Welcome to Part 6 of my awesome blogging series. We have covered a lot of ground, and encourage all of you to go back and read other sections before going forward. Today, we’ll be jumping into the actual setup of your blogging site, and explore the various options you have available. At one point, you would have to code your entire website, however, now, you can install a content management platform to get you set up right away. For example, I have set up an entire website in under 4 minutes, and have a tutorial to prove it to you. Even when you have to customize your website, you can now install plug-ins to get the job done for you. This is why so many new websites are popping up every day because they are so easy to publish.
Let’s jump right in and look at the various options you have available when choosing your blogging platform. I’ll go over some cool features of each.
Part 6 – Choosing a CMS
In my experience, you have 3-4 solid options when choosing a CMS provider, and they all bring something unique to the table. I have worked with many and have been able to use them for different types of sites. Instead of me recommending you choose all of them, depending on your purpose, why not have “1” that does it all for you…right? With that said,
Let’s explore some of the awesome options you have available when choosing your CMS provider. Keep in mind, some have partnerships with hosting providers so can be installed with a click of a mouse whereas others, you’ll have to download, unzip, and install using FTP. I’ll go in order from the MOST popular to least in my experience.
Let’s get started…
WordPress –
The ultimate blogging platform, and has built its popularity by providing the best plugins, interface, security, and more. I use WordPress for all my designing because of the simplicity it provides to all my projects. I can use this CMS when building an eCommerce site, general blog, directory, etc. Over the years, their popularity has led to enormous development in themes and plugins, which give you complete customization control. Even after Google rolled out their mobile update, WordPress was the first to introduce responsive themes that can be installed from the backend of your admin panel. Next,
You can buy, and own, premium themes from sites like Themeforest.net. They have mastered theme creation and selling, allowing others to upload to their marketplace. Finally, they have just gone into the hosting avenue, which is proving to be very lucrative for them.
Weebly.com –
This is my favorite drag & drop builder because everything is so easy. It’s perfect for those who don’t want to learn a new interface, and don’t need anything too sophisticated. If you need a simple 5-6 page website, then Weebly.com should be your choice. I love it because they offer all the main features like video, text, headlines, themes, and contact forms, which can be added with drag & drop.
Drupal –
I don’t have too much experience with Drupal, however, there are some avid users. These people have stated Drupal is an awesome CMS, however, I find it to be very limited. If you are looking for a variety of themes and plugins, then I would stick to WordPress. Because I don’t have experience with Drupal, I can’t really discuss their interface, plugins, security, etc.; however, from the reviews I’ve read, I would stick to WordPress as your all-in-one solution.
Joomla –
This is another CMS platform that is similar to WordPress and Drupal. It offers a solid interface and plugins, however, reviews say WordPress is much better in getting the job done. I would encourage you to test it out for yourself before making your final choice. If you head over to Google, and do a quick search using “Joomla + reviews”, you’ll be able to get authentic reviews from users who have experience with every different CMS platform.
Final Thoughts
Each person is different and you should try each one before making your final choice. You might find one CMS platform works better for you compared to the others, however, you’ll only know after you play with the interface. I know you’ll find WordPress your number one choice because the ease at which it can be used. You can also head over to Google and do a quick search to read reviews on all of these platforms.
In the next section, we’ll be going over WordPress and installing the platform on your hosting. You have two ways that this can be done: 1-click through hosting or by downloading the application.
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