Online Writing Sites vs One’s Own Blog: 5 Disadvantages of blogging on one’s own blog, followed by 18 Advantages of blogging on one’s own blog:

5 Disadvantages of Blogging on One’s Own Blog

(or 5 Advantages of Blogging on Online Writing sites)

Online writing sites often have very friendly communities. You make new friends easily, and may miss those friends quite a bit if you leave the online writing site or if the online writing site shuts down. You may not have communicated with those new friends elsewhere.

You may feel lonely blogging on your own blog rather than on an online writing site. The community of an online writing site simply isn’t there on your own blog.

If an online writing site shuts down, if you’ve saved your blog posts you made on that site, you can generally re-publish them on your own blog, but any comments those blog posts got on the online writing site can’t be republished on your own blog – this is not your content to re-publish – comments belong to the authors who wrote those comments.

It’s generally easier to get comments on one’s blog posts when one is a member at online writing sites or social sites, than it is to get comments on one’s blog posts on one’s own blog or site.

It’s generally easier to get more visitors to one’s content when one is a member at online writing sites or social sites, due to the existing community there, than it is to get visitors to one’s content on one’s own blog or site.

18 Advantages of Blogging on My Own Blog

(or 18 Disadvantages of Blogging on Online Writing sites)

I don’t have to share my earnings I make from ads, products or services with an online writing site owner – If I have my own blog I am the site owner so all earnings are mine and mine alone.

I can format a blog post how I like on my own blog – with sub-headings, bold or italicized font, different sized fonts, different color fonts, bullet points, or whatever I like! Some online writing sites don’t have many formatting options.

I can speak freely about services I may be offering or any products I may be selling, and can provide links to these pages, posts or sites – in other words I have an opportunity to increase my income from other work I do too. Many online writing sites don’t allow discussion about one’s own business or links to one’s own sites.

I can edit a blog post on my own blog. While some online writing sites allow editing of posts, other online writing sites don’t, or the blog posts have to be edited within a certain time period after they have been published, or not at all.

I can place ads (that I can earn from) wherever I want to on my own blog, and can use any types of ads or ad programs that I want to. One usually has no control over where online writing sites place their ads or which advertising programs online writing sites use.

On my own blog I can make my images search engine friendly which may help my blog posts get more traffic from search engines. I enjoy SEO (Search Engine Optimization), photography and creating my own images, and using my own images, so this is quite a big one for me.

I can make use of an SEO plugin on my own blog that helps me see where I can improve my SEO – which should help increase search engine traffic to my posts.

I can check all stats of my blog posts if I have my own site – how many views, which countries visited, which keywords were likely used on search engines, which exit links were clicked and when and how many times they were clicked, how long a visitor stayed on a page before leaving it, which pages visitors were on when they left the site, if they visited another page (and which page) or if they left the site right away after viewing that page, etc, and can use this info to tweak posts or write new specific ones to increase traffic and income. While some online writing sites provide some stats for their members to check, many provide very little in the line of stats.

By having my own blog I do not have to rely on somebody else’s website hosting service provider when there is an issue. Tony and I have been hosting our sites with a very reliable website hosting service provider for several years now, and they are available and helpful via email or phone even late at night and on weekends, and any issues, the very few that arise, are dealt with promptly.

There is no limit as to how many blog posts I can add to my site on any given day. Some online writing sites restrict one from submitting more than a certain amount of posts or articles within certain time periods.

I can decide for myself the minimum or maximum word count for my blog posts.

I can determine for myself how wide I want the column to be where I write.

With my own blog, can add any quantity of images to a post as I like, and any size of images that I like. Many online writing sites limit the number of images you can add to your post or article, or may insists on at least one or a few when you’d actually like to add none. Image size is often restricted too, on online writing sites. On my own blog I can add really large images if I so choose to.

I can manage my own finances with my own blog. I’m the one who says when and how I get paid for products I may sell or services I may offer; I’m the one who may have accounts with ad programs and can check when I’m due to be paid.

I can make the urls of my own blog’s pages as search engine friendly as I like – some online writing sites have numbers or codes in their urls and I’d rather replace those numbers or codes with words that people actually use when they search for information on the Internet.

With my own site, and especially it being powered by WordPress, and depending on which WordPress theme I’m using on my site, I can do all sorts of fancy things with my site regards layout, and can also make use of many different WordPress plugins for further great features for my site.

I can moderate comments even before they appear, and can edit them too. On some online writing sites one can only delete or flag a comment, not totally prevent it from appearing in the first place. On my own blog, I could even totally disable comments from even being able to be made in the first place, if I wanted to have no comments on my site at all or not have to bother with moderating comments or checking for spam or emptying out my spam.

I don’t have to worry about breaking any rules of an online writing site by mistake, because, with my own blog, the rules are my own. I know my own rules.

Own Blog or Online Writing Sites? Which is Better?

Just because I have mentioned 18 advantages for blogging on my own blog vs only 5 advantages for online writing sites does not necessarily mean that it’s better to blog on one’s own blog rather than on online writing sites.

What matters is what’s better for you, for your own circumstances or preferences.

I used to blog on both my own sites and on online writing sites due to enjoying interacting and communicating with the other members of those online writing sites, mostly through commenting on each other’s posts, and also because of the bit of extra income I earned at those online writing sites, but now I very seldom blog on the online writing sites I still belong to. My personal preference it to blog on only my own sites.

© Copyright Teresa Schultz 2015