Top 5 Reasons Your Blog Needs Its Own Domain

The decisions you are making right now about your blog’s name, title, theme, and platform will have an enormous impact on your blog in the months and years to come.

The first step in securing your blog’s success is to procure a unique blog URL.

To give you a better idea on what qualifies as a  unique blog URL, it is a URL not containing the blogging platform you have selected like NING, Tumbler, Blogspot (Blogger), or WordPress (.com).

Blogs that look like this: sourceblogger.wordpress.com or sourceblogger.blogspot.com are hosted free of charge – meaning no domain was purchased nor was any web hosting required.

Blogger Blogspot

WordPress and Blogger do allow bloggers to register their own blog domains both for pretty much the same price annually – a mere $10.00. Remember, this is solely for domain purposes and has nothing to do with actual web hosting.

For Blogger Blogspot users this is cool because they still are using the full functionality of the Google Blogspot template. And with a few CSS/HTML tricks like hiding the Blogger navigation bar as well as concealing the signature orange B icon in the address tab of Blogspot blogs, they can give the impression of a more professional blog.

There are many themes for Blogger online – most of them being free or requiring a minimal fee.  Some even give the appearance of a WordPress-themed blog!

But, be careful whose theme you choose. Loading times can be painfully slow once you start adding a few widgets and some content.

Although Google has come a long way in the past few months from new templates to new options, Blogger Blogspot blogs still miserably trail the technical and operating genius of WordPress blogs by a wide margin.

Read: Is Blogger Better Than WordPress?

WordPress.com and WordPress.org

Unlike the Blogger Blogspot format, with WordPress, there is a vast difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.

With WordPress.com you will not be able to advertise on your blog – including sponsored / paid posts, you will not be able to edit your WordPress PHP files, and you will not be able to utilize the vast WordPress PlugIn directory for improvements.

Note: WordPress.com has been very protective of WordPress.com blogs. The goal is to not become besieged with the typical “affiliate / make money online” blogs that run rampant through Blogger.

WordPress.org allows you full customization of your site. period. There is no limit to what you can achieve with WordPress.

Source Blogger is a proud example of a WordPress.org blog.

Top 5 Reasons Your Blog Needs Its Own Domain Name

1) Professionalism

Having your own domain name enhances your image. Everyone who comes in contact with your blog is evaluating it. If but for a moment, make them forget that this is a blog – remove the Blogspot / WordPress portion of your URL address – today!

In addition, part of your marketing and promotional efforts consists of reinforcing your attitude toward your own blog. Once you have perceived your blog as professional, your content will follow suit.

2) Longevity

As a blogger, I take a great pleasure when a reader has made the commitment to return to my site on an ongoing, recurring basis. He/she has subscribed via RSS Reader, email, or bookmarked my site. This traffic is special for many reasons. They comment more. They are my best advertising conversions. They also may decide to “guest author” or reciprocate links from their blog. Networking and creating online partnerships is a very rewarding experience.

Your own domain tells your readers that you are in it for the long haul. You won’t abandon them and you want to grow and develop your blog with them for years to come.

3) Brand Recognition

The other day I was listening to something on AM radio. The author had written an interesting article and I was determined to remember the URL. By the time I got to work, I had already forgotten. It was…a blogspot address…umm… or was it WordPress…ahh…never mind!

Being constantly bombarded by news, blogs, advertising, etc., your blog has to make a connection with a prospective reader above and beyond the mental overload. The blog you are reading now is called Source Blogger. If you did not remember anything else about my article or URL, you could easily remember Source Blogger and locate me.

You should have the same strategy here. Do you want to be SourceBlogger.com or geethisisaverylongurltoremember.blogspot.com?

4) Advertising

It will be extremely difficult for you to strategically place relevant advertising that targets your site’s traffic when those advertisers have rejected your site.

Advertisers that have partnered with a Commission Junction, LinkShare, or Pepperjam will manually be reviewing your site. Having a site with your own domain is an essential part of the acceptance process.

5) A Valuable Asset

The availability of URL’s is very limited. Once you have been fortunate enough to land a unique URL of your own, it is yours to keep and maybe sell one day. Why put off this process any longer? All you will be doing is allowing the industry to take possession of more URL inventory.

A Final Recommendation

By now you should realize the importance of your own, unique domain name. The next step is to realize the importance of choosing the right blogging platform.

Do not make the same mistake of many bloggers who spend months and years experimenting and marketing their blog with Blogger or WordPress.com only to eventually migrate over to WordPress.org later.

Please read: The Top 10 Reasons Why Source Blogger Moved To WordPress