The first type of platform to consider is the free versions of the software. Foremost is the platform owned by Google, Blogger.com, and is very user-friendly. This format is great but there is a drawback, and that is because it is hosted by Blogger.com you don't really have ownership of your blog. So if you ever wanted to flip it for cash or Google decided to slap you and discontinue it you'd be out of luck.



The other free software platform is the popular Wordpress.com, which is not the same as Wordpress.org, a self-hosted platform. Wordpress.com is also noted for its ease of use. The downside of using this platform, though, is if you're going to be doing a great deal of affiliate marketing from it they have been known to shut a site down without warning, because they are hosting the site and can pretty much do whatever they want.

You're probably getting the picture that it is better to host a blog yourself than let one of these free platforms do it for you, because you then exert total control over it. Why? Because it is your property! Once you start attracting some good traffic to your blog, there is not a thing anyone can do to confiscate it from you. Having said that, it's not a bad idea to set-up a secondary blog to get backlinks to your self-hosted main blog. This is a key strategy for getting traffic.

A self-hosted blog is the way to go for most people. One of the originals in this arena is the old Moveable Type software. This is not a freebie though, even so, many people think it is well worth the expenditure, because it is a very powerful blog software.

Wordpress.org is the software of choice, because you host these on your own server and have total control over it. Like Moveable Type it is easy to use, but the key difference is in the support and plugins that are available.

Because there is a very large community based around Wordpress there are plugins to help you with SEO, selling ebay items, running membership sites, run back-up for you and many more. There are a multitude of themes to choose from to make your blog unique.

It looks like Wordpress is the hands-down choice, here. A veritable no-brainer for most internet marketers. It really does offer anything the serious blogger needs. With its ease of use you can have your blog up in a flash!

Another thing to keep in mind when choosing a platform for your blog is that most of the instruction out there, i.e. tutorials, is based on Wordpress. So you might want to just go with the flow on this one because of the prevalence of it.

Next time I will share with you some helpful ideas on how to choose a niche market to blog about.

That Tony Guy