Running my Blog – is it better to host it myself?

Question

If I want to run a Blog for my business, what is the best place to host it? Should I use a hosted service or would it be better to host it myself?

The Blog Coach replies:

If you are looking to set up a Blog which you will be using for your Business, then I would always recommend that you would be better to host it yourself, just as you probably already do with your website. The simple reason for this is that it will give you most control over it and flexibility which means that it will best be able to answer your business’ requirements.

I think that the free hosted systems such as Blogger or Wordpress.com (as opposed to Wordpress.org) are great for personal blogs because they are free and because there is very little for you to do except start to write. However, they do come with an inherent risk, as you may decide over time that you want to do more with your blog than can be done with a hosted system like this, at which point it is very difficult to move all of your content across to your new blog. Even making permanent (301) redirects so that people can still find all of your content that has been indexed is not possible on some of these blog systems, which will lead to a lot of frustration and possibly lost leads too. There have even been cases reported where proper Business blogs have been mistaken for spam blogs (splogs) and had their content deleted. Not a good situation!

Making the right choice in terms of your blogging platform is a key early decision and you want to try to consider not only your current requirements but also try to look forward to what you are going to want to do in the future as well. Ideally, something like Wordpress or Movable Type will be able to grow with you.

If you decide to host it yourself, you will need to consider whether to choose a new domain name and run your blog there or whether you should incorporate the blog into your current website. Both options have merit. If it deals with issues which are distinct from those that you talk about on your main website then it may be sensible to select a relevant domain name and separate the two. However, by incorporating the Business Blog alongside your other content (and integrating it graphically into the look and feel of the site) then you can use it as a complementary means of engaging with prospects and customers, and so enhance the positioning of your business through it.

To sum up: overall, primarily for reasons of control, security and future-proofing for your business, we would recommend that you steer away from hosted services for your blog as it is likely to become a key part of your business.

Related posts:

1. Thinking of starting a business blog? Consider this …
2. Finding a Domain name for your Blog
3. Choosing a name for your Blog