Still, when building a thriving Internet business I strongly encourage folks to use an own domain name. The image one portrays on (or to?) others is a more professional one, in my humble opinion.

And there are lots of other methods to get high rankings at the Search Engines. :-)

Regarding your question what you can do with your domain, stay tuned as I’m going to give more specific and more tutorials in the near future here on hochstadt.com. Meanwhile, here are a couple things one usually does with a domain…

- blog
- content rich Web site
- sales letter
- simple 4-5 page “online business presence” with no specific purpose other than “just being online” (not recommended)
- a mix of #1-#3

Again, it’s in the pipeline! :-)

I always go with my own domain when setting up a blog, it’s not that expensive and saves time in the long run. My host has an extremely simple way of setting up a WP blog, the worst thing about this is I have to upgrade right away because they are not always up to date. No big deal, just a little inconvenience.

I dived straight in the deep end and got my own domain, because I was putting up squeeze / sales pages, and didn’t start blogging until later down the IM road. So, inadvertently, I saved myself the dilemma of deciding which option - free of self-hosted - was the favourite. Sometimes, ignorance can be a blessing in disguise;-)

Now if only I could find a few more short-cuts to the all the other mountain ranges and grand canyons I have to traverse;-D

Rene & Rhea, stay tuned. A tutorial on how to move from a free to an own blog (including all its contents) is in the pipeline. :-)

Renee, I used that technique when launching my first site. It helped me getting my pages listed in a matter of hours. For THAT it is helpful, I agree. Just not as a stand alone when building a serious and profitable Internet business.

And to Susie & Rene, the most effective method to do that is implementing a 301 permanent redirect. That way, you won’t lose any links and your PR shall be transferred to the new location.

Also, like Theron said, ordering domains right in the moment an idea occurs is key. Or how often have I heard of someone thinking about a name for a couple minutes, then it was gone…

And Stephan, as a matter of fact, I did rent a dedicated server the other year (was in Germany). As an expert told me, it was a very good one and all was well and sound. Though, the learning curve was just too big that time and I hadn’t had money to hire an admin. Will definitely look into this in the future again though since, as you said, it’s a next step.

Thanks for sharing!

Also, it is far less likely that somebody will steal your domain name if you set up from start. I learned that lesson with Dark matters. I had originally created a subdomain in my own host site, even though the main domain was open, I was still testing the waters. By the time I had gone to buy the domain name, somebody else had bought it. I had to adapt the name a little bit to make it work, rather than fight with the shark for the domain name I had originally intended.

So I guess I say, pay for your own domain and hosting service, and buy your domain the minute you have the idea, so it doesn’t get taken by some shark out to rake you for cash.

on the other hand, one advantage of using blogger is to be listed in their directory. I have launched a blogger acct that LINKS TO my real site. therefore, i’m on the radar, get an extra backlink, AND am able to comment easily on other blogger sites (WITH my avatar next to everyone else’s default “B”!)

I believe in “best of both worlds”.

I know always think twice about commenting on a blog that is hosted on blogger. While I’ve noticed more and more people are setting up their blogger accounts to allow Open ID or a name and URL, so many of them still require you do have a blogger ID and only link to a profile. That usually prevents me from commenting.

So if one feels they really do want to stay at one of the free websites I recommend, at the very least, that people optimize it for easy commenting.