You must be using free blogging sites to achieve your desired online goals. Whether you are a new blogger or an experienced one, hosting content to free platforms seems the most reasonable move. After all, it keeps all the technical hassles at bay and at the same time supports you to establish expertise in the profitable niche market.
However, to establish a serious business online, you must have complete ownership to host your blog. While ‘free’ in itself is a magnetizing word, there are numerous cost-effective hosting sites that can help you host your website at nominal prices. So, if you want to know some key reasons why you must host your WordPress blog on your own domain and get rid of the alluring free options then check them below!
Why Hosting a WordPress Blog on Your Own Domain is Essential?
- Blog for Self-Branding
Be it a social purpose or a business purpose, if you are blogging then it must be related to self-branding. The sad thing is free hosting platforms house millions of users. This makes it difficult to stand out from the crowd. No matter how much valuable content you create and how presentable your blog is, the truth is that it is the hosting platform getting all recognition and promotion, and not you.
Having your own brand domain name would make you appear more professional and mature. It would be your direct name and address to the audience and hence would promote self-branding.
- Retain Your Traffic and Established Google Rankings Even While Making Changes
Free platforms offer you partial control over your blog. Though your content might gain appreciation and recognition, the real owners are those owing the hosting platforms. Moreover, if you shift to another free platform, you might lose your audience and even online rankings.
The situation is completely different while hosting a WordPress blog on your own domain. Whether you switch hosting providers, web designers, or make other changes to your blog, no one will ask questions. All you will have is complete control over your blog without affecting the existing traffic and Google rankings.
- Hosting Blog on Your Domain Name is Inexpensive
If you are in the perception that hosting a blog on your domain can reap high costs, then let me tell you, this is not the case. In fact, hosting your own blog can be extremely economical.
You can download high-quality but not free blogging software and purchase a domain name to get things done. The maximum you would be spending is around 10 – 15$ a month.
I hope all such good reasons have convinced you to host your own blog. If yes, then WordPress blog software is the best available option. It is already tested and tried platform by millions across the world.
You can always outsource reputed custom WordPress Developers to do the remaining job for you. But if you want to get into this stuff, check the steps to set up your self-hosted WordPress blog.
How to Set Up a WordPress Blog on Your own Domain?
- Get Good Domain Name Registration
Domain name is of utmost importance as it is directly linked to your business brand. A catchy yet simple domain name is easy to remember by the users. The domain name must be free from numbers and other domain hacks.
If a domain name is meaningful then also it is easy to remember. Make sure you strike a perfect balance between attractiveness, meaningfulness, and relevancy.
- Get Web Hosting for the Blog
Your domain name is like the phone number of your site that is permanent. But you can host it on any server. The domain name can be used to any computer and web server online.
Your web server stores your website files and also has a unique IP address. Even your own computer can be used to host the website and point the domain name to the IP address of the computer. But in this case, the computer must be on and connected to the internet for 24 x 7, which is a rare possibility.
Hence, you can buy a hosting server that would first send you a welcome email and name server. You need to enter such name servers in domain name settings so that your domain name and web server are connected to each other.
- Install WordPress CMS
The next step is to install WordPress. You can install WordPress automatically or manually. Manual installation is better and more secure.
Installing WordPress involves two parts. First are files and second is a database. Most of the hosting companies offer an interface known as cPanel, which is a graphical user interface to use the hosting account. The cPanel password, username, and login URL are offered by the hosting company. As soon as login into the cPanel, you will find MySQL database. Clicking on it will take you to create a new database.
Now you need to create a user for the database and once your database user is ready to use, it is time to install WordPress.
- Select a Design Theme
Once you login to the WordPress dashboard then you will find numerous WordPress themes that can be installed for free. You can select free themes or buy premium themes to avail customization and uniqueness of your blog.
- Install Important Plugins
WordPress comes with numerous premium and free plugins. You can install essential plugins on your blog to avail necessary enhancements, like Facebook commenting, social sharing of your post, post related plugins, advertisement page, and contact form plugin.
- Consider Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools
Your blog setup would complete only when you set up Google Analytics and configure Google Webmaster tools. These tools will help you know who visits your websites, their location, the pages they visit, and duration they were in their domain.
Conclusion
I hope this blog post helps you know the significance to host a WordPress blog on your own domain and the correct way to do this. If you have any questions then do let me know through your comments.
Author Bio –
Sunny Chawla is a Marketing Manager at AIS Technolabs. Web-design and Development Company, helping global businesses to grow in the online market. He would love to share thoughts on WordPress Development, Android Web Development, Digital marketing etc..