I use blogs as just one part of my business to make money online. I use them for two reasons, first they’re so simple to set up and run, and second they are very effective as they are so flexible and can make money in a whole host of different ways. I will not go into using free hosted blogs with services like blogger.com because of the possibility of losing your blog with one of these sites. If you use a service like this then you don’t really own the blog and if anyone makes a complaint about your blog for any reason, even a jealous competitor or just someone who disagrees with something you’ve written, the blog can be shut down without you having any say in it. This means that all the hard work, time and effort you’ve place in to your blog can disappear in a moment and there will be nothing you can do about it. I would not like that, so I cannot recommend it. That being said there is still a very valid reason to use blogger.com and wordpress.com. I will go into that much later on. For now I will be talking only about hosting a WordPress blog on your own domain, so that you are in complete control of your site. Choosing which blogging platform to use is one of the most vital decisions that you can make as a blogger. The right platform can make blogging a breeze, and the incorrect platform can make blogging a chore. Because the program that you use to blog with is such a powerful part of your blogging experience, it is well worth putting in the time to find a platform that provides your ideal balance between a user-friendly interface and a flexible framework that allows you to make your blog look and feel unique. WordPress is by far best and the most well loved blogging platform, which means there are more free and paid tools, resources, plugins and themes available for it than any other system, giving you the most possible options and therefore the best chance of long term success. Choosing A Domain Name For Your blog The very first thing you need to do to get up and running is to choose a suitable domain name and register it. I use Namecheap.com Some of the domain registrars I’ve used in the past may give you a low entry fee but try to upsell you with a bunch of add-ons that you don’t need. And what I despise the most is when you try  to get out of all of the add-ons it’s nearly impossible. Reckon GoDaddy. When you register a domain get a keyword or two that is relevant to the market you intend to target if possible, so for instance if your blog is going to be about Green widgets , try and find a domain that includes the words “Green widgets” , e.g. www.GreenWidgets-tips.com or www.GreenWidgetsNow.com This will help for search engine rankings as well as for increasing click through rates from the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages), as someone looking for tips on Green widgets is more likely to click on a site listed in the search engine results that has the words Green widgets in it than something more generic like “widgets.com”. You may not be able to get exactly the domain name you want, e.g. Green widgets.com, so be creative and look for excellent variations. Here’s a few examples to help: - MyGreen widgets.com Green widgetsNews.com Green widgetsGuide.com Green widgetsClub.com Brainstorm a few thoughts and using some generic words that you can add to your keywords and you should come up with a few possible domains to choose from. There are some free tools and sites that you can use to check if a domain is available. As a general rule it’s best to go for the .com version if you can, as it is the TLD extension (Top Level Domain) that most people will use automatically, as it’s the most well loved. If you are going to be building a primarily information based (non commercial) blog, then going for a .org is a excellent second choice as people tend to recognise these sites as “non-profit” free information sites. For Search Engine Optimization purposes and how the search engines treat your site for ranking, it really doesn’t matter which TLD you go for, there are some very well loved sites and blogs that are on .net for instance. But people nearly by habit type in .com. The one exception to all this is .info domains. I would advice steering clear of using a .info as they have been used very heavily over the last few years to build spam AdSense sites, because they are so cheap to register. You may be tempted to go for a .info if you’re starting up with limited funds and want to save a couple of bucks, but it could well hurt the value of your site in the long term, so don’t be tight, pay the extra and get a .com, or .org domain and register it.