I know that it's best to not sit and think of things that you cannot change - But I thought that if I shared this with all of you new bloggers out there, it might help you to reach your goals just a little bit faster.
The other day I was thinking about how my blogs and even my style of blogging has changed since I first started. Over the past couple of years, I have had a few different blogs. Of course the past 9 months I have just been focusing on two, i-Blogger and the HCG Diet 411 Blog.
My blogs have both grown quite a bit in that short period of time. Probably more so with the HCG Diet 411 Blog. In fact, it was because that blog took off so quickly that I decided to start i-Blogger. I wanted to be able to blog about the different experiences that I have as I build my other blog.
However, a couple of months after starting my HCG Blog, I basically had to start all over. You see, I used sub-domain names with the other blogs that I have had in the past, so when I started the HCG Diet 411 Blog - I did the same thing. I figured that if I got a large following of readers, I would just go and purchase my own domain name then.
Of course as I mentioned before, it did do well. So that's when I went and bought my own domain - www.hcg411.info - and I am glad that I did. However, I wish that I would have done that from the very beginning.
Let me tell you why...
About 75% of my traffic was coming from Google Organic Search Results at the time and when I switched to my own domain name that traffic almost stopped completely. Luckily I was able to forward the traffic from my sub-domain name to my new one. So that kept some traffic coming to my blog.
But I still had to wait for Google to index the domain that I just purchased. Not to mention that all of the many back-links that I had received during that time, are still pointing to my sub-domain.
Then, I had to go to all of the different social media sites that I was registered with and update it there too. Places like Facebook, Twitter, Blogcatalog, Bloggers.com, Blogged and many many more.
3 Benefits of having your own domain
- You own it - If at anytime you don't like where your blog is being hosted at, you can take your domain name and find another blog host. If you have a sub-domain name and you decide to change blog hosts, you have to leave it behind. You would have to start all over again.
- It looks more professional - People are going to take you seriously if you have your own domain name. Could you imagine if Twitter.com was twitter.blogspot.com - It just doesn't look right.
- Easier to remember - You want to have a domain name that people can easily remember. Which one are you more likely to remember i-blogger.blogspot.com or i-blogger.info
Now don't get me wrong, I think when you first start blogging if you feel more comfortable using a sub-domain name, then you definitely should. But after you learn more about blogging and you start to develop your skills as a blogger, you might want to think about purchasing your own domain.
So if you were to ask me - Whats the one thing that you would have done differently as a blogger, I would say... I would have purchased my own domain name from the beginning.
What one thing would like to have done differently as a blogger?
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