Free Hosted Blog or Paid Hosting and Domain?

This is a common question by everyone who wants to make money online . Almost everyone asks me whether they should start their blog on a free service like blogger, wordpress etc. or they should spend some money in buying hosting and a domain. My answer to this will always be the same regardless of who the person is. The answer is to straight away spend some money, buy a domain and hosting to start a blog or a website. There are reasons why I say this.

• When we spend some money, we tend to be more serious with it. Spending some money and starting a website or a blog automatically brings in that seriousness and attention towards the work. Your monthly hosting bill will drive you to work more on your blog and earn more money.

• People look at you like a serious blogger or business man when you have your own domain name. Having your own domain and hosting space makes you look professional. This helps you in getting more regular visitors, clients and business.
• Having a good domain name makes it easy for people to remember you and your blog/website name which makes them come back again and again.
• The biggest problem is shifting the site from one place to another. At some point you may think of moving your free blog to a paid one with your own space and domain. This process might not be easy. You might lose lot of visitors during this process or the entire shifting might not be possible.
• Keeping your things with others is always a risk. I have seen people do good with free hosts and some morning when they get up they see that their blog is gone. People get banned due to various reasons. No data is backed up and you lose everything. Don't let this happen to you. Every blog post has some efforts in it and losing all of it is a big pain.
• Having an email address with a proper domain or business name always creates a good impression. You don't want to visit a client and give them your Gmail or Yahoo email address. People expect you to have a proper website with a business email when you are in a business.

There are many more reasons to have your own web space and domain name and the ones above are most critical. This does not mean you should not make blogs on blogger, wordpress etc. You should make them if you want to have nice backlinks and share content but your main blog or website should be your domain and your web space.