To Host, Or Not To Host

Posted by Cenay Nailor in FAQ, Techniques | no responses

I get this question a lot, so I thought I would jot down my feelings on the matter, and let you decide for yourself. Of course, we are talking about blogging, the new national pasttime.

There are free hosted options like Blogger.com and Wordpress.com that make getting started almost painless. In fact, I started on Blogger.com. My first How To video was on creating your Blogger.com blog . I went on to create more than 5 blogs on that *platform*.

It wasn’t until I had been blogging for a while and my skills were improving that I realized my blogging desires were exceeding my blogging software (platform) .

Since I had a bit of a readership going, moving to a new platform seemed a good idea at the time. I painstakingly moved each of the posts I had created to the new platform. And then started extending what my blog could do. Within a couple of weeks, I was pushing the envelope again.

At least I thought I was.

Truth was, I hadn’t begun to really tap into the power of Wordpress. What an amazing piece of software that is!

And, by hosting it myself on my own domain, I owned it. No one could tell me what I could and couldn’t do on it. And when I needed the blog to automate some portion of it’s function, I just added a plugin. (For those of you new to blogging, a plugin is a small application that works within Wordpress, to add new features that aren’t built into the blogging software).

I believe there are something like 1384 plugins available for Wordpress as of the end of 2007. I won’t even guess at the number of plugins available now. Let’s just say, it’s a lot .

There are probably more reasons than what I am listing here, and if you think of others, I would love to hear them so drop a comment on this post.

To Host, Or Not To Host

Hosting it yourself, you get a more professional appearance since you choose the domain name . Free hosted sites add a suffix to your blog name. www.MLMSurvivalGuide.com is easier to remember than www.MLMSurvialGuide.Wordpress.com, don’t you think?
Hosting it yourself, you aren’t limited to a type or number of advertising methods. Funding your blogging hobby definitely beats doing it for nothing.
Hosting it yourself, you can add additional elements to your *site*, like forums or discussion groups
Hosting it yourself, you can re-purpose your domain to include capture pages, sales pages, .
Hosting it yourself, you can choose whether or not to upgrade to the *latest version*. Sometime, being on the bleeding edge of things isn’t a good thing.
Hosting it yourself, you have complete control. And for us *Control-Freaks*, that’s a great thing.

I bet you can guess which direction I chose.

Now, getting a hosting account and buying a domain may seem hard, but seriously, it’s pretty easy. And though I have used a number of different hosting companies over the years, the one I am on now has proven time and again just how helpful they can be.

The control panel is clear and easy to understand. It’s even well organized.

They have a 24/7 live chat feature so if it’s 2am and you run into a problem or have a question, there is a real live person ready to help.

I particulary love the unlimited domains, unlimited storage space and unlimited bandwidth you get with your hosting account. So, whether you have one blog, or 100… it’s just one price.

So, if you are getting ready to start your first or fiftyth blog, considering hosting it yourself . It’s a decision you will look back on with pride. And check out the company I use and have loved for more than 3 years now. IX Web Hosting *rocks* in my book.