The idea of running your own blog is to get more money out of it than you would with an online advertising income sharing publishing site. To this end, you can join up with one or more advertising agencies like Google Adsense. I'm naming this one, because it is as dominant as the Google Search Engine. And you are income sharing again, but at least it is one partner only.
Did you notice that I gave only one reason to start your own blog in the first paragraph? Because if money is not the aim of your writing, then you can ignore all I'm going to say and the pesky advertisers. If you monetize your blog, any other idea you might have had goes right out of the window.
Do you get more freedom in what you want to write about? Not really; the guys on the publishing platform knew what they were doing. They kept your posts on the straight and narrow of what would be pleasing to the advertisers. With signing up for monetization, you put yourself in their shoes. But you can try to be a bit more adventurous than they had been.
The next thing to think about is the pictures. If you found your friends on the publishing platform restrictive, then nothing changes there either. They just kept to what they knew would not generate trouble with the advertisers. Here as well, you can try to be a bit more forward than they had been. After all, they didn't want to spend time on fixing things. That made them overcautious.
And be quite clear about it, if you get into trouble, it isn't because of the guys and girls at AdSense or it's competitors. It is because of the money bags that pay for the ads on your blog (and a million others). The companies have special employees that do nothing than place and follow up on their ads on these blogs. And I found the characteristics they share.
They are either dirty old men or hags. Any skin that can be seen on a picture below the chin is flagged to the advertising agency as 'Adult: Sexual content'. If it goes below the Adam's apple, it becomes 'Shocking content'. I pulled one of my blog posts completely and changed the text to reflect what I thought: Was Eye Candy for Mojo.
I can't reconstruct what goes on in their dirty minds. They might be pedophiles or have special relationships with pets or both. But the next one I castrated was a bit of fun: That Awkward Moment When.
Everybody will tell you that pictures are good for your articles; and probably they are. Just don't ask me what kind of pictures. If you put up a street view with a child on it or some kittens playing, who knows what some depraved advertiser's overactive imagination will come up with. Just be sure, the money bag is always on the longer end of the stick. Just try and correct when you fall foul of the foul advertisers.
Further reading
How Money Came to Dominate Our Lives
The Honey Pots for Writing and Publishing
Google Search Dominance
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