Does Your Blog Need its Own Domain Name?
Guest article by Jerry Low.
It’s common that Bloggers have hard time choosing the options between hosting their blog on a blog platform and running it on an own domain name. Do all blogs need to be hosted on its individual hosting with a unique domain name?
It’s true that different bloggers require different features and functions on their blogging tools. Nevertheless, certain comparison key points that are commonly used for solving the dilemma stated above.
Free Hosting or Domain Hosting
Cost – A blog on third party platform is normally free; while hosting/domain renewal cost are the basic expenses for a blog on its own domain.
Maintenance – A blog on third party platform is theoretically maintenance-free; while on the other hand you need to spend extra time in maintaining a blog with its own hosting.
Flexibility – A blog running on its own domain and hosting has the privilege to be customized freely; while a Blogspot or WordPress blog has certain limitations on its outlook and functionality designs.
Branding & Monetization – Better monetization is the biggest advantage of having a blog on its own domain. Since you can customize it in any way, you can monetize it in many different and better ways. On the other hand the monetization options on free sites are either not present or are very limited especially when your URL looks long and ugly, something like: myblog.blogspot.com.
Ownership – Experts call free blogs rented houses while own domain is a real estate for them, reason being the ownership rights. On established sites like Blogger and WordPress, this may not be the issue, but on small sites, if the sites get shut down you’ll also have great chances to lose your blog.
From above few factors one can easily figure out if he should go for a unique domain for blog or not. To make it clearer let’s conclude some options out of the above discussion:
When is the right time to go with a unique domain?
- When you wish to make more money via your blog.
- When you wish to offer more to your readers with various web functions and applications.
- When you wish to further monetize the web traffic from your free blog.
- Optional, when you need the blog to convey a professional image in business.
When should you rely on a free blogging platform?
- When monetization is not the prime concern.
- When you are broke and cannot pay $5/mo for your hosting cost.
- You don’t want to take the pain of back end management of your blog.
So should your blog run on its own hosting?
Apparently there’s no one-fit-to-all answer here for our questions. There’s no big harm in having a blog on free sites (as famous bloggers like Seth Godin are hosting his blog on TypePad as well); or running it on its own hosting and domain (as hosting cost nowadays is really cheap) the choice is, after all, very dependant on your own preferences.
This guest post was submitted by Jerry Low of Web Hosting Secret Revealed. At the time of writing, he spent extremely long hours daily in testing and writing web hosting reviews. If you have some tips to share with our readers, write a guest article today.
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Actually, the answer should be a YES. Agreed you can start off on a free blog site, however, as you grow you will feed the need to move and then migrating can be a pain.
Also, an initial investment is usually worth the returns through ads as the blog gets popular.
If you’re blogging long term, it would be YES. You can use free hosted blogs to test a niche.
However, soon you’ll need to move to a self hosted platforms. Here are my thoughts if you don’t mind:
http://www.bloghology.org/Hosting-Your-Own-Domain-and-Content-Why.htm
Actually, Jerry makes a good point — it depends on the intention. If your intent is to make money through your blog though, then Ajay is right, a domain name and dedicated hosting are both a must.
I would argue that a domain name would be necessary no matter what, to build a brand and for easy access (no subdomains, please).
But, hosting really can bring along some unwanted distractions (costs, maintenance, etc) to bloggers that really just want to focus on their written work instead of the technical side to blogging.
To me it was an image thing, as well as emotional thing. It just feels better having a place to call your own. :) It hasn’t brought me money (apart from pennies a week) but it is mine and nobody can tell me what to do with it.
As for image, I do tend to respect websites with their own domain more. It kind of tells me that the person is serious or passionate about what they do.
very good write up, useful info for any one new in to blogging.
peace out