How Do I Start a Blog?

The first questions you must ask yourself are:

What do I expect to accomplish with this blog? What technical skills do I have? How much time am I willing to invest to pick up a few skills?

After you answer these questions, I will give you a quick summary of options to take:

• If you have limited experience with HTML, using FTP programs to upload files, editing some code, and don’t have time to invest in picking up technical skills, yet you wish to make some money blogging, I would recommend using Blogspot. Go to this Blogspot tutorial section to get started.
• If you have limited experience with HTML, using ftp programs, and you wish to run a non-profit blog (as in not to make money) for yourself or non-profit organization, then a free WordPress.com blog is a good option. Go to this WordPress.com blog tutorial section to get started. You won’t have to invest much time in learning technical skills and the free WordPress blog will make a nice site.
  
• If you wish to make some money blogging that could amount to something significant, have a little technical knowledge or are willing to invest the time to pick up knowledge on HTML basics and using an ftp program to upload files, then a hosted WordPress blog is a good way to go. You will have more options than the free Blogspot blog route and can integrate a larger number of applications and produce a more user friendly site. Most people I know that are serious about making money blogging go this route. See this page on setting up a hosted WordPress blog.
  

More Details
Free Blogspot Blogs – Blogspot blogs, also known as Blogger blogs, are a good way to try your hand at blogging for money since they may be monetized (advertisements that make money for you) very easily and if you are willing to shell out $10 per year, you can even have the blog use your very own domain name. And this site provides some free tested easy to download and implement design templates that can make your blog attractive with a somewhat-good navigation structure. The downfall of Blogspot blogs is that you can not provide quite as good a navigation structure (no categories for posts) as a WordPress blog and you don’t have quite as many plugins/widgets of a hosted WordPress blog that can add things like photo slideshows, etc. In summary, a person with no experience in website creation or technical knowledge that wishes to make money blogging with a minimum investment in time and money should probably start with a Blogspot blog.

Free WordPress.com Blogs – The free WordPress.com blog has one major disadvantage – you can not place advertisements for any products other than perhaps your very own authored book or invented product. So if you are looking to make money blogging, the free WordPress.com blog is probably not an option. Otherwise, the free WordPress.com blog is a very nice easy blog to create and this free blog is automatically updated. You can have a blog running within minutes, you have 70+ themes to choose from, and you can upload your own custom header (top banner) for your blog.

WordPress.Org Hosted Blogging – WordPress also distributes free hosted blogging software from WordPress.org and you can easily install this blog with a simple 3-click procedure from hosting accounts such as HostGator. You pay for hosting but the blogging platform is free. With this WordPress.org blog that is independently hosted, you are allowed to place advertisements (and make money) or do anything else your host and domain registrar allows. Also, you can use custom themes and implement an almost limitless number of plugins that do things like run slide shows, run polls, optimize your blog for the search engines, and more. There are some nice free tested custom themes available on this site. Perhaps what I like best about WordPress is that it provides a nice navigational structure in its top menu and it allows you to categorize your posts – this is why I use a WordPress.org blog, hosted at Hostgator, using an Artisteer custom design for the blog you are reading from right now. From a technical standpoint, you will need to update the version of your blogging software periodically (generally a 1-click procedure), download and upload software to your blog, and work with the code of you blog itself in order to insert advertisement code. In short, if you are serious about blogging for money and are willing to take some time to learn some technical essentials, a hosted WordPress.org blog is a better way to go.

Other Free Blogs – Besides Wordpress and Blogspot, there are perhaps 50+ other free blogging options. I have dabbled with some of these. They are OK. But I guess I would stick to the more used blogging platforms since you will find there is better support and answers to any questions you may have. For example, both Blogspot and WordPress have extensive help sites and forums. The smaller blog providers usually do not.

Disclaimer: I have affiliate relationships with HostGator and Artisteer. I partner with them because I use their products myself almost exclusively to other products due to their price and features. Artisteer made blog design a piece of cake for me and Hostgator provides incredibly good service and support for the very small price I pay each month.

Using hostgator, I am able to run sites from a datafeed that automatically updates itself!
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