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Maybe you created your website with Wix or SquareSpace just to get some presence on the internet. Girl, you’ve just made a rookie blogging mistake! Keep reading to learn why I recommend self-hosting WordPress for beginner bloggers.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”4002″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Every serious blogger I know that start off building their blogs with commercial websites like Wix, Weebly, SquareSpace, Blogger or even WordPress.com has come to regret it. I’m not referring to hobbyists — folks who blog just for fun, but not with the intent to make money blogging. I’ve only been using WordPress for about 4 years, but let me tell you, not self-hosting WordPress from the start is one of the biggest blogging regrets I have.
5 reasons why beginner bloggers need to be using self-hosted WordPress to run their blogs
- Control – When you self-host your blog, you own your content – Have you heard of people being thrown in Twitter jail or Facebook deleting people’s content from their platforms? They can do that because they own your content, all your engagement — including comments, likes and your followers. Trust me, you want to build a following on your own platform. Imagine you’ve built a six figure blog on Wix with over 200,000 page visitors a day and one day you get an email that says you’ve violated terms of agreement and your blog is shut down. What would happen to your business? Of course, if you’re smart, you already have an email list to keep in touch and track your buyers. If you start of with self-hosting WordPress as a beginner blogger, you won’t have to operate in fear that what you say or do on their platform will cost you money, your content or the community you’ve worked hard to build.
- Functionality and customization – When it comes to designing your blog the options are endless. WordPress is a free and open source content management system. That means, you are able to download the software from the internet, tweak its code to your needs and then run programs off of it’s install. Because of this flexibility, developers have created over 1,000 compatible plugins, widgets and themes that WordPress users can install to customize the functionality of your blog. Pro Tip: Many of those plugins come with premium themes. Spend time finding a well documented theme. A well documented theme is one that has tutorials and clear instructions on how to use it. The best part of WordPress is that if you get tired of your current theme or want different functionalities, all you need to do is install a different plugin or theme. You do this with no risk of losing your blogging content.
- Authority – Self-hosting WordPress means your blog will look more professional. When I first started blogging, I began with Blogger and I was afraid to spend a dime on the internet. I didn’t want to spend any money until I was making money. That mindset kept me broke. It wasn’t until I took myself serious and invested in the security, design and development of my blog that I finally was able to make money blogging. Once I saw the power of a profitable blog, I knew that the opportunities were endless and began prioritizing blog biz strategy over casual blog writing and random social media posting.
- User Experience – Optimizing your blog for search engines and making it user friendly is key for blogging success. If you want to have a user friendly website, that’s easy enough these days with quality responsive themes. You can even display your menus differently on different devices, but users have to find you first. WordPress was created to help you be found on the internet easily. It is a program that is already optimized for search engines and when you install programs like Yoast SEO, it only increases your chances of being found. If people can’t find you’re blog, you don’t have a way to make sales and bring in business from it. I know a lot of Wix users who complain about not being found on the internet. Problem is, they don’t even have access to their control panels to see what’s happening with the server. In fact, this is an issue for many commercial web host users. If you are wondering “Does Google even know I exist?”, follow this tutorial to connect Google Search Console to your website.
- Community – Over 30% of the internet is powered by WordPress. If you are looking for solutions to a WordPress tech question all you have to do is look through a search engine. Someone has solved every possible WordPress tech problem you have experienced and I’m willing to bet you can find a video tutorial on how to fix it. If you’re anything like me, you love the idea of not having to wait on a company to respond to a support ticket. If I can find an answer in my host provider’s knowledge base, even better!
Knowing all of this, if you had to move your blog from a commercial website to self-hosted WordPress, wouldn’t you want to do that sooner than later? If you want to know how to start a self-hosted blog or move need help moving your blog to self-hosting WordPress, click here.
Hello Ambi Designs & Hosting specializes in powerful managed WordPress hosting for non-techie bloggers creatives, rising influencers and small business owners. If you want to know more about my services, download my Web Service Guide.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]