Are you looking to create a blog or a website for your business and you do not know if you should use a self hosted WordPress or a free alternative like WordPress.com or Blogger?
Well, when I was starting my blogging journey, I was confronted with the same problem a few years ago and there were no real blogs about web hosting to tell me which one would be the best for me so I was so confused about so many things.
I had have to test them myself and now I know the answer to this question.
I really do wish that there were articles like this one so I would start with the best option from the get go.
Whether you want to start a hobby website that you will not put a lot of work into or an online shop that will make you money by selling your products or a business site that is going to promote your service to potential clients online, it is important to make the right choice so you will not waste any time testing different alternatives.
What Is A Difference Between Self Hosted WordPress And Free Hosts Like Blogger or WordPress.com?
So, first of all, let me tell you now what really is WordPress.
WordPress is a completely free software that people can use to create a website.
However, you will need a web hosting to use it but once you set it up on your server, you can basically install any theme you want on it, the same goes for plugins and there are thousands of free themes and plugins and everyone will find something for themselves.
If you are a coder, you can even customize the code. You have the full control of its website and you can create a very unique website.
On the other hand, free web hosts like Blogger or WordPress.com will only give you a few themes and plugins to choose from and they will put irrelevant ads on your blog so that they can make some money from their “free” service.
Now, the worst thing with sites like these, is that they can shut down your website and delete all the posts at any time and you can do anything about it because they are actual owners of all sites that use their service since these sites are hosted on their servers.
1) You Can Make Money From Your Site
Well, if you want to make money from your new sites then you will need to get a paid hosting and use the WordPress.org on your site.
Why is that man?
There is nothing wrong with monetizing your traffic or selling your own digital products on the site, but if you want to use the free blog host, then most of them will not even allow you to put your own ads because they strictly prohibit doing such things.
There may be a few free host providers that will let you add some few affiliate links, but they will also display many annoying ads all over your site and they will not ask you if you want to have them shown on your site or not.
With the paid hosting and WordPress.org you can advertise your products or put as many affiliate links as you want and no one is going to limit you with that.
You are free to place links and banners anywhere on your site and no one is going to put any ads on your website because you are the only person that can do whatever you want on your site.
2) Best Sites Only Use WordPress.Org
Now, I have a question for you:
Did you ever see a popular website using a free web host like Blogger?
I did not, but I do know why is that. It is because experienced site owners know very well about its limitations which free hosts have.
They also know that their readers would not take them seriously if they would have a website address like mysite.freewebsite.com.
Would you rather buy shoes from an online shop with the domain name: yourshoes.freehost.com or would you opt to buy your new shoes from the site using the following domain name: yourshoes.com?
You can get your domain for less than $12 per year so your site address will look like mysite.com and your potential clients will see that you mean business.
After all, WordPress.org is used by some biggest companies in the world so Forbes and Sony use them and the most popular bloggers like Jon Morrow, Brian Clark, Gary Vaynerchuk and Darren Rowse also use the WordPress on their amazing websites and they surely will continue to do so.
3) SEO Advantages
If you would have at least a little bit of knowledge about how SEO works, then you would know that self hosted sites using WordPress.org software are ranking way higher than any sites that are using free web hosts like Blogger.
I do not remember when was the last time when I have seen the free hosted blog on the first page of Google when I was searching for something.
The fact is that almost every time you try to find something on the Google, all the sites that are shown on the first pages are self hosted sites and you very rarely will find sites which are hosted on the free web host.
There are many reasons to that, but the main one is that Google does not really take free websites seriously because this kind of sites are usually used to build link farms by spammers, they very often load at very low speeds and they have a website address like mysite.freeblog.com that is looking just very unprofessional.
Of course, there are free sites that may do well on the Google but there are very few sites like these and it is just easier to rank a website that has its own domain and uses a paid web hosting.
If you want to make money from your site, then you need to know that an organic traffic from search engine sites is far the best source of new visitors because it is very targeted so surfers from Google or Yahoo will always make you lots of money.
I have been blogging for a decade and traffic from sites like Google has always converted like gold and I can safely say that there is no better traffic source and social traffic does not even come close to organic traffic in terms of conversions in my own experience.
4) No One Can Shut Down Your Site
It is sad that vast majority of people that sign up for free web hosts do not read the Terms Of Service (TOS) because if they would it, almost all of them would never use such services.
Free web hosts can literally shut down your site at any time without providing you a single reason and it is written in their TOS.
Just think for a moment. You build a site, add great content on a regular basis and it starts getting more visitors with each passing week but one day the free host you are using decides to simply delete your site and all your data from their servers and you can not do anything about it.
Well, something very similar happened to a one of my clients a several years ago.
He created a blog with the WordPress.com and after his site started to get a significant number of visitors from different sources, he decided to try to make some extra money from blogging and he added a few banners in his posts.
Guess what happened after some time?
Eventually, he got an email that basically said that his website violated its terms of service and they decided to not only shut down his blog, but also to remove all the files so he could not even move his site to a paid web hosting.
I have heard literally thousands of stories like this one on various forums and websites.
Having a website permanently deleted is unarguably the worst thing that can happen to a webmaster.
Look, if your website gets infected with the most dangerous malware or even if your online shop gets hacked, there is still a chance that you will get your site fixed.
But once your site and all files get deleted if you are using a free web host, then you can not do anything, even with the domain name because you are not the actual owner of the domain name since it has been registered through your hosting.
It is not something I would want to go through so that is why the WordPress.org is the best option.
5) Tons Of Free Themes And Plugins
One of the main reasons why so many webmasters choose to use the WordPress’ software, is because it offers thousands of free themes and plugins and you can install any of them and even modify the theme to make it look like you want.
You can also very easily change the fonts, colors, header and your logo and many other things to make sure that you are having a great looking website.
There are also hundreds of online theme shops where you can purchase a premium theme for less than $40 to make your website look even more professional and unique and you do not need to have any coding skills, since such themes come with very intuitive customizers that make it super easy to change almost anything on your website.
A free WordPress blog, on the other hand, does allow you to change only a few things and you do not have such a big number of templates to choose from.
They do not allow you to install plugins so, for example, you can not run your own online shop if you are not willing to pay about $30 a month.
I can not imagine not being able to use plugins because some plugins are very useful. There is a one plugin called Yoast SEO and it basically makes your site optimized for search engines such as Google and Yahoo.
If you are running a business site then Yoast SEO is just one of these free plugins which will help your site to get more visitors from Google and other search engine sites.
There are dozens of other really amazing plugins which every website owner should use and these kinds of plugins can be installed on self hosted websites and bloggers that use free web hosts like WordPress.com can not use them.
The ability to use so many different plugins and themes for free is one of the biggest reasons why you should get a real paid web host and use WordPress’ software on your site.
6) WordPress.org Is Free and Open Source
If you have your own domain names and your own hosting, then you can use WordPress’s software completely free of charge on as many sites as you want.
WordPress.org is a real open source software so you can basically install and modify any plugin and any theme you wish. You can either buy them, download from the WordPress directory for free or if you are more tech savvy, you can create your own ones.
Unlike some other “free” services, they are never going to charge you, even if your site gets popular or you use their software on many different domains.
There are many “free” blog platforms that will not allow you to do certain basic things like changing fonts and they will almost force you to upgrade account and pay for some features that really should be included free of charge.
I have been using WordPress.org to create my websites for over 9 years now and it has always been available for download for free and most likely it is not going to change anytime soon.
7) Better Support
Back in the day when I was running a few free WordPress blogs, if you had even a minor problem with the database or a little bug, you would need to wait over a day for a reply from them on their support forum and there was no support to help you on weekends.
So if your site would get hacked, you might wait even a few days to get a response and it would take probably another few days to have your blog successfully cleaned.
On the contrary, if you would use a quality paid web host, they would reply to you and fix any issue in a matter of minutes because the best hosting companies understand that providing a good personal support to its customers is crucial.
A reliable support staff is one of the biggest benefits of going with a paid host and using the WordPress.org software on your website.
Wrap Up
I have used many free blog platforms such as WordPress.com or Blogger.com many years ago and I would not recommend any of them to someone who wants to create a website that will make money and have full control over his website.
Feel free to use free blogs if you want to just create a blog where you will share some pictures so your friends can check them out or if you just need a blog where you will post randomly about anything or if you just want to have your own diary blog.
While at first sight a free blog can seem like a great deal, since it is very easy to start a free blog but you will not be able to add ads on it and if you want to try to earn some money online and you need to remember that your blog can get shut down over something really trivial.
The main reasons why so many people love WordPress (almost 40% of all websites use it) is because it is easy to use, completely free and it offers a really incredible number of themes and plugins that help you to create a successful website.
Even if you are going to blog for fun, it is just better to spend a few bucks a month for a professional web hosting and use the WordPress’ software so you can have the full control over your site and build your own blog without any restrictions and without worrying that your site and all your data can get deleted from the web for no reason.
As you can see I have just gave you 7 top reasons but with more than millions of active users and hundreds of millions of websites created, there are even more reasons why you should use WordPress.org on your website.
I wish you all the best and hope that this post will help you to make the right decision as to which platform to choose.
I think that it would be helpful for you to read: 6 Mistakes Most People Make When Choosing A Web Host In 2018.
Did you ever use free web hosts like Blogger? Do you agree or disagree with the reasons which I have listed in this article today? Well, I would love to hear some constructive criticism from you.