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The Best SEO Blog Platforms 2025 For High Rankings
On-Page Optimization, Blogging Platform Comparisons & Mistakes To Avoid
Nicola Vaughan
March 1st, 2025
Choosing the best blog platform for SEO is crucial for blogging success. Without a platform that holds SEO at its core, you’re unlikely to generate organic traffic - and without organic traffic, your website will be a pretty lonely place (cue tumbleweeds).
A key feature of successful SEO blog platforms is that they provide users with functionality for a range of essential SEO tools such as on-page optimization, accessible analytics, and basic SEO (keywords, meta descriptions, etc). beehiiv, for example, is designed to handle all of this for you, allowing you to focus on other aspects of your blog/website.
This help guide will provide you with a thorough comparison of the best SEO platforms for bloggers including beehiiv, Substack, and Medium. We’ll discuss optimizing content with SEO tools, how to start an SEO-friendly blog, and let you in on common mistakes to avoid when choosing an SEO platform.
Table of Contents
3 SEO Essentials Every Blogging Platform Needs
To facilitate high rankings in search engines, there are 3 SEO essentials that every blogging platform should have as standard:
Strong on-page optimization tools
Accessible analytics for tracking
Ability to build and own your audience
Let’s delve into each of these topics to understand how they can help you maximize visibility and audience reach.
Strong On-Page Optimization Tools
At the very least, SEO blog platforms should offer strong on-page optimization tools to ensure the best SEO practices for blogs are adhered to.
These include SEO features such as:
Meta tags: One of the best ways of telling search engines what a web page is about is to use meta tags. These include title tags and meta descriptions which are integral in highlighting the most important aspects of your site for browsers and search engines.
Image alt text: Search engines can’t read images, so a blogging platform that enables image alt text is crucial. Alt text tells search engines what an image is - this is beneficial for SEO, plus it improves site accessibility for users with visual impairments.
Keyword usage: Good SEO blog platforms should monitor keyword usage, giving you a rough idea of keyword density alongside some keyword research to assist you with SEO when blogging.
SEO sitemap: An SEO sitemap is a map that shows links to all of the posts and pages on your website. A blogging platform that allows you to automatically populate an SEO sitemap is super helpful, as it will make it easier for search engines to index your content.
Optimized URL structures: URLs are an easy win when it comes to SEO. If you can edit your URL structures to include relevant keywords/categories, it can further highlight your site to search engines for specific search queries, thereby improving your SEO presence.
beehiiv is a great example of an SEO blog platform that straightforwardly ticks the above SEO features, including easily customizable meta and keyword fields, plus more advanced elements such as breadcrumbs and auto-updating sitemaps.
For many blogging platforms, SEO is an afterthought, whereas beehiiv was built with SEO at its forefront to ensure creators' blogs succeed in search engines from the start.
Accessible Analytics for Tracking
Measuring the success of your blog is crucial in tracking SEO progress. This is why accessible analytics for tracking is so important when it comes to choosing the right SEO blog platform for you.
Successful blog platforms should have analytics built-in, making it super easy to monitor and improve performance. A great example of this is beehiiv’s built-in 3D analytics. This platform allows you to easily analyze whether you’re reaching the right people with your blog, updating in real-time to provide you with the most accurate data.
From average time on page to attribution data, you’ll be able to monitor and improve the performance of your blog to get the most out of your blogging strategy.
Ability to Build and Own Your Audience
A big mistake that many bloggers make in the early days of their blog is relying on traffic and audiences from other marketing sources. This can be expensive and restrictive, preventing bloggers from generating a loyal readership.
beehiiv believes in empowering bloggers to generate their own audience without limitation. By focusing on SEO, beehiiv enables creators to attract dedicated, long-term subscribers via organic traffic, improving subscriber retention and conversion rates.
4 Reasons beehiiv Excels for SEO-Focused Bloggers
If you’re an SEO-focused blogger, the beehiiv system will be right up your street.
From streamlined SEO settings, to built-in community engagement tools, beehiiv stands out from other platforms and offers a range of tools that will help your blog rank higher without any real effort on your part.
Check out the below sections to see where beehiiv excels when it comes to SEO.
Streamlined SEO Settings
beehiiv’s focus on user-friendly, streamlined SEO settings is just one aspect that makes them stand out from other blogging tools when it comes to SEO.
Its intuitive SEO settings make tasks such as adding metadata and optimizing keywords simpler, providing creators with easy access to these tools so their blogs can be easily customized and tailored to browsers/search engines.
These elements are less accessible on platforms such as Substack, which can be limiting for bloggers looking to improve their visibility in search engines.
Customization for Content Optimization
While you want a blogging platform that has easy-to-use SEO features, you also want a platform that offers customization for content to ensure your blog can be as relevant as possible for search engines.
beehiiv is highly flexible in this regard, offering a range of on-page SEO elements for creators to use. Content can be easily broken up with headings including prominent keywords to highlight to search engines what a content section will be about. All images include editable alt text to further signpost your content.
You can even choose a customized domain name if you want to focus on growing your own domain authority, rather than hosting your blog on a beehiiv subdomain. Many other blogging platforms don’t offer this, which can be a key factor in whether your site will pull in its own organic traffic.
Built-In Community Engagement Tools
Another reason beehiiv excels for SEO-focused bloggers is its built-in community engagement tools.
Driving engagement on your blog is key for SEO, with positive user behavior such as long average session duration and high CTRs being beneficial for high rankings in search engines.
beehiiv has a range of tools to help build engagement within your online community. These include:
Polls: Adding a poll to your beehiiv site can greatly increase engagement rates as it encourages subscribers to engage directly with your brand. They help you learn what your audience is thinking while helping to increase engagement which is great for SEO and customer relationships.
Referral Program: The beehiiv referral program can help to build loyal relationships with users, by incentivizing them to recommend beehiiv to friends and family. Not only will they receive an incentive of your choice (e.g. a discount code, exclusive content, etc.), but they’ll feel valued by your brand thereby further improving engagement.
Audience Insights for Strategy
Audience insights are integral to a successful marketing strategy. The more you understand your audience, the better you can align your SEO strategy with their interests and behaviors to achieve better results.
beehiiv offers a range of audience insights that can provide valuable information to improve SEO strategy.
Polls are one way that beehiiv allows you to effectively collect data about your customers to understand them better.
For example, you could issue a poll to determine what kind of content your subscribers prefer seeing from you. You can then create content informed by the results of your poll.
This will have a positive effect on your SEO as if users are more interested in your content they’ll have better engagement rates, and spend longer on your website - both positive ranking factors in search engines.
beehiiv also offers insights into what your audience is thinking with their 3D analytics platform. Data is separated into two sections including:
Posts Report: The Posts Report allows you to analyze the performance and engagement of posts, allowing creators to understand key audience insights based on how they behave on your posts. For example, if you see that your posts generally have a high bounce rate, you may need to include more CTAs (Calls To Action) throughout your posts to encourage them to visit other blog posts.
Subscriber Report: beehiiv’s Subscriber Report provides granular information about your audience including the acquisition channel. This helps you to establish if your marketing efforts are bringing users to your website. In terms of SEO specifically, you can see via the Subscriber Report if users are finding you via organic search or if you need to improve your efforts.
3 Key Comparisons: beehiiv, Substack, and Medium for SEO
There are many SEO blog platforms out there, each with unique features and benefits. There are three that stand out that we’ll be comparing today - beehiiv, Substack, and Medium.
Let’s determine how each platform fares when it comes to SEO, including SEO visibility and ranking potential, control over customization and monetization opportunities, plus audience engagement and growth.
SEO Visibility and Ranking Potential
beehiiv
The frontrunner when it comes to SEO visibility and ranking potential is beehiiv. They provide extensive SEO tools to enable users to improve the position of their blog in search engines including the following:
Customizable meta tags (meta descriptions, meta titles): All metadata can be edited within the beehiiv platform. This ensures that search engines know as much as possible about your blog, enabling them to rank highly in the results pages.
Post categorization: Posts can be categorized on beehiiv which is useful for SEO as it gives search engines further information about your blog. Post categorization also makes it easier for search engines and robots to crawl your website - the easier you make this, the higher your chances are for better SEO rankings.
Custom domain: beehiiv offers creators the chance to use a custom domain, which can be rare for an SEO blog platform as it provides domain authority to the creator’s website, rather than the platform itself. A custom domain is crucial for high SEO rankings as it enables creators to build authority for their own domain, using both on-page and off-page SEO techniques.
Sitemaps: The beehiiv platform creates an auto-updating sitemap when users start a blog, making it easy for search engines to crawl and rank their site.
Image optimization: As mentioned earlier in this article, beehiiv allows alt text to be added to images. This provides an extra way of telling search engines what your content is about, and therefore gaining more opportunities for SEO benefit.
Breadcrumbs: You can use breadcrumbs on beehiiv publications to improve the chance of your website being indexed in search engines. Digital breadcrumbs leave a trail of internal links, improving search engine crawlability and improving usability on your site.
Medium
Medium is another platform that allows creators to optimize their blogs for SEO, helping them reach a broader audience and improve search visibility. While their tools aren’t as extensive as the beehiiv platform, Medium still provides opportunities for SEO including customizable meta tags, plus a focus on encouraging a backlinking with other Medium users.
Backlinking between related publications can improve the domain authority for both the linking site and the site that is being linked to. If your blog has a high domain authority, it will be received more favorably by search engines, thereby increasing the chances of good rankings.
Substack
Although Substack has been one of the most talked-about platforms in recent years, its SEO capabilities leave much to be desired. It doesn’t provide users with basic SEO tools such as post categorization, which results in missed opportunities for improving the chances of their blog being crawled by search engines.
They also don’t allow users to use a custom domain, making building domain authority for individual blogs virtually impossible. It could be argued that this is an intentional decision on Substack’s part, as any domain authority that is built by creators would be grown on the Substack domain, thereby improving Substack’s organic traffic overall.
Control Over Customization and Monetization
beehiiv
One of the key features that beehiiv is best known for is its monetization and customization. With a clear focus on helping creators grow, beehiiv offers many opportunities for earning money via their publications, while encouraging them to set themselves apart via customization features.
As previously mentioned in this guide, beehiiv allows users to fully customize their blog via custom domains and editable meta tags. There is also functionality to edit specific pages/blogs for SEO benefit, rather than only being able to edit the general features of their blog as a whole.
In terms of monetization, beehiiv provides a range of methods for earning capital including the following:
beehiiv Ad Network: beehiiv actively encourages their creators to monetize content via sponsorships and advertising, making this super easy with their very own Ad Network. The beehiiv Ad Network allows creators to feature well-known brands that subscribers will recognize within newsletters/blogs, helping to generate both money and authority for creators.
beehiiv Boosts: Another way beehiiv provides monetization opportunities is through beehiiv Boosts, a program that allows creators to recommend their subscribers to other beehiiv customers and earn money for doing so. Creators will be paid when one of their subscribers opts into a recommendation for another publication - check out the beehiiv blog for a case study showing how Geekout Newsletter made $25,000 from Boosts alone!
beehiiv Partner Program: The beehiiv Partner Program is a system that allows creators to earn money by referring beehiiv to subscribers. The Partner Program gives creators a unique partner link, earning them a commission when subscribers use said link to purchase beehiiv. beehiiv will pay creators 50% of all revenue in the first 12 months, as well as offer partner rewards such as their Beach Club program where the top earning beehiiv partner receives a paid getaway to a luxury beach destination.
Subscription Models: Creators can further monetize their blogs by offering tiered subscription models to their subscribers. Not only does this give users another avenue for monetization, but it also means they can offer different variations of exclusive content, making subscribers feel part of a dedicated, supportive community.
Help Guides: beehiiv regularly releases blogs explaining how creators can monetize their content - here are a few examples!
Substack
An SEO blog platform famous for its subscription functionality is Substack. They make it super easy for bloggers to monetize their platform with three different pricing options for paid subscribers including:
Monthly pricing: Substack encourages creators to set a monthly price of at least $5 for access to their publication, with more technical creators pulling in an average of $10+ per month in categories such as Cryptocurrency and finance.
Annual pricing: Users can offer a discounted rate for paid subscribers who pay annually, encouraging users to sign up on a longer-term basis. This not only improves revenue for creators but also improves retention as Substack cancellations tend to be lower for annual memberships (Substack).
Founder member pricing: Substack offers creators a ‘founding member’ option within their subscription levels, allowing readers to further support their favorite publications financially. Creators can set this price themselves, as well as offer additional benefits to these subscribers such as exclusive content or one-on-one contact.
While Substack makes it easy for creators to earn from its subscription functionality, it is fairly limited when it comes to sponsorship opportunities or further monetization ideas.
The same can also be said for customization features. Substack doesn’t provide much control over design, meta tags, or domain authority, which can be a big drawback for creators looking to improve their blog’s SEO.
Medium
Medium’s customization options are more extensive than Substack. Creators can edit key SEO features such as title tags, meta descriptions, and post categories, increasing their chances of ranking in search engines. You can also use a custom domain to further benefit domain authority.
While their focus on monetization is smaller than that of beehiiv’s, there are still a couple of ways that creators can make money from a Medium blog including:
The Medium Partner Program: Creators enrolled in the Medium Partner Program will earn money when subscribers read their content for over 30 seconds and engage positively with content. There are also bonuses members can earn when subscribers follow and engage with posts over a long time period.
Medium Boosts: The Medium Boosts program lets creators promote different publications to reach wider audiences. This is beneficial for monetization as Medium Partners will earn an increased commission from posts that have been boosted as they’re likely to receive higher traffic levels.
Metered paywall: Creators can make their content monetizable via a metered paywall. This means that subscribers can only access a limited number of stories for free each month, and will be required to pay to read further content.
Best Tools for Audience Engagement and Growth
Substack
The Substack system is fairly limited when it comes to audience engagement and growth opportunities.
The platform allows creators to collect comments, encouraging users to engage with their community, but this is pretty much as far as it goes. The system also doesn’t allow for audience segmentation, making it impossible to send dedicated campaigns to specific users.
In terms of growth opportunities, Substack has created Substack Notes which allows writers to publish short content and ideas with subscribers. This content can then be shared and recommended to other users, providing an opportunity to attract more subscribers to your publication.
There don’t seem to be any other avenues for growth directly produced by Substack. They focus more on advising users to focus on high-quality content and SEO to further grow their audience.
Medium
A unique feature of the Medium platform is that they have a large, in-built readership.
As of July 2024, Medium had over 100 million users and 700,000 paid subscribers, providing creators with a busy platform through which to reach more users with their content (Trade Press Services).
However, Medium is lacking when it comes to tools for audience engagement. They encourage users to leverage their existing network, by sharing articles on Social Media and with friends/family but don’t offer unique ways of engaging users via the Medium platform.
beehiiv
The platform that comes out on top without a doubt for audience engagement and growth is beehiiv.
There is a clear distinction between beehiiv and other SEO blog platforms in this regard, with beehiiv offering a range of methods to help creators grow and engage their audience.
Some of our favorites include:
Audience Segmentation: A useful way to engage with your audience is through Audience Segmentation. beehiiv allows creators to segment subscribers by behavior, acquisition channel, and activity, before sending these segmented users specific content. This can help improve engagement rates and conversion rates, as subscribers will receive content more relevant to them.
Re-engagement campaigns: beehiiv users can set up re-engagement campaigns for inactive subscribers to improve engagement rates and return visits. This can be carried out manually or can be set up as an automated sequence to save time and improve efficiency. Here’s a video on how to set up a re-engagement campaign on beehiiv if you’re keen to get started!
beehiiv Boosts: A simple way of growing your audience on beehiiv is via the beehiiv boosts feature. While boosts can be used to earn money from your subscribers, creators can likewise use them to grow their own subscriber lists, paying a set fee for an engaged subscriber of a similar publication.
Dedicated Landing Pages: beehiiv has launched dedicated landing pages so that creators can create more specific content for their subscribers. This is highly effective in improving engagement rates as content is more relevant to specific groups of subscribers.
beehiiv also regularly recommends techniques to their users for growing subscriber numbers - check out this article for some top growth ideas.
Why Listen to Me? I have been working in the digital marketing space for nearly 10 years, predominantly helping brands with their email marketing and online presence. I now specialize in creating great content for beehiiv to help people nail their email strategies!
5 Steps to Start an SEO-Friendly Blog on beehiiv
If you’ve made it this far and are keen to get started with creating an SEO-friendly blog on beehiiv, this section will be right up your street.
Scroll down to learn how to set up a beehiiv blog, from tips on using beehiiv’s range of SEO features, to utilizing audience engagement tools and building your readership from the ground up.
Getting Started with beehiiv’s SEO Features
When setting up your beehiiv site, there are a few simple steps that you can take to get your SEO right from the start.
On the right-hand side of the Website Builder, you’ll see a small cog icon that houses the SEO panel for each page.
Clicking on this icon will give you the ability to add a custom Meta Title and Meta Description, ensuring that your web pages are optimized for search engines from the get-go.
Another quick win as you set up your beehiiv site is to enable breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs can provide increased crawling, by generating internal links that expose page hierarchy to search engines. This is great for improving the chances of your site ranking highly in results pages, plus it provides a clear pathway through the pages of your site which can make it easier for users to navigate.
Follow the below instructions to enable breadcrumbs on your beehiiv site:
Click Design, then Website Builder from the left panel in your beehiiv account.
Select Settings and click on SEO.
Enable Breadcrumbs by moving the pink toggle to the right-hand side.
Optimizing Content With Keywords and Meta Descriptions
Using relevant keywords for your blog/brand is integral for good visibility in search engines.
When users use a search term related to your blog, you want yours to appear before your competitors, so including relevant search terms throughout your content and meta descriptions will give you a head start here.
Here’s a top SEO tip - carry out thorough keyword research before starting to write your blog posts. Tools such as SEMrush and Ahrefs can provide you with the best keywords to target in terms of search volume, to make sure you’re targeting the right search queries for your industry.
It’s beneficial to choose a primary keyword that you’ll include in your title tag, headings, and metadata to improve visibility for this key search term.
However, it’s important to make sure your content is readable and not too heavy on one specific keyword. After all, your content is designed to be read by your subscribers primarily, not search engines alone.
Utilizing Audience Engagement Tools
beehiiv offers some excellent audience engagement tools to help creators build a loyal community and drive SEO results.
Some of our favorites include:
Polls: Asking for your subscribers’ opinions can make them feel valued as a member of your community, plus it can help you to refine your content for your audience moving forward.
Welcome Series: Setting a positive first impression with your audience is a great way to engage subscribers from the beginning of your relationship. You can set up a welcome series automation in beehiiv for a collection of welcome emails, introducing subscribers to your brand and reminding them why they subscribed in the first place.
Direct Communication: This may sound obvious, but never forget that direct contact is arguably the best form of subscriber engagement. Reach out to individual subscribers regularly, or ask your audience to reply directly to your emails if they have questions or feedback.
Interactive Content: There’s no doubt about it - interactive content is far more likely to receive high engagement rates than text or image content. Send your audience emails that they can interact with - this could include polls, quizzes, or feedback forms.
Analyzing and Adapting Content Based on Metrics
When creating a successful blog, it’s crucial to bear in mind that we’re always learning.
No matter how many subscribers you have, keeping track of your metrics to continually improve is how your blog will keep growing, rather than reaching a certain point and plateauing.
beehiiv’s 3D analytics will analyze most of your content for you, giving you insights into how your posts are performing and how your subscribers behave when they land on your site.
Some key metrics to track include:
Open Rate: The percentage of users that open an email.
CTR (Click Through Rate): The percentage of users that click through to your beehiiv site from an email.
Bounce Rate: The percentage of emails that aren’t delivered to a subscriber’s inbox.
Unsubscribe Rate: The percentage of users that unsubscribe from an email after receiving it.
Check out this blog for more newsletter metrics that you need to be tracking!
Building Your Readership
Successful blogs often cultivate a loyal readership, with creators building strong relationships with their subscribers over time.
When it comes to content, you want to think about quality over quantity - your readers are likely receiving hundreds of emails from other creators daily.
Sending one relevant, high-quality email with a punchy subject line is better practice than sending a flood of mediocre emails.
Rewarding your subscribers is another great way of nurturing your community. The beehiiv Referral Program is perfect for combining a subscriber growth strategy with making your existing audience feel valued.
You can set up incentives within the Referral Program to encourage subscribers to recommend your list to their friends and family. If their recommendation is successful, your subscriber will be rewarded - this could be in the form of access to exclusive content, or a discount code for example.
3 Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing an SEO Platform
Now for some quick shortcuts.
We’re going to let you in on some common mistakes that creators make when choosing an SEO platform. This should help you avoid these pitfalls and make the right choice for your brand.
Neglecting SEO Tools
If a blog platform that you’re considering is lacking when it comes to SEO tools, we recommend you give it a hard pass.
Your rankings will be stunted before your blog has even launched if basic SEO tools aren’t being utilized. We’re talking about customizable metadata, image alt text, and custom domains here - the very basics when it comes to good SEO rankings.
beehiiv has you covered when it comes to robust SEO tools. Your beehiiv site will go live with customizable meta tags, and all images can be assigned keyword-rich alt text.
You can even launch your site with a custom domain from day 1 to start building domain authority straight away.
Choosing Platforms With Limited Audience Insights
An SEO blog platform that has advanced audience insights is integral when it comes to measuring results.
There’s little point in creating SEO blog content if the platform you’re choosing doesn’t provide you with analytics to support your SEO decisions.
The beehiiv platform will tell you everything you need to know about your subscribers, from activity and behavior to engagement and growth trends.
Knowing the most you can about your audience will enable you to tailor your content accordingly. This will lead to better engagement and user experience, and undoubtedly higher conversion rates too.
Ignoring Monetization Flexibility
You may not be thinking about monetizing your newsletter right now, but monetization is super important for long-term success.
Creating multiple income streams will enable you to weather unpredictable storms that may arise, and beehiiv is fully supportive of this approach with a range of monetization options.
Check out the beehiiv Ad Network, beehiiv Boosts, and the beehiiv Partner Program to create several revenue streams from your newsletter.
This will also provide you with more cash to reinvest into your brand as you continue to grow!
Sign Up With beehiiv
If this help guide has got your SEO senses tingling, get started with beehiiv today with a free 30-day trial.
This is the best way to try out the different features of the beehiiv platform and see how you can create an SEO blog that search engines will love.
Don’t forget to explore the 3D analytics platform, beehiiv AI, and make the most of a custom domain to start building domain authority from day dot!
Google’s People Also Ask Questions:
Which blog platform is best for SEO?
There are many great blog platforms available to creators, but the beehiiv system ticks the most boxes when it comes to SEO.
beehiiv was built with SEO at its core, helping users grow their platforms and drive high-quality, organic traffic to their beehiiv sites.
Some key features of the beehiiv system are:
Customizable meta tags
Custom domain functionality
Auto-updating sitemaps
Breadcrumb implementation
Advanced analytics
How do I start a blog with SEO in mind?
To start a blog with SEO in mind, make sure you carry out these three tasks:
Choose an SEO blog platform that focuses on crawlability, editable meta tags, growth, and usability.
Carry out keyword research before writing, to establish keywords with the highest search volume.
Track results regularly using an analytics dashboard to determine how well your blog is performing and how it can be improved.
What are the SEO benefits of using beehiiv?
The key SEO benefits of using beehiiv are as follows:
Built-in SEO features
High website speed
Advanced 3D analytics
Extensive content creation tools
Can you monetize a blog on beehiiv?
You can monetize a blog on beehiiv by using the beehiiv Ad Network to earn money via sponsorships within newsletters.
Other monetization opportunities within beehiiv include beehiiv’s referral system, the beehiiv partner program, and beehiiv boosts.
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