It’s been a couple of months now so I thought it would be helpful for some of you thinking about self hosting your blog, if I listed some of the pros and cons against using a free service.
As you know, I recently I took the plunge and left the comforts of WordPress.com and moved ClaireySweetie to its own domain.
Self hosting your blog: The Pros
You have your very own (professional) website!
Call it obvious, but self hosting your blog means you are in charge and you have something that is truly yours to nurture. You are the boss!
Customise your site your way
With the free (WordPress/Blogger) services, you are limited to how you can customise your site. When you self host, you have complete freedom in how you want your blog to look.
Either you can purchase a ready-made template or you can work with a web designer for a totally unique layout.
Widgets and Plugins
This does depend a little on the type of layout you opt for as different designers and developers will create and include different things. But on the whole, by self hosting your blog you get access to so many additional features that improves the blogging experience.
You’re taken more seriously
Both in the wider blogging community and by brands alike, self hosting your blog shows people you are serious about your writing and web presence for the long-term.
The cons of self hosting
The biggest fail for me when I switched to self hosting is that I don’t feel there is actually enough information out there, or it is but you don’t find it until you meet a problem and try to Google a resolution.
Call me naïve but I assumed when you start self hosting your blog, everything stays the same but your URL changed –not so! I have listed the problems I have so far encountered below and the answers if I have them.
Earning its keep
This isn’t really a con but it is something you need to think about if you haven’t already. By the time you’ve spent money on getting your blog hosted (I used Bluehost) and affording yourself a new blog design, you need to make your blog earn its keep.
This also means not allowing yourself to post anything that is a bit half-hearted, this particularly applies to the quality of your photography. If you’re not serious about getting into a position where you are earning from your writing, why are you self hosting your blog?
Leaving behind your subscribers and followers
Yes, 229 subs I thought I had left behind so I was temporarily back at square one and wondering why the hell I self hosted. However, after some Googling and eventually venting my frustrations on Twitter, those at Jetpack helped me transfer my followers over! It is possible guys so don’t fear!
Starting from scratch with your blog stats
Or so I thought. Before self hosting my blog was on about 12,000 hits, but when it moved to its new domain and become its own self hosted website, the counter went back to 0.
However, what I noticed was that people were still visiting my old WordPress.com site as well as the new so I had two stats counters clocking up hits for essentially the same blog.
I contacted Jetpack again and they confirmed it was possible to transfer over the stats and the task was completed within a couple of days.
Keeping on top of software updates
If you don’t you’ll occasionally find things go missing until you re-install them or update the associated plugin. My blog went down completely for a couple of days owing to one of the installed plugins having an error!
Be prepared to Google to seek out forums to your problem and how to resolve them yourself; it’s more than likely something you’re experiencing is the same for others. Or you could just go directly back to your web developers and ask them to help you.
My advice for the updates though is to check that they have had a 100% success rate before you install them. You’ll know when updates are available because you’ll get a notification within your dashboard, and when you click on them, make sure you check what they are for before you click ‘update’.
I can’t speak for other platforms such as Blogger, but what I will say about WordPress is that it is incredibly user friendly, particularly the back-end where you configure your settings etc.
While it’s not always obvious how to do or change something, the advice is out there and often very easy to follow.
I will also advise that if you’re looking to self host, be willing to understand your blog from a developer’s perspective and try to resolve something yourself before you seek help, it’s actually hugely satisfying.
I hope you found this post helpful. Are any of you thinking of taking the plunge in the New Year and self hosting your blog? Or do you already self host and have something to add to this post? Please share below.
Until next time x
