The subject says it all. It is very important for you to use your own domain name with your blog instead of using one that you get with some free blog services such as Blogger, TypePad, WordPress and other less popular platforms.
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.
