There are plenty of great free blogging platforms, but using one comes with a number of disadvantages compared with running a blog on your own website. Here are the main reasons why blogging on your business or personal website can be a better choice.
You control how it develops
Before you start writing, it is important to remember that if you choose a blogging platform, you are not in control of what happens to your blog. If the provider makes changes or updates to its free platform, you simply have to adapt to them.
With a blog hosted on your own website, however, you decide when and how to make changes. And if you choose WordPress as your blogging platform, you can make many improvements for free and without any programming knowledge, thanks to the huge range of available plugins.
Money matters
When starting a blog, making money from it is probably not your first thought, but that may change later. There are two main ways to monetise a blog. One is through advertising. On a third-party blogging platform, however, you have little or no control over the adverts displayed. You may not receive any of the advertising revenue, or you may only receive a small share of it. With a blog on your own website, you decide whether to display adverts and what type of advertising appears – and you keep the full revenue.
The second question to consider is: what happens if you decide to build a business around the success of your blog? If your blog is already on your own website, you have complete freedom to turn it into a fully-fledged business website. The blog can simply become a subdomain, primarily supporting your brand and search engine optimisation (SEO). And speaking of SEO: on your own website, you have much more control over the factors that influence your search rankings, rather than simply watching how Google evaluates your blog.
In the long run, having your own website can also be more cost-effective than paying for a premium blogging platform with additional features. Once your blog is set up, you only need to cover the annual cost of your domain and hosting, which can work out cheaper than paying a monthly subscription. And if we are talking about money, it is worth remembering that free blogging platforms are not necessarily free: you may be paying with your data and by allowing the platform to use your content for advertising.
Aim for a professional image
If your blog also serves a marketing purpose, running it on your own website makes it easy to add features such as a pop-up encouraging visitors to sign up for your newsletter. Newsletters are often built around your latest blog posts, giving you another opportunity to bring readers back to your own website.
Running a blog on your own website also gives a more professional impression, particularly if you publish industry-related or business content. Think about it: a URL ending in a free blogging platform’s domain can create a similarly amateur impression to sending clients an email from a personal address ending in gmail.com, rather than using a professional business email address.
It can also be uncomfortable to leave the promotion of your posts in the hands of a blogging platform. What happens if a potential customer comes across your article alongside poor-quality or even offensive blog posts? Poor editorial decisions and/or automated recommendations can discourage people from clicking on your content, even if you have written an excellent article. By keeping your blog on your own website, you have much greater control over the content, presentation and overall experience you offer your readers — helping you build a stronger, more professional online presence.