Should I self-host my blog?

Holy cow I will tell you about my exciting adventure and why I think the answer should be yes if you are just starting off.

When I started blogging in 2005 I first did a personal blog and it was paid for at typepad.  I ended up changing to a free wordpress site about 2007.  For some reason I decided to start a birth blog in October of 2007 and liked wordpress so stuck with that.  I don’t even think I knew about a self-hosting option.   I already had a website I was paying for so it wouldn’t have even cost me any more money.

In 2009 I first toyed with the idea of changing to self-hosted.  There were somethings I wanted to do that I couldn’t’ on the .com   But it was so overwhelming thinking about changing that I couldn’t quite go there.  I knew it would take a lot of work.

I started doing the 31 days to a better blog challenge in July and realized if I wanted to add some cool things to my blog I needed to change over.  So, I bit the bullet and it bit back.  It was supposed to be easy and I will spare you the details, but it wasn’t.

I ended up hiring a fellow blogger to help me with the move and design and I am glad I did.  I just wish I had hired her about 7 hours of work earlier.

I don’t know if it was worth it yet or not.  I will follow up in September after a month of   using self-hosted wordpress.

So right now I would say if you are starting off, go ahead and start self-hosted.  If you are .com right now, give me a month to tell you what I think.

Edited to add, I just started playing with plugins. I found some great ones to start with at Digital Woe and I think now it may indeed be worth it!  🙂