I'm contemplating starting a blog to market several of my other sites. The basic purpose is to present useful information I've accumulated over the years about my field of expertise, and drive business to my other sites via links. The question is: Strictly from an SEO standpoint, am I better off using something like Blogspot or hosting it myself on my own domain? Technically I have no problem with the latter, but I am curious if blogs hosted on Blogspot pick up any of Blogspot's page rank, get linked to from Blogspot itself, etc.
always your own domain.... with blogspot you are the mercy of google, no blogs on blogspot do NOT pick up the page rank. if you want a free blog go to Wordpress.com otherwise install wp on your own domain, technically it is harder initially to set up but wp is famous for its 5 minute install..
No question, you are better with a self-hosted Wordpress blog. There are so many ready made plugins that make SEO easy and you have full control over the blog. If you insist on free, I disagree with dickieknee, Wordpress.com blogs do not allow affiliates or ads if you decide to try to monetize the blog. Blogger is much better for free.
I think a free blogspot might do as a basic promotional blog (using seo techniques) to link to your main sites. I was a bit skeptical until I read this at make money online The owner uses a blogspot (blogger blog)...
Id suggest hosting a blog yourself and doing it with wordpress, because regarding seo you really have plenty of choice when it comes to wordpress.
I agree with the other posters - self hosting is definitely better as it gives you full control over your blog and its content.
You are setup on a subdomain which is a new domain in Google's eyes. I would suggest getting started on your own domain name.