I created a blog on Blogger and then realized that having a custom domain can do wonders, I felt comfortable with Blogger as I feel its meant for the young students who can't afford WordPress (blogging platform) hosting costs. BloggingeHow.com is now registered with Dynadot (the best domain host). All the posts are hosted by Namecheap shared hosting.
You can use Blogger.com for a starting point. As always, Google's services are quite generous towards its users. Free hosting is one of the best factors that make Blogger over shines WordPress. I had couple of small blogs on WordPress.com, i.e is a free web hosting services.
Should I Buy a Custom Domain Name?
The problem was the unprofessional domain name (xyz.wordpress.com) that hanged out with the blog. Also, WordPress.com was like the handy caped version of WordPress.org (the real WordPress you may say).
So I finally stuck with Blogger.com and bought a custom domain due to the following solid reasons. I regret I should have done that early.
1- A Professional Touch
Simply apply it to your self. How do you take a blogspot.com or any other sub domain hosted blog? Not seriously right?
That's natural. This is due to the mighty graveyard of the dead blogspot.com blogs laying all around the world wide web. People often get inspired with the "Money" factor of blogs/websites and they tend to build one for them selves within seconds.
It hardly takes a few seconds to build a new blogspot.com blog. The problem arises when they realize that posting frequently, which is the key to the success of a blog, is a big pain. They might through out 2-4 post but after that, all the air is blown out.
So it was important for me to get a custom domain as the blogspot.com domains were so badly reputed due to all these "left over" blogs on the net space.
2- I Got it for 9.3$ Approx
Update: Much Affordable Now! Note that you can now even get it for as low as 0.99$ from Godaddy. I explained the process in the bonus episode I embedded above.
This is the point.
How could someone not get a custom domain, that costs only and only around 10$ per year. Once you get to know the advantages of branding your blog with a custom domain, you can't resist to get one for your self too.
There are many domain registrars, where you can register your domain instantly. I went for a local one just because i didn't had the facility of credit card. So it was far easy for me to grab one from a local host.
If you are student and can't get one online, you should get one from a local one. That's equally good. You just need a custom domain name.
3- Less Than 1 Days To Setup
I will explain how to get a custom domain name in my coming posts so that it gets easy for you to understand the whole procedure. Just so that you know, you can set it all within 1 day! That is 1 day after you register your domain with the domain host.
All the DNS (domain name system) and redirecting your old blogspot.com blog within 1 day. How could someone not shift to a custom domain; I wonder.
4- Increased My Traffic By 10%
That actually amazed me. The day Bloggingehow.com was up, it received around 10% more traffic than before. Custom domain is taken far more seriously by people and they often tend to land on a custom domain, then a sub domain blog.
I often land on custom domains from search engine results, and when i check their standings, they are merely of any worth. Literally that's how huge a custom domain can play.
Even if your blog has less to offer, people land on it just by watching the custom domain.
The following AskHassam episode talks about how to increase your YouTube video views. Many of these strategies are relevant to a blog post too. I hope that helps you out too.
5- 30 Twitter Subscribers The Very Day
BloggingeHow is rising fast in Twitter world. Just a few days back we setup this little blog on Twitter and its 130+ followers already. The custom domain played a huge role in social media exposure.
I wonder how 30 of those kind people found BloggingeHow, on the very day. *Cheers* Again this couldn't have been possible without you guys.
6- More Bookmarks Rewards For Custom Domain
Custom domains often get more bookmarks then an ordinary free sub domain. As i mentioned before people take custom domains far more seriously, and love them to share with their friends and family proudly.
Though the content determines the bookmarks more, but a custom domains plays the finishing role, i would say. If a persons likes a particular blog and wants to bookmark, a custom domain name pushes him towards the bookmark button.
7- Fewer Back Links For Subdomains
Subdomains get a lower page rank normally due to the lower number of "quality" backlinks on their support. High quality blogs don't like to connect with the subdomains blogs. Do you think Darren from Problogger would like to promote a blogspot.com domain?
8- Hosting Is Free With Blogger-100% Uptime
As i mentioned before, Google services are quite generous. They have given the free hosting facility to their users with 100% up time. Yes you heard it right.
According to one study by pingdot.com, Blogger had 0.0 hours of down time which made it first among the leading free Blogging platforms, WordPress being second with 0.1 hour down time. So with such a great platform with free hosting, what more can you ask?
9- Popular Advertisement Services Say No To Subdomains
Yes its true. Many of the popular advertisement services doesn't accept free sub domains. Even Adsense is not allowed on free sub domains apart from Google's own blogspot.com.
Other popular services like 'Buy Sell Ads' doesn't allow free sub domains. That means you might be loosing the major portion of your blog's potential revenue. Some blogs doesn't have high CTR for Adsense so they turn over to 'Buy Sell Ads'. And if you got a sub domain, they would return you from the door step.
10- You Will Get Back Your Valuable Page Rank
Many webmasters experiences the fall of the sudden page rank after they shift over to their custom domains. Its because the new domain is just like a new blog for search engines in starting. But when the blog is crawled again before the next page rank update, you get your page rank back.
That's discourages for some time but now when people know the deal, its not much of a problem.
So sit back and chill out.
11- Advertisers Doesn't take Subdomains Seriously
Some people like to attract advertisers through their 'Advertise Page'. As we discussed before, free domains don't get attention by popular revenue generating services so the free domain users often move to direct advertisement.
Most of them fail. As advertisers look for a quality blog with huge traffic and they know that most of the free subdomain holders have very few readers.
12- It Feels Great To Be The Part Of Branded Blogs
Yeah indeed its a great feeling and having a custom domain will surely stand you with other professional bloggers.
Are You Still Reading This post? Go Get Your Custom Domain!
What do you think? Will you buy a custom domain for your blog? Do you really care? Hurry up before all the domain names exhaust.