3 Reasons To Use Your Own Domain When You Start a Blog

There’s many benefits of starting your own blog.

Starting your own site and writing posts can be a highly effective way to:

• Market your business
• Build your brand
• Promote your products & services online for free.

There’s basically 2 ways to do this:

Create a free account with one of the most popular blogging platforms.

or

Start your own website using a unique domain which you own & control.

Let’s take a look at why you should be using your own domain rather than extension of someone else’s.

Your Own Email Address

Many small business owners i speak to want to get their own email address.

Rather than use a free email address like yourbusinessname@gmail or hotmail, an email address like you@yourdomain.com is a lot more professional.

Promote and build your own business brand which should also be included in your domain name rather then Google or Microsoft’s email.

Branding

If you’ve already created a business name and registered it or started a company, its more professional to create a website address which is the same.

Owning a unique website address like yourbrand.com is far more unique than yourbusiness.blogger.com or yourbrand.wordpress.com.

eCommerce Security

Using an extension of someone else’s domain on a free hosted website or blog thats hosted on someone’s server doesn’t allow you to access thier server.

For this reason, you cannot use an SSL certificate which is generally required if you want to install an eCommerce platform on your server.

When your own your domain, you also control it which means you can add a SSL certificate.

You’re site visitors will be more inclined to hand over their credit card details if they see a padlock in the address bar as it assures them the connection is secure and safe to do so.

Using Your Own Domain On a Free Hosted Platform

Free hosted blogging platforms like WordPress.com do allow you to use your own domain on their platform. However, you cannot customize your files styling code or create custom functions because they don’t allow you access to their server.

You can purchase a package from them which enables you to do this.

Domain Authority

This is the trust and credibility you build with search engines over time.

The older your domain, the more trust and authority you get from Google. This means your web pages have a better chance of ranking higher in the search engine results.

If you’re using a web platform and an extension of someone else’s domain, you’re building links and rank for them.

Choosing a Domain Name

The first step when starting your own blog is to choose a domain name.

The basics of choosing the right domain is to keep it as short as possible and include both a word which reflects on your brand and a keyword which covers the overall topic of your sites content.

More Tips

If you’re already decided to start your own self hosted website and/or blog on your own domain, here’s some important tips to help beginners avoid common mistakes.