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This was the first year in a long while that I opted out of participating in NaNoWriMo. As a result, I found myself with much more time in the month of November.
I used the opportunity to examine my site and do some general housekeeping – sprucing up some code, doing some general updates, rewriting some tags. Basically, I was getting my site up to speed for visitors.
I’ve had my website since the spring of 2018. Sylviesoul.com was the first time I had ever spent money on a website, but I can honestly say the investment was worth every penny.
I get it – if you’re a writer, you’re likely cash-strapped and looking to minimize costs. But paying for web hosting is one the best investments you can make early on in your writing career.
Here are just a few reasons why you should invest in a paid website instead of using a free website.
- YOUR OWN DOMAIN NAME
- CONTROL OF THE DESIGN
- A PLACE TO HOUSE YOUR WORK/PORTFOLIO
Your Own Domain Name
People are busy. They don’t have a lot of time; the last thing they want to do is type out a long, cumbersome website name, like mycoolwebsite.wordpress.com.
The great thing about paying for a domain is that you can use it as part of your branding. You can make the name of your website supercoolwritername.com instead of supercoolwritername.wordpress.com; not only is it cleaner, but it makes you a lot more professional than other writers who are too cheap to shell out for a domain or are not thinking long-term.
GoDaddy offers low-cost annual plans for domain names, but so does HostGator, which is who I use to host my website.
Control of the Design
When you limit yourself to a free website, you lose the autonomy to design a website exactly how you want it.
My first free website for writing looked like all the other blogs – those generic templates with the post dates on the side that offered little in the way of customization. Yes, TECHNICALLY I was able to make the site my own, but it required a lot of backdoor tweaking that ultimately decreased the health and efficiency of my site.
Conversely, when I started to pay for my website, I discovered that with my web hosting plan, I could download several free plugins and themes to create the look and style that I want for my brand. Sure, if I wanted to pay for premium plugins and themes it’s possible, but at this stage in the life of my writing website, I’m satisfied with the thousands of options at my disposal without having to spend extra money.
Again, HostGator provides many options for web hosting; I have a rudimentary knowledge of WordPress and can style a website to my liking, but for those that need a little extra help, HostGator also offers WordPress optimized plans.
A Place to House Your Work / Portfolio
“But Sylvie,” I’m sure I hear some of you cry. “I put all my work on Medium/Tumblr/Fanfiction.net for free – why do I need to waste money on my own website?”
I get into this a bit in a previous post, but, if you choose to house your content on another platform’s site, you’re essentially renting the real estate. At any point in time, Medium can decide it doesn’t want to be the place where people can post free content; a less scrupulous company may even shutter while providing little to no warning, and you could potentially lose all of your previous work if you didn’t save any backups.
The beauty of managing your own website is that, on top of providing fresh, new, consistent content, you can also create a page to house links to other works you may have done for clients or publications around the Internet. You no longer have to be at the mercy of a curator’s scrutiny or schedule, and you no longer have to fear the rules changing when it comes to how a company houses your work. When you pay for web hosting, you no longer rent, you own your writer space.
Once again, HostGator is the web hosting service where I chose to rest my hat and a place to house my writing portfolio. HostGator offers several affordable deals for price-conscious writers, and you can take the next stage in your personal writing development without breaking the bank.
Do you agree? Do you prefer to make a free website, or to spend a little extra money with web hosting? What is the web hosting service of your choice – Squarespace, GoDaddy, BlueHost, HostGator? What’s your biggest reason for investing in web hosting? Please let me know in the comments below!