We’ve noticed quite a few customers run their company blogs on free platforms such as WordPress.com or Blogger.com. Quite frankly, this is a HUGE mistake. Here’s why:

1. It looks unprofessional to your visitors. “What, you can’t afford your own website in the information age?” You’ll lose a ton of credibility with your customers if you send them to a free blogging host.
2. While WordPress is stable, many other free platforms are boom-or-bust companies. If they boom, you’ll eventually get charged for using their platform. If they bust, you’ll lose all your hard work because you’ll most likely have little (or no!) time to respond.
3. You have no control. If the hosting service doesn’t like what you’re doing on their platform, they can cut off access at any time and for any reason: leaving you with no recourse other than to request access restoration, which they may or may not do.

What to Do Instead:  Get a Dedicated Host and Use a Responsive WordPress Setup

Companies with their own blog website come across as so much more credible to potential customers. Aside from just reputation, however, other reasons to do this include:

1. A “responsive” design that provides a good experience for all users. This means it’s guaranteed to display perfectly on all modern devices (desktops, laptops, smartphones, and tablet PCs), which is sometimes not the case with free blogger sites.
2. A site that meets customer expectations re: blogs. You don’t need to update your blog on a daily basis, but customers will naturally browse your site for something referred to as a “blog.” You should update this at least monthly (or weekly, if you can). If you don’t, visitors won’t enjoy a perfect opportunity to form a relationship with your company—and you’ll lose their business. Google demands fresh content from every website in order to maintain good search rankings, meaning blogging is no longer an option.
3. A site that loads more quickly. How quickly your site downloads greatly affects how well your site—yes—sells. Prior research reports the following with respect to corresponding impacts:

• A load time of one second decreases conversions by about 5%
• If your page takes two seconds or longer to load, that figure rises to 10%
• If it’s 3 seconds, you’re looking at a 15% loss
• At 4 seconds, conversions fall by about 22%

What’s the value of an average sale to you? What does monthly revenue look like for your website? What could you make in additional revenue if that figure increased by 22%?

A Couple of Very Nice Blogs

You don’t need an elaborate web design to succeed—only one that is simple, organized, and fast-loading. Copyblogger—a well-known internet company—boasts a simple website design that loads noticeably faster than its competitors. You’ll notice very few graphics throughout that website. While the Hubspot website is a bit more loaded with graphics, it’s still simple overall.

Both sites feature easy-to-use menus at the top and also adapt well so that both mobile and tablet PC users can navigate with their fingers. Likewise, the typeface is so large that viewers can easily see it on any smartphone.

Building a User-Friendly Website Doesn’t Take a Massive Budget…

Good websites like these aren’t super expensive to design, even for very small businesses.  Yes, of course: these companies make millions in annual revenue, so they pour lots of money into their websites. While you may not be able to achieve page-loading times that match theirs, you can get awfully close—even with a much smaller budget.

A small investment in a self-hosted blog with a responsive framework will give your business the credibility and professionalism visitors and potential customers expect from your company. If you’re interested in launching a new blog, redesigning an existing one, or transferring away from a free blogging platform, contact us at info@i5ww.com!