Why not start with what has worked for you, or what you know works for others?

Does a person need a website to blog? Do you advertise products? Or is your product the subject of the blog, and oh by the way I accept PayPal, MC/Visa?

TIA,

moi

I've always used sites with free hosting. If you want total flexibility you have to pay for your own hosting and learn how to use blogging software. You can host your own, using Blogger software and your own domain name. If I wanted to buy a domain name and host Seniors on the Web, using Blogger, the URL would be seniorsontheweb.com instead of seniorsontheweb.blogspot.com.

The same is true for Wordpress. I could pay for hosting and giftedadults.wordpress.com could become giftedadults.com. Or dot net or dot org.

I haven't monetized any of my blogs, so no advertising. I covered that more thoroughly in another thread.

Paypal works for almost every form of monetization. If you sell a product and want to offer MC/Visa, you can, but it's expensive and not worth it unless you're selling a lot of product.