What is the Best Blogging Platform?

It’s time to drop the self-hosted WordPress blog

Photo by Adam Solomon on Unsplash

I found trouble a few years ago when I started telling creatives that they didn’t need a self-hosted WordPress blog. How dare I throw blogging under the bus? After all, I’ve been avid since before there even was such a thing as WordPress, and if anyone should be a fan, it should be me.

Traitor! Heathen! Turncoat!

The thing is, times change, and where ten years ago I was all-in on the idea of affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, ads, and creating online courses, I can see that the whole self-hosted blogging industry anymore is a broken little bird that fell from its nest.

The die-hards will tell you that blogging still has a lot of life left, mostly because they have “how-to-get-rich-quick-with-a-blog” courses to sell and a backlog of blog posts telling everyone that it’s possible to get wealthy from blogging.

The only way you will ever make money with a self-hosted blog starting from zero, is if you follow the big guys and sell coaching and courses teaching people how to make money online by teaching people how to make money online.

And even though people are making money from affiliate marketing in 2021, it will soon be in its death throes. The only thing keeping it alive is Amazon, and all Bezos has to do is change one thing for the industry to fail.

Ads suck. Everyone hates them, and no one trusts influencers or a “topic authority” anymore.

But, you can still make money online if you change your tactics a bit.

Embracing the Platforms

Over the past three years, I’ve written and published on all the major blogging platforms. I wouldn’t be much of a blogging expert if I didn’t try everything and give it a chance. I’ve been on Medium, NewsBreak, Substack, Quora, Vocal.Media, Elephant Journal, LinkedIn and a few others that ended up on the wayside.

Of all the platforms, I’ve had the most financial success on Medium and NewsBreak, but over the past month or so, NewsBreak has proven itself to be untrustworthy and I don’t foresee any more big payouts coming from there.