Before I get into why I think setting up a Wordpress blog with your own host is important I have to say I procrastinated getting online a little bit tonight.

I just had to watch the finale of “So You Think You Can Dance”. I’ve watched it all season long, I just couldn’t miss the finale. I know, I know, probably a good waste of a couple hours, but it is the only show I really get in to. Anyhow, Brandon gets my vote! I don’t know if any of my fellow Alex Jeffrey’s students watch the show, but I think Brandon is a on a level just higher than the rest. Don’t get me wrong, they are all great, I really like Jeanine too, but Brandon is by far my favorite. Ok, my votes in. On to business…

Anyone that is really serious about having an online business and making money online should host their own blog. I know there are all kinds of free services and blogging platforms out there, beleive me, I have set up a ton of them, but if you are serious about having a successful online business, your own blog is the way to go.

Why should you host your own Wordpress blog?

First, you have a lot more flexibility and control when you have your own Wordpress blog. You can customize it and make it look however you want it to. With free blogging platforms you have limited options in designs and limits to what you can and can’t change. Being able to customize the look and feel of your blog helps to create a more professional look. You don’t want your blog to look like all the rest.

I also want to mention all the plugin options. The plugins are endless. I’m still learning how to use many of them and I am reading about new ones everyday that other bloggers are using. If you don’t know what plugins are, don’t worry, I’ll cover that in detail in an upcoming post. I didn’t know what they were either until just a few weeks ago. They are features you can install that can totally change the look of your blog, how visitors comment, back up your files, and so much more. There are plugins that help with your blog with SEO (seach engine optimization), which will improve your rankings in search engines, meaning more traffic to your blog. You can totally customize your blog with plugins.

Last I feel is the most important benefit to hosting your own blog. It’s your site, not someone elses. You have total control over what you put on your site. With free blogging platforms you run the risk of them going out of business or locking your account because they don’t like the content. Trust me, I know!

When I first entered the internet marketing world I set up a free Wordpress blog and it was locked before I even got a chance to publish it. It flagged the system because I had too many links and had to be manually reviewed before they would let me publish. Luckily I had just started this one so there wasn’t that much time invested yet. Imagine if this happened to a blog that you had spent weeks or months on even? All that work, all that traffic you were starting to build … gone.

Same case with the recent changes at Squidoo. I probably have about 40 Squidoo pages. They locked blogs that were on subjects they decided they didn’t like anymore because there were too many of them and they locked lenses that they felt were overpromotional. Luckily, Squidoo did give everyone plenty of notice so that you could save all your content and move it somewhere else, or make changes to it so that it wouldn’t get locked. I had a couple pages that I knew would get locked, but I have about 10 that I put a lot of work into that I was a little nervous about. So far I have been in the clear, but I didn’t take the chance of losing all my work and copied it all to other places online. Not all websites will give you notice though. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

If you host your own wordpress blog you don’t have to worry about losing all your hard work. It is yours and you can do with it as you please!

I should have started my own Wordpress blog a long time ago, but I thought it was going to be too complicated for me to figure out. But you know what? It’s really not that difficult. Installing my Wordpress blog was so much easier than I thought it would be and I’m really glad that I have finally done it. Getting myself over that wall is a huge step for me and for my online business and I’m really excited to help you get over it too.  Seriously, if you host your own Wordpress blog you will be a step ahead of most bloggers trying to make money online.

Thanks so much for visiting. Please come back to learn more about setting up your own Wordpress blog. I will be posting everything you need to know to set up your own Wordpress blog from start to finish.