Blogging is surely becoming a charming business at a very fast pace. And when it comes to setting up a business, most of us wish to get started with a little or no investment at all. BlogSpot blogs are a similar business solution for newbie bloggers who wish to get started in blogging with no investment.
Generally, there is a thumb rule which often professional bloggers keep advising. The common advise for beginners is that new bloggers should start blogging at BlogSpot blogging platform. The logic behind this is quite understandable. It is because BlogSpot is comparatively easy to use. And more importantly, it is free which is like icing on the cake.
So its often seen that new bloggers start their blogging journey with free blog on Blogger.com. Blogger is a content management system which offers a sub-domain and hosting with unlimited bandwidth for free. Though storage is limited. But enough to run a blog. So basically, blogger offers you everything you need to start blogging. More, importantly, offers everything for free.
Though there are many advantages of using paid hosting over free hosting. But that is a different topic for discussion. So, basically free blogger blog comes with some limitations. And one of those is sub-domain. If you are new to make money blogging, I would recommend you to go through these posts :
- 5 Must Know Facts Before Getting Started to Blogging
- How to Create Free Blogger Blog – Beginner’s Guide
But this limitation can be removed by buying a custom domain name. Before I discuss why BlogSpot bloggers must buy custom domain. Let me tell you the basic difference between free sub-domain and paid custom domain. When you start blogging at Blogger.com , you have your site URL like this – www.xyz.blogspot.com. In this URL, there is a sub-domain – blogspot. If you buy a custom domain, your site URL would be like this- www.xyz.com. Notice that sub-domain (blogspot) has been removed.
Now its time to discuss why blogspot bloggers must buy custom domain.
Contents
- 10 Reasons Why BlogSpot Bloggers Must Buy Custom Domain Name ?
- 1. Easy to Recall
- 2. Branding and Reputation
- 3. SEO Advantage
- 4. Advertisement Networks Approval
- 5. Seriousness Towards Blogging
- 6. Social Media Promotion
- 7. Backlinks
- 8. Alexa and Google Ranking
- 9. Followers and Subscribers Growth
- 10. Traffic Growth
- The Pro Review from TechReviewPro
10 Reasons Why BlogSpot Bloggers Must Buy Custom Domain Name ?
There are some reasons why BlogSpot bloggers must buy custom domain. Today, in this post I’m discussing about those reasons which justify that blogspot bloggers must buy custom domain. So, if you go through this post, you would come to know the various advantages of buying a custom domain specially for BlogSpot bloggers.
1. Easy to Recall
When visitors land to your blog and if they like your content, they love to come back again. So they first look-up the URL of your blog so that they can easily reach there. But if your URL is large, none would love to stretch mind in order to recall it. So consider having a short URL which is easy to remember.
If you buy a custom domain, you would be able to select a short URL of your choice.
2. Branding and Reputation
For almost any business, branding and reputation are very important. Blogging is surely becoming a business. So branding and reputation of your blog plays a very important role in your blogging success. I have already explained about 4 things your blog must have from the very first day of blogging. And custom domain is one of those checklist. Which makes your blogging journey smoother. Just by helping you in branding.
Just think. Whether you would love to be known as owner of a branded blog which has reputation in market or just another free blogger ?
Also Read : How to be Famous on Internet ?-[Infographic]
3. SEO Advantage
Before I discuss about SEO advantage, I must make you aware that you must not change the URL of a published blog post. If your blog post is performing well in search engines then changing the URL would provide 404 error. Hence, you would be loosing some important link juice and search exposure.
Now, I’m coming back to SEO advantage of custom domain. If you plan to migrate to WordPress(as I did) or any other blogging platform later on. A custom domain ensures that you don’t loose link juice and search exposure. Also, I rarely find any BlogSpot blog post appearing in top results in search engines. So again the SEO advantage is with custom domain.
Recommended: How to Get Your Blog Indexed in Search Engines Instantly ?
4. Advertisement Networks Approval
Earlier, one of the top most ad network BuySell Ads refused to place ads on BlogSpot blogs. But now, many others joined this list including Chitika and Adbrite. And most surprisingly, now Google Adsense being an ad network operated by Google itself rejects the blogs containing a sub-domain like blogspot. Keep in mind that BlogSpot blogs are also a part of Google’s content management system – Blogger.
Though you have other alternatives to earn money from your blog. But I must tell you that your blog would be loosing some large revenue if not approved by these top ad networks.
5. Seriousness Towards Blogging
Though not a major factor yet it counts. If you buy a custom domain by spending some money, not only you would feel seriousness towards blogging but also others. Even if your blog has a nice layout, template, design and look but not custom domain, people would not think that you are a serious blogger. One basic reason is that you are not willing to spend few dollar(s) for custom domain.
So your all hard work would go wasted. Thus, sometimes only free things don’t make sense.
6. Social Media Promotion
Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus etc. are a great way to promote your blog. Social media promotion is very effective way to drive targeted traffic to your blog. But one of the common behavior of people, I have felt on social media is they ignore reading blogspot blog posts.
Though not the best guessing, but one of the basic reason I guess behind such ignorance is that they think that BlogSpot bloggers are not authority bloggers. BlogSpot is a free blogging platform. So it is often targeted by spammers. So without going through your post, they either consider you a spammer or just beginner.
And believe me, I myself love to hear from experts not the beginners.
7. Backlinks
Backlinks are deciding factor in SEO of a blog. I have already discussed about SEO advantage above in this post. So recalling that, if you created a backlink for some X- URL and later your URL changed and you got a Y- URL. Your all hard work in creating backlinks is wasted.
What a rubbish penalty for not buying custom domain !
8. Alexa and Google Ranking
Ranking presented by Alexa is considered most important factor in deciding how popular and reputative your blog is. A higher ranked blog is obviously loved by many. So if your blog gets a good rank then your traffic would gradually increase. But getting a good Alexa rank is not so easy. It is a slow process.
But a custom domain ensures a rapid increase in Alexa rank of your blog. Generally, blog having a custom domain experience a comparatively faster increase in Alexa rank as compared to blogspot blogs. A very similar case is with Google page rank also. Where next update of page rank is waiting to rank your blog from page rank 0 to even 3-4. So make sure you have got a custom domain name before the next update.
9. Followers and Subscribers Growth
After shifting to custom domain, you would see a rapid growth in your followers and subscribers. Because now, you are an authority blogger. Your words would matter -something what you might have been expecting for your all hard work.
Also, social shares, likes, comments and engagements on your blog increases with custom domain. So I must say you would not mind spending few dollar(s) for a huge return.
Read : Getting More Likes and Shares on Facebook – How to Go Viral ?
10. Traffic Growth
As the Alexa rank, Google page rank, followers and subscribers, your reputation in blogosphere everything increases with custom domain. Also, social shares, likes, engagements, search engine exposure etc increases. So adding up all aspects – your traffic is bound to increase.
Also Read: 5 Simple+Basic=Awesome Ways for Getting Traffic to New Blog
The Pro Review from TechReviewPro
Though BlogSpot blog has everything available to start blogging for free. But if you consider to be a professional bloggers in future and make money blogging. A smart idea would be to buy a custom domain. Notice that I have said to buy a custom domain only and not the hosting and other costly stuffs.
One of the main reason which I haven’t listed above is – Buying a custom domain is not so costly these days as it used to be earlier. You can buy a custom domain name at a minimal cost. The cost might be ranging between $1.59 to $10. Cheap custom domains can be bought either from Bigrock or GoDaddy. Depending upon your budget, you can choose from various extentions like .com, .org, .net, .info, .in etc. Since, buying a custom domain doesn’t cost 100 of dollars. So blogspot bloggers must buy custom domain.
I tried to explain every reason why blogspot bloggers must buy custom domain with little knowledge I had. I hope that I have made you convinced enough. So you, being blogspot bloggers must buy custom domain name and start blogging in right way. If you are ready to buy your lucky custom domain name, here is some hand picked resources for you. : –
- Killer Tips to Select a Perfect Domain Name for Profitable Online Business
- 5 Best Places to Buy Cheap and Best Domain Names – List of Top Domain Registrars
- 5 Most Trusted and Best Web Hosting Service Providers Which are Worth Your Money
Do let me know in comment below. If I missed any reason as to why blogspot bloggers must buy custom domain. If you still think to continue with free blogging then go ahead and buy a custom domain.
Comments on this entry are closed.
Thanks Rahul Sir because I m using this and some strategy now cleared by your suggestion
Hello Ravi !
I’m quite happy that my suggestions could help you.
Keep visiting & keep learning. 🙂
Every point mentioned here is absolutely right..My advise for bloggers is to choose paid hosting instead of free hosting like blogspot
Hi Varun,
Yes, you are right. Having custom domain and paid hosting is always helpful. I too recommend everyone for premium package of hosting and domain because small investment on these crucial elements is very beneficial in long run. But if hosting seems something one can’t afford, then hosting on blogger with a custom domain is the best option.
Thanks for sharing your views. 🙂