We are taught as children not to be selfish. But in order to be successful in business, you need to be selfish sometimes. Being selfish in business obviously doesn’t mean hurting or taking advantage of others. It means focusing on the important elements that are essential to your long-term success.
So what is being selfish in business really about and how does self-hosting fit in? If you are really serious about your online reputation and blogging, then you should have your own self-hosted blog. What that really means is you should host your blog on your own server, with your own domain name using a blogging platform.
Most new bloggers start blogging by using a existing free hosted blog network like WordPress or Blogger. They sign up for the blogging service without understanding the drawbacks of using someone else’s domain. These 3rd party services make blog setup simple and seem hassle free, but they have serious limitations. The most serious disadvantage is that your blog is never actually yours and you have no control over your content and what happens to it!
By using a 3rd party service, you lose control over self promotion, brand identity, copy content, art, Eigen Email bandwidth, hosting space, email IDs, RSS feeds, and much more. Just imagine, for a moment, months or even years of hard work instantly gone because the 3rd party service shuts you down? You are out of luck and have no options!
For example,offers you lots of free subdomain names based on the address name availability, but the URL you get is always which is long and hard to remember. And, using someone else’s domain name will hurt traffic and SEO to your blog. Instead, host your blog through your own website and top level domain name at .
How your website is ranked by the search engines is affected using a 3rd party blog network because your rank is credited to them instead of you. Most blogs are highly optimized for Search Engine Optimization and because of that may rank even higher than the main website it is associated with. Great SEO means more visitors and that is much better than any free 3rd party service can offer!
Most paid hosting sites like HostMonster will allow you unlimited ad-on blog domains if you host your main website with them. They also offer auto installation of certain blog software such as WordPress.
A self-hosted blog platform will allow you to control your blog in any way you want, helping you to improve how your clients perceive you. Selfish? Maybe, but then you can focus your online efforts on other important issues like creating quality content and marketing your blog.