Did You Consider this Analogy for Blogging on a Free Platform? |

Ryan Biddulph December 19, 2023 blogging tips 🕑 5 minutes read

Columbus, New Jersey, USA

Bloggers often ask me questions about why they seem to struggle.

Most reply with a link to a free platform blog.

Until the individual buys their domain and hosting and gets going on WordPress Dot Org I simply tell ’em I cannot help them to succeed as a free platform blogger.

I could list 20 reasons why.

But this analogy sums up why blogging on a free platform is a bad idea.

Imagine Opening a Bagel Store in Your Parent’s Basement

Picture yourself opening a bagel store in your parent’s basement.

Perhaps a few family and friends buy your bagels because they know where your parents live and know about the store because you told ’em about it.

But business dies after your family and friends commence with doing you the favor of buying a few bagels.

As an aside, blogging on a free platform is like a little kid selling Girl Scout cookies to relatives and friends of the fam.

After exhausting this seemingly tiny network the sales almost always dry up.

Knocking on the doors of strangers may yield a scant few guilt or even abundant purchases.

But sales DO dry up past a certain tipping point because any business approach based on an untargeted, tiny, limited customer base is doomed to fail.

Returning to the bagel store scenario, you fear wasting, spending or losing money on the venture. So you grab free bagels from your parent’s freezer, toast the bagels in the kitchen, smother with butter or cream cheese from the parent’s fridge and serve these delights in the basement.

Everything is free! Woohoo!

Doesn’t cost you a cent.

But after you make $20 USD off of your fam and friend network you never make another penny.

No one outside of your fam and friends knows about your business. It’s in your freaking parent’s basement, after all.

So you crudely design a sign with magic markers and cardboard – gratis, of course, courtesy of your parent’s crafts bin – and post that sucker on the front lawn.

The few pedestrians and drivers who chuckle at the sign surely won’t walk into your parent’s house or basement, for that matter.

People who want bagels drive or walk to bagel stores located in highly visible spots. You better believe successful bagel store owners invest significant:

money
work
time
creativity
service

into building a trusted, credible brand which slowly but surely generates profits.

Stop Blogging on Free Platforms (Unless You Prefer to Publish a Private Cyber Diary)

Blogging on a free platform to make money is basically identical to opening a bagel store for profit in your parent’s basement.

Bloggers who fear spending, losing or wasting money feel excited to begin blogging for free.

But nobody really finds these blogs and the few who do never really trust the blog.

Would you trust me if my blog was bloggingfromparadise.blogspot.com and looked similar to tens of millions of other blogs via cheap-looking, cookie-cutter, free platform themes?

Google owns BlogSpot, similar to parents owning the home and basement where you “sell” bagels. Google set the rules and makes the free blogging platform look just how they want it to look because Google pays the bills; you do not.

Do you honestly believe that starting a “business” through a blog owned, branded and designed by someone else makes smart business sense?

How can you:

stand out?
build a loyal following?
drive quality traffic?
earn trust?
build a business?

when someone else owns the blog, brands the blog, designs the blog and sets all of the rules?

This is why only a few friends and fam visit the blog. Some do it out of offering a loved one a favor. Others from a sense of obligatory, worldly guilt.

Even if you write skillfully it is so difficult to overcome the fear in your mind scaring you into using a free platform versus ponying up a few hundred smackers per year to get going on WP.

Buying your domain name on free platforms still is not the answer because Google owns the content, sets the rules and establishes a generic-looking site with meager income potential.

It’s still your parent’s basement, folks.

Why Do You Blog on a Free Platform?

Usually, bloggers choose free platforms out of a deep, unconscious sense of hopelessness, crippling self-doubt and the self-punishing conviction of:

“Well it’s not gonna work anyway. Why waste money on it?”

Once you begin to own, feel and forgive that vicious, self-sabotaging, egoic unconscious crap, then you can invest money in a domain and hosting from a mindset of:

abundance
hope
potential
freedom
opportunity

If it does not work out you simply invested a few hundred bucks in a venture you chose to release.

Most humans waste a helluva lot more money and time, in fear, over their lifetime, than a few hundred bucks and perhaps a few months.

But if you are serious about being free through blogging then that small financial investment and big:

learning
work

investment will offer you a life of predominant fun and freedom as a thriving blogger.

Buy Your Domain and Hosting and Blog on WordPress Dot Org

Be smart, guys.

Buy your domain and hosting.

Blog on WordPress Dot Org.

Set the rules. Monetize how you wish. Design your blog how you wish. Customize your blog.

Own your blog. Brand your blog. Build a one-of-a-kind business.

Gain trust.

Be credible.

Build a loyal following.

Grow a thriving business.

Own your blog and business to succeed.

No other viable option exists.

What About Bloggers on a Budget?

Bloggers on a budget usually wish to begin blogging on a free platform.

This is a bad idea for a handful of reasons:

you will struggle and eventually need to spend significant time and energy transferring your blog from a free platform to WordPress Dot Org after buying your domain and hosting
you will struggle, fail and quit blogging by attempting to blog on a free platform which is not a real, honest representation of what genuine blogging is about
you will understand that overcoming the fear of investing $10 to $20 per month on hosting and $20 on a domain for the year is a teeny weeny, beginner level fear that you must face, feel and conquer in order to actually ***begin*** blogging the right way; that’s the beginning point, my young blogging padawans, of many other deeper, more intimidating fears that we all face on the journey to going pro