Happy (what day is it again??) friends!
I’m continuing my blogging tips series with a pretty quick chat about free vs. paid hosting. In other words, should you do blogger/wordpress.com or should you shell out for a self hosted site?
Honestly?
I’d skip paid hosting for a good long while… at least until your blog revenue is enough to pay for ALL of the expenses that come with self hosting.
Personally, I did Blogger for only 4 months before switching to a self hosted site through GoDaddy… but I didn’t do it well. I found some random website that offered to set it up for a really low price, and they DID but the setup was done poorly and it wasn’t targeted to what I needed so I was constantly having issues with my site being down and technical problems.
So lesson learned? Wait until you have the cash to set it up right. And there are a a handful of add-ons that you’ll need to consider and be able to pay for such as:
- WordPress hosting. I don’t know how other hosts work, but GoDaddy has a managed wordpress option that is GREAT because they keep everything up to date and do all of the maintenance for you.
- SSL Certificate – you’ll need this because if you don’t have an SSL Certificate on your site Google will “blacklist” your blog and not prioritize it in search engines.
- Website Security – an absolute must! It’s pretty self explanatory, but don’t skip it otherwise you’ll be putting all your hard work at risk!
And a couple of optional things:
- Search Engine Optimization – not an essential, but it’s definitely a good thing to have because it does all of the work for you!
- E-mail – so you can have a professional, personal e-mail
So my advice is to stick with a free site until you are positive that you want to be blogging long term, and you have enough revenue to pay for it.
Okay that’s all I’ve got for you guys today! Next month we’ll be doing a deep dive into SEO and how to leverage it effectively so make sure to subscribe to my e-mail list so you don’t miss it!
Until next time,
Karin
