Have you ever noticed how most bloggers who blog for a profit have their own domain names? There’s a good reason for that. The benefits of owning your own domain are reason enough to ditch the free blogging platforms and take the plunge into self-hosted blogging.
1. Customized Options are Endless in Self-Hosting
With free blogging platforms you are limited to the themes, colors, and fonts that they provide you. However with 
self-hosted the opportunities are endless for the theme of your blog. You can pick from any number of pre-made templates or you can design (or have someone design for you) a custom theme. Because you control what’s on your blog you can include RSS feeds, Facebook and Twitter sharing buttons, a Twitter feed, etc. You can do just about anything.
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2. Shorter Domain Name
When you are working off of a free blogging platform your domain ends up being lengthy and difficult to remember. Having to type in www.yourdomain.blogspot.com isn’t easy for people to recall. But when you just have www.yourdomain.com people are much more likely to retain it. Driving traffic to your website is a key part of successful blogging, so having an easy to remember domain is important for increasing your traffic.
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3. Having Higher Profits with Self-Hosting
Let’s be honest, most people want to make some extra money from blogging. But free blogging platforms generally don’t let you have affiliate marketing or advertisements associated with your website. With self-hosted domains, though, you’re able to partner up with whoever you want and use whatever advertising tactics you want, making it easier to make money from your site.
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4. More Professional
Having a personal .com domain comes across as someone who is infinitely more professional than having a .blogspot.com or .wordpress.com web address. The free platforms are generally used for more diary-like, personal blogging and that’s what most people associate those web addresses with when they see them.
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5. Better Features
Free blogs work hard to support millions of other bloggers. When you own your own domain you are supporting you and you alone. So if your website goes down then you are able to fix it and get it back up and running in no time, instead of having to wait on other people to figure out what the problem was. Not having to rely on anyone else other than yourself is a good incentive.
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Self-hosting is something that a lot of people shy away from because they think it’s going to be difficult to implement. But it’s just like anything – it takes a little work and dedication, and gives you a lot in return.
Hi Laura
Great post!! If you want to be a successful internet marketer having your own domain is a must.
I have seen internet marketers who use free blogs, how can they expect to be taken seriously
and be trusted (which is very important) when they dont take their online business seriously?
As the old saying goes “you need to spend money to make money” its a shame some internet
marketers dont think this way.
Duane
This really sums up why self hosting beats the alternatives.
Hosting your own blog means you’re captain of your own ship, – you make the point that it enables you to be more self-reliant – to fix any issues as they occur rather than waiting passively (and powerlessly) for it to be fixed for you. Spot on – I’ve even shared your post on blogbods so newbie bloggers make sure they consider taking this key step to running your own blog.
When you consider the tiny cost attached with hosting your own blog, I think it’s more than worth it in terms of the professionalism and independence it gives you.