Choosing a custom domain name for blogger or blogspot blog has a lot of advantages over running a blog with default Blogspot.com or wordpress.com extension.
Blogging for a newbie is never a sort of business. Only bloggers who mean business take this area of choosing a custom domain name seriously.
Blogger and WordPress does offer its users to choose their services to start a blog for free.
So users who use their services do have to fight with few limitations. If you are not aware of choosing what platform is good for starting your free blog?.
Go ahead and read: WordPress vs Blogger – Choosing a Blogging Platform the right way.
After you are done with the blogging platform, you need to choose a name for your blog.
You can straight away buy a custom domain name for your new blog. But if you thought of learning basics of blogging, on how to write a post and publish and so on, then wait for few days to master the skills.
To write a great blog post read 21 confessions to make before you write a great article
So Why Should you have your Custom Domain Name?
Usually, a BlogSpot URL would look like domain.blogspot.com, and a custom domain name is www.your-domain-name.com.
If you have chosen your career to be a blogger you need to forget the word free.
I don’t say you need to straight away jump into blogging as your career.
But every blogger who is been into success lately have started there blogging career as a part time one before switching to full time.
Read: When is the Right Time to kiss your 9 to 5 Job Good bye.
Buying a custom domain name is the very first step of a blogger who wants to start a full time blogging career.
Below are few good reasons on why one should buy a custom domain name.
Looks Professional:
A custom domain name always looks professional over a free blogspot domain.
Even when you are saying your domain name to your friends or colleagues chances are there that they remember the custom domain name easily over a free one.
One of the major things to be noted here is speaking out a custom domain name would look more professional.
They would actually turn up to see what does your blog contain.
Affordable:
Buying your own domain name is never a dream.
People have myth that a domain name would cost thousands.
But the fact here is you can own a domain name for 10$ or not more than 650 Rs.
If you are interested to buy a domain name for 639/- Rs you can visit Bigrock and have your catch.
One more thing is you are paying this amount annually. So you wont have the domain name for a lifetime.
You need to renew it for the same amount every year before the date you purchased.
Branding:
Branding these days help your blog to stay out of the crowd.
You cannot make your free blog a brand without first opting a custom domain name.
Read: Why Establishing a Brand should be the First Step In Your Blogging Strategy.
People who are avid readers of blogs wont try to read those blogs which don’t look professional, they sometimes ignore the article seeing the blogspot.com or wordpress.com at the end of your blog address.
This would definitely turn down a reader from reading an article from your blog though you have written it with all the juice.
If you are a celebrity your free blogs would gain traffic else you need to buy a custom domain to start establishing your brand.
Attracts Advertisers:
You can also increase your chances of getting an approval for your Adsense account.
Check out, How to Increase the chances of getting an Approved Adsense account.
If you are not an Adsense publisher you still have a chance to use advertisements from other networks.
The other advertising networks also sees if your blog has a custom domain or still runs on a free sub-domain, though some give an approval.
Read How to Choose Best Google Adsense Alternatives for your Blog.
If your blog has good traffic and good audience engagement you could give an eye to some of the direct advertisers too.
If you have a custom domain name you could have a chance of demanding more to show their ads in your blog.
SEO Advantage:
Your blog would have a good exposure in search engines, which often likes to index custom domain names rather than sub domains like blogspot.com, blogspot.in or a WordPress.com
You will start to have your own domain authority from the time you started your blog with a custom domain name.
Usually when you switch from free domain to custom domain name, you will have to loose your Alexa Ranking and Page Rank.
Your new custom domain name will need to get the new Alexa ranking and Page Rank. Meanwhile Read Top 30 Indian Blogs based on Alexa Ranking.
Social Media Advantage:
If you are a blogger you need to stay close with social media sites to publicize your blog.
It would be easy to publicize your custom domain name with ease rather than saying a long domain with blogspot.com or WordPress.com in the end.
You could easily create Facebook page or a twitter account with your custom domain name rather than using a free one.
This would actually drive some traffic to your site. People who follow your social media pages too will like or follow you seeing your domain name.
Its not that they would ignore a free one but chances of increase in followers would be more for a social media account with a custom domain name.
Get a contact email:
You can have your contact email like username@yourdomain.com rather than @gmail.com or yahoo.com.
After you own a domain name you can have your own email.
You need to log in to a separate web-mail server to check your mail which the domain name provider gives.
Your contact page would look cheesy with your own branded email Id.
Depending on the Custom Domain name provider you can have up to 5 email IDs.
So if you are into blogging Business you can have several email ID’s.
Are you planning for a Custom Domain Name?
Now that if you are convinced and serious about buying a domain name.
Just brainstorm and scribble some names for your Custom Domain Name.
If you are struck with on how to choose a perfect domain name? Then read 7 deadly mistakes to avoid when choosing your domain name.
You can buy a custom domain at BigRock or Godaddy.
Before you start buying one you can google for coupons. Domain name providers give some cool coupons for new customers.
So you could have your custom domain name for the first year at a discounted price.
Pic Credits: blog.joomag.com
thank you for sharing information
Totally agree , it solidifies your brand name