Written by Jerry . Published on 3 Jan, 2009 . Almost everyone needs to have a blog on a unique domain, and it does have value. But do all bloggers need to have their blog on their own domain?
Many of you may say yes, but a deep analysis won’t recommend everyone to set up their blog on unique domain. This is not a shallow overview, but has some sound reasons. Let’s add some pros and cons to the discussion, so that you can figure out the best choice for you, i.e. a free blog or one at your own domain.
Is having your own hosting and domain financial wise?
Cost is the major factor differentiating both, i.e. free blog sites and own domain. The cost may not involve the monetary investment, but also time, as you’ll need to maintain the back-end of your blog in case of own domain, that’s maintained by the site admins on sites like WordPress and Blogger.
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.
Better monetization and branding 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: from affiliate sales to banner advertising and even to selling the whole website. 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. A blog URL like myblog.blogspot.com simply gives the image of an amatuer.
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 A Unique Domain For Your Blog Is A Must?
- You want to start a blog for earning.
- Your blog is on a free site and has good traffic and you want to use that traffic for better monetization.
- You want to give value to your readers by adding more and more features.
When To Rely On Free Blogging Sites?
- Monetization is not the prime concern.
- You don’t want to take the pain of back end management of your blog
- You don’t have time for the back end management.
Wrapping things up
There’s nothing wrong in having a blog on free site, but only if it’s according to your requirements. There’re famous bloggers like why some famous bloggers like Seth Godin who do not host their blog on an independent domain.
So, identify your requirements and proceed accordingly.
