Paid Web hosting Vs Free web hosting – This is a highly debatable topic which has always had biased views from bloggers. The final verdict from every pro blogger is something like this: “Paid Web Hosting presents you as a professional to normal people and to search engines. To be successful in blogging, paid web hosting is the only option”.
I say, it is a lie. Why? I will tell you in this article. Before that I would want to analyze one thing – if bloggers are really inclined towards paid web hosting, what do they get out of it? This is what I could figure out – most of the pro bloggers who talk of blogging would have a suggestion like this for every single person who wants to begin with blogging. And this is the fact that selling themes and hosting services bring the major part of money for them. If one day they just go on a path of self destruction (like I’m doing now), they would have had a different opinion.
Read My Post on 3 Best Blogging Platforms
Come on! If I tell you that you have an equal or even more chances of success through free web hosting, would you even buy my paid web hosting plan? Did you get it? I am going to try and analyze some popular beliefs related to the subject in this write-up: Paid Web Hosting Vs Free Web Hosting and I are hopeful that it would provide you some clear thinking on the subject.
Does Free Web Hosting hurt Search Engine Rankings?
Search Engine Rankings are affected by a lot of factors and this is something you wouldn’t know when you begin with blogging. Of course, you would want that your blog appears on the first page of google search but it would take a lot of time for you to learn how to get that done.
Meanwhile, you would come across a blog or say many blogs that would claim that your blog can never get to the first page of Search Engine Rankings if you have a free web hosting. Instead of giving you one example, I would ask you to notice the domain names of every result you get on first page for any keyword. Tell me if you don’t find any free web hosted domain over there. You would find plenty.
Of course, when you have free web hosting, you don’t get access to several tools that pro bloggers use like Google Webmasters. You would also not be able to play around much with the design. They say it also affects the loading time of your site. And the most hilarious (read stupid) thing I have ever heard is search engines don’t support such domains.
I left my BlogSpot blog untouched for over three months and I was still getting 100+ visitors from around the world with only about 150 articles posted on the blog. Who was sending me those visitors? Google Search.
Of course, you don’t have access to Google Webmasters but then you don’t really need that. About the part of the ‘support’ and ‘rankings’, if you’re really blogging on the platform seriously, google would in fact favour your blog, especially if it is a blogger blog. Even wordpress is also favoured; if that’s what you want to call it.
In my words, when you write quality content on your blog regularly, you would in fact get more traffic and better search engine rankings on a free web hosted blog rather than the paid one. I have all kinds of blogs working and I can say that from my experience.
Does Free Web Hosting pose you as unprofessional?
Tell me, when you didn’t know about blogging or didn’t think of starting blogging, did you know what is free web hosting and what is paid one? Many of us don’t even know the difference between the domain names: manpreetkaur93.blogspot.in and finixpost.com. They just sound like two different address to you. Don’t they?
So when many people tell you that it is completely unprofessional of you to let free hosting win in the battle of Paid Web Hosting Vs Free Web Hosting, a sound analysis would tell you that those people are the bloggers. Most of your audience would be non bloggers or say, normal people. They won’t even care what your web address looks like. They would care more about what your blog looks like, what you write over there and what they get out of your blog.
Also, there are many professional bloggers who are doing really well even with a free hosting plan. For example, Nimi Vashi from The Readers Cosmos runs a really successful Book Review blog. Come on! Every single author in India wants to get reviewed on her blog. Isn’t that what success looks like?
Does Free Web Hosting Affect Your Success as A Blogger?
Your hosting plan doesn’t really create many issues in that. The Paid web hosting just gives you the freedom to play around with the design of your blog. You can add many kinds of functionalities that aren’t usually available in Free Hosting plans. But those functionalities never get you successful. If that would have been so, every self hosted blog would be making thousands of dollars by now.
Your success in blogging depends upon your content, marketing and promotion strategy and upon your product. Free web hosting just stops you from adding some functionalities which most of the times you don’t even require.
Why do I have a paid hosting plan than a free one?
I am writing this post as an answer to a friend’s question who asked me about the subject. And this was the final nail in the wall – “Manpreet, why do you blog on paid hosting platform if you think free one is as good as other one?”
Because when I thought of stepping into a full time blogging career, I looked upon the pro bloggers around the world for advise and they always say paid hosting is the better option (in fact, only option if you want to be successful). So, I started www.finixpost.com
But then I couldn’t even part ways from my BlogSpot blog for emotional reasons and stuck to it as well. That’s how I found out what I discussed. If I had known the truth before, I would have never let the efforts I put on my BlogSpot blog go and started this one.
What should you do now?
Figure out what kind of blog you want. If you want to be a blogger who talks about blogging, get a paid hosting. Because if you don’t do that, you won’t be able to sell themes, hosting plans etc for people won’t find much value in it if you are yourself working on a free web hosting plan.
If you want to blog about something else (you’re awesome), look for what kind of functionalities you would require. I couldn’t think of anything that a blogger might need that isn’t present with Blogger platform (free web hosting plan). So, free one would be good unless you think a ‘free’ tag would be a disgrace for your personality.
Paid Web Hosting Vs Free Web Hosting – the latter would always win for me.
Still, if there is something you want to confirm, feel free to ask me.
