Having run this personal finance blog for a few months now on Google's blogger platform one question I ask myself as I become more serious about blogging, as a possible full time pursuit, is what is the best and most effective blogging platform to be on for the long term. To answer this I looked at a cross section of the top personal finance and investing blogs (based on various sources) out there. The table below presents a summary of my findings which I think represents a good cross section of the data I looked at.
You can see that from the list that Wordpress is clearly the blogging platform of choice for the biggest and best personal finance bloggers out there. There were a few instances of blogger, but not as many as I would have thought. Most people, like me, start on Blogger thanks to already having a Gmail account (both applications are owned by Google). It is also relatively easier to get started and run advertising on Blogger. Though long term it is clear that as blogs grow and bloggers go for their own hosting options, Wordpress is the preferred choice. From what I have seen, Wordpress seems to have much better templates, "widget" options and even better performance when compared to blogger hosted blogs. I have some serious thinking to do as to if and when I want to port this blog over to Wordpress. Glblguy at Gather Little by Little had the following comment on this topic when I asked him about it a while ago "Well, I've never been on blogger, but Wordpress provides pretty much unlimited options. You can customize however you want, and there are literally thousands of plugins to do just about anything you want. If you notice around the blogosphere most if not all the big blogs are on Wordpress with their hosting. I think that in and of itself tells you something. If you are planning to move, the sooner the better. It makes the transition easier and you won't loose any Page Rank you've earned.
Also, here are three quick tips from what I observed at the more established blogs while doing the research for this article. Hopefully these will help you along the way if you are starting your own finance related blog. Tip #1 : Get your own domain name
What ever platform you choose or site design you go with, the main thing to do is get your own domain name. When you set up a free blog with Wordpress or Blogger, you get a domain name with "blogspot" or "wordpress" in it. This is because you are a sub domain under their main one. This can limit the growth (in terms of ranking) of your site and advertisers (assuming you want to build a commercial blog) are reluctant to use these sub domain type blogs. The sooner you get your own domain the better. I used the well established GoDaddy 
to get my own domain name (comes with a free custom email) for less than ten dollars. You can still use the wordpress or blogging platforms to host the blog (like I do here), its just that people will now see your custom domain name.
Tip #2 - Avoid temptation to have too many ads and flashing banners
Most personal finance blogs have some form of advertising (which equals passive income and is a fundamental rule of good investing). The thing that sets the pros apart from the rest of us is how they use and layout advertising on their blogs. This is a post in itself, but suffice to say their advertising is well placed, relatively low key and/or nicely blended into articles they write. Also, they tend to have a lot more direct banner advertising (125x125 sidebar ads were the most common) as opposed to relying only on Google Adsense and they almost always keep the focus on their content and not the ads.
Tip #3 - Submit to related personal finance & investing blog carnivals
Just this week I submitted and was published at the following well known finance blog carnivals:
Carnival of Personal Finance, which was hosted this week by Lazy Man and Money and had my article about shopping effectively and save $29 in minutes.
Festival of Stocks which was hosted this week by Investing adventures and had my article on How to buy shares - Two simple steps
Carnival of Debt Reduction hosted by Broke Grad Student and included my post on the Rental Squeeze
Sound Money Matters hosted the Festival of Frugality which contained my article on the rise in food costs.
I noticed a significant jump in visitors (some who became subscribers) thanks to the referral from the sites where these carnivals were hosted. Getting published at these carnivals definitely increases the exposure of your blog and something you should look to do as you grow your blog.
Finally, on top all the above, the number one thing that the best personal finance and investing bloggers had was relevant and well written content. I guess this is the key for success for any blogging endeavour. Feel free to share your comments and thoughts on the above.
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