7 IMPORTANT REASONS WHY YOUR BLOG SHOULD BE SELF-HOSTED

IMPORTANT REASONS WHY YOUR BLOG SHOULD BE SELF-HOSTED.

It feels super amazing to wake up one morning and create a blog free of charge. As time goes on however, it somehow becomes imperative to own your own space paid for with your own money, it’s a sign of growth, of progress and most importantly that you value what you are doing enough to want to invest in it.

Some bloggers however don’t see the need to transition their blogs from free to self-hosted. and some who do, have worries on whether they will lose all the time and hard work put into their free sites. While some others have no idea on how to go about moving from WordPress.com to WordPress.org at all.

Hence at the request of my dear friend Tunji of therantoftherockdweller.wordpress.com, I am writing a three-part series on moving your blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org. The first of which is this post on 7 important reasons why your blog should be self-hosted.

After which, I will debunk your fears/common myths on moving from WordPress.com to WordPress.org such as losing your WordPress followers or blog contents by showing you how to prevent such from happening and finally, show you how to move your blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org alongside with my personal recommendations on affordable and reliable web domain and hosting providers you can use when moving your site.

Did I just hear you say wow, complete package?

Yes! That’s the exact reaction I expected and to ensure you never miss out of the action, it’s best you subscribe to my blog to get instantaneous notifications when these posts come up.

Also, my blog clocks 1 Year in a month and my giveaways are exclusive to my blog subscribers. So, subscribe by using the subscription box after this post or on my side bar. Now to the post of today, 7 important reasons why your blog should be self-hosted. Let’s get down to it.

Some terms you will come in contact with through out this post includes

WordPress.com – a free WordPress blog.

WordPress.org – a self hosted WordPress blog

Self-hosted blog – a paid blog.

1. For Appearance Sake

Free sites like WordPress.com come with free themes but they are limited and I dare say some are not very responsive but with a WordPress.org site you get access to tons of professional looking themes to help improve the appearance of your blog. Also having a WordPress.org site makes your blog URL shorter and easier to remember. I get easily turn off with extremely long and difficult URL eg sunshineeandrainbowsinthebluesky.wordpress.com, c’mon that’s just too much. The time I will spend typing only your blog URL will just turn me off and I am sure I am not the only one. Which is why going self-hosted is great because it takes away some of the unnecessary length from your blog URL. WordPress.org boasts of over 30,000+ free themes that are pretty functional and customizable. Here are some of my best picked WordPress themes for bloggers.

2. For The Love Of Plugins

Plugins just like it name say are components which add a specific feature to a program. With a WordPress.org site you get access to several plugins ranging from customization plugins to security plugins, comment plugins, contact plugins, optimization plugins etc. I can’t begin to say how amazing plugins are, especially if you are new to the blogging world of if you have no knowledge of codes and web designing.

The right plugin will take away unnecessary tinkering around your site and several sleepless nights. I remember when I had broken links scattered all over my blog, I spent several nights trying to manually rectify this problem and at the end I achieved nothing until I researched and found a plugin that fixed all my 404 error issues with just one click. You can also add a Shop to your blog using e-commerce plugins like woocommerce. The possibilities plugin bring to your blog are endless and this is one reason your blog should be self-hosted.

3. Building An Online Brand

Yes, you read right! Anyway, I know you are probably wondering how being self hosted helps in building your online brand. On a free site you can start building your online Brand and eventually anyway you move,  you lose most of it.  Your well-known blog URL and all.  However if you hasten the move from WordPress.com to WordPress.org, you can start working on things like your blog’s domain and page authority, your search rankings and of course fostering a better relationship with your readers and been rest assure that you won’t lose them one day because you changed your blog URL. Also when you are self-hosted, you own your domain name all to yourself and it’s a brand that’s all yours. Also, some brands actually underrate WordPress sites and prefer to work with self hosted sites.

4. For Monetization Sake

This is pretty self-explanatory. On a free WordPress site you cannot monetize your blog.  You can’t place affiliate banners or really use affiliate links but you are free to do as you please on a self hosted site. So why stay on WordPress.com and have all sort of adverts pop up on your space when you can go self-hosted, choose the ads you want to show and be the one to make money from the ads and not WordPress.

5. To Enable You Grow An Email List

Your mailing list is all yours to do as you please with and WordPress.com doesn’t provide this for you.  The best you get is a jet pack subscription package and they don’t give you total control and by that I mean,  the ability to send newsletters, sell a product or service or drive traffic to your blog from your email list. Having an email list is a very effective way of retaining your readers and it isn’t all rosy because who wants to part with their email address and sign up for daily,  weekly or monthly newsletters. So it’s best you start building your email list using plugins like mailchimp or mailerlite.

6. To Gain More Insight On Your Blog And It’s Readers.

On a self-hosted site you can use Analytics options like Google Analytics to constantly get information on the back-end of your blog.  Know the age of the people who visit, how long they spend,  the countries you get most of your readers from etc. With search console, you get information on keywords you are ranking for and the positions you are ranking for and so many more insights To Help you grow your blog easier and faster.

7. Just Because You Need To Spend Your Money On What You Love.

This might not be an important reason enough for you but it is for me.  I think anyone who is deeply passionate about what they do will want to improve and get better. It’s fine to start on a free site, it’s fine to remain there because you have doubts and fear starting up all over again but it’s never okay to let all those deter you from developing your blog brand.  If you belong to the clan of people who say they are too broke to go self-hosted then I am sure you don’t know that with as low as 10,000 Naira you can comfortably own your own self-hosted blog.

What are your fears/reasons for remaining on WordPress.com?

Please share with me so I can treat and proffer solutions to them in my next post.

If you moved from WordPress.com to WordPress.org,

what are the challenges you are facing?

Any other questions or contributions are welcomed