If you are looking to venture into the blogging world, you might have asked yourself which is the best platform to publish your content on. Is it Medium or WordPress?
But wait, let me tell you something.
You first need to understand that successful blogging calls for high-quality content that will appeal to your audience. Without great content, no one will pay attention to you.
WordPress and Medium are two of the most popular blogging platforms out there with hundreds of bloggers swearing by each of them.
So, which of the two is the best?
As a beginner in the blogging world, it can get pretty confusing when trying to pick either Medium or WordPress. In this article, we will put these two powerhouses against each other.
By the end of it, you will know exactly what each of them offers and which one will best suit your needs.
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Medium vs WordPress in Summary
| Medium | WordPress | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Free Hosting | Paid Hosting |
| Editor | User-Friendly | User-Friendly |
| Monetization Options | Not easy to monetize | Easy to monetize |
| Audience | Ready audience | Marketing strategy required to reach your audience |
| Usability | No special skills required | Longer learning curve |
Hosting
As a blogger, you have the option of choosing between a self-hosted blogging website or a site-hosted blogging platform. When you use a self-hosting website, you can customize your domain name and access all the code on the site.
This gives you the freedom to customize the website’s design and other components to your liking.
All the work on the site belongs to you.
If you go for WordPress, then you will have a self-hosted website that gives you the freedom to the design of your site. You can also brand your site to your liking and monetize it. You also completely own the content on your site and WordPress does not monitor the type of content you put on it.
That’s great, isn’t it?
If you are blogging on WordPress, you have the freedom to do pretty much anything unless you are putting out illegal content.
Site-hosted platforms take care of the domain and hosting needs so as to make the work easier and cheaper for you. Medium is a site-hosted platform where all you have to do is sign up and create content.
Medium takes care of the security and maintenance of the site.
However, since Medium takes care of the hosting, it means that your content is owned by them. If you violate the Terms of Agreement, Medium can easily kick you off the platform by suspending or closing your account.
You also do not get much freedom on the design of the website, and many times you will have to use templates found on the platform.
Verdict: Tie. Medium is great for beginners and cheaper to use. WordPress is better for experienced bloggers who are ready to shoulder domain, hosting, and maintenance costs.
Editor
When it comes to writing and editing, both Medium and WordPress are both very user-friendly. Medium has a pretty basic editor where your main focus will be to write content.
You can add visual content like images and videos on the Medium editor. This is a simple process that does not require any professional expertise.
The editor for WordPress almost has a similar layout like that of Medium. WordPress, however, has more editing and styling options.
In addition to written content and images, you can arrange the layout of your content into several column layouts, add tables and quotes.
Verdict: Tie. Medium is good for stories and blogs that require few visuals. WordPress is much better for different types of content like a business or more technical content.
Audience
It is every blogger’s dream to have an audience that cannot wait to devour your content. Both Medium and WordPress give you the ability to build a large audience.
Now…
When you sign up for blogging on Medium, your followers on Twitter that are subscribers on Medium automatically follow your Medium account.
This is great news if you have a large following on Twitter because once they sign up on Medium they have access to your content.
Medium also has millions of active users that have access to your content when they search for it or for related content on the platform. Medium lets readers leave comments and claps on your content.
The most popular content gets boosted up the suggestion ranks for millions of readers to access. There is also a curation option that promotes your content like a normal publisher would.
Your audience on WordPress highly depends on how much you market your content. You can market your site on social media sites, write SEO-optimized content that will show up on search engines, or add marketing plugins to get your content out there.
If you have your email marketing properly set up and readers subscribe to your WordPress blog, they get email notifications when you upload new content.
However, since you self-host for your WordPress website, you do not have a strong domain authority especially if you are just starting out. This makes it hard for readers who do not already know about your website to read your content.
Verdict: Medium wins. The millions of readers subscribed to Medium offer a ready audience for your content.
Monetization Options
Let’s face it…
It’s amazing when we make money from our blog.
WordPress has greater monetization opportunities compared to Medium. When blogging on WordPress, you have the freedom to run ads, add affiliate links to your website, sponsor content for other marketers, and offer premium content to your audience.
Medium, on the other hand, does not run ads on its platform. Blogging on Medium gives you the opportunity to add your own affiliate links to market your own products.
But there’s a catch…
Medium does not allow you to attach affiliate links to market someone else’s products.
Medium also has a Paid Partnership program where you get part of the money subscribers pay to Medium. This is available to you when people like your content.
Verdict: WordPress wins. The opportunities for monetization of your content and site offered by WordPress are incomparable to those offered by Medium.
Usability
If you are new to WordPress publishing, there is definitely a learning curve.
Here’s why:
Blogging on WordPress requires you to self-host, gives you countless theme and design options and thousands of plugin choices.
You need to understand how all of them come together to make a beautiful, functional blog. The end results speak for themselves because you get to have a site that fits your taste and meets the purpose that you intended it to have.
Medium has a very easy to use interface. The designing capabilities are limited and the Editor is simple.
If you want a clean but sleek aesthetic that does not require much tinkering with so you can just write and have your content read, then blogging on Medium is the option for you.
Verdict: Tie. WordPress has a learning curve but gives you a site suited to your taste. Medium has a simple interface that lets you focus on writing your content.
Final Verdict
Simply put…
The decision on whether to use Medium or WordPress ultimately depends on what you want to accomplish. Both platforms offer you great usability and the opportunity to get your content out there.
They are also relatively easy to use, even though WordPress has a longer learning curve compared to Medium.
If you want to launch a blog to generate income, WordPress is the platform you should pick.
After all,
WordPress has a more professional feel to it, especially since you get to pick your own domain name.
If you are looking to reach a wide audience whether for business or to promote your creative works, then Medium is your platform. It is optimized for social media so you can get more followers and you get paid exclusively for your work.
If you are just getting started with blogging, then you can take advantage of the benefits of both platforms. Medium can help you drive traffic to your WordPress blog. All you need to do is link to your WordPress blog when publishing content on Medium.
Is Medium a good blogging platform?
Medium can be a good platform for blogging if you are looking for an easy way to just publish your content. The ready audience on medium makes it simple and quick for you to get noticed.
Does Medium own your content?
No, you own all the rights to any content that you publish on medium. However, you need to ensure that your content is not in violation of their policies.
Do Medium writers get paid?
When a medium user claps for an article, a portion of their monthly subscription goes to paying the author of the article. Better content on Medium equals better pay.
Is Medium good for SEO?
Medium could be good for SEO depending on how you look at it. It offers the advantages of high domain authority, a great community and amazing support.