The next step after you decide upon your blog platform is to choose a hosting company. But, before we proceed, I want to highlight for a moment the problem with the hosting industry. Behind the promise of service, there is actually some problems all prospective customers have to be aware of.

The entire hosting industry has come to the level where competition is very stiff. They package ample of features under such a low price tag that they have no choice but to oversell. Hosting companies are constantly pushing the envelope, finding ways to put more users on the server. That what makes money, anyway.

Yes, they cram too many customer accounts into one hosting server, assuming that only one or two account who will actually use even half of the promised resources. Often even if your blog or site is busy enough to use just half of the promised resources, you will be kicked out without warning.

Not the kind of support you want and company you want to stay with. But that’s a fact.

It is a risky strategy for the company, but there is no choice if they want to stay competitive. An example of bad marketing, I would say.

Choosing the appropriate hosting package for your blog takes time and effort. Almost no company out there receive 100 percent recommendation from every customer they have.

Sometimes, customer support is bad, but the server is stable so customers who don’t require complex hosting setup or can handle all the tasks by themselves won’t even find it out. On the other hand, there are companies who provide excellent customer support that their customers are willing to keep paying them although their service is not the greatest one in the market.

For starters, a virtual private server or dedicated server is something over their budget. Even after all your investment, it is never a guarantee that you will get better performance, faster customer support response, greater throughput and higher availability through more expensive package.

Again, not all hosting service is the same. Rarely are they honestly show the datacenter they own or lease. Companies who own backup generators to ensure sustainability of the electricity should cost higher unless they are very well established with a huge customer base that they can compete.

At last, despite the unique problems and competitions the industry has, still if you are willing to do your own due diligence, then it is not impossible to stumble upon great hosting that will not cost much but will give you peace of mind because you can be sure that your blog is there serving viewers and readers even while you sleep.

Consider yourself lucky if you have friends who can directly recommend you to one or two hosting companies. For the rest of us, my next article will try to minimize the amount of horrible experiences you have while choosing and staying with a hosting service and plan. Stay assured that it is still possible to wade across the bush to the destination.

Some questions I am often asked about blog platforms are:

• Which blog platform and software should I use?
• What is the pros and cons of using a free Blogger.com blog, a paid Typepad hosted blog platform, or Wordpress standalone blog software??
• Is it a good idea to use free blog platform and upgrade later?
• What skills do I need to run a blog software?

If you need a mild introduction to different types of blogging platforms, feel free to read my previous article about choosing a blog platform based on this factor alone.

In this post, I am going to explain in much details, taking into account other factors beyond types of blogging platforms. Although different platform could affect how you work, the resources you’ll need and more, it is not obvious from my previous post what you should consider in advance.

This post is written to close the gap.

Why you should not rush

Not all blog platforms are created the same.

Although you can use any platform to build your blog, you have to take some factors into consideration beforehand. Although it is possible to migrate to different platform at later date, the action is usually costly. Not only will it involve additional monetary cost but also lost of search engine traffic and other resources you have built over time.

There is no single platform that suits every situation, so take all the time you need, do your research because you want to find a blog platform that will stay with you for the life of the blog itself.

Questions to ask yourself before choosing a blog platform

Every business situation is different. I wish I can help you choose the right blog platform, but alas I couldn’t. What I can give is the general guidance on what to consider so hopefully you are set on the right track.

Here are a few things to consider:

1. Start with the end-goal in mind

What is the goal of your blog?

Is it a complement to your existing business website — to feature the frequently updated part of your site?

Do you want a build a niche website content with other features like Wiki and discussion board?

What do you want to achieve with the blog? Do you want to easily publish your writing on the Web, without the hassles of keeping your site up-to-date with the most recent version of blog software?

Jot the answers down and keep brainstorming about the ideal model of a blog that you think is the most suitable for you.

2. What is/are your expected outcome(s)?

How important is branding to you? How do you want to imply professionalism with the blog? Do your readers care about how you present yourself?

Hosting a blog on your own domain certainly looks more professional, but it doesn’t come without a cost in hiring people to update it or install new plug-in if necessary.

3. Your budget

Blog ownership should be less of a problem to prospective blogger. A blog could be free to $100 to start with, and then $5-$15 a month to subscribe, depends on the tools and services you engage your blog in.

The cost lies in the designer and maintenance fees. A professional business requires a unique blog that can represent your company profile to the world, not just another blog that uses the same design than hundreds of thousands of others.

Ask these questions:

• Do you want the blog to mimic the design of your company website?
• How important is the entire look and feel of your blog and site to your brand?

Expect a higher budget if you expect more.

4. Your resources

Do you have an IT department? Or, if you are working from home, do you have a friend that can help you maintain and update your blog software? Are you willing to invest some time to learn how to do it yourself? It is possible and not difficult, but your willingness to learn is required.

While a blog usually needs minimal maintenance once installed, sometimes there are critical security updates to the software that you need to close immediately.

Another option is to hire more knowledgeable people to do it for you.

5. Willingness to learn

As you answer those questions, it may become obvious which path you should take to build your blog. Feel free to experiment yourself. A blog is not a rocket science. It doesn’t need a few years of technical experience to setup and maintain.

Web applications are now easy to use and maintain, as long as you are willing to follow simple instructions. Sometimes learning these are important because often even if you have a technical person, you want to fix or do something quickly with your blog.

But, if you really are afraid or can’t find the time and resource to maintain it on your own, there are always hosted blogging platforms that will do it all for you for free or for a small fee.

Blogger.com, for example, allows you to transfer the blog to your own domain, without having to migrate the entire system. If you can live without the features available in MovableType or WordPress, you can quickly setup a blog this way.

Topic selection might very well be the most confusing problem for prospective bloggers. It happens to all of us. Whether to follow passion or money, how to determine if your passion is profitable, and so on…

In this post, I’d like to outline some important questions that I use to test a new niche topic. They actually are a summary of my niche selection method, but they still apply for niche blogging — with a slight modification.

Let’s get started:

1. What is your passion?

Write down your passion. I would argue against anyone who say that you don’t need a passion for your business.

Wrongo.

Let me elaborate. Ensuring profitability from a business you are about to build is utmost important. In fact, when I am to create an information product for a niche topic, all I want to do is make sure that I could profit from that product and niche. I suggest that people don’t insist on their passion, because passion doesn’t guarantee regular check in your mail.

Afterall, we don’t want a business that follows our passion but won’t support us.

On the other hand, it goes differently with niche blogging. You will find, in your journey, that it is very hard to move forward and you have to force yourself to post. This happens to all of us, even those who are very close to success.

If you don’t have the passion, then the effort could have just easily been doubled.

With that said, it is not compulsory or necessary to force to work on your passion though. Everyone of us should realize our passion, but if it won’t work for us, then we should be able to let it go. Afterall, business is business.

Just that passion, in my humble opinion, is a great factor when it comes to blogging. It will always be.

The easiest way to find your passion is by asking yourself “can you imagine yourself still blogging on this topic in the next few years?”

2. Is the topic popular?

The second question is to balance your passion with demand. While blogger’s passion is important — for the reason I’ve outlined above — it is not enough to ensure profitability.

You have to measure that the topic you chose is on demand. One way to determine this is to research availability of products in the market. Find sites and magazines people in your niche market read and frequent.

Also dig into keyword research tools. Really think about what people are searching with those keywords to see if you can monetize the traffic.

3. Who is your competition?

Entering the most popular niche with a lot of hungry buyers ready to spend their money for various products doesn’t always guarantee success.

The question is, “Can you access some of these potential buyers?”

Do you have something unique and valuable to say that could attract readers? Can you find a way to tap into other people resources — through joint ventures or other tactics?

When starting out, chances are you won’t have much advantages to offer. You can’t afford to play with the big guy, unless you have things that you think will stand out in the crowd.

For the rest of us, it is better to target lower profile niche. Gardening is huge, but if you have passion in growing red rose, it could possibly be a very good niche.

3. What is your unique blogging proposition?

In marketing, we have Unique Selling Proposition (USP). It is the same beast, but this is for blogging. What is your unique perspective in the niche? How could you fill in the gaps that other competitions can’t?

This point is somewhat related to the second point above. If you know you competitions and what they do, you can observe how you could fit your blog into the market, something that readers would welcome.

Even if you are just blogging to build buzz around your product, still you have to find a unique angle to enter the market. In copywriting, we know it as the hook.

4. Will you have enough to say?

Content is the lifeblood of every blog. Do you have enough to say that could produce content on a consistent basis for months or years?

Sure, you can use many content generation techniques like interviewing other experts or rant about news but one thing for certain is that you still have to write some original content.

Rather just be a good source of information, you want to be an expert and authority that people run to when they have problems.

This really comes back to the first question we asked above about passion and interests. This may sound obvious, but I often see bloggers who are running out of things to say in 5 - 10 posts.

5. What are your monetization model?

Are there enough income streams to support your blog? This is the question we all are excited about. When you have built your traffic and got readership, it is time to monetize.

There are many ways to make money from a blog. Not all of them are suitable for your niche and lifestyle.

For example, AdSense is a great way to sell ad space on your blog without having to maintain inventory. But, it is not suitable in some niches where the ads are rare or low paying.

Many bloggers use the blog as the front door for people to buy their product or service. If you are a consultant or coach, once people find you through the blog, you can offer programs and coaching sessions.

After spending some time with those questions, now is the time to actually start blogging. Remember, while it is nice to have passion around a topic which have huge demand and low to moderate competitions, in real life, seldom do we stumble upon such a topic. Don’t let this get you down. Every niche will have its own weaknesses. As long as you are aware of them, you can work to overcome them.

The key is to at least make it very possible to profit from the niche before you jump in. So, spend as much time as needed and don’t rush through the process.

“Discover how you can earn six figure income (or more!) from [insert your favorite place for vacation here] and while you sleep…”

“…and the best is, you can do it in one short week.”

Sounds familiar?

I didn’t copy other’s people sales letter, but surely you can relate to one as soon as you read it. It’s true, for a few years, I’ve seen many people make it sound like a blog is “the” solution to your business, marketing and publishing.

Some of the things they talk about hold true. A blog is a great publishing platform, a great way to get closer and being part of your customers and prospects.

The thing is, success in blogging is not something to achieve overnight or even in one month.

I have seen a few bloggers who could do it in six short months. I am impressed. They have close relationships with their readers. But still, that is not the end of the story. May be some of them get consulting job from that. Advertising revenue surely flows in.

But, to maintain the traffic, they have to keep churning out content on a regular basis.

The good news is, they could leverage the traffic and create another product that the readers will surely buy. Product creation requires a lot of work, so the bloggers could not yet retire and leave their blogs untouched for months.

In fact, those bloggers may not want to retire forever. They are ecstatic to bond with their readers. They like to help others to achieve their goals.

If your dream is working from home and be your own boss, blogging can help you achieve that… if you have the desire, dedication, and commitment to do that.

Pursuing a professional blogging career takes time. If you enjoy the process, success will follow and it won’t be like having a job anymore.

Learning and experimenting things, find out what works and avoid the opposites.

What about people who want to use a blog to promote their existing business? The same thing applies as well. Businesses could increase their sales, shorten sales cycle and let them become authority in their industry, but still work is required to create more products to satisfy the customers and keep the relationship.

I hope we agree those are great assets for any business, but it never will be the end of the story.

One of the most common mistake marketers and content publishers make when it comes to new technology is by jumping head-first right into it without necessary consideration.

Perhaps, they want the first mover advantage. Or they are simply excited about new stuff. I don’t know but surely it sounds disjointed.

While a blog is not a brand new technology, still it is very easy to get excited if you read the case studies of successful blogs. They are often sources of inspirations for me too.

The question is…

Is a blog the right type of marketing and/or publishing medium for you?

I might be big in evangelizing blog as a business and marketing tool, but still I am the first one to tell you that if you go ahead without proper planning, you are just wasting your precious time — and other resources.

Blogging — or becoming a blogger — is not a be-all and end-all solution to modern marketing and web content publishing. While blog is great, it does not suit every situation or business.

Only after analyzing where you are and where you want to go, you can choose the best medium to achieve it. Other factors might involve communication preference, hopes, personality and experiences.

For instance, blogging doesn’t suit anyone who can’t commit to writing regularly every day, every week or at least serveral times a month. Having a new blog post up once in six months and at the same time hoping to get overnight results is not going to happen. I hope that is clear.

I have a list of questions to ask yourself, sort of a quick assessment if a blog could possibly suit you and your business.