Top Best Blogging Platforms

Blogging, as an online activity has witnessed tremendous surge in the past few years and it still holds a bright outlook for the future. Blogging has put power into the hands of online users to publish their skills, expertise and thoughts on the web. Although the rise of social media has seen blogging to fall a bit out of fashion, it still remains an essential part of online communication and manages to engage and educate the online masses. Blogging is still one of the world’s most top online activity.

While online blogging is still considered to be technically demanding, it doesn’t require technical skills in abundance. The presence of multiple online blogging platforms have made the act an easy and undemanding one. You would be requiring just the basic operating skills and little to no cash to get started on your blogging and online publishing journey.

Here we will be covering the best blogging platforms and comparing WordPress vs Blogspot vs Tumblr vs Quora Vs Medium to let you decide which one is for you.

What are blogging platforms and why you’d need one?

Blogging on the web from scratch would require some deeper understanding of HTML/CSS, Javascript and much more, which could simply be worked around with the use of a blogging platform. Blogging platforms provide you with the essential set of tools and functionalities that let you publish your content online, with little to no coding skills. These platforms provide minimum to a lot of customization options to let your blog reflect your ideas and content. You would be needing the assistance of such blogging platforms to let you worry less about that line of CSS messing the website layout, to concentrate more on your content, educating your audience and building a strong online brand.

These blogging platforms are in use by over thousands of online brands and Fortune 500 companies. Having your own space on the internet means a lot and it lets you empower the world with your skills, experience and knowledge. You might be needing one if you own a small business, want to build your online presence or to just dive into blogging and put your first few words on the internet for others to read. Whatever your case might be, having a powerful blogging platform handy will cut down your time tinkering with the website, and let you concentrate on what you’re writing.

The rise of Blogging Platforms

Below screenshot sheds some light on the rise of the popularity of online blogging platforms over time. From what is seen below, Tumblr has quickly picked up pace in 2009’s and has never looked back since then, beating WordPress and Blogspot by a fair margin. After Tumblr was sold to Yahoo for $1.1 Billion to Yahoo, the network has seen some ups-and-downs, but still owns a fair share of the market.

This rise in Blogging platforms has been fairly due to the trust and dependence of online readers on their fellow online counterparts with some experience and knowledge on the subject. 81% of customers in US trust the advice and information from blogs and it simply puts forth how valued blogs are among internet users.

Now that we’ve established the impetus of blogging in the internet age, below we will be taking a look at the Top 5 Best Blogging platform to get started in 2015.

WordPress

WordPress is arguably one of the most popular online blogging platforms, first released in 2003. Powering more than 60 Million online websites, 23.3% of the top 10 Million blogs are powered by WordPress. WordPress.org offers a free script that can be installed on your online server, although most of the online hosting providers come pre-installed with a variant of WordPress. For others who prefer it clean and simple, but with less customization options could opt for WordPress.com. This is a clean and free web-based network. With a plethora of developers and designers readily available for this service, WordPress community is one of the largest ones for your online blogging requirements.

Tons of functionalities come binding with its original installation, although it can be moulded as per personal requirements with the available plugins, themes, widgets and much more. WordPress offers a powerful scalable solution ranging from a single person blog to a major media outlet. WordPress is best suited for both individual bloggers and professional mainstream media publications with hundreds of authors and thousands of blog posts. Everyone including the internet marketer, social media guru, a small business and individuals requiring an online presence can make the most of this free service.

WordPress.org requires you to have some basic understanding of how the web servers and the installation process works. Although you can set one up under 5 minutes, WordPress.org self-hosted blog demands some technical skill requiring uploading of files to a web server using FTP and such. WordPress.com doesn’t require much technical skill from you and you can get started right away with a simple registration.

Pros

• Completely customizable
• Scalable  (up-to a certain extent)
• Huge community support
• Tons of Plugins and Themes

Cons

• Becomes highly complicated once scaled

WordPress is best suited for

• Individual bloggers
• Publishers
• Businesses
• Sophisticated websites

Blogspot

Blogger, formerly Blogpost is Google’s own publishing platform, bought from Pyra Labs back in 2003. One of the earliest blogging platforms, Blogger only requires your Google account credentials to get started on your free online blog. You can start your online blog on Blogger for free, even without a domain name, by hosting on their  free (.blogspot.com) domain. The simplicity of the setup and scalability of the network makes Blogspot rank consistently top among online blogging platforms. With easy integration of AdSense into your Blogspot account, you can quickly get started on even generating some side income through your writings.

Blogspot is best suited for individual and lifestlye bloggers, although it should just do well enough for all other online bloggers. Many authors make use of Blogspot for their online presence and it is justifiable. This platform requires no previous coding knowledge and their drag-and-drop functionality lets you to customize your blog the way you feel, without messing with the code. Blogspot blogs are mainly focused for individuals and they can’t be treated as a business entities, meaning you can’t sell or resell them legally on the web.

Although a little popular in this era, it is still preferred by users for its hardwired cool features of Google and its products like AdSense and Analytics.

Pros

• Easy to get started
• Plain interface
• Hardwired with Google AdSense and Analytics

Cons

• Not suited for full-fledged websites
• Everything owned by Google
• Can’t sell or resell the blog

Blogspot is best suited for

• Individual bloggers
• Authors
• First time online publishers

Tumblr

Tumblr is a widely popular online blogging platform that appeals to the younger masses. Powering over 220 Million blogs and over 100 Billion blog posts, Tumblr takes less than a minute to let you get started on your online blogging journey. Tumblr is a fusion between a full-fledged blog and Twitter. Tumblr is more about micro-blogging, the blogging of short form and frequent updates, multiple times in a day.

Tumblr is well suited to online users who aren’t looking for a long-term commitment into the time-consuming blogging industry. Tumblr is widely popular among the youth and they are the ones this network is best suited for. Tumblr is a must have weapon in your blogging arsenal, if you cater to the younger generations. Combined with notes and favorites, Tumblr is a powerful micro-blogging platform that will help you get  started on one within a few minutes. With a strong social following and a decent mobile app to accompany it, Tumblr is a great free tool to get started on micro-blogging and see for yourselves if blogging is for you.

Pros

• Micro-blogging fusion of Twitter and full-fledged blog
• Simple interface and easy to get started

Cons

• Owned by Yahoo, ads might be on their way
• Not good for long article blogging
• 
  

Tumblr is best suited for

• Young bloggers
• Micro-bloggers
• Image and short-text centered writers or bloggers.

Medium

Medium is a fairly new blogging platform, started in 2012 by Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams. Medium is a social journalism platform that doesn’t offer much customizations. The platform provides a full-featured WYSIWYG text editor to write your content and post it online. Posts can also be up-voted or Favorited just like in Digg and Reddit. Cleanliness and minimalism are widely appreciated on the web these days and less clutter and more readable content is what Blogs are quickly morphing into to catch the attention of their readers. Medium is based on just all of those features, enabling your readers to read your content on their beautiful minimalistic platform.

The community interactions, in-built analytics, great SEO and beautiful layout make Medium one of the most powerful online blogging platforms for you to make use of in 2015.  Its lack of customization is the only drawback, rest all place this network among the top blogging platforms. Medium is a great platform for individual bloggers who want to get their content read by as many people as possible. With support for long form articles, you can publish your content at Medium without any painful pop-ups, widgets and advertisements.

You would be needing no technical skills to get started on Medium and the registration will get you quickly to your editor for submitting a new post. If you are one of those bloggers who doesn’t prefer distractions to their readers, Medium is a great platform to try out your online blogging skills before self-hosting one.

Pros

• Clean and minimalistic interface
• Easy-to-read and Write layout
• Great social community
• Potentially very large audience

Cons

• No customizations
• Poor content discovery feature

Medium is best suited for

• As a secondary blog for Writers
• Freelance writers and authors
• Industry professionals

Quora

Quora is one of the widely popular question and answer website and it had started online user blogs back in January 2012. Quora is a popular website among the industry professionals and knowledgeable and experienced people. This network is best suited for the above mentioned people, who already possess some amount of authority in their respective industry. The average Quora writer witnesses over 30,000 monthly views and this is a great platform to establish and online audience using your expertise and authority. With over 300,000 topics to choose from, you can get started on any one of your choice and make it discover-able by using tags.

Quora has a string of interesting questions and answers and its vaguely qualified users have answers to all sort of your questions. Quora’s blogging platform does not allow much customizations, so it isn’t entirely your space on the web. You can use this network primarily for establishing or expanding your online presence and reach. Well suited as a secondary blog, Quora is a free blogging platform mainly useful for influencers to increase their online presence.

Pros

• Strong and active community
• Interesting content

Cons

• Lack of customization
• Not suited for personal blogging

Quora as a blogging platform is best suited for

• Industry professionals
• People with some established authority
• As a secondary blog for influencers

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Websites to Download Free Textures & Patterns

As a creative designer, I feel the need myself. Skimming through tens of hundreds of textures from various sources every time when I need specific textures is repetitive. So, today I have collected 11 best websites where I can download quality texture resources and can go back to them when I need any specific textures  I hope this collection will also be useful to you.

There are also several design blogs that offer free texture packs, for example you can see our textures and backgrounds section where you’ll find a number of high quality textures.

Importantly, each website / blog listed below has its own terms of use. So, you are requested to check their license carefully before downloading and using their textures / patterns in your designs and prints.

Lost and Taken

Lost and taken is a blog dedicated to free textures. Run by Caleb Kimbrough, the blog offers various textures in the categories of paper, grunge, wood, scratched, metal and more.

BittBox

Bittbox offers royalty free textures that can be used for both personal and commercial projects. It also provides occasional articles and giveaways.

Subtle Patterns

Curated by Atle Mo, Subtle Patterns provides high quality tilable textured patterns free for use by designers and developers.

Texture King

Texture King is another website providing high quality free stock textures.

Deviant Art

Deviant Art is a popular design community where there are a number of design resources available for free. In addition to showcasing and selling their works, various designers and artists from across the world share their free textures and patterns to the members and non-members all the world over.

Grunge Textures

This site provides high quality background textures for photographers, digital arts and creative designers. Free textures are available in 900×600 px size, and higher resolution textures can be purchased for a small fee. They also sell texture bundles for a discounted price.

Mayang Textures

Their texture library has over 4350 free to download, high-resolution textures. Also, you can buy every texture on this website for $33.

Texture Mate

TextureMate is run by Bill Scott, a photography hobbyist who photographs textures and release them free on this site. The site also features free bundles of patterns and brushes. Nice collection!

CG Textures

This site has a large number of textures. However, before you download the textures, you should carefully read their FAQ and License pages.

Free Stock Textures

They have hundreds of category-wise textures. They also have colors option where you have find textures based on colors.

Background Labs

Background Labs specializes in a variety of free background tilable patterns. You can browse patterns by colors and categories.

Free Seamless Textures

This site has a growing collection of seamless textures, backgrounds and patterns for your web and graphic design projects.

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How To Make An Impressive User Interface with Qualities

User interface is that thing, which makes the interaction between the user and the application or a website. So making it perfectly is very important for every software designer. There are some important facts in this regard. You will have to remember that creating a perfect user interface does not depend on how the interface looks. The main thing about the user interface is it should be friendly with the user. There will be no complication. More over the look should also have a good look. There are seven simple ways to make a user interface perfect. You will have to follow the instructions to create a perfect interface.



These instructions are given below that will help you to create an awesome user interface :

1. Make it simple:
The user interface you are making should have to be simple. You will have to make the interface clear. There will be no unnecessary button in the interface. You will have to make sure that the user will not need any manual to use it. The interface should have visual clarity and simplicity.

2. No unnecessary data
There will be no unnecessary data in the interface. You will have to make the interface user friendly, but that do not mean that you will keep everything open on the interface. In that case, it will be disgusting for the user. So simplify it, but do not make it simplest.

3. Proper communication with the user
Communication with the user is very necessary. Those who will be using the interface for the first time will not know everything about it. So the buttons you will use in the interface will have to be familiar. You will have to those kinds of buttons, which make the user feel that this button is only for navigation or menu.

4. Make it speedy
Another very important thing about the interface that ot should have proper processing speed. If it takes, too much time for processing the commands, then it will not be welcomed by the users. So the user interface should have to be the speed to make everything in time. If the speed is not good enough, then the users will be boarded at the time of using it.

5. Easy to understand
There will be no complication in the interface. It should be created in such a way that the user will be able to understand everything, if he use only a few minutes for it. You will have to use the same type of interface in every part of the same application. If the interface is different in different places, then it will make the users angry. So try to avoid these types of problems.

6. Make the interface enjoyable
Making the interface good looking is not so important. You will have to make it is such way, which will make the user excited about the application as well as the interface.

7. Data recovery system
There is one saying that “to err is human”. So it is very common making mistakes at the time of using the interface. So you will have to keep systems for recovering data. The deleting system of the interface should have the system of restoring that data. So you will have to create something like the recycle bin in your application. Otherwise recovering data will not be possible for the users.
If you follow all of these, then you will be able to create a great interface. This will make all the users happy and your product famous. The glory will be all yours. Among these instructions, some of those can make clash with the others. You will have to solve those problems and make it perfect and that is the one and only requirements to be a software designer.

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Website Speed Test Tools for Optimizing Web Performance

Website Speed is a critical element of running a successful website and should always be a priority for site managers. In addition to providing a lag-free and responsive user experience, a fast loading website also has a direct impact on the overall performance of the website.  Faster loading websites benefit from better user engagement, higher conversion rates, higher SEO rankings and much more.

 Good Page speed of any websites is a most important thing. If your website is taking very long time to load then most of visitors will close your site even before watching any content.

Google search ranking factor also include website speed in their ranking signal. If your website speed is good then google rank your site in top.

Improving website speed is critical, but it can be a daunting process that involves many moving parts between onsite optimization to network and accessibility configurations. However, if performance truly matters, you have no choice but to take it on one step at a time.  A good place to start would be to run some tests and find out how fast you site really is.

After experimenting with various website speed test tools, I have narrowed it down these five as the recommended tools based on usability, accessibility and how comprehensive the reports are.

round-trip times.

YSlow

YSlowanalyzes web pages, suggests why they’re slow based on Yahoo!’s rules for high performance web sites, and then offers suggestions for improvement. When analyzing a web page, YSlow deducts points for each infraction of a rule and then applies a grade to each rule.

GTmetrix

GTmetrixuses PageSpeed and YSlow to grade your site’s performance and provides recommendations to fix. The site also features tools to monitor your site and track its performance, such as video playback and performance reports.

Pingdom

Pingdomlets you identify what about a web page is fast, slow, and too big, as well as the best practices you’re not following. View file sizes, load times, total website speed and other details about every page element. You can sort and filter this list in different ways to identify performance bottlenecks.

Web Page Analyzer

Web Page Analyzer is a simple and straightforward web page speed analyzer. Enter a URL to get page size, composition, and download time. It sums up page components, and then offers advice on how to improve page load time.

comprehensive the reports are. 

Google PageSpeed Insights

 

Google PageSpeed Insights grades both the desktop and mobile site speeds. The tool fetches the URL twice, once from a desktop agent and once from a mobile agent, and produces a ‘site rank’ based on a scale of 1 -100. The higher the number, the better optimized you site is for speed (at least in Google’s eyes). A returned scored of 85 or higher indicates the site’s speed is performing well.

There is also an Chrome extension available, which allows assessment of any page from the Developers Page Speed tab. PageSpeed Insights provides a balanced overview of site speed and actions to take in order to improve page performance and the site as a whole.

Page Scoring

 PageScoring’s Website Speed Test loads the entered domain and provides a comprehensive display of how long its contents took to load. As seen in the screenshot, PageScoring reports on several transmittal processes that occur during a website request, including domain lookup, redirection time, download time and much more.

This is an effective tool for measuring performance in real time and provides webmasters with valuable site performance information that isolates individual pieces of data.

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