2009-04-13 by Charlie Cory

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Creating a blog is probably the easiest way for anyone to create a presence on the Internet. They are easy to maintain and are probably the simplest way to communicate with someone else online. The biggest hurdle that anyone will have is to set the blog up in the first instance, but even that can be straight forward if you choose the best blog hosting to start with.

Before we get into that however, there is the question about free blog hosts to answer. Many will wonder why they have to buy hosting at all when there are good free hosts about, such as Google's Blogger and the Wordpress site (not the actual software).

The answer is that either of these systems are great for creating simple blogs. If you simply want to communicate with friends and family, or just want to keep on online diary, then either of these options are fine. All that you need is an email address to register, choose a theme and away you go.

However the best blog hosting can offer you an awful lot more than that.

In the first instance there is he question of control. With your own blog on your own site you can do what you want. Both Blogger and Wordpress do impose restrictions so there are some things that you will not be able to do. If your plan is to operate commercially, then you will be walking the thin line straight away.

The second major drawback is flexibility. Once you have started blogging, you will undoubtedly want to do things in a certain way, create your own themes and add additional functionality to your blog. The free hosts impose restrictions on these activities, so your artistic endeavours will be curtailed. If you want an element of flexibility to get your blog just the way that you want it, then a free host is not the one for you.

The third potential problem could be rather more serious.

Because your blog is hosted on a third party site, if the third party takes a dislike to anything that you do, they can shut you down and your blog could be gone. Both Blogger and Wordpress have their own TOS of course, and the chances are that if you are very careful about what you do, you will be ok. The risk, however, is always there.

So, we come down to choosing the best blog hosting. Where to you start? You can begin by reading web host reviews, which can help guide you. Reading other people's opinions can help eliminate some of the choices, and there are a lot. In a nutshell, you will want to consider the following:-

Best Blog Hosting Support

Support is critical if you are to succeed. I don't mean the help that anyone would give to a new customer, but the knowledge that if something should go wrong, and sometimes they do, there will be a course of action you can take to help you get around the problem.

Blog Hosting Resources

The resources I am talking about is the amount of disk space that you are allocated by your blog host, and the amount of bandwidth that you are allowed to use up every month. The disk space is the physical room that the files you create will take up, and the bandwidth is the amount of memory allocated to doing things, like serving up files, photos etc. Some activities are more memory hungry than others. Hosting photographs for example will take up a fair bit of disk space and will hog a fair bit of your monthly bandwidth allocation.

If you choose the route of getting your blog hosted, then you will need to ensure that your blog hosting is reliable and will no disappear after a few months. Try and choose someone with a proven track record.

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Charlie Cory

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