Marketplace

If you are interested in starting your own blog one of the most important decisions you'll make is choosing the best blog software.  You have several choices, many of them are free, but before you choose just the right type of software you have to decide what you are going to use your blog for.  That really will make a big difference in choosing the right software for your needs.

For example, if you are just blogging about your life and you have no real interest in making money from your blog, than virtually any free software will do, such as Wordpress or Blogger.  At this stage the most important thing for you to consider is the ease of use.  You can use each type of blog for a while just to see which one you feel the most comfortable with. 

If, on the other hand, you are using your blog to make money either as an affiliate marketer or with the use of Adsense, you will need to be a little more careful.  The actual software can still be the same, for instance many internet marketers prefer the Wordpress platforms. The difference is that you won't want a free Wordpress site.  Instead you will want to buy your own domain name, so you own it, and have your blog hosted on another site such as Hostgator.com or HostMonster.com.  That way your blog is your own personal piece of online real estate, you own it and you can control what you put on your site and what you do with it.

Going with the free version for a business blog is a very risky proposition  Any of the free blogging sites have their own terms of service (TOS), which are always changing, if they find your blog to not be compliant with their TOS, the can delete your blog.  Now think of what that would mean if you were making money with a particular blog and you've spent time building up traffic to that blog and one day  it was just gone!  Yikes.

Another thing to take into consideration when looking for the best software are the types of plugins available.  Plugins are small software programs that you can literally 'plugin' to your blog by just a few clicks of the mouse, anyone can use them, and there are probably ten's of thousands of them available for every imaginable need, and most are free.  If this concept seems weird to you, just think of them like apps for a smart phone, it's a similar concept.  Some types of blogs will have a lot more plugins than others, so this could help you make up your mind which is best for you.

It's always nice to have options, and when it comes to finding the best blog software you have quite a few.  Just keep your overall goals in mind when trying to decide which is best for you.  For the most part, if you are just a 'personal blogger' and not really in it to make money, the free versions are just fine for you and your needs.