When I was being bad as a little kid, my mom used to say:
“You are skating on thin ice buddy.”
She was saying how I was really close to being in major trouble. Skating on thin ice means the ice will break soon and you’ll fall into dangerously cold water.
Bloggers blogging on free platforms are skating on thin ice, too. I want to list reasons why you are in trouble so you can buy your domain and hosting to blog on WordPress.org.
Look at the featured image; that’s me from my New Zealand trip. Living your blogging dreams is virtually impossible thru free platforms because gaining credibility and making money is incredibly difficult if you blog on free sites.
Let’s dive into the reasons.
1: You Own Nothing
Whoever pays the domain and hosting bill for the free blogging platform owns:
- the blog
- the content
- your likeness
- everything on the free blog
You own nothing. You are part of the product, as a user, and are nothing more. In any split second, the free platform owner can delete your blog, content and user account for a wide range of reasons. Why blog for 1 day, 1 year or 10 years on real estate you do not own? Why see 5 year’s worth of hard blogging work vanish the split second the free platform owners close out your account? You own nothing on a free platform. Bad idea to blog on a site you do not own.
2: Little Branding and Customizing Potential
Visit my blog:
Have you ever seen anything remotely like my blog on Blogger? Nope. Bloggers can barely customize or brand free platforms because free platform owners use free blogs to brand the platform. Google focuses mainly on branding Blogger through the Blogger platform. Google is giving you a free blog so Google does not give you freedom in branding or customizing your blog however you want it to look.
3: Little Monetizing Potential
I can monetize through 100,000 income streams on my self-hosted blog because virtually no limits exist to monetizing through a blog you own. Since you pay the bills you call the monetizing shots. No worries, no restrictions. This is a freeing aspect of monetizing your blog the right way, through a self-hosted blog.
But free platforms offer little monetizing potential due to strict rules, regulations and restrictions. If someone gives you a site for free, they won’t let you make all types of money through it because THEY make all types of money through it. Owners profit. Free users do not profit. If you ever plan to go pro, using a free platform is a bad idea.
Get on WordPress.org and buy my eBook if you need blog monetizing ideas.
4: You Are a User Not a Blogger
Technically, you are a user not a blogger on free blogging platforms. Think about it; do you own a blog or run a blog if you do not:
- own the domain?
- pay for hosting?
- set virtually every rule for monetizing, customizing and branding?
Simply observe a free blogging platform domain name; does insertyournamehere.blogspot.com look:
- professional?
- trustworthy?
- credible?
to you? No, of course it doesn’t. You are simply a free platform user – not a blogger – on free platform sites. Bad idea to try to build something meaningful, valuable and noteworthy on a free platform.
5: Not As Much Fun
Free blogging platforms place so many restrictions on you that it’s not genuinely fun to blog on free platforms. Rules handcuff you. Most of your blog is not even customizable. How fun is that, to know you cannot build your blog how you want it to look? I love blogging on my self-hosted blog because no one on earth can mimic by bespoke theme. I enjoy writing and publishing posts exactly how I want to, no rules or constraints restricting me.
Conclusion
Buy your domain and hosting. Have fun helping people and blog the right way to live your dreams.
Resource
Alonzo Pichardo explained why choosing a free platform is a big time mistake. Listen to his podcast here: