[easy-tweet tweet=”For a free hosted site, your traffic will take a hit when you decide to self host, and Google will rank the age of your site afresh. Your new site will now be a day old the day you launch it. So, self host.” user=”nderisarah” hashtags=”#Blogging, #Selfhosting, #Freehosting, #” url=”nderisarah.com”].

For the longest time (2 years) I wrote at my free hosted site and I love it. The community, the engagement, the late nights with coffee surfing blogs and updating my own; these were my favourite kinds of me time.

Early 2017, I participated in a Blog Challenge that led to link backs to and from my blog and my site ranked higher in Google. I posted and got linked daily, the entire month of February and ended up getting 500 organic views without even updating my blog.

This was what prompted me to self-host. I was sitting on a gold mine!

There’s Little you Can do with a Free hosted site

In terms of the outlook, it is not as customizable as a free-hosted site. There’s little freedom in turning the blog to what you’d want.

There is little freedom in creating email forms and email newsletters

You cannot run ads on a free hosted site.

It gets harder to acquire sponsored posts as brands will only take you seriously when you take yourself seriously by self-hosting.

It is not as pretty as a free hosted site. Again, not as customizable.

With a Self-Hosted Site

You can do that and more. You have the liberty to do that and more with your site.

Apart from the earning channels, sales channels and selling books; you learn so much more than you would while still running a free hosted site.

Self hosting is not easy.

Here are the payments I made for my blog when I decided to self-host:

Envato theme: $69

Miscellaneous: $31

This does not include the Web Developer and the price to move from a http to https, which am yet to do.

A bit pricey but I love the freedom I have with my site.

When You Self-host Your site;

You can create email newsletters for your readers.

Set it up as beautifully as you want it. Aesthetics matter.

Notify your readers of new developments; new posts, new courses, book launch, e-commerce shop launch, etsy shop launch etc

Sell your book directly to your readers.

Get feedback immediately from your readers and if you’re lucky, sign a book deal. It is also easier to monetize a self- hosted blog if you choose Google ad sense or banner ads.

In the long run, self-hosting is better . For a free hosted site, your traffic will take a hit when you decide to self host, and Google will rank the age of your site afresh. Your new site will now be a day old the day you launch it. So, self host.

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