The best Blogging Platform for Writers to Rank and Make Money Online
Are you wondering what the best blogging platform is to publish SEO-friendly content that ranks to bank? Then read on. Maybe you found this article on Google today or most likely my most popular article “How to make money online in Germany“. I assume that you searched for the terms “make money online in Germany” or the many other related search terms for which this article is ranked on Google, and my article appeared in the first positions, so you clicked on it and ended up here.
Before we can delve into the SEO strategies that helped this article rank so well, I need to take you one step back to where and how this blog was started.
What is the Best Blogging Platform for Writers to Make Money?
There are many blogging platforms available and each of them offers advantages and disadvantages. You can check out the #1 London SEO Consultant’s list of the best blogging platforms for beginners to get an idea or check out this infographic comparing the most popular ones (source: https://mention.com/en/blog/small-business-blogging/): 
As this comparison chart shows, WordPress offers the best features, and it is free to use as an open-source blogging platform. I would therefore recommend this trusted and very well-established content management system (CMS), especially if you are a writer looking for the most SEO friendly and affordable blogging platform website for the following reasons:
- It will save you money.
- It will generate more traffic through various plugins and features.
- It will save you time.
- It will perform better on the internet and on search engines.
- It will provide specific features to optimize your site for SEO.
Setting up a self-hosted WordPress site using the CMS WordPress.org is a great starting point for beginners and experienced website owners. Starting a WordPress blog made me learn many new digital skills such as SEO and web content writing. It enabled me to begin with a side hustle while doing a full-time teaching job until I had set up several blogs and started generating money from them.
Why is WordPress the Best Blogging Platform for Blog Monetization?
This CMS provides independence, freedom, and all the needed tools to write and optimize web content easily for monetization. Compared to the other content publishing platforms like Wix, Weebly, or Squarespace it offers the best features and functions without having to pay the additional cost for a premium hosting plan for example. Because when you register a domain name with an independent web host like NameCheap, Hostinger, or SeekaHost, you only pay for the web hosting and the domain is yours. But if you get your domain with those blogging platforms you may have to pay additional fees for their premium services and functions and if you do not pay your access to your site may be removed or restricted. Comparing CMS Contently with prices ranging from $3,000 to $25,000 per month for very complex sites you can see the huge difference compared to using WordPress for free with a WordPress Hosting plan starting at £1.25 with SeekaHost, which includes the free use of the innovative WP Blog Hosting Control Panel. You can see how to use the WordPress blogging platform and the SeekaPanel in combination to achieve great results with this blog in this video:
Apart from saving you money, WordPress also offers many great features to help you earn money. You can find WordPress plugins for literally anything to use on your website to generate an income. Examples are:
- WP Plugins for ad placements, banner ad integrations, or shop integrations – find examples here.
- WP Plugins for SEO and digital marketing – find examples here.
- WP Plugins for affiliate marketing – find examples here.
- WP Plugins for membership site functions – find examples here.
You can also see some of my suggestions in this guide:
Obviously, you will firstly require enough web traffic to make use of these plugins to start earning, which is where SEO comes into play.
How does WordPress help with SEO for higher ranks and traffic?
The WordPress.org self-hosted site code is picked up well by Google bots and Bing bots. The proof is many sites that rank higher up on SERPs built on WordPress like some of the ClickDo client case studies showing WP business blogs and websites reaching top positions on search engines, which are hosted with SeekaHost’s cheap web hosting. Effective WordPress SEO plugins like the all-in-one SEO pack are fantastic to make any web content more SEO-friendly, providing analysis regarding keywords, content length and structure, and much more. You can see how it works best in this tutorial:
If you manage to reach a 100% SEO score your published content will surely rank for intended keywords if you also take care of your off-page SEO which you can learn more about in the SEO Training Course at the SeekaHost University. For the on-page SEO I will share some insights and strategies, which you can use and apply based on my example – needless to say: do not copy 1:1 as content needs to be relevant and related.
How I achieved top ranks with targeted keywords for over 1000 visitors a month
I published the “How to make money online in Germany” article in September 2020 and since then I have managed to rank it for about 90 keywords on Google, many of them in top positions, as you can see in the table here (snapshot April 2021 with the SEMRush analytics tool): 
As you can see here, my article appears in the #1 position on Google for a total of 7 search terms and for other search terms in the second, third, fourth, or seventh position, which is usually also found on the first page of Google results. Currently, my article ranks for 49 keywords in the top 20 positions on Google: 
And you can also see how the volume of traffic has increased. In the first table, you will see that my article ranks for 3 search terms, each of which achieves a search volume of over 1000 per month on Google. These are “how to make money online“, “how to earn money online” and “make money online“. Obviously, high ranks for such popular keywords bring in more website visitors than keywords with low search volumes such as “how to make money online in Germany” with 260 searches, but it is easier for such keywords to rank, since the so-called Keyword Difficulty (KD) is lower, as in this example KD 63 vs. 71 (see table). That’s why my SEO strategy, which I created together with #1 SEO consultant Fernando Raymond of ClickDo Ltd., was focused on keywords with a lower search volume. The main SEO strategies to rank we put together are:
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Research, embed and link to keywords
The keywords listed above, for which my article is now ranked on Google, I did research in advance with the help of SEO tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs. To be found for these terms on search engines, it is not enough to include these keywords in the titles and text body. You should also strategically interlink the article with other articles published on your blog, using those keywords. And you should add relevant media such as images or graphics with metadata added containing those keywords. I have previously recorded how I published another article with a similar topic and keyword analysis where you can see what to consider when publishing content on WordPress that is SEO optimized:
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Monitor and track ranks and traffic
I was able to track the traffic to my website via the SeekaHost Blog Hosting Control Panel where I could integrate my Google Analytics and Clicky tracking sites. I would log in daily to check which keywords are ranking, which positions they rank in, and which of my posts rank where and attract how many visitors. I could also check where all visitors come from and how they find my blog/article. 
This has helped me improve my SEO strategy and writing techniques. I could see for example that I get more visitors from Germany than from English-speaking countries, so I started publishing also German content, which is now also gaining traction.
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Keep on publishing-related content of high quality
After I had published the article, I wrote more blog posts that are related so that I could add the links with rankable keywords to boost the SEO. I did this on my personal blog, but also on other blogs where I have author accounts. I also added infographics with a link to the article. This all helps to create references for search engine bots sending signals of trust from other sites. Here is one example: Ways Students Can Earn Online With Writing | Entrepreneurs Toolkit 
As you can see, I use varying anchor texts, so I avoid the so-called “keyword stuffing”, which is rated negatively by search engines. You may have noticed that in my article I have made the keywords that are important and relevant for my contribution bold: 
And you also see that I have linked other relevant and related articles of mine. Likewise, I have inserted relevant videos and graphics or photos into the article and adding infographics created effectively with an infographic creator tool, can help increase engagement and therefore ranks. I then linked the graphics and images to the keywords for which I would like to rank by entering them in the details section and in the alt-text when I upload the image to my post. I show and explain all these elements in more detail with video tutorials in my SEO Copywriting course at the SeekaHost University.
What other Advantages does WordPress offer as a Blogging Platform?
WordPress is the ultimate blogging platform as that is what is originally created for. Here are some additional benefits you cannot ignore as a blogger or writer looking to make money online:
- You can find and register a custom domain with a brandable name.
- You can download one of 3,000+ themes specifically designed for blogs for free.
- You can add social media buttons, forms, affiliate links, advanced author profiles, manage other users as blog contributors, and hundreds of other features via plugins.
- You can customize your blog with the 55,000+ plugins available, many of which are free unless you want additional functions that must be paid for.
- You can make use of SEO plugins, social media plugins, or analytics plugins to track your traffic and monitor your website and marketing better.
- You can make use of web design or web developer tools with plugins to improve and optimize code, loading speeds, take backups, etc.
These are only a few of the many advantages of WordPress and I can only recommend it as the best blogging platform, especially in combination with the SeekaHost App as it has been developed specifically for WordPress Bloggers. If you combine both, apply effective SEO strategies and use the WP plugins strategically, then you will certainly be ahead of the online game and use your blog to make money online or as a business or news website. Big players like tech news site Tech Crunch, fashion magazine Vogue or even athletes like Usain Bolt are using WordPress as their CMS for their sites as well as other popular websites generating millions. So, get started with WordPress and the best WordPress hosting today.
Blogger and Educator by Passion | Senior Online Media & PR Strategist at ClickDo Ltd. | Contributor to many Education, Business & Lifestyle Blogs in the United Kingdom & Germany | Summer Course Student at the London School of Journalism and Course Instructor at the SeekaHost University.