This post is a part of PinoyBlogero’s “Starting out a New Blog” Series. The said series contains step by step tips and guides in helping bloggers create a new blog.

Yesterday, I have given a brief overview of the two types of blog platforms and their differences from one another. Today, I will be laying out the advantages and disadvantages of both blog platforms in order for you to have a better understanding of what to choose when thinking of building a new blog.

In the red corner, Hosted Blog Platform!
*applause*

Pros

• Easy on the pocket – Hosted blog platforms are known to be easy on a blogger’s budget because they offer their services for a small fee or at no cost at all.
• Easy setup – Hosted blogs are relatively easy to set up. All you have to do is to sign up, fill out a few details, after a few minutes, you are ready to blog!
• Worry free – The great thing about hosted blog platforms is that they really do justice to the term “easy blogging”. Everything is already taken care of, no need to worry about hosting issues or other stuffs.
• Easy to pick up – No use for help manuals here, managing a blog is made easy because of the user-friendly features that most hosted blog platforms have.
• Customer Service – If ever you get into trouble or in need of assistance, hosted blog platforms often have a help desk or a forum to help you with your problem.
• Automatic updates – Whenever a minor or a major update is released by a hosted blogging platform, all the blogs under it are updated automatically. No need to manually install anything.

This post is a part of PinoyBlogero’s “Starting out a New Blog” Series. The said series contains step by step tips and guides in helping bloggers create a new blog.

First things first, what is a Blog Platform?
Back at the time when blogs were still in the form of online journals, users had to go through lots of painstaking coding just to upload a single blog post. Yes, plain and raw HTML coded directly into the online journal’s source code (Brings back memories). Blogging soon became widespread and a lot of people soon saw the need for a program that will make blogging easier. Out of necessity, blog platforms were born.

Technically, a blog platform is a blogging software that aids users in easy management of their blogs. From the publishing, design, and even database management, blog platforms had everything handled for bloggers.

But a blog platform alone is useless as it is, it needs to be integrated to a webhost first before it could actually work. Bloggers are then presented with two important choices, should they go with a free/cheap blog on a Hosted Blog Platform? Or should they consider having a Stand Alone Blog Platform where they need to look for a paid host and a buy a new domain of their own?

Being a blogger who has gained a lot of experience and respect on the blogosphere, you were asked by an A-list blogger to create a guest post for his blog. Such an opportunity would greatly bring traffic to your blog, which is why you decided to impress everyone by creating an extensive high-quality article.

You were already in the middle of creating your article, when suddenly, you hands stopped typing. You try to move on but you can’t get to the next sentence. You let out a scream of utter annoyance angry at your misfortune.

“Aaaaargghhhh!”

Alas, Writer’s Block has struck again.

Getting Lost
A well-made article is a sure-way for anyone to effectively communicate their ideas to their readers. However, such articles are in need of great amount of time and thinking. With every effort to create a high quality article for our readers, we sometimes get lost in its complexity resulting to a writer’s block.So how can we get over writer’s block while maintaining a high-quality article? The answer is to make your article simple.

This post is a part of PinoyBlogero’s “Starting Out A New Blog” Series. These posts serve as a guide for me in creating my own new blog but can also be of help to others as well.

Many bloggers tend to carelessly build blogs without giving much thought on what blog topic they should tackle on their blogs. A blog topic is the subject matter that the blog will be focusing on all throughout its life span.

Personal blogs have no problem on looking for a blog topic because they can tackle anything that they want. Niche blogs on the other hand needs to be planned carefully because it is one of the most critical stages in the development of a blog.

The number of topics that a blogger can tackle is virtually limitless. However, this wide selection only makes it difficult for a blogger to choose a topic for his blog. Picking by random would be foolish. What we need to do is to pick a blog topic carefully and methodically.

When I try to think of a new topic for a blog, I consider the following factors:

Own interest on the topic – This is an important factor. The more that you have interest on a particular topic, the more it will be easier for you to come up with content. Also, this will also be the basis if you truly know what you are talking about. Don’t try to force yourself on a topic that you don’t know, you’ll only end with half-baked articles.

This is an article under the “Breaking the Writer’s Block” post series. This series seeks to help bloggers in overcoming writer’s block. Check out the previous article, Let Your Thoughts Flow – Breaking the Writer’s Block.

So you were creating a post for your blog. You have the main idea stuck on the back of your head. You start to type, placing down each word and idea one by one as dictated by your mind. You are almost sure that you’re going to finish it by bedtime when suddenly, your hands stopped typing. You try to move on but you can’t seem to get to the next paragraph. You bang your head on your computer monitor but it was only blood that keeps on gushing out (aray). You scream in frustration at your misfortune. Yes. Writer’s block has struck once again.

That Pesky Writer’s Block
Probably one reason why many people experience writers block is because they quickly run out of ideas. Sometimes we tend to encounter a gap in ideas, this gap makes it hard for us to connect the two edges of our ideas to have that smooth flow.

So how can we overcome this? There are a lot of ways, one thing that you can do is to look for an idea from other things aside from your mind.