HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT BLOGGING PLATFORM?

How to choose the right blogging platform? - This is the obvious question that comes when choosing a blogging platform - specially for the new comers who wants to enter the Blogosphere and are really serious in their business. Knowing that there is quiet a lot of variety of blogging platforms available it is really confusing which one to choose for your blog. Ranging from completely free ones - to partly paid ones - to completely paid ones. By the way let me mention that there are three parts that I have taken into consideration while mentioning "RIGHT BLOGGING PLATFORM" they are :-

• The Domain name
• The Hosting
• The Blogging Software(Platform)

These are the three things that normally any blogger has to take care of while choosing a blogging platform. These are also the things that a blogger may have to pay for getting a blogging platform.

Basically speaking there are two types of blogging platforms available :-

• Hosted Blog Platforms
• Self Hosted Blog Platforms

Now let me discuss each of the two types of blogging platforms separately so that you can get a clear understanding of them and choose confidently one of them.

SELF HOSTED BLOG PLATFORMS

1. Domain Name - Can have any domain name if it is available but you would have to register your domain name with a domain name registrar which may cost you anything above $8 per year. You thus have a top level domain name (not a sub-domain) which looks more professional and have a better value in terms of branding.

• Want a cheap Domain Name? - Go to Bustaname.com(they have a deal with GoDaddy.com which can provide you cheap domains at a discount, they also provide hosting). They also assist you in choosing a domain name by providing different combinations of the words you have provided.
• Want a Domain Name for free - Go to Co.CC

2. Hosting - You would have to bear the Hosting charges which can cost you anything above $40 per year but you will have peace of mind compared to Hosted platforms as you will be the owner of your domain and can sell or shift your domain at anytime you like. Just choose a hosting provider having a goodwill in the market.

3. Blogging Software - There is many blogging platforms available which of course comes with a price tag but there is a good news that you can also install a blogging software that does not come with a price tag but with all the benefits of a priced one - Wordpress from Wordpress.org . This is also the most widely used and reputed blogging software for self hosted platforms - so some relief to you as far as the financial side is concerned. It is a open source software and is being improved continuously by a whole lot of software developers who is developing and has already developed a whole range of plugins to be used with it thus enhancing it usability and capability.

4. Design - There is a lot of themes available online both for free and with a price tag - you can choose from them. You can also hire a designer to build a custom theme for your site but that depends upon your pocket and palate. The available free themes are wonderful but they may have been also used by somebody else which may affect the uniqueness of your site. But if you know a bit of designing yourself or willing to learn and adopt then you can also change the look of the theme yourself by changing say for example the header image, colour combinations and a few little things here and there. My advice is to adopt a free theme as there is also the option to change it any time in future.

5. Set Up - This field of course requires a bit of technical expertise. If you have the technical ability yourself then you can do it yourself or else you got to take help from one of your tech. friends or the last option - hire an expert.

A piece of advice - It is always better to do it yourself. Don't worry if you are not technically sound just read the help section and then contact your hosting provider (they are really very helpful person) to guide you with step by step set up instructions. If you can learn it once then you can also update the software yourself(saving you recurring costs too) and solve minor issues. Remember "learning always pays" and you can save a few dollars too - every penny counts.

HOSTED BLOG PLATFORMS - There are many hosted platforms available but I will consider only Blogger as this is the mostly used one. There are others like Wordpress, Typepad, MSN Spaces, Yahoo!360 just to name a few. All these platforms comes with a variety of features - just g

1. Domain Name - Provides a domain name as www.yourdomainname.blogspot.com for free which you can see is a sub domain of www.blogspot.com. But there is an option called custom domain name which allows you to use your own registered domain name (as for example www.yourdomainname.com or www.yourdomainname.net etc) giving a professional look and brand value to your domain name.

• You can also get a free domain name from Co.CC and use it as a custom domain.
  
• For a cheap domain name go to Bustaname.com
  

2. Hosting - They provide unlimited hosting space for free. The blogs are hosted at Google's servers so they are the best too. Want to shift to your own hired hosting in future? - they have this option too. So you too can sell your blog or get full control if you want.

3. Blogging Software - Provided for free. Comes with a whole lot of features and can be enhanced by adding widgets that are available online for free (Thanks to the work of widget developers who work for hours together to build them for us for free) - thus taking its standard up to the Self Hosted Platforms.

4. Design - Comes with a few old and dull themes but you can always upload your own theme to give it an unique look. There are thousands of wonderful and unique theme available online both for free (Thanks to the work of theme developers who work for hours together to build them for us for free) and also with a price tag. You can also get built a custom theme according to your taste and upload it.

• Want to get free or custom made templates? - Go to eBlog Templates

5. Set Up - Set up is just cake walk with no complications. Also has a very useful 'Help' section and forum. So no need of any expertise as all instructions are given in layman's language.

So you see those days are gone when there was a large difference between Self Hosted and Blogger platforms. Blogger has evolved at a very fast pace to come up with features and functions that match the self hosted platforms. Today more and more people prefer Blogger over self hosted platforms. I myself use Blogger for this blog combined with a Custom Domain.

A piece of advice - For both serious and not so serious persons I recommend starting out with a Blogger blog combined with a custom domain name as that will both be easy and will save you from all the hassles that you may face setting up a self hosted blog in spite of giving you all the features and that too for free. Change to a self hosted platform later if you want retaining all your visitors and SEO.

To get a feel of the features of the other Hosted Blog platforms visit each one of them if you want. But take my word - Blogger is the best among them all. Just get a Google account and start off.