Should I Invest in a Self-Hosted Website?

Have you ever thought about a self-hosted website? Moving your blog off a free platform like WordPress, Blogger or Tumblr to your own hosting account is a big step. It’s also a necessary step if you want to take blogging more seriously. You need to own the content and, in many cases, this isn’t the situation when you are using someone else’s service to host your site. TigerHive Creative Group, a Raleigh website design company, advises our clients to make sure, above all else, you own your intellectual property. This is important because there’s a good possibility that your website is a prime source of new revenue for your small business.

To the average blogger, the difference in a self-hosted website and a free platform might not be so obvious. You might be asking yourself, “Why should I consider self-hosting?” Free hosting sites mirror the act of living in your parent’s basement. Sure, you own the TV and your furniture, but can you knock down walls and renovate the whole place? In most cases, no.

Free sites are just like that. The content is up to you, but ultimately you have to follow someone else’s rules. In many cases, these sites don’t allow you to incorporate a beautiful, customized design from TigerHive Creative Group.

Choosing to self-host your own website allows you to do all those things and more. Yes, you do pay monthly fees, but you can use their servers for your website files. Ultimately, self-hosting can equal more rewards but it does come with more responsibility. Below are a few great reasons to self-host your own website, courtesy of blogenie.com:

• Customization: Adding plugins (cool WordPress add-ons) is one of the easiest ways to make your site do all the fancy stuff you see on other sites. Think social sharing, Pinterest, photo galleries, recipe plugins, cool sidebar stuff – most of that is done with plugins.
• Advertising: Most free platforms restrict your ability to put your ads up on the site. They are free to put their own ads up but that’s so they make money, not you.
• Control: Self-hosting means that your stuff is your responsibility. You can back it up and keep it safe. Remember the great Blogger blackout last May? When the site went down for 2 days without a lot of answers while the whole mess was going on. Once service was restored, some bloggers lost a lot of content – for good.

Self-hosting can be scary but beneficial activity. Getting started on your Raleigh website design and hosting project is as easy as calling us for a free consultation. If you need a little more convincing, below is the overall process for obtaining a self-hosted website.

1. Buy a domain.
2. Pick a hosting provider.
3. Install WordPress on your new hosting account. TigerHive Creative Group chooses WordPress for a number of reasons.
4. Choose a theme.
5. Have your old content transferred.
6. Allow TigerHive Creative Group to add plugins and customize your theme for a beautiful, eye-catching design!
7.  Have the old blog redirected to the new blog, so no one gets left behind!

If you need help purchasing and designing your own self-hosted website, feel free to contact us. We’re a Raleigh website design, graphic design and video production company with a ton of experience serving successful local business. We’ll dedicate a resource to help you get your self-hosted website project started in the right direction. Don’t hesitate to contact us with questions and concerns. Remember, we offer free consultations if you’re unsure and need to learn more.