Blogging is a pillar of any business’s digital marketing campaign. It allows businesses to market products, build a brand and draw unique traffic to their website that may not have otherwise found them.
But to build a highly-effective blog, every business will need a content management system (CMS). These systems gather your text, photos, videos and other content, and allow you to present it in whichever way you choose to connect with your customers.
The very best blog sites will use a CMS which perfectly meets their individual blogging needs. These are the best CMS options out there, along with their individual strengths, so you can find the right one for your expanding business.
WordPress
WordPress has dominated the CMS world since its launch in 2003. It has a wide selection of pre-made website themes for business owners to choose from, with tailor-made themes for specific industries, including media, hospitality, and retail themes.
WordPress is affordable, with business plans starting at $25. The WordPress.com platform is ideal for beginners, who want an accessible CMS. But for intermediate and advanced bloggers who are looking for more customization, they may find it restricting.
For businesses that will only be using the blog to drive traffic and post useful and engaging content, WordPress is a straightforward, accessible and affordable option. However, if you are looking for more than that, there are better options out there.
Squarespace
An aggressive marketing campaign propelled Squarespace onto the CMS scene in the late 2000s. Like WordPress, Squarespace is also great for beginners.
What sets it apart is that Squarespace is a complete website builder. This means that unlike WordPress, which can be used as just a CMS, or a complete website builder complete with hosting and domain name registration, Squarespace can only be used as a complete site builder with hosting.
Squarespace is also an affordable way to build an online store. If your website needs go further than sharing content to your consumers, and you want to include a store for customers to browse and purchase your products, Squarespace offers a user-friendly and accessible interface for building an online store.
Magento
If eCommerce is your primary objective, then Magento might be your best bet. The CMS integrates with third-party sites, allowing you to link your store to FedEx or DHL. It is also highly customizable and offers a user-friendly interface.
However, Magento is not used for blogging. It is an eCommerce CMS designed to manage the payments and shipping of products and provide a secure platform for receiving payments, making it perfectly suited for managing a busy online store.
Joomla
For those that want everything, including a high level of customisation, the ability to jump seamlessly between blog content, YouTube videos, static pages with dense text, and an online store, Joomla is a versatile CMS which offers all of these things.
Joomla is all about customization. You can get your website looking exactly as you want it. This is both a blessing and a curse. It means total freedom, but it also means making a decision on every tiny detail before the website is up and running.
For beginner bloggers just looking to get their message out as quickly as possible, Joomla isn’t for you. But for those looking to build an eye-catching, one-stop website, with Joomla the possibilities are endless.