Most articles are really interesting, and full of artful pictures. My favorite stories are the ones that talk about how authors started their blogs and what inspired them, the tools they’re using, and more. I’m into that kind of thing if you haven’t already noticed However, there’s one thing that makes me cringe! If you look at the URL’s those bloggers are using you’ll notice that 98% of them are something.blogspot.com or something.typepad.com or something.wordpress.com — Ouch. I can understand why some blog owners want to save money and use free (or really cheap) blog platforms such as WordPress.com and Blogger.com, but why on earth would you not use your own domain name with your blog?!

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again. First of all it’s not professional to use something.freeblogplatform.com; it is more difficult to remember; you are promoting someone else by mentioning their free service every single time you tell someone about your blog, and you are telling others that you’re using a free blog platform which tells me you are not as serious about your blog; and most importantly — you’re stuck using that platform. That’s right. If you ever decide to switch to a different service, you’re stuck using that free service because it’s not your domain name and you can’t take it with you should you ever decide to move your blog somewhere else. If the free service you are using decides to close its doors — say “good bye” to your blog.

The solution is simple, cheap, and 100% effective — invest $10 and buy your own domain name! Then map your domain name to your blog and start promoting your name instead of me.someone.com. Now you are fully independent from your free blog provider. You can use any service you wish; you can grow your blog without worrying about the stability of the free service you’re on; you can just pickup and go wherever your heart desires; it makes you look professional, and easy for others to remember the address of your blog.

I will explain why it’s important. Let’s assume for a moment that you decided to start a blog, and instead of going the “right” way from beginning and using your own domain name on your own blog hosting account, you decided to use a free blogging service such as wordpress.com or blogger.com. Your new blog address is you.wordpress.com or you.blogspot.com

One year forward. Your blog is all over Google and other search engines. Your blog is getting thousands of visitors per month. You decided to quit your full time job and run your blog full time because you are now making a living off your blog by running Google AdSense.

Everything is great, right? Well, not really. Let me throw a couple of what if’s:

1. What if wordpress.com or blogspot.com decided to shut their business, or change their domain name? In an instant you can lose all your traffic that you’ve generated over the years, because you don’t have control over the domain name you were given with the free blog platform. Time to go back and look for a full time job again.

2. What if you decided to switch to a different platform like Movable Type, or decided to get your own blog hosting account for one reason or another (i.e. to get more control and really grow your blog) – now you have to change your blog address because you can no longer use you.wordpress.com or you.blogspot.com, and all the links and blog traffic you’ve built over the years can be lost.

I can go on and on with reasons why you should invest $10/year to get your own domain name, and link it to your blog from the very beginning to avoid having issues I mentioned above, and then some.

If you are using a free service such as Blogger, TypePad or WordPress and don’t have your own domain name yet – feel free to contact us for assistance and we’ll help you get a domain name and map it to your free blog hosting account before it’s too late.