According to DirJournal Local, Pinterest has become a major traffic driver for local businesses especially local restaurants, amusement parks and recreation areas. (Place pins!)
- Moms are 61 percent more likely to visit Pinterest than the average American which makes it a great platform for family, health, crafts and home improvement niches.
- While women dominate as of today, Techcrunch says men are now the fastest growing Pinterest demographic, which means technology and gadget brands have increasingly better chances to drive traffic and sales from Pinterest.
Pinterest is a quite unique platform too. For example, while Facebook is primarily aimed at connecting people to others they already know, Pinterest, on the other hand, is a purely visual platform that connects strangers to content. It is expected that this content will lead off the actual site, which accounts for how little time appears to be spent there. If you look at case studies of numerous Pinterest business accounts, you find the traffic referral rate is impressive in those who really push their campaigns on the site.
Expand Your Pinterest Strategy
Images have probably been the primary focus of your Pinterest strategy up until this point. But while it should make up a decent percentage of your campaign, there is so much more you can do. So before you start on that latest infographic, or open up Photoshop to enhance that stock image, it might be time to try another tactic.
Slideshows
I am a self-confessed Slideshare junkie, it has to be said. Not only do I view a lot of slideshows there, but I post a number of them both professionally and personally. In my opinion, it is one of the most underrated social networks and content sharing services available today. If you don’t have an account there, you should rush over at the end of this article and open one.
Slideshare is pinnable in the same way a YouTube video is. If you pin directly from your slideshow page, it will create a still image of the title slide. Then users can view it there by pressing on the play button. Or they can just link back to the original, and view it there.
This is a great way to promote your slideshows, because there aren’t that many currently on the site, at least not in the numbers that you see for videos. So yours will stand out, and with some good keyword inclusion in the description field, it should bring plenty of new eyes.
Tool: I am using Haiku Deck to easily create awesome presentations (free).
Videos
You have probably seen enough videos posted on Pinterest to know it is a viable option. But how do you optimize these yourself? First of all, you should only be sharing videos from YouTube or Vimeo. Those two formats are playable on the Pinterest site, so users can watch it right from the pin itself. That means they will always go to your pin to see it, and the videos goes right into their boards when they save them.
Another plus is that you get to select your thumbnail image, to create customizable descriptions (complete with keywords), and to edit your link to go to either the YouTube video or your website, and it is traffic gold.
I have seen people promoting the tip of just posting a link in a regular screen shot or customized title card image. But this is a soft option that doesn’t seem to get nearly as many benefits.
Tool: I use Animoto to easily put videos together (Freemium).
Podcasts, Music, Interviews, and Other Audio
SoundCloud is another under-utilized content marketing tool and few people realize it can be part of your Pinterest strategy. Putting your podcast on Pinterest is a great way to get the word out about it. I would say this is the most creative and brilliant use of Pinterest integration yet.
Keep in mind that Pinterest will automatically grab your podcast icon to put into your stream which means you should design your SoundCloud icon with Pinterest in mind.
Make sure the clip itself isn’t that long. They aren’t going to stick around to listen to the whole thing in Pinterest, so you want to get them to go to your SoundCloud account for the real deal.
Tool: Here are a few audio editor tools to try.
Putting This All Together: Consolidate and Expand
Now, how to keep up with so many media types and content formats? Let me give you an example of how to consolidate your content and creation efforts to target multiple channels. (This process can take you at least a month of marketing and re-marketing after just one research.):
- Write a how-to guide and promote it on social media.
- Create a flow-chat explaining (and visualizing) the steps from your how-to article, promote it on Pinterest, and push it to other social media accounts from there as well.
- Break steps into slides and create a Slideshare presentation. Promote it on Pinterest from there, then push it to other social media accounts from there as well.
- Turn a Slideshare presentation into a video. Promote it on Youtube and from there on Pinterest. Then push it to other social media accounts from there as well.
- If you were using a voice-over to create the video above, use it to create a podcast. You can have some fun music to make it more entertaining. Promote it on SoundCloud and from there on Pinterest. Then push it to other social media accounts from there as well.
- Delegate all the parts of this process to your team and use social media dashboards like Cyfe to monitor everyone’s progress:
(The same dashboard can be used to monitor traffic, rankings and social media shares of all the media pieces you are creating and promoting.)
Another social media productivity dashboard I’ve been playing with recently isOktopost. It also makes social media cross-promotion much easier to figure and organize.
Pinterest is a unique and fantastic tool for promoting more than just images. You can get creative and start really featuring your work there on a platform that has a huge number of users and is still growing by the day.
Do you have any Pinterest tips to share that have helped you with your Pinterest strategy?
Monday, 8 December 2014
Mel Carson shares How to Write a Blog Post in Just 30 Minutes
When it comes to public relations, many small businesses and entrepreneurs balk at the cost of sending out traditional press releases. Why spend hundreds of dollars trying to reach journalists, bloggers and influencers through a press-release service when it's possible to create content on the company's site and disseminate it through search engines and social-media channels?
While press-release distribution companies like PR Newswire and PRWeb definitely have their place in the digital marketing ecosystem, using a blog to tell a story that you can control can be an effective way to have your news and views shared inexpensively and generate coverage in third-party publications.
I’m often asked by businesspeople how much time should they dedicate to writing blog posts. Here are some ideas about how to keep the actual writing part short and sweet and make the whole process a good use of your time, whether you are at a growing startup or make up a one-man-band.
1. Create a content calendar.
If you’re blogging once or twice a week, brainstorm and jot down some topics to write about and insert them into a calendar that extends into the next couple of months. Sound out trusted peers or customers about what they’d like to read about in your posts. The more choices you have in potential topics the better.
2. Categorize your content.
Within your calendar, define what each piece of content will be. Is it an event announcement or a new product release? Will it be a how-to piece or a customer interview? Listing each blog post as a genre with a reason for posting it will help you vary the content you’re posting and help you craft posts with different calls to action.
3. Start crafting a post a week in advance.
With seven days to go before the post is due to go live, start thinking about how it might start off and the way it might end.
You might want to sketch out some subheadings so your readers will have signposts as they work their way through the content. This will help you solidify the structure of what you'll say.
4. Think about links and mentions.
An important part of any blogging initiative is linking to relevant content (both on the website and in outside sources) that readers will find helpful. This will aid with search engine optimization and your readers won’t reach the end of the post without a suggestion for further reading.
Don’t forget to mention relevant brands or individuals by name, too. If people have set up a Google or social-media alert to tracking their name, they will pick up that you’ve been writing about them and perhaps drop by your blog to see what you’ve been saying, good or bad.
5. Set aside time to write.
A couple of days before your post is due to go live, block off time when there will be no distractions and just start writing. Since you’ve already thought about your piece and how things will fit together, you'll find it way easier to put down the words. If you’re aiming for 700 or so words, then 30 minutes should be enough time for you to whittle down your thoughts into a first draft, providing there are no interruptions.
Obviously if the information you're trying to express needs accompanying screen shots, quotes from others or some research, the process will become more involved. But if you use spare time in the day, during the commute, while waiting for your coffee to brew or before you drop off to sleep at night, the actual writing part need not seem as daunting as some fear.
Like tackling any new initiative, writing relevant and engaging blog posts does take practice. Google’s digital-marketing evangelist, Avinash Kaushik, shared in my book, Pioneers of Digital, how he practiced for weeks writing content for his web analytics blog Occam’s Razor before publishing anything publicly. He asked his wife and colleagues to critique the content and style before he embarke on what has become one of the most widely read digital-marketing blogs out there.
Tuesday, 2 December 2014
16 Blogging Platforms That Won't Distract From Your Writing
IMAGE: IMAGNO
Blogging platforms can often be cluttered and complicated, featuring a multitude of widgets and plugins that we might never use. However new publishing tools are being built that emphasize readability, simplicity and usability. These modern blog platforms put the focus on the writing experience, to create a distraction-free writing environment.
The exciting trend towards minimalist, responsive, typographic driven blogging, allows the content to shine. Many of these platforms support Markdown, which is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for writing on the web. Writing in Markdown means a document is as readable as possible, in plain text, reducing the time you spend formatting your blog posts.
You may already have used some of the major platforms already available, such as WordPress, Tumblr, Squarespace and Blogger, and found they didn't quite fit your needs. This post is a rundown of 16 of the best minimalist blogging platforms that pair down the features and focus on the writing.
1. Postagon
Postagon is equipped with just the essentials for a pure reading and writing experience. It features a visual and Markdown editor, smart commenting system, private posts and drafts, email alerts, drag and drop functionality, and the ability to publish posts via email. There's no separate mobile app required and you can use your own domain name, view your email subscribers, import and export posts, publish RSS feeds, and share posts on social networks. Postagon also features retina display support and is not ad supported, so your blog is kept simple and clutter free. From the dashboard you can view your email subscribers, with easy integration of Google Analytics. All of the features are optional, so if you don't need them you don't have to use them.
Price: $4.99 per month
2. Svbtle
Svbtle is an extremely simple writing writing and reading network that focuses on the writing, providing a simple platform for collecting and developing ideas, and sharing them with the world. Initially an invite-only writing network, Svbtle has now opened to the public. The dashboard is designed to work like your brain, and encourages you to dump ideas, links, and thoughts into a flow or draft posts. You can then work to slowly sculpt ideas into publishable articles, creating a more organic approach to blogging. There are no distractions, with only the essential styling options available, though articles can be written using shorthand formatting with Markdown for more control. Your full name appears by everything you write and you can use a custom domain and avatar.
Price: Free
3. Ghost
Ghost is dedicated to publishing and is completely customizable and open source, meaning it's free to modify, share and redistribute. It's designed to be simple and elegant, enabling you to spend less time making your blog work, and more time writing. It features a smart writing screen, with the Markdown editor on the left, and a live preview on the right. You can write down your ideas and format on the fly — you can even theme the preview pane to match your blog's formatting exactly. The dashboard pulls all the important data about your blog into one place, and you can drag and drop widgets to create your own custom dashboard. While Ghost is free, a dedicated, hosted platform is available to host your Ghost powered website.
Price: Free - $80 per month (Large hosting plan)
4. Wardrobe
Wardrobe is a minimalistic blogging application that aims to make blogging simple and enjoyable, by keeping the focus on the writing, and away from administration. All content is stored as Markdown so it's portable, with the ability to drag and drop Markdown files into the admin area to create posts for quick publishing. You can write posts and schedule the time and date you want them to appear. Wardrobe utilizes a simple yet powerful theming system, so almost any design can be integrated, meaning you can easily create a blog design to match your brand. Post tagging can be used for categorization and grouping. Installing Wardrobe is simple — once it's up and running you will be directed to the guided install process to prepare your database, create users and set your site title, theme, and page values.
Price: Free
5. Postach.io
Postach.io turns your Evernote notebook into a content management system, allowing you to hook into commenting tools such as Disqus, with support for Markdown and Google Analytics. Once you link Postach.io to your Evernote account, you grant it access to your notes and notebooks, and then need to choose a blog name and URL. You can use custom domains and upload custom profile avatars or logos directly on your site. Postach.io makes it possible to embed YouTube and Vimeo videos, Tweets, Instagram images, your About.me profile, and more. You can also connect your Tumblr account to automatically import your Tumblr posts to your Postach.io blog. When you create your blog, you have the option to have Postach.io automatically create an Evernote notebook where all your posts will be saved, or you can choose an existing notebook.
Price: Free - $5 per month (Premium)
6. Medium
Medium provides a simple, beautiful, collaborative platform to help you find the right audience for what you have to say. There are no distractions, no sidebars, plugins or widgets, with nothing to setup or customize, and your words and images will look great on any device. With the composing tool you have just the right amount of formatting. Simply select the text you wish to format and a toolbar will pop up with just a few simple formatting options. With Medium you're not writing 'alone', you can invite feedback, share posts, and link to other articles that share the same context. You can submit your story to relevant collections, set up an RSS feed, and recommend pieces you like. You don't need to be “internet famous” to have your post to reach hundreds of thousands of readers, as Medium uses a combination of algorithms and editorial curation based on interest and engagement.
Price: Free
7. Jekyll
Jekyll transforms your plain text into static websites and blogs, with no need for databases, comment moderation or updates. meaning you get to concentrate on creating great content. It works by taking a template directory containing raw text files, runs them through Markdown and Liquid convertors, and generates a complete, ready-to-publish static website. As Jekyll is the engine behind GitHub Pages, you can use Jekyll to host your project's page, blog, or website from GitHub's servers. If you're switching to Jekyll from another blogging system, Jekyll's importers can help with the move. All you need to do to maintain your blog is manage a folder of text-files on your computer, with absolutely no hassle that comes with the usual CMS's.
Price: Free
8. Anchor
Anchor is a super-simple lightweight, blog system that gives you full freedom over your words. You can write in Markdown or HTML, and creating and modifying a theme is as simple as knowing some very simple PHP and HTML/CSS. If you want to add custom CSS, JavaScript, or an image to a post, just drag the file over to Anchor. You can create and utilize theme hooks without the need for any programming knowledge. The system is extensible, so you can add or remove an infinite amount of custom fields to any post or page, with the ability to make every article unique by adding custom CSS, JavaScript, or HTML to your posts or pages. Anchor weighs just 150kb and takes only two minutes to install.
Price: Free
9. Bolt
Bolt is a sophisticated, lightweight, simple CMS, that is quick to set up. It’s perfect for those that need a system that’s easy to configure, manage and maintain, but is also flexible and versatile. It enables users to spend more time producing and editing content, with a fully responsive dashboard that supports mobile and tablet devices. There is a basic structure for user levels and easy file and image upload. The change log keeps a log file of all changes to the content, so if you're working within a team, you'll be able to see who edited which page on the website. The flexible content types mean you can use different files in your content to create various content pages, like blog entries, events, book reviews, galleries, and more. Bolt comes packaged with field types, flexible taxonomies, built in search, multi-language support, and the ability to use custom routing and redirection.
Price: Free
10. Hexo
Hexo is a fast, simple and powerful blog framework powered by Node.js, that supports multi-thread generating, so hundreds of files take just seconds to generate. Your posts are parsed with Markdown which then generates static files, with installation taking just a few minutes. Hexo also supports GitHub flavored Markdown, Octopress plugins, Jekyll, EJS, Swig and Stylus. There are nearly 40 themes to choose from, including Bootstrap and iOS inspired through to a theme that generates 301 redirection pages for site migration. It's simple to get started, just make sure you have both Git and Node.js installed. Node.js is a platform built on Google Chrome's JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications.Poet is another simple blog framework built on Node.js, that is worth checking out.
Price: Free
11. Silvrback
Silvrback is a hosted, Markdown-powered blog that features a clean, modern UI and complete control over your brand. The homepage has space for a profile image, bio and Twitter handle, with the ability to add links and navigation. You can customize your blog to suit your brand, and readers can subscribe to be notified by email when you publish a new article. Silvrback features YouTube, JsFiddle and Vimeo embedding capabilities, and the sleek dashboard UI has a slide-out menu for easy navigation. Comments are powered by Disqus, with support for Typekit fonts and hack-friendly syntax highlighting. Silvrback boasts compelling archive and bio pages, custom favicon support and a neat real-time post preview tool. As Silvrback is built on the backbone of AWS, it is setup to autoscale when a traffic surge is detected, so you never need to worry about your blog going down.
Price: Free
12. Roon
Roon is a beautiful, distraction free blogging platform, with no setup or code necessary. It works on all mobile and tablet devices, with each app all focused on the writing experience rather than a list of features. If you maintain multiple blogs, just hit 'Add New Blog' and you can create a fresh new blog, all under the same user account. Roon gives you the choice of writing in Markdown or in Rich Text mode, and you can switch between modes at any time. Your blog is neatly organized into one zip file, should you wish to export your data, with each post saved as a Markdown file inside its own directory, along with any images you may have uploaded. There are premium add-ons available to purchase that extend the feature set of Roon, including custom domains and custom analytics.
Price: Free
13. Posthaven
After Posterous shut down in 2012, its two founding members created Posthaven, with a promise to last forever, only asking enough to cover server costs each month. It's a long-term project which aims to create one of the best blogging platforms in the world, and to keep it alive for as long as possible. You can create up to 10 blogs, post by email, and create posts using the web post editor. Posthaven offers the ability to upload photos, music, videos, documents, and any kind of file to your blog. You can autopost to Facebook and Twitter, follow blogs using email notifications, have multiple contributors per blog and setup your blog as private with a secure password. The automatic antispam commenting system means you spend less time editing blog comments, and more time writing.
Price: $5 per month
14. Scriptogram
Scriptogram is a tool for generating simple, elegant, static blogs by reading Markdown files stored in your Dropbox folder. You can write with your preferred editor application (and publish from there), or from the Scriptogram dashboard, by clicking 'Synchronize'. You can choose from a selection of beautiful themes from the theme directory, or use your own. Scriptogram is designed to be invisible, as text formatting, post titles, dates and tags are all handled within your editor of choice. Using HTML and CSS you can tweak and edit existing themes or create a new one, to match your branding. Getting started is simple, just authorize Scriptogram to connect to your account, it will then create a new folder to store your posts, you then enter your email address and choose a username, which forms part of the URL where your blog can be accessed. If you like Scriptogram, you might also want to check outCalepin, which reads Markdown-formatted text files in your Dropbox, and converts them into blog posts.
Price: Free
15. Pen.io
Pen.io allows anyone to publish on the web without going through a signup process or creating an account. You can create a permanent webpage with your content, without registering a domain or paying for hosting. It's easy to create a post, just type in your page title and a password, so you can make changes and edits, and hit 'Create New Page'. Your edits are automatically saved as you make sure, so there's no need to worry about losing any updates. There is no back-end to maintain, as you make edits on the fly, and publishing multiple pages is simple - just insert the ":page" tag. You can drag and drop photos and add YouTube video URLs, and is perfect for those who don't want to commit to starting a blog, but want to share their writing, essays, poems, research projects and lots more. Once you've finished, Pen.io provides you with a unique URL for your page, so you can easily share it with others.
Price: Free
16. Dropplets
Dropplets is a platform dedicated to making blogging simple, with no database to maintain, you can install Dropplets on any server, compose offline using Markdown and publish to your own domain. Installation takes as little as 30 seconds, just download the zip file, extract it and upload the extracted files to your server. You can then load your website in any browser and follow the setup instructions. Dropplets allows you to compose your blog posts in in any text editor using Markdown, which is simple, memorizable and lightweight. Once you're ready to publish your post, just change the post status to 'Published' and then upload your Markdown file, using the uploader. While Dropplets comes with a free template to use, there are premium templates available to purchase in the marketplace. As it's open source, you can contribute on GitHub to the development of Dropplets.
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