Travel blogging is quickly taking over the world. Technology has made travel extremely convenient and easy. As a result of that, more and more people are getting interested in traveling to their favorite destinations and recording their experiences in the form of a blog. But many beginner bloggers wonder what is the best travel blog platform to get started with.
While many people now know that you do not need to code and create your own travel website from scratch, they then get stuck on wondering which travel blogging platform is the best for their specific needs. There are just too many choices now!
Most people want something quick and versatile with a lot of room for customization and improvement over time. There are a few platforms that contain travel-specific utilities such as sharing a location on a map or logging your travel easily. Then there are those that are good for all kinds of blogging, letting you share your stories and connect with people.
There are so many platforms to choose from. And for beginner travel bloggers, this can be confusing and daunting.
This article will focus on helping those who don’t know where to get started in their search for the best travel blog platform on the internet.
Let’s start from the basics!
What is a Blogging Platform?
A blogging platform is a piece of software that provides users with a space to create, manage, and publish their content on the internet and share them with an audience. It is a record of an individual’s entries online.
Blogging platforms allow you to build and share written and visual content online as a blog. The primary thing that distinguishes a blog from other websites is just the way a blog’s interface is published.
In a blog, everything is in reverse chronological order. This means that the most frequent additions to the website are shown first.
How Blogging Platforms Work
Blogs are like a person’s personal diary. They allow a user to publish a written blog post, display the date that post was published, and assign an author to said post.
Blogging platforms are web-based software services that allows a user to group similar posts into a single category. They also let users tag posts with a few keywords as a way to search for specific topics.
A little over a decade ago, the software you would use to build a website would vary greatly from what you would use to build a blog. However, that is no longer the case.
Now, a website builder and a content management system (CMS) overlap each other in many ways and are able to build both blog-type web pages and regular web pages.
Most people use blogging platforms because they allow them to manage their content in one place conveniently. There is a lot of versatility that the blogging platforms of today offer. Regular updates are easier to apply. A lot of customization is possible with these systems, which allows for a more personalized experience for the user.
Types of Blogging Platforms
There are a number of different blogging platforms available on the market nowadays. Some of them offer free services while some of them you have to pay for if you want to host your blog.
The type of blogging platform you want would depend on what you are looking to achieve with your blog.
If you are just looking to create an online personal diary or journal to share your journey with people, then a free blogging platform would do the trick for you.
But if you want to use your blogging for professional purposes to run a business, then a paid platform would provide you with much more freedom and control over your blog.
Let’s have a look at what you should be considering when choosing the best travel blogging platform for your needs.
What to Look for When Choosing the Best Travel Blogging Platform for You
As much as producing valuable content is important, choosing the right travel blogging platform can prove to be crucial as well.
Travel blogging nowadays has evolved and become much more manageable than it used to be 10 years ago. And with that evolution, we now have a plethora of choices to choose from when it comes to starting a travel blog.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when narrowing down your search for the best travel blogging platform:
1. The Travel Blogging Platform You Use Should Drive Traffic to Your Blog
The quality of the blogging platform you choose is important. A good quality travel blogging platform will provide you with many useful tools to work with.
One of the most important tools to drive traffic to your blog is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). An SEO tool will allow you to choose the right keywords for your content which will increase your chances of being discovered by people as it will make your web page better on search engines.
SEO will increase your website’s visibility. Therefore, it is important that the blogging platform you use offers SEO tools to increase your travel blog’s traffic.
2. The Platform Should Have Consistent Customer Support
As a beginner, you may experience some technical issues that you would need help with while setting up your blog and even after the setup.
Managing a blog is made easier when you have good and consistent customer support to go along with it whenever you are in a pickle. Therefore, go for a platform that has good documentation i.e., its community forum is active and full of solutions.
Moreover, the platform’s own customer support should be available 24/7. There should also be a wide array of FAQs present along with troubleshooting guidelines, forums, and tutorial videos to help yourself whenever possible.
3. It Should Fit Your Budget
Your budget is going to be a big determining factor in what travel blogging platform you end up with. When choosing the best travel blog platform for yourself, it is important to evaluate what the cost of each platform is depending on your needs and usage.
You should ideally choose a blogging platform that fits your needs along with the budget. Weigh out the pros and cons for each website and see which one aligns best with your goals and budget.
4. The Blogging Platform Should Allow You to Reach Your Audience
One of the most important things to keep in mind while choosing the best travel blog platform is to make sure that the platform allows you to reach your target audience.
What this means is that you need to focus your efforts on a blog that caters to your specific audience. For example, if you want a blog that is more catered towards the youth, you may want to use WordPress since this is where most youths spend their time in terms of blogging content.
5. It Allows for Increased Flexibility and Versatility
The best travel blogging platform would provide you with plenty of wiggle room to make the changes you want to make.
Flexibility is important in a blog if you want to use it for business purposes. As your travel blog grows, so will your needs. And your blogging platform should be flexible enough to support your future potential needs.
6. The Travel Blogging Platform Should Be User-Friendly
When choosing the best travel blogging platform, you should make sure the platform’s website provides a user-friendly interface. You also need to make sure that this user-friendliness furthers into the mobile version of the website as well.
Most people use their phones to access content and you can potentially lose a lot of traffic if your blogging platform is not customized for mobile phones. You need to allow as many people as you can to be able to access your blog.
What is the Best Trave Blogging Platform for Your Needs?
WordPress
WordPress is by far the most popular choice of travel bloggers on this list. And for good reason.
The platform is free, extremely beginner-friendly, contains a ton of themes, plugins, and security features, and has unparalleled customer support available.
Even with the paid feature, the charges are minimal and it would provide you a ton of freedom and customizability.
WordPress also has helpful plugins that help you SEO optimize your content and bring more traffic to it.
Since the platform is so diverse and has so many options to choose from, it can get a little overwhelming in the beginning. However, a little effort can go a long way when it comes to WordPress. Taking the time to learn how to navigate through the platform is definitely going to be worth your while.
Wix
Wix is a user-friendly platform with a drag and drop interface. It does not provide much in terms of customizability when compared with WordPress. Nonetheless, it is still a great place to start for beginners.
The platform also has good speed and a massive template collection to choose from. However, if you want to keep track of your analytics, you would have to pay for a membership plan.
Blogger
Blogger is one of the simpler platforms to use on this list. As such, it serves a good place to start for beginners and is quite popular for what it does. It is the second most popular blogging platform, right after WordPress. But it is much easier to use than WordPress.
However, this ease of use translates into Blogger not offering much in terms of customizability.
It does, however, provide lots in terms of security and support since it is managed by Google.
Weebly
Weebly is famous for building online stores but it still has a lot to offer in terms of travel blogging. It has a drag and drop interface that makes it easy to use.
This is a great platform if you want to grow your travel blog and sell stuff to your audience later on in your journey.
It also allows for high-quality images and easy-to-add travel features.
Weebly is also one of the best mobile apps to offer on this list which makes it highly accessible. As if that wasn’t enough, the platform also has. 24/7 support.
What it may lack in terms of customizability, it makes up for in usability.
Atameo
Atameo is a social media platform plus blogging platform. This website allows you to post updates about your travels in real-time. You can key in specific locations that you go to such as airports, hotels, and restaurants.
Atameo makes your travel blog look like an entire itinerary as it is designed to have a timeline layout where each destination is connected to the next in a sequence.
The platform does not provide analytics and insights for your travel blog but is still a good choice for travel enthusiasts.
Photler
Photler is a blogging website builder that focuses primarily on serving the photography community. If you are someone who is good at photography and want your pictures to stand out on your blog, then Photler is the perfect travel blogging platform for you.
This platform also allows you to sell your photos and build a photography brand. You have several different templates to choose from to set the blogging aesthetics the way you like.
The platform also provides you with analytics and insights to track your progress.
However, it is free for only 7 days after which you have to buy a paid plan. It is still a great option for photographers who have decent skills in this area and want to monetize those skills.
The Bottom Line
Choosing the best travel blog platform depends on the size of your website and what your future plans are with your blog.
Whatever your goal may be, this article contains a travel blogging platform for all kinds of aspiring bloggers out there.
With this list, you will no longer have trouble making up your minds since you can easily weigh the pros and cons of each platform against each other.
Get creating!
