If you are starting a blog for your small business it’s tempting to skip buying a domain name and jump right into a free blog hosting service. You’re trying to grow your business so you want to keep costs down where you can. Free is good, right?
Wrong. If you are at all serious about your company, be nice to your business blog and buy it a domain name. Here are seven good reasons why you should register a domain name for your small business blog.
1. If the aim of your blog is to market a business then it must look business-like. A self-hosted domain is the first step to a professional looking blog. Internet-savvy readers simply won’t take seriously a blog like yourbusinessblog.freeblogsite.com. It looks amateurish. Readers will take far more seriously the self-hosted yourbusinessblog.com. It looks like a real site. Whether you’re selling a product, a service, or your own expertise, a proper domain name will inspire customer confidence.
2. If you don’t buy your own domain name then you do not own your own blog. Simple as that. While you do own the copyright to all your content, it is the free hosting site that actually owns your blog. This means you have no protection should they decide to suspend the blog or should the host site itself close down.
3. With self-hosting you have complete control over the ads you may to choose to place on your blog, unlike a free hosting site which may place irrelevant or even counter-productive ads on your blog. By having your own domain name and paying for hosting, you can select ads which are relevant to your business, or choose to have no ads at all.
4. A shorter URL address is easier to remember. Readers won’t return to a blog they can’t remember the name of. They are more likely to return to yourbusinessblog.com than yourbusinessblog.freeblogsite.com.
5. Buying domain names gives you multiple email addresses to the same domain name. You can have a different email address for sales, support or feedback for example, all at yourbusinessblog.com. This adds to the customer’s impression that you are a reputable and efficient company.
6. Using your own domain name from the start helps reinforce your brand whether it be a business, product or service. Your domain name represents your business, your blog and ultimately your brand. It is one of the first things people recognise about your blog.
7. If you don’t buy the domain name for your business, someone else might. If your business becomes successful, internet opportunists may register your business domain name in the hope of capturing some of your traffic or selling the domain for profit.
Having your own domain names for your small business blog may not be free but is relatively low compared to the credibility and business recognition (and therefore profit) you might lose by not having your own domain.
