It couldn’t be easier to make a blog in the age of the internet. There are many websites which offer user-friendly platforms for writing and hosting blogs. However, depending on what you want to do with your blog, you might decide that you would prefer to have a self-hosted service. If you do decide to go down this route, there are a number of benefits and you will be able to get far more out of your blog. Here are some of the most important reasons to self-host:

• You can choose your own domain name. Whilst you can choose a domain name on other sites, it will cost you extra and you’ll be paying more than you need to be.
• Freedom. You have far more options, such as whether or not to use advertising.
• You won’t be restricted to themes. Lay out and design are much more in your control.
• SEO. If you want good SEO, you really need to be self-hosted to stand any kind of chance with the search engines.
• Upload space won’t be limited to 3GB. This can be a problem if you want to use lots of images and videos.
• There won’t be any hidden costs to unlock features. Blog sites are notorious for trying to charge users for access to additional functionality.