Which Blog Platform you Would Choose?

This is the most important factor which determines the popularity, growth and much more to your blog. There are two types of blog platform .They are free blog and self hosted blog. The free blog we can get any where online and today there are many sites who are providing free blogs. The popular on include www.blogger.com , www.wordpress.com , www.typepad.com . We should question ourselves which blog platform is best? Free blog is best or self hosted blog? What are the pros and cons of free blog and self hosted blog.

It is difficult to decide which one is best because it depends on the needs of the blogger and both of them have one of more advantages.

Don’t be in hurry decide yourself

If  we are serious about blogging and want to blog for certain period of time the I suggest you go to with the self hosted blog. It is difficult to decide for first timer who doesn’t know the future of blogging. We cannot go with self hosted blog because we don’t have any knowledge and we cannot afford that much money. They might struggle but don’t confuse. There are separate blog platforms for hobby blogger, or for professional bloggers. The questions should be asked for your self before choosing the blog platform.

Your goal ?

Do I am going to blog for long time?

The purpose of the blog.

Do I blog for fun or for professional use?

Do some research online and collect the people’s opinion in forums. It might be helpful in choosing the blog platform. Even if we don’t have any knowledge about self hosted blog (as it requires the knowledge of html) then no need to worry there are lot of skilled workers online who can complete your work. They charge you little money for doing the work or else if we have any friend then we can ask them for help.

What is your budget ?

If we have good budget then we can go with self hosted blog . They are many services online where we can buy domain and hosting. We should consider budget for the below things.

Blog platform

Domain

Hosting

We need not worry about blog platform. In free blog we get everything free like domain, hosting and blog platform. Examples of it are www.blogger.com and www.wordpress.com Remember www.wordpress.com doesn’t allow you to advertise. If you want to make money then we can go with other just like I made money with blogger. They allow only bigger blogs to advertise. But in self hosted blog we are only provide blog software free , we need to take care of the domain and hosting. It doesn’t cost too much. Today there are lot of hosting services online and they are running special offers to grab the customers, we can take advantage of such offers.

Design:-

Now we need to take care of design which is important in dragging visitors. If our design and look is dull then readers get turned off. For example today many bloggers are using the theme designed by unique blog designs. This is only because they are good at designing.

Blog Tools :-

The blog tools are available online to track the stats of our blog. This is basic need for a blog or website. If we  don’t have one then how do you measure traffic and know the visitors. We can get one at statcounter and gostats or use the google analytics.

Options offered By Blog platforms :-

This thing we should consider while choosing blog platform because it helps us use the blog platform in easier way. When the free blog is offering many options then think how many options the paid one will offer?

Pros and cons of Hosted Blog Platforms :-

Pros :-

It is free and cheap to use.

We don’t loose any money because we did not invest anything in it, except time. But if we work honestly and sincerely then it would produce great results.

We need not hire anyone to design it. They are already ready basic themes set up in it. Besides basic there will be other themes, we have to choose it.

The free ones is easy to understand. So we can write the post and publish just by one push. A little html knowledge is necessary if we want some editing

No need to upgrade the software just like we do it on regular basis in self hosted one.

This blogs will get indexed quickly by search engines. No need to any seo.

Cons :-

The money making streams for free blog are very less. Some of the sponsorships and affiliate networks don’t accept free blogs.

We don’t have full control over the blog. Recently my blog was locked for spam check. I have sponsorships on the blog, I could not publish the sponsorships because my blog was locked.So we have to encounter such problems if we are going through free ones.

We don’t have unique url the blog url will be extension one. Having our own url shows some professionalism. Having own url shows we are on our own road. Suppose if we are person in a gang, then it is difficult to recognize us. And if we alone then we are recognized by our own name. The same applies here.

We cannot make too much customization to the free blogs just like self hosted one. Sometimes after making customization it will give troubles.

If you don’t believe in making money online but you want to make money online then we can go with the free one. If you are not too much concerned about having unique domain then go with the free one. They are also some famous bloggers online who are making big money using free blogs. Mike from http://mikesmoneymakingmission.blogspot.com/ brings most of income from free blogs.

Pros And Cons of Self-Hosted Blogs :-

The income streams for self hosted blog platforms are vast.

We will have full control over the design and we can design the blog the way we want it. Each Self hosted blogs have their own unique design.

Self hosted blogs have many applications like plugins by which we can use the blog platform with out much difficulty.

We will have  own unique domain name which shows professionalism and it can be remembered easily.

Cons :-

It is complicated and not easy to understand. We need some one who is expert in installing the blog software. We when started the blog don’t have knowledge about installing wordpress. So we hired remote worker at digital point forums to do it.

Whether we are one hosted or self hosted both have their own problems. In self hosted platform the server will be up and down, so it is important to back up all the necessary files and database.

Updates :-

In self hosted blog we need to take the updates ourselves. They will not be done any one. Since we are the owner of domain, only we have the access to do all changes in blog platform.

Cost :-

Most of the people cannot afford to buy a domain and hosting. It costs at least $4 to $9 per month hosting. Domain registration is one time charge. You got to invest at least $1 to make $10.That is the trick which works here.

The self hosted blog platform is used by professionals and to establish their own identity online. Self hosted blog platforms are started by bloggers who are serious in blogging and want to reap full benefits of it.

Some of the blog platforms like blogger.com allow you to host your domain but allowing to publish through their system. This thing many people are doing to avoid hosting costs.

At last I recommend you to go with the self hosted blog because the benefits in it are enormous. Off course we made money with free blogs but it is not for life time. If free blogs gives me what I want then why I would bring self hosted one? Many of the pros also recommend you go with the self hosted one. It is worth spending money for self hosted blogs. Even it is complicated, they have features that fits every one. Just jump and you will automatically learn how to do it as it goes on.