Choice of blogging platform

Problem: Which platform should I choose?

Internet space offers many different blogging platforms like Tumblr, Joomla, Blogger, Wordpress, Drupal. Of course there are many other, but to my knowledge these are the most popular. Especially important in this case is to emphasize that access and work with each of these platforms are free.
So far, my experience is only about Blogger and Wordpress, this will not do free essays and will provide benefits only to those two platforms. You will do a little quotation on Wordpress - it exists in two versions:

* One where you do not have your own hosting (absolutely free start) called Wordpress.com
* Option of self-hosted, that now have to invest a certain amount of domain and hosting - so-called Wordpress.org

Blogger
The platform is owned by Google.
Advantages:
The approach is adopted in dealing with this platform is very visual and need to write code (even HTML) is minimal. As I said Blogger belongs on Google, so that there is scope for easy integration with other applications of the company. No additional payment is required if you decide later to buy a domain and connect it to your blog.
Installation: No installation is required and many presets to get started. Time to write the first article: about 4 minutes
Disadvantages:
The address of the page always contains further. Blogspot.com. The system is much less flexible. There is no possibility for a large selection of themes, plugins, etc. Therefore, when expansion comes on time, which requires a change of platform. There is no possibility of access via ftp, which can cause problems with applications in some affiliate programs and make it difficult to work on the maintenance page.

Wordpress.com
This is a lightweight version of perhaps the most popular and very powerful blogging platform - Wordpress.
Advantages:
System interface is quite comfortable for work and there are Bulgarian version, which is definitely an advantage in case you do not speak English. Almost no need to write code. There is a good choice of topics. Customization of appearance and functionality of the page are quite large and make it easier easier than those in Blogger. Very good statistics visualization panel work, no need to install an additional one. Upgrading to full version of Wordpress is easier and less painful than with Blogger.
Installation: No installation is required and many presets to get started.
Time to write the first article: about 4 minutes
Disadvantages:
Disadvantages of Wordpress.com are pretty much similar to those of Blogger. The address of the page always contains further. Wordpress.com.Kam they can add that if you decide to invest in a domain, adding it to your blog will cost extra 5USD. There is no possibility to use AdSense (another opportunity for Monetization of which I will devote an article).
Wordpress.org
The full version is fully functional on Wordpress blogging platform with practically unlimited possibilities.

Advantages
Has an interface in Bulgarian. Possible flexibility presented by the three platforms. Perhaps the biggest advantage is that as open source platform, the world has thousands of developers who write plugins and themes for Wordpress. Even better is that the vast majority of them are free. In the rare cases when you really need a specific solution (typically for business applications) may need to use paid plugin. My impression is that this is necessary really rare, but when you have no choice, however, the price is reasonable and justified in the light of the return. Opportunities for personalized settings are limited only by your imagination and technical competence. Another great advantage is very active community of users of Wordpress, just one of many places where you can find a solution to possible problems.
Disadvantages
Requires investment in a domain and hosting. The level of technical competence necessary for work is definitely higher than in the other two platforms. The use of plugins from different authors and sometimes the lack of standardization led to a variety of bugs, but this is relatively rare.
Installation: It is easy to install Wordpress on your own hosting (I will write a separate article how to do this). The platform is known that the installation takes five minutes. My experience shows that usually takes a little more, but in any event, if it follows the law has nothing to go wrong.
Time to write the first article: 15-20 minutes - depending on how long you spend the extra settings. The good thing is that you can always change the settings on the go, so even if you miss something at the start - not scary.

Decision: Blogger
The most important thing in creating a blog, and the choice of platform is better definition of objectives. At the outset of the experiment I said that my goals are not to invest any funds until the project has not started to carry money. This automatically eliminates otherwise the best solution in my Wordpress.org.
In choosing between Blogger and Wordpress.com Monetization factors prevailed. In particular, the ability to use AdSense on Google, because the Blogger pages to no prerequisites to be able to use this option. As to Wordpress.com - such opportunity virtually none. In Wordpress.org, you can use AdSense, but only after receiving approval from Google.
Saying that I do not delude you that AdSense is a panacea, they will spend lots of money quickly, but on the other hand is the easiest and quickest way to see the first cents. AdSense, and any other way to Monetization depends on many visits to your blog. The higher is the traffic to your site - the more money you can spend in the program.
The second reason to stop this decision is that the steps they bet early purchase of the domain prior to the purchase of hosting, ie the choice of Wordpress.com would mean an additional cost of 5USD.

I know this decision will bring me suffering later when you buy a domain and hosting and decide to make the transition to Wordpress.org. Believe me I've done it and is long and difficult process. But for educational purposes on this blog such challenges are welcome.

What platform you use, what made you make this choice?

Affiliate programs

One of the main and most successful ways of Monetization of the blog is through affiliate programs. That decided it without delay to start them.
Before proceeding to the specifics of each affiliate, I believe it is necessary to dedicate an article on how affiliate programs work and their business model. The theme is not new, but if you first come across affiliate information you need little preparation.

Actors

In the affiliate business has 4 main types of players: Merchant (Merchant) - Online store;
Affiliate firm (Affiliate) - Mediator - intersection between traders and authors Author (Publisher) - Blog (like yours) or other website; Client / Reader (Customer / Reader) - people who read your blog.
The best thing about affiliate business model, unlike many other businesses is that participants are facing a situation which can be defined as a win-win-win-win. This means that all players benefit from it and actually benefit from their participation in it.

How it works?
Traders are associated with the firm and affiliate agree standardized commission, which will pay to be advertised their site and / or their products. The authors in turn are associated with the firm to find a store / products to advertise against the commission for their work. Readers are in turn the pages of the authors the information they need for a product / store and arranged them if the conditions - a deal. Is there a deal - a profit for all chain.

Affiliate links and banners
Affiliate systems allow dealers in the program after the registration of any of the merchants author to generate affiliate links or banners for this trader. When a reader clicks on one of them and make a purchase within a specified period (most traders keep cookies for about 30 days) The author receives a commission for it. (How to generate links and banners will be the subject of subsequent articles, since each of the affiliate firms that process is different).

How come everybody wins?

Merchant
The trader is able to gain access to readers in the pages of thousands of authors, which means that it gets virtually free advertising for the store / product. Pays only for results (sales) - percentage of the price of the transaction.

Affiliate broker
Affiliate companies provides its system vendors and authors to the coupling between them, in return, receive payment from vendors.

The author
The author obtained by affiliate firm access to a large number of shops. Under this system avoids the need to personally negotiate with each vendor separately, avoid the need for signing of contracts and a bunch of other formalities. Furthermore, the author is able to find many dealers who operate in its niche, thereby providing more relevant information to readers and significantly expanding opportunities for Monetization.
Perhaps the biggest advantage of the author in this model is that it is included free. Registration in the affiliate interface intermediaries costs nothing for authors. Only the efforts of the author depends on whether it will bring revenue. (Some affiliate brokers require payment of a symbolic amount, which is then returned with the first payment. This is done to establish that the registration stands a real man.)

Reader
The reader gets relevant information on new products in the niche that cares. The price to readers is exactly the same as for all other customers of the store - the commission is not charged on what readers pay. But not only that - good traders have a very active affiliate relationship with dealers and authors. They often provide exclusive promotions as a form of discount codes for particular authors customers of the firm, and in some cases, especially for readers of a certain author, if he has shown good results. This means that the reader is not only better informed, but actually buy more profitable than if you accidentally got into the store.

Can we not affiliate company?

Rule to eliminate intermediaries in this case is very shortsighted policy. Charts below show the difference between the model with and without an intermediary.

It is obvious that no firm model is very complicated and virtually impossible. None trader would not have time to maintain relationships with numerous authors and blogs with little to negotiate special terms with each of them. Standardized conditions offered by affiliate firm solve this problem. This allows a large number of participants in the business model, which respectively mean more profit for all chain.

Can you fucked me?
Beauty is in the model that underpins the motivation of the chain. That is, if someone felt dissatisfied and stop working - this will bring loss to others. In this sense the model works best when everyone is happy. Furthermore, the presence of several units allows checks and balances so as to not get unpleasant surprises.

Which affiliate firms are checked?
I work with several intermediary. From each of these to the following I received money at least once, and now I have not had problems with payments.

Zanox
Affiliate Window
Paid On Results
Affiliate Future
Tradedoubler
CJ

As I said in the beginning, affiliate programs are probably the most convenient and effective way to monetizirate blog. I will not hide that this blog will also rely on Monetization of such. Thus some of the links you see in the articles are affiliate links. If you really understand the meaning of the model - you might not mind to click on them, provided that the topic interests you. Otherwise - you can quite easily find yourself another way to access the same content.

What affiliate programs you use? Do you know of other affiliate programs that pay surely?