How to Choose a Blog Platform

How to decide on What type of blog platform to use? Which one is better for me? There is a choice of free Blogger.com and wordpress blog or having to pay to get a blog hosted and buying your own domain name?

What are the advantage and disadvantage of these two types of blog platform? I observe people starting out with having a free Blogger and upgrade it to Wordpress as they go. If you are a newbie on the net these will be the typical questions that you face and you have to make a decision to choose which is suitable for you.

It depends on you and how far you want to achieve. Well take a quick look at some of the top and successful bloggers on the net and the type of platform they are using and that will definitely give you a rough idea.

Deciding on a blog platform

Make a decision. Take your time to decide at first, you will find one blog platform that you want to stick on for a long time and not just having one for a few months. Ask yourself are you going to blog for long term or just for fun? It is for hobby where you feel like blogging and whenever you have the time or you are fully committed to put all your focus and effort into it.

If you choose to have your own domain instead of a free blog platform, choosing a domain name and installing wordpress blog involve some fee like hosting and some small fee for domain name. There will be extra costs if you wanted custom made design etc.

Most blog platforms have free templates but if you were to choose a special design template, you need someone which is good at design and installing it for you. If you are a newbie blogger, to begin try get some professional help along the way.

Another disadvantage of using free blog platform is that you own your own content but your blog is not own by you. You are not able to control for example if the website is down or for some reasons your blog is taken down or been 'slap' due to violation of terms and condition etc. You don't own the site.

For a newbie, when using Blogger.com blog you will later realise there are many limited options for customization. Blogger doesnt give the option for choosing categories and also if you want to improve on your blog you need to know CSS and HTML to work on. You may not need blog tools/metrics at this point but you might find it useful as you progress gradually.