“It’s their rules not yours …that simply means they are in charge.”
It is already a wide practice as a lot of bloggers today choose to buy their own unique domain name however there are still a lot of other bloggers who choose to start their blog on a free platform.
Whatever decision you are looking at making, today’s article will help you in making a better decision as I throw some light on why most bloggers choose to buy unique domain names for their blogs. Before I proceed you may want to take out some time and get to understand the importance of a domain name.
…Below are some of the most obvious and important reasons why most bloggers buy their own unique domain names.
1) Branding, Professionalism and Credibility:
Now why it may be possible for you to brand yourself with a free blog and still become successful, having your own unique domain name has more advantage.
When you take out time to carefully select a domain name whereby you are looking at branding yourself, just like this very blog (www.francisalaeto.com – self branding) or you are simply looking at branding your business, product, service etc …Such domain names helps build the brand and credibility of such a blog faster …unlike when you do not have a unique domain, where what you get is a domain name like “yourchoicedomain.blogspot.com”.
With a unique domain name, you will enjoy the privilege of having your own unique email addresses that is personalized with your domain name (such as name@yourchoicedomain.com), which enables your blog to be perceived as a professional blog. In fact, many people see having your own domain as a sign of seriousness and this can actually be a plus for building your blog credibility and brand.
With this you can easily and effective enhance the image of your business, product, service, company or organization for a very minimal cost …less than $10 for a year.
2) Blog Rankings and Backlinks:
As you keep blogging, your blog begins to gain links from other blogs as well as recognitions …over time all these can really shoot up you rankings, such as Page Rank (PR), Alexa Rank etc …enhancing your Search Engine Rankings as well. At this point the blog is already doing great but what do you think will happen if you latter choose to get your own unique domain name?
What happens to your backlinks? …What happens to all your hard earned rankings? …How would you love to start promoting your blog afresh? …I know you do not want this kind of experience; you will rather be in control.
3) Availability:
If you see yourself registering a particular domain name anytime in the future, especially when you have “your ideal name” in mind …you may as well register it now because this is the only way to be sure you will still find it available …even if you won’t be blogging on the immediate. The more you wait, the less the chance of buying your ideal domain name.
Also, If you are looking at having the domain name you end up buying to be same with that of a free blog platform that you are already using, you might as well buy it right away.
…You can always park it or better still point it towards your free blog
Quite a lot of people has discovered that when they were ready to start out with a “paid blog” …they just couldn’t find the name they were already using with their free platform especially when they had it at the back of their mind to latter register and use the same name but this time not as a subdomain – taken away the “.blogspot.com”
I can’t actually tell, but with millions of websites/blogs already exiting and more been created on a daily basic. You can never be sure you will find the name you have in mind, so it’s always advisable to secure a domain name, once a choice is made.
...You don’t want to be ready only to discover that your ideal domain name has been taken.
4) Domain ownership:
Personally, I see domain registration as the beginning of website/blog ownership. You own that name and no one can take that from you. This is the real reasons I prefer owning my domains names instead of having it as a mere subdomain (yourchoicedomain.blogspot.com).
Many bloggers also tend to agree with this as they see domain ownership as “VRE” – Virtual Real Estate. Though with free blog platforms like Wordpress and Blogger you may still be able to get and do (to some extend) what someone with its own domain can do since their platforms are quite established.
But with other new and smaller platforms, you may wake up one day and discover that your blog is no more just because the platform has been shut down or perhaps they just made an adjustment to their policy.
Another reason worth mentioning is the easy and convenience that comes with moving your domain. By this I mean …if for any reason, you decides to change host, due to a need for some kind of advanced hosting, you can actually do so without having any problem with your formal blog host.
Apart from having your blog completely on a free platform, there have been cases where you get a free domain name from a hosting service provider that you have an account with and when you are looking at moving it latter …they find it difficult to let you have the name.
…If this happens you will have to get a new domain name and start promoting your new blog all over again, even if this is no problem for you what do you think will happen to all the backlinks and rankings, you would definitely loss that and you do not want this kind of experience …you want to be in control.
When you are in “Control”, you will be free from all the limitations that comes with the free blogs and free domain names …Yes, “Control” that the watch word for having your own unique domain name, you can change hosts at any time …keep all you backlinks and rankings and still have your subscribes and visitor coming back to your site by simply typing in your domain name.
Bonus
One more thing to add to the above reasons is the fact that you can always use custom error pages/messages to direct and prevent your blog visitors from leaving your blog in case of broken links and any other error that may arise.
Finally, I need you to know that I am not disputing the use a free blog or getting a free domain name from your host.
However, if you put into consideration the above few points, especially the fact that your domain name and/or blog is totally not in your control …you may as well invest a few dollars to buy a domain name. It’s basically less than $10.
No matter how nice it can be to get something completely for free, I personally think getting more of that same thing for little a price is not a bad ideal at all.
…These are just my opinions and recommendations.
Tags: blogging tips, buy domain name, Domain name