What are some things I should keep in mind before/when I start a Blogger account ?

Blogger is very easy to get up and running. It doesn't offer all the facilities that WordPress has but if you don't need them, don't worry about them.

Don't tinker with the layout or try to do anything clever unless you've taken a backup first.

Write a few posts and then publish one by one, then work out a regular(ish) posting schedule.

Browser shouldn't matter.

You can carry ads - AdSense and Amazon are the best, I find, but don't make posts too commercial.

Keep a backup of all posts.

Google will index posts very quickly but it's still a good idea to spread post URLs around (in a non-spammy way).

Don't be afraid to play with the layout as you get comfortable - you can always cancel changes before they go live.

Good luck :)

Blogger will work on any modern web browser without issue.

My experience:

Pros

- Writing posts can be relaxing

- Writing posts can be insightful

Cons

- Writing posts is hard, especially if you obsess over whether or not they're perfect and/or half-write a post, stop, and then the next time you're writing, write something completely different

- Life can get in the way of blogging (although, this is probably just an excuse now that I think of it... hmm)

Backups: You can take backups of posts on your computer, or save them to a cloud storage website like Dropbox, or any number of similar cloud storage services. I imagine emailing them to yourself would work too. The primary reasons to keep your posts backed up would be:

1) It's possible that you might accidentally delete one of your posts; in which case, you could easily re-post it.

2) It's possible that someone on the internet might not like what you wrote in a post, and file a false-DMCA which would require Google to remove the post entirely, and you could only get it reinstated if you went through the counterclaims process (initially, no cost... but the person who false-DMCAed you would get **ALL** of your personal information... and you'd get their presumably fake information in return), and it's not like people actually get in trouble for filing false-DMCAs, despite it being a felony (accusations of false claims virtually never even investigated, much less actually pursued) *and* there being the window for a civil suit (which, the victim is unlikely to file, due to the fact they have do demonstrate abuse, and due to the fact they'd need to actually finance the suit... then basically hope that the person they're suing has some kind of assets that might actually merely pay the attorney fees of bringing such a case).

3) It's possible Google might shut Blogger down at some point in the future. It's VERY unlikely, but possible.

If you choose a particular layout, you can change it any time you want in the future.