Choosing a Blog Platform

Why is choosing the right platform so important?
Choosing a blog platform is the first step in making money with your blog. Choose the right platform, and you'll have a solid foundation for making money in the online world. Choose a bad platform, and you'll be fumbling with it from day one. A bad platform will only hold you back.

As someone who wants to make money with your blog, your choice in blog platform may be different than of someone who is not looking to make money.

We're going to be talking primarily about two blog platforms. One is free and the other requires that you pay for a domain and hosting account.

Blogger
Blogger.com is a free blog platform that allows you to easily create new blogs in a matter of minutes. They have a selection of basic templates that allow you to customize the look and feel of your blog. Blogger also allows for easy integration of Google adsense and other basic widgets and code.

Blogger is a great platform to use if you want to get your blog up and running quickly, while still having some control over your site's template. The downsides to choosing a free blog platform are that you won't have as much control over the template as you would with a hosted site, you won't have as many options for plugins, and it's usually not as easy to manage your archives.

Wordpress
Wordpress offers a free blog platform (at Wordpress.com) or can be installed on your own domain and host. I do not recommend Wordpress.com if you wish to make money with your blog, as Wordpress.com does not allow for adsense scripts to be placed on your site.

Wordpress hosted, on the other hand, is a great blog platform that allows for plenty of customization and endless themes and plugins that you can install. You may also wish to fully edit the CSS and HTML of your site, or have a custom theme built. You can do all of this with Wordpress hosted.

The downside to having a hosted site is that you will need to purchase a domain name, as well as a hosting account, which is usually billed monthly. The average shared hosting costs anywhere from $9-$15 a month.

What To Do
If you are just starting out, I recommend using blogger.com until you get your feet wet. It may take some time and patience to switch to a hosted site if and when you are ready, but at least you will get to decide if blogging for money is really for you.