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Choosing a Blogging Platform

Guide to Making Money Blogging - Part 3
Blogging: Choosing a Blogging Platform

If this is your first visit to the Guide to Making Money Blogging, you might be interested in dropping in for a visit to our first two chapters. If you’ve already studied the first two parts then you should be caught up and ready to dig into this next chapter. In the last chapter, “Deciding what to blog about”, we ended on a note that can only lead in to this chapter of you’ve already chosen your topic/s. As previously mentioned, choosing your blog software is going to depend a lot on the industry or niche you’ll be blogging. Each platform has its own flavor and all differ as far as overall capabilities.

Let’s get this chapter rolling. Now that you’ve decided what to blog about, it’s time to decide what kind of software you’ll be utilizing. However; before we go any further we need to discuss domains and hosting.

When choosing a blogging platform you’re going to need to decide on whether or not you want a free hosting account or a paid hosting solution. I’ve put together a side-by-side that will hopefully assist you in deciding which option will work best for you.

Free hosting account Pro’s:
- It’s FREE!
- No hosting maintenance
- Easy to set up
- Platform networks usually come with full on communities. This means that when using tags and other tools you’ll be able to gain a readership in little or no time at all.

Free hosting account Con’s:
- Your blog is usually on a sub-domain. This makes it less personal and search engines might not be quite as friendly to a sub-domain compared to a flat domain of your own.
- Some free hosts will display their own ads on your site. This can be tacky and to some it will be a turn off.
- Limited options. Most free hosts have tough limits on what you can customize and what you can’t. Once you start to figure the software out and learn new things these limits can bring quick headaches.
- Some free hosts will not allow you to display ads.

Paid hosting account Pro’s:
- Your own personal domain
- Full admin control
- Ability to completely customize and modify your blog
- Personalized e-mail accounts
- File Management
- Ability to add other scripts and features such as forums, directories, wiki’s and more.

Paid hosting account Con’s:
- It’s not free
- You’ll need to install the blogging software
- Customizing the blog will require some coding experience. Not a lot, but definitely some.

I can personally recommend Siteground for Wordpress hosting. It’s about $70.00 a year for plenty of everything you’ll need. They offer single click Wordpress installation via Fantastico, the backend is powered by cPanel, and the support there is the finest in the world. Most of my issues are solved within 15 minutes. They also give you a free domain with each new account.

You might need some time to consider the hosting options, so let’s go ahead and move into the platforms and you can come back for some brainstorming once we reach the end of this chapter.

The first platform we’ll be discussing is also probably the most popular. Blogger.com, or Blogspot.com, offers arguably the quickest and easiest free hosted solution available to date.

Blogger:
As you are probably already aware, Blogger is owned and operated by Google. Google has gone to great extent to make sure they continue to provide a blogging platform that works for users of all talents.

Pros:
• Free – Whether your using the free hosted option, or you’re hosting your own, Bloggers software is 100% FREE!
• Constantly updated – Like all of Google’s products, Blogger is constantly worked on, tweaked, modified, and upgraded.
• Blogger community network – Blogger allows you to network and participate in the full Blogger network.
• Newbie proof – With Blogger it helps to know HTML and CSS, but if you don’t know it you’ll do just fine. The software is as easy to use as an e-mail is to send.
• Multi language – Yes, Google Blogger supports several languages
• Images – Blogger allows for photo posting with several options available.

Cons:
• If it’s free, you’ll have to deal with the sub-domain issue again
• Blogger doesn’t allow you to work with categories
• No static or stand alone pages.
• You can’t work with permalinks and other related issues
• You can’t password protect posts.
I’ve probably only scratched the surface here. Keep in mind that this guide is a work in progress.

Live Journal:
I might end up getting a little biased with Live Journal, but I really dislike the platform. The only reason I’m putting it here is because some people like its simplicity and I’m not going to leave it out simply for my own lack of taste for the option.

Here goes…

Live Journal is a free hosted platform that allows users to use a simple, down to earth alternative to the other members of the blog software family. Live Journal is mostly used by the younger generations, but regardless of the majority age range, its readership is downright massive.

If you’re looking for style and good looks, stop reading and skip to the next platform. Live Journal is not for the fashion minded blogger and is about as bland as they come. That being said, it’s still very easy to use and if you want something to set up on the fly it might be something for you to look into. Some people love it, some hate it. I don’t think there’s a between.

Type Pad:
Unfortunately, I know very little about Type Pad. I’ve never used it and I’ve done very little research on the platform. I have a few friends using Type Pad and they swear by it. A look at the features and specs will reveal that the software indeed has the muscle needed to make a blogging experience flow smoothly.

The downside might be the price. While it isn’t necessarily expensive, it certainly isn’t cheap all things considered. The basic package will set you back about $5.00 a month and from what I can see this doesn’t include a domain. For that, you could set up your own hosting account and have the freedom of being out in the free world of self hosting.

It all depends on what you’re after and where your code knowledge stands.

Movable Type:
Like Type Pad, I’ve never used Movable Type. However, I do know a little more about this gem of a platform and highly recommend it for anyone who is a little more advanced and is looking to incorporate multiple bloggers on a more commercial level.

The software will:
• Allow distributed teams, workgroups, or multinational divisions to securely share, archive and discover important information.
• Surface only the most relevant information through customizable feeds, blog aggregation and categorization features.
• Save time and resources by adopting a lightweight solution that fits into your native environment, and is easy to install and configure.
• Adopt a dynamic and flexible solution that can grow with your needs. A plug-in architecture makes it easy to extend functionality.

There’s a price involved, but if you’re after something that can do what Movable Type can you’ll certainly agree it’s justifiable.

Word Press:
Word Press is by far my favorite platform for a plethora of reasons. The platform is free open source software and is being developed by some of the best coders in the world. Wordpress follows the highly successful Firefox model of “give the community what it wants, and it will help you grow leaps and bounds in return”. The Wordpress developers are constantly listening to the Blogging community and it’s reflected in each new update.

You can use the free hosted option at Wordpress.com, but because this guide focuses on making money, we’re going to give the free Wordpress option two thumbs down. The reason for this is that to date Wordpress does not allow Google Adsense or YPN to be displayed on their free blog servers. This is an understandable stance considering the amount of spam blogs (splogs) that are appearing, but that doesn’t change the fact.

Free Wordpress blogs also have extreme limits when it comes to customizing your blog. Template editing is very limited, CSS editing is virtually non existent, and you’re pretty much stuck with templates that everyone else uses.

The big killer for free Wordpress blogs, in my opinion, is the fact that you can’t install plugins. We’ll talk more about plugins later in this guide but plugins are something we Wordpress fans can’t live without.

Bottom line is that if you’re looking for a long term blogging option that will help you earn extra income, free Wordpress blogs are probably not the way to go.

Hosted Wordpress blogs, on the other hand, are a God send to the serious blogger. If you can afford a hosting account, you’ll find it is well worth the investment. Wordpress gives you the freedom to ad mods or plugins that do a wide variety of good things for your blog. You have 100% access to all of your files and databases allowing you to do whatever you want with your blog. The templates are easy to customize and you can even build your own if you know code well enough. Wordpress blogs are very search engine friendly and have proven to rank better and quicker than any other platform.

Again, if you’re looking for good Wordpress hosting you might want to check out Siteground.com.

Well that’s about it for platforms. I really can’t suggest anything beyond what you see here. I’ve provided all the links you’ll need to perform your own research, and I suggest you spend a good amount of time going over each option. It’s must easier to pick the right software up front rather than having to try and transfer posts and settings from one platform to another further on down the road.

Kind Regards,
Eric (AKA e-Rod)

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This is the first part of Guide to Making Money Blogging.

Watch for future chapters.
1- Blogging: The New Media Revolution (why blogging is important and where it is headed)
2- Choosing your topics. Do you want to opine on everything? or should you choose a niche?
3- Choosing a blogging platform and setting up your basic blog
4- Tips & Tricks for a blog that runs smoother and tells more people about itself
5- Tips & Tricks to help you understand the blogosphere and ways to put your blog in front of the eyes of the blogging community
6- Marketing your blog
7- Show me the money!
8- Splogs. What they are and why you should avoid them like the plague.
9- Resources

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