Blogging Platforms
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There are a number of blogging platforms available and choosing the right one for your blog requires some forethought. Are you on a limited budget? Or maybe you just want to get your feet wet and see if blogging is for you. Do you want a blog for business or wish to earn a blog income? Do you feel confident that you can handle all the techie stuff necessary or do you just want a "plug and play" blog? Lots of questions and the answers will lead you to the correct platform.
Basically blogging platforms can be classified as hosted and self-hosted. Hosted platforms are free to use and are hosted on the companies servers. They are limited in their functionality and do not allow blogs for business purposes. You do not own the content of your blog or the domain name.
Some of the Hosted Platforms are:
- WordPress.com
- Blogger.com
- Typepad.com
Self-Hosted Platforms require that you have your own domain name and hosting account. Getting your own domain name can cost as little as $8 a year. A hosting account can be had for under $10 a month. I highly recommend Host Gator (shameless self-promotion, this is an affiliate link ) I've used them for a few years now and they offer good pricing and excellent support.
A self-host platform means you own the content on the blog. It can be used for business or personal blogging. There are 100's of plugins and the number is growing daily. And there are 100's of free themes (backgrounds) to choose from. If you are skilled in programming you can change the code to suit your needs. If you are serious about blogging whether it be for personal or business reasons and can afford the small cost I highly recommend you go with the self-hosted platform.
Some of the Self-Hosted Platforms are:
- WordPress.org (not to be confused with WordPress.com)
- Movabletype.com
The Blog Builder Guy is a self-hosted blog on WordPress.org.
So that is a brief run down of the blogging platforms that are available. It is by no means complete so if you want to add something leave a comment.
