Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Free Blogs Vs Self-Hosted Blogs - Why You Should Own Your Blog== By Elisabeth Kuhn Platinum Quality Author

There are a number of sites out there that allow you to set up a blog or some other web presence. That's great and it can be very useful too. But read on about why you need a self-hosted blog as your main blog.
You may have invested some time and energy already into setting up a blogger blog. Or maybe you have one hosted by WordPress. Keep them.
But also set up your own blog -- with your own domain name and on your own hosting account. There are several reasons for that.
1) It's not really yours
It's not really your own blog. Just read their terms of service and you'll get the idea.
If they don't like what you do, they can take it away overnight and you will never know until you go there and you can't find it anymore. So that's why it's not a good idea to use that as a main blog. But it doesn't hurt to have one as a supplementary blog.
2) There are "rules"
You're subject to many more restrictions than if you had your own blog. Essentially, if you have your own blog, you can pretty much do whatever you want. But if you're on a blogger blog... oh well.
They don't like to be used for sending traffic to your "real" blog. And they don't want to be used for sending traffic to a sales letter either. They don't like to be too commercialized.
That's unfortunate because that's what many people use them for.
So if they catch on to what you're up to, it's bye-bye, blog!
3) Little flexibility
There's little flexibility in terms of themes and plug ins. While the options are practically limitless with a self-hosted WordPress blog, the free ones have just a few themes to choose from, and when it comes to plug-ins... oh well.
But the biggest problem is that you don't really own them. And in order for a website to really get serious clout on Google, you need lots of content. And when you invest a lot of time and energy (or money) in creating that content, you want to make sure it'll be around for you to benefit from.
At least that's what I would want. Wouldn't you?
So is there a place for Blogger blogs and free WordPress blogs? Sure. Just never forget what's what, and be sure to set up a self-hosted blog as your main business blog. You can use all the free blogs you want as supplements, or for fun.
How would you like to win a business blog that's ready made for you? Click on the link and enter the Win a Business Blog contest! Just for entering the contest, you'll also get a special report on how a blog for business can help your bottom line.
For more information, click here: http://www.RichmondWebMarketing.com
Elisabeth Kuhn - EzineArticles Expert Author

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