Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.

Everybody says the beauty of blogging is that it’s simple. Anyone can do it, it’s simple to figure out, and it blurs the lines between journalists and consumers, because now everyone has a platform on which their voice can be heard.

I don’t buy it.

When you start a blog (and increasingly, it’s not if but when), the whole process can seem horribly overwhelming. There are tons of possibilities, endless things to write about, infinite numbers of ways to host, run, manage, create, market and grow your blog, and so on and so forth.

Since I’m arguably the world’s worst programmer, there’s zero hope of me being the one to solve all of your problems. But I can help a bit. As someone who’s been through this process, here are the three questions I wish I’d asked when starting my blog(s).

If you’ve already started a blog, and have run into issues with one of these things, fear not: Mistakes on all of these things (bad domain names, bad hosts, wrong platform) can all be fixed – and yes, I know all three from personal experience.

1. To host or not to host?

When you start a blog, your first options boil down to two: you either host the blog yourself (“self-hosting”) through a provider, or you have someone else host it (called a “hosted” blog), storing it on their servers while you manage the content.

There are obvious pros and cons to both. Self-hosting gives you more flexibility and control over every aspect of the site, as it’s yours and only yours. You can add widgets and plugins, code it and customize like crazy. But, it’s more expensive, more prone to “I’ve never done this before” mistakes, and generally a lot more work on your part. Plus, there’s tons of other choices to make (like which host to pick, for instance).

A hosted blog is free, and leaves you with no worries about which host to choose or how to pay for the site. But, you don’t get much control – you pick from only a few design themes, can’t do much on the back-end, and are at the mercy of your host to deal with any issues you might have.

Neither is the right answer, and there are great and popular blogs that subscribe to both (I self-host with Dreamhost). But it’s an important thing to think about – how much time and money is it worth to be able to control and own everything?

2. Which platform should I use?

Another serious question, and a harder one to undo if you get it wrong – though not impossible. Off the top of my head, I can think of four really popular blogging platforms: WordPress (which I use), Blogger, Typepad, and Drupal. Each has their advantages and disadvantages, and each one is great in its own right, but ultimately you have to choose. Do your research, choose carefully, and make sure the platform is the right one – changing’s not worth the hassle.

The key thing to take notice of, when choosing a platform, is what you’re going to be using it for. Some are better for media management, some are great for their customizability (that’s why I picked WordPress), some work better for those without a lot of tech-savvy (Blogger’s a winner here) – everyone’s got different needs, and blogging platforms are designed for different things. Check out as many as you can, and see what checks out against for gotta-have-it list.

3. What name can I GET?

Anyone who says the name and the domain name of your blog don’t matter, is full of it. The domain you use is arguably the most important part of your brand (unless your name is already a brand, in which case I envy you, you with a less common name than I), and shouldn’t be overlooked. Before you name your site, find a domain name that matches, or closely relates. I rebranded my site twice after finding a great domain name, and it cost me a lot of hard work building the original names.

There are tons of places to find great domain names that are available (Dotomator and BustaName are my favs), and most can be bought for less than $20. You can even get them for free, provided you’re cool with having a .wordpress.com or a .typepad.com after it. Domains are easy to find and cheap to own, and are worth their weight in gold as you spread the word about your blog – it’s how people find you, after all.

Save yourself the wasted work of switching, telling everyone, and re-branding over and over, and make sure your domain name, and the name of your blog, are both the same, and the best, from the get-go.

There’s much more to starting a blog than just these three questions, but these three apply to anyone. It doesn’t matter what’s on your blog, or what you use it for – all these questions are going to come up, and I can’t recommend enough doing your homework up front.

I had a site name that quickly became different from what I wanted to write about, a host that gave me zero control over what I was building, and a platform (Blogger) that absolutely didn’t work for me. So I switched – but it took a ton of work, time, and effort that all could have been avoided if I had looked before I leapt.

Do the research, see what others are using (here’s a rundown of what the Top 100 Blogs use), and test things out as much as possible.

What else is important for a blogger to consider when they’re first starting? Blogger: what do you wish you’d been asked, or known to ask?