So you want to start blogging, right? You want to get started quickly and easily, right? So you should use something like blogspot or blogger, right? WRONG! When starting a serious blog (especially one where you’re looking to make money) you should always get your own domain name and web hosting. And here’s why…
- People Will Take You Seriously
What looks more professional; www.catblog.com or http://catblog.blogspot.com ? Some of my non-tech friends can’t even understand the concept of a sub domain let along remember one or go to one. Dub-dub-dub-dot-something? I think everyone’s mastered this concept by now - plus people like advertisers will take you seriously. - More Features & Plugins
Want to add an extra feature to your blog? Maybe some affiliate tracking? Or maybe do something like add a forum to your site? Sorry buddy, can’t do that with a free blogging service! Granted, many people won’t need these things, but sooner or later any serious blogger will find themselves needing this type of thing. - Easier To Remember
Simply put, a shorter domain name (URL) such as www.something.com is easier to remember than a longer one, such as http://something.blogger.com. On top of that, something.blogger.com is probably taken, so you’ll be stuck with supersomething.blogger.com or somethingblog.blogger.com. - You’ll Eventually Need (Or You Might As Well Not Even Try)
If you ever have any type of serious success, you will need your own domain and web host. You’ll need extra services to collect stats, add features, add extra storage space or bandwidth and more. But if you start out on some free service, you’re now gonna have to worry about… - Backlinks
So you’ve had your blog up for a good six months. Things started off slow but now you’re picking up steam and earning a name for yourself! In the last 3 months you’ve got a bunch of back links from a competition you ran and you’re even started to earn some money from ads. Now you decide to move your cat blog from bobscatblog.blogger.com to www.bobscats.com. Whoo!But Wait.
All those back links don’t link to www.bobscats.com, they link to bobscatblog.blogger.com. Oh no! All that hard work is gone to waste.
There you go! Hope you head my words and get your own domain and hosting and save yourself the hassle!
Hey old guy from Australia. Great post.
Another stupidity of most bloggers is using long URL. For example, instead of using http://www.johncow.com they use http://www.johncow.com/blog or http://www.johncow.com/wordpress. Maybe they don’t know how to install Wordpress in the main directory. This is the information era, there are many resources out there. Having this kind of URL is bad for branding.
Having your own domain is a pre-requisite for a “make money online” blogs like yours but some niche or personal blog with original content may prefer to use free services. For example some blogspot blogs and Wordpress.com blog are more famous or have more unique hits than your pathetic blog. Try a look at this blog http://delfindjmontano.blogspot.com/ , http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ or this one http://99zeros.blogspot.com/ , it got more mainstream media coverage than your make money online blog which relay on Entrecard.com for traffic.
Blogs using blogspot or Wordpress.com that are voted and reviewed on Time.com Top 100 blogs:
a) http://www.indexed.blogspot.com/ got to Time.com to verify: http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1725323_1725329_1725409,00.html
b) http://2ohreally.wordpress.com/ got to Time.com to verify: http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1725323_1725329_1725356,00.html
c) http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/ got to Time.com to verify: http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1725323_1725329_1725358,00.html
If you don’t read TIME magazine. Then, this will be your first time.
Don’t discriminate this kind of blogs on the same way that you won’t like to be discriminated because you are a black American, stupid Australian, Asian, Arab, Hispanics or a high-school graduate jobless Romanian illegal immigrant. If you do this you are guilty of online bigotry. It is stereotyping.
There are many other well written blogs out there using sub-domain and free services. Don’t say my blog is better than yours because I’m using a top-level domain or I host my blog in my own dedicated server colocated with a prestigious data center. Instead you must say: My blog is better than yours because it was featured as a “Must-Read” money blog in the October 2008 issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, “blog of the week” by BusinessWeek or cited by the CNN for this so and so insider information.
If you really want to show how sophisticated you are then use Joomla or hire a web programmer to create your own CMS or blogging platform. Rent a dedicated server or buy your own webhosting company.
The internet is about the democratization of information. This means people should have the access to information and can easily publish their ideas. How about the people in developing countries with no credit cards but want to tell their stories or their oppressions? Are you going to deny their rights to self-expression? Because they have no domain, they have no credibility. STUPID!
Another worth reading blogspot blog. http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/
Like all other human endeavor, there are always garbage and the worthy. Generalization is a sign of a weak mind.
Your site is not even original. Just another make money online blog. Wanna be John Chow or Darren Rowse? Chris Garret? or Jeremy Schoemaker is better? Get a real job.
Before I forget… regarding your points.
1) People Will Take You Seriously… people like advertisers will take you seriously.
AND THEN YOU ARE STATING:
Backlinks… you’re picking up steam and earning a name for yourself! In the last 3 months you’ve got a bunch of back links from a competition you ran and you’re even started to earn some money from ads.
Contradicting arguments. Did you even studied Logic 101? Go back to school sweetie and finish your studies.
2.) Easy to remember…. can you memorize all the blogs using their domain on Technorati. In the age of information revolution, you cannot remember all the vast amount of information out there, the millions of blogs. What is important is the ability to identify what information you need and how to get it. That is why we have Google. That is why you bookmark a site using your browser.
Ummm This is getting to long … I hope I did not cause the greatest possible offense to people with the smallest of minds. ;-)
POST THIS. I hope you won’t delete this. If you do… that’s the sign that I just hit the right button. Just an exchange of ideas. :-) Thanks! Osh!
Thank you for posting this, I completely agree - on all points. By the way, welcome to Entrecard! And I like what you did with the Illacrimo theme, couldn’t even tell until I saw the footer.