As an all-in-one online learning solution that allows creators to sell online courses, digital products, and memberships, Podia continues to grow and evolve.
And they’ve recently released a new blogging feature that allows you to set up a blog and email newsletter in the same place where you manage all your other business tasks, such as your digital products and websites.
We dive into all of Podia’s bells and whistles in our full review, but in this guide, we’ll help you discover how to use Podia Blogging to grow your digital business.
What is Podia Blogging?
Podia Blogging integrates blog and newsletter setup with all other products and business activities for seamless management all in one platform.
Up until now, the Podia platform only had workarounds for creating a blog on the platform, such as creating a public course and having it serve as a blog on your site, building custom web pages from scratch, or using public posts in your community.
However, these were not ideal as they were time-consuming and offered no SEO benefits.
Now you can seamlessly publish content with one click to create more awareness for your products and services.
Benefits of Using Podia’s Free Blogging Platform
Whether you are a business owner or hobbyist, you can use Podia to build your online home.
Here are some benefits that come with hosting your blog on Podia:
- Clean, Professional Blogs: Podia blogs boast a sleek, professional design from the start, allowing effortless blog post publishing with simple copy-pasting, without any setup required.
- 100% Customizability: While Podia blogs shine with their initial polished look, extensive customization options allow you to tailor layouts, colors, fonts, widths, text sizes, images, embeds, and design elements.
- Built-In SEO Optimization: Blogs built on Podia are optimized for search engines like Google without the need for complex plugins. They provide straightforward SEO tools to improve post visibility and rankings.
- Easy Email Integration: Your blog connects directly to Podia Email, and you can also choose from various other email integration options including MailChimp, AWeber, and ConvertKit to seamlessly share your blog posts.
- Free Hosting: All Podia websites and blogs are hosted on the platform for free which means you don’t have to worry about buying, setting up, and maintaining your own hosting.
Now you can have everything “in-house”, from your website and product pages to email and blogging. No clutter, and no need to maintain different URLs for everything.
Features of Podia Blogging
If you’re wondering if Podia is the best blogging platform for you, take a look at the platform’s core features to better understand how you can leverage the blogging tool in your own business.
1. Easy to Use Website Builder
Because Podia now supports blogging right out of the box, it has quickly become one of the best online course platforms for business owners who want to manage blogs on their own without the need to hire pros.
The platform’s user-friendly interface gives you that middle ground to quickly build a professional-looking blog and start posting with minimal learning.
Your blog will be up and running in under 30 minutes and you can enjoy hassle-free blog building with a beginner-friendly page builder for text, images, and videos.
Podia simplifies and automates most of the boring, time-consuming tasks associated with posting a blog, such as on-page SEO optimization. You don’t have to mess with any tech processes to create and share professional-looking blog posts.
You can make your blog look exactly the way you want without getting bogged down with complicated add-ons, such as widgets, formatted blocks, or code.
All in all, blogging on Podia is easy and intuitive – exactly how blogging should work.
How to Start a Blog on Podia
You can set up your blog on Podia right now. It’s free and available for all Podia users.
The platform has an in-depth post on how to start a blog on Podia in just six steps, including everything from choosing the right niche and name for your blog to publishing and promoting your first post.
How to Import An Existing Blog to Podia
Your account also has a blog importer ready to go. This is a great tool for anyone who already has a blog on another platform. The blog importer makes it easy for you to move over any existing blog posts to your Podia blog.
For example, if you already have a blog on another platform like Squarespace or Wix then you can easily bring it to Podia and instantly benefit from the built-in features designed to update and enhance your blog’s design and functionality.
To migrate your blog to Podia from another platform, simply navigate to the “Import blog” tab on your blogging dashboard. Enter the feed URL or blog website and the platform will automatically import all your posts.
Note: If you choose the Mover or Shaker subscription plans, the Podia team will migrate your blog content and customers for free.
2. Templates and Customization
Podia blogs look great from the start. Simply type text or paste your content into Podia’s text editor and publish – your blog instantly looks polished.
You can further customize different elements, such as fonts, colors, backgrounds, and layouts to create a unique look.
Change each of these in seconds with just a few clicks.
- Add email opt-in forms
- Adjust blog width and padding
- Create buttons to make links stand out
- Share your author bio
Here are some examples of Podia blog pages customized to look vastly different by making just a few tweaks like the ones mentioned above:
Podia also lets you create multimedia blog posts by adding text, buttons, videos, and embeds from thousands of sources across the web.
Here are some of the media you can add to your Podia blog posts to make them more engaging:
- YouTube Live videos (or any other third-party video hosting platforms)
- X posts
- Instagram posts
- Podcasts
- Online surveys
- Typeform
- Quizzes
- Spreadsheets
- Audio files
- Slideshows
- GitHub code
- Spotify playlists
There’s no limit to the amount of media you can share, and you can even include file downloads such as your latest ebook or guide.
All of this is possible without coding skills – although you have the option to add code using the code block on the editor.
To embed any of these on your blog page, simply hit the forward slash key and select “Embed”. Paste the link to whatever content you want to share in the embed box and it will appear in your post automatically.
Pre-Made Blog Post Templates
Podia also provides blog post templates for your YouTube videos and podcast episodes making it easy for you to repurpose your existing content.
Even if you’re not a blogger, you’ll find it simple to transform any video or podcast into posts for your new blog.
The best part about using Podia for your blog is that your content looks great on all devices. Regardless of how your audiences access your blog, they will get a smooth experience that’s optimized for devices of all sizes.
Podia does this automatically, so you don’t have to worry about any technical nitty-gritty of resizing your content for phones, tablets, and computers.
Check out this Podia demo website to see how your blog will look for both you and your audience.
You can also browse creator example blogs to see what other creators have already built using Podia.
3. Integrated Email Marketing
A newsletter is one of the best ways to get your audience to read your blog posts and Podia offers an easy connection to email which allows you to effortlessly share new blog posts with one click.
You can do all your email marketing with Podia without having to integrate a third-party email service.
Your email is automatically integrated with your website, blog, community, courses, and digital products, making it easy for you to manage your sales pages and lead magnets.
Here are a few core benefits of using Podia Email:
- Pre-Configured Email Templates: You get beautiful email templates for all occasions, including launches, welcome series, and transactional emails.
- Simple Broadcast Email Editor: Podia has an easy-to-use email editor that makes it easy for you to build email marketing campaigns with no design experience necessary.
- Email Automation: Use pre-defined entrance and exit conditions to create automated campaigns that nurture your audience and generate leads and sales on autopilot.
- Subscriber Segmentation: You can use built-in email segmentation tools to separate your audience into groups based on factors like products, subscriptions, and revenue.
- Built-In Email Analytics: See which types of newsletters have the highest open rates, or which emails grew your revenue so you can do more of what works to grow your business.
Podia Email is an optional add-on that is free for less than 100 subscribers. This means that you can start blogging and sending emails for free on Podia and only upgrade your email plan as your list grows.
4. Built-In SEO Functionality
Consistent blogging is a winning strategy for online visibility and discoverability. Publishing regular blog content boosts site awareness, provides social media fuel, and signals search engines like Google that your site is active and relevant, potentially improving rankings.
However, getting all the SEO optimizations right can be difficult if you’re not experienced.
That’s why, in addition to providing you with all the features you need to create and manage your blog posts, Podia also offers SEO features straight out of the box to help you gain online visibility for your content.
The SEO tab is easy to navigate. Even if you’re completely new to blogging, you can effortlessly fill out the relevant fields, eliminating the guesswork of properly linking everything.
Here are some of the things you can do:
- Customize SEO Titles: You can add an SEO headline for each post to help it stand out in search and generate more clicks to your blog.
- Add SEO Description: Add a description optimized with relevant keywords to give readers a high-level overview of what your post is about and drive traffic to your site.
- Include a Social Sharing Image: This lets you gain additional exposure on social media as optimized images increase the reach and visibility of your content.
- Toggle Search Visibility: Decide if the post should be indexed and show up in the search results of Google and other search engines.
- Customize Blog URLs: You can customize blog post URLs to include descriptive keywords that let readers know at a glance what each post is about.
- Integrate Google Analytics: Connect your Podia blog to Google Analytics for performance tracking.
As you can see, there’s no need for technical SEO plugins and no more struggling with complex SEO setups – Podia streamlines the process with simple SEO features, allowing you to rank your blog posts in search to easily reach new audiences through SEO.
5. Easy Software Integrations
Many all-in-one digital product platforms can create professional blogs, but not all of them offer a seamless user experience.
Some are quite clunky and require plugins and apps to integrate your blog with the rest of your business tools, such as email, e-commerce, and digital sales.
Podia is designed in such a way that you can build an entire business around your Podia blog (e.g. online courses, community, digital downloads, and e-commerce) and never have to integrate another platform.
With Podia, it’s all on the same application which means you don’t have to worry about duct-taping different solutions together to run your online business from one place.
Podia streamlines the entire process, allowing you to:
- Create, host, and sell various types of digital products
- Manage your web pages
- Create a newsletter
- Conduct your email marketing
- Host and manage your online member community platform
- Create and sell courses
- Develop high-converting sales funnels
This way, you can spend less time managing different sales, marketing, and business management tools, and more time focusing on growing your business.
The best part is that if you already have other tools and apps that you want to use with your new Podia blog, you can easily integrate them in a few clicks.
Native integrations include email providers, analytics tools, advertising platforms, payment processors, webinar platforms, video conferencing, and scheduling software designed to give you more flexibility in running your business.
If you can’t find your favorite tool on Podia’s list of native integrations, you can always connect it via Zapier or code snippets. This way, you can connect Podia to any workflow and automate processes across all your business platforms.
6. Robust Blog Security
Like all other online users, bloggers are at risk of online threats. A secure blogging platform safeguards you from cyberattacks like malware, website hacks, and data breaches. It ensures your personal information and sensitive data remain protected.
With a secure platform, you can blog with peace of mind, without worrying about potential security risks.
Podia prioritizes blog security and has a range of strict measures in place, including:
- Unshakeable Reputation for Security: The platform has been around since 2014 and has a solid track record when it comes to website security. Online reviews from past and current users are mostly positive concerning the users’ experience with security on the platform.
- End-to-End Encryption: Podia keeps up with global security standards like GDPR and encrypts all your data from your blog and online transactions to protect it from unauthorized access.
- Regular Security Updates: Podia offers regular updates to its security protocols to maintain compliance and help you keep ahead of malicious actors seeking to gain access to your blog.
- Two-Factor Authentication: You can set up 2FA for your Podia site or blog to ensure that no one else can access your account – even if they somehow get their hands on your password.
These are all important layers of security that Podia has in place to help you keep your blog and content secure.
Podia Pricing
Podia Blogging is free for all users.
The blogging feature is available on all Podia plans. If you aren’t already a Podia user, you can sign up for a free 30-day trial (no credit card required), and take a look around first to see if the blogging feature is right for you.
Publish as many blog posts as you want. All plans include unlimited blog posts.
You can use the complimentary podia.com subdomain which is available to all users. This is perfect if you’re just starting and have a limited budget. If you want to connect a custom domain, you can upgrade to one of the paid plans.
Depending on the plan you pick, you’ll also get instant access to additional features, including:
- Full Website
- Online courses
- Coaching products
- Digital Downloads
- Webinars
- Online Community
Most beginner creators find the basic plan more than adequate to get their business off the ground and only upgrade to the Shaker plan when they need to unlock more features.
Premium plans start from $39/month and you can save 17% if you pay annually. Changing plans is easy, and you can cancel at any time.
Podia Blogging Support
Podia Blogging offers support in various ways, including the following:
- Podia Blog FAQ: Here, you’ll find answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about the new Podia blogging feature.
- Podia Help Center: You’ll learn everything you need to know on how to start a blog using Podia, as well as how to create, edit, and publish new posts.
- Email Support: You can also get in touch with support via email by clicking the help icon located at the bottom of the page.
Podia Blogging Alternatives
Podia’s blogging feature has lots to offer. However, it does not offer all the blogging features you’d find on other platforms.
If you would like to use a different blogging tool with your Podia website, you can integrate a third-party blogging tool.
Here are three of the top Podia Blogging alternatives to consider.
Podia Blogging vs WordPress
In the past, users had to connect Podia to WordPress to get blogging functionality on their websites. Now that Podia has its own blogging feature, you might be wondering how it compares to a platform like WordPress.
WordPress is a dedicated website builder that helps you create professional-looking blogs with virtually any blog features you can imagine. There are tens of thousands of plugins and apps you can integrate to expand your blog’s functionality. This means that you can use WordPress to create your blog exactly the way you want it to look and function.
Podia, on the other hand, is an all-in-one platform with blogging features integrated. This means you can do more things on the platform, such as building your website and blog, hosting your online course, email marketing, and more without having to integrate any third-party tools. This greatly simplifies things, particularly for solo entrepreneurs who are just starting out and have to manage everything themselves.
No tech experience is required, and all the tools work together seamlessly right out of the box. This makes Podia the best alternative for users looking to add a blog to their existing online knowledge business.
Podia Blogging vs Squarespace
You can connect Squarespace to Podia to integrate crucial aspects of your business. Squarespace is a CMS platform that comes with a powerful blogging feature. There are dozens of templates to choose from, allowing even non-technical users to create a beautiful blog in just minutes.
There’s no setup fee, and plans start from just $12/month billed annually. However, because you get most of the Squarespace features on Podia Blogging, it’s only worth integrating Squarespace if you want the pre-made blog templates, additional blog customization options, and advanced features, such as the in-depth analytics for your blog.
In most other cases, you can build a basic blog and manage it with ease using Podia’s new feature. This way, you can run your entire business using a single platform with no need to cobble together different apps and tools.
Podia Blogging vs Wix
Wix has a full suite of user-friendly tools designed to build a unique blog with no coding necessary. The platform offers ease of use for creators and a smooth user experience for blog viewers.
You can choose from hundreds of blog layouts to best showcase your information and leave a lasting impression. Customization is easy, and everything can be done with a simple drag-and-drop editor.
Wix also has a code editor for anyone who wants to dive deeper into blog customization for pixel-perfect designs. One of the main differences between Wix blogging and Podia blogging tools is the level of customization possible.
While Podia’s basic customization options are likely good enough for most blogs, Wix goes the extra mile to cater to users who want more control over the appearance and functionality of their blogs.
User Reviews
As one beta user described it, Podia is now a “Goldilocks” platform where you get all the features you need to run your business at an affordable price.
Here’s how another user described their experience with Podia Blogging:
Previous blogging tools I used were quite capable of creating very professional-looking blog posts and had all the features you would need to manage your posts. But the user experience, for me, was fairly clunky, and they weren’t integrated with the website and other important tools like email, e-commerce, digital sales, etc., without a lot of clunky plugins. Integration is one of the key benefits of the Podia platform. Everything is all in the same application.
Lane Johnson from Lane Johnson Music
Many of the reviews online attest to Podia’s focus on features that are essential to a good blogging platform.
Here’s a quick recap of Podia Blogging features that make it such a hit with users:
- User-Friendly Interface: The platform has an intuitive and easy-to-use interface for writing, formatting, and publishing blog posts.
- Customizable Templates and Themes: You can customize the look and feel of your blog with various templates and themes.
- Media Integration: Podia allows you to easily embed images, videos, audio files, and other media into your blog posts from over 1,900 sources online.
- SEO Tools: Built-in SEO tools help you optimize your content for Google and other search engines to increase blog visibility and traffic.
- Social Media Integration: You have various options to easily share your blog posts across major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
- Analytics and Insights: Get access to analytics and insights about your blog’s performance, traffic sources, popular posts, etc. through Google Analytics integration.
- Commenting System: Podia Blogging has a robust commenting system that allows readers to engage with your content and build a community.
- Scheduling and Drafts: You can schedule posts in advance and save drafts for later editing to help streamline your blogging efforts.
- Mobile Responsiveness: Your Podia-built blog will be optimized for mobile devices automatically to ensure a good reading experience across all platforms.
- Security and Backups: Podia has strong security measures and provides multiple options for securing and backing up your blog content to avoid critical loss.
Podia also has many other integrated features, including built-in email marketing, multi-author support, and e-commerce integration which are extremely valuable for specific blogging needs.
Conclusion
As this review has shown, Podia Blogging seamlessly integrates with the rest of your business operations, offering an intuitive, feature-rich, and completely free solution.
If you’re new to blogging, now is the ideal time to start fostering connections with your target audience and attracting new followers through engaging content.
For seasoned bloggers, Podia provides a refreshingly streamlined experience compared to other tools, simplifying the process of managing your entire business under one roof.
Switching to Podia is hassle-free, allowing you to leverage its user-friendly platform to bond with your audience, expand your reach, and drive your online venture forward without the constraints of disparate systems.
If you’re ready to get started building your blog, sign up for a free Podia account right now and get instant access to all the platform’s powerful features!
FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions About Podia
Can you create a blog on Podia?
You can create a blog for free on Podia. The platform consolidates blogging, websites, landing pages, digital products, courses, email marketing, list growth, affiliate management, and customer tracking into one comprehensive offering. This enables you to build and manage your entire business from one place.
How much does Podia Blogging cost?
Podia offers a comprehensive, completely free package for blogging and online business. It includes a stunning website builder, a full-fledged blogging platform, unlimited landing pages, and the ability to sell digital downloads and coaching products. Podia streamlines the process of starting or expanding your online venture while sharing your expertise through blogging, making it an accessible and cost-effective solution.
Is Podia Blogging better than Wix, WordPress, or Squarespace?
Compared to other blogging platforms, Podia comes out top thanks to its comprehensive nature. In addition to a powerful yet simple-to-use blogging system, Podia also integrates with all your favorite tools to make it easier for you to build complete automation systems and workflows to run your business your way.
Can I use a different blogging platform with Podia?
You can use a different blogging tool with Podia. You’ll still get all the same features on the platform, and it easily connects to a variety of blogging platforms. You can also embed your checkout or opt-in email forms using a third-party website or blog. Podia plays nicely with thousands of other tools, and everything will still work seamlessly.
Can Podia replace other blogging platforms?
Podia can replace any other blogging platform. It offers many of the same tools and you can integrate third-party apps to expand your blog’s functionality.
What is the biggest advantage of Podia Blogging?
The biggest advantage of using Podia to build your blog is that you get access to so many other tools for your business. It’s an all-in-one platform for building blogs, websites, landing pages, digital products, and courses and running email marketing campaigns. Use it to grow your list, manage affiliates, and track customers seamlessly in one place. Your Podia blog integrates automatically, eliminating the hassle of connecting multiple tools, and providing a cohesive and streamlined experience for managing your online presence.
What is the biggest disadvantage of using Podia Blogging?
The biggest disadvantage of Podia Blogging is that it is not as flexible as a dedicated blog-building platform. You don’t have full customization capabilities, although many bloggers find that less is more when it comes to design options. Ultimately, this is only a limitation to advanced users who require complex layouts and dynamic design elements that can only be customized through direct editing of CSS and HTML code.
Jeff Cobb, Founder of Learning Revolution
Jeff Cobb is an expert in online education and the business of adult lifelong learning. Over the past 20+ years he has built a thriving career based on that expertise – as an entrepreneur, a consultant, an author, and a speaker. Learning Revolution is a place where Jeff curates tips, insights, and resources to help you build a thriving expertise-based business. Learn more about Jeff Cobb here.
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