| When asked why they built their own website from | | | | (SNS), and other sorts of service that demands |
| scratch, the answers are always among the | | | | member registration |
| followings: | | | | - E-commerce |
| - More flexibility w.r.t design and ad placement | | | | - Others... |
| - Many open source CMS systems such as Joomla | | | | As you could see, I didn't mention exhibiting unique |
| make the building of website a piece of cake | | | | content as one of the competitive advantages of |
| - With a feeling that independent website can always | | | | website. Why? In my view, if you have unique |
| earn more money than free host such as blogs, wiki | | | | content, putting your content in a blog provided |
| and other free hosting providers. | | | | either by WordPress or Blogspot is enough for you |
| - Others | | | | to achieve as least the same result as if you build |
| However, none of the answers listed above ensure | | | | your own website. In many cases, the return |
| that building our own website is a wise decision, that | | | | ensured by free blogs is much higher than |
| is, will bring us much more return than if we continue | | | | independent websites. The reason might include: |
| to use secondary domain name with free host. | | | | - Independent website is more likely to have more |
| Actually, nowadays, bloggers and WordPress are | | | | general content, which is less friendly to advertising |
| quite effective cash engine for webmasters. You | | | | network. On the other hand, blogs usually have a |
| could customize your design. You could almost freely | | | | narrow topic on which all the articles are centered. |
| place your ad anywhere in your pages. You could do | | | | - Independent website is much harder to optimize |
| link building. You could play with social bookmarking. | | | | given the huge workload of an entire site, whereas |
| What's more, you could take advantage of some | | | | with a blog you simply need to care about your |
| blogging technique, such as auto pinger, to greatly | | | | articles, domain name, and some titles naming. |
| reduce promotion efforts required. | | | | - You have do all on your own for your own |
| So what on earth determines whether we should | | | | website, whereas blogs usually have a lot tools or |
| consider building our own website? Well, it depends | | | | widgets for you to take advantage of. |
| on the competitive advantages of independent | | | | In brief, it's very important to think twice before we |
| website compared with free host service. In my | | | | decide to build an independent website at a certain |
| view, the competitive advantages of independent | | | | moment. I made a lot of mistakes in the past |
| website include the followings: | | | | because of blind website obsession. I sincerely hope, |
| - Serve as news, company or some other | | | | after reading this article, you my dear friends, and I |
| organizations' portal. | | | | as well, could do a better job in future when we |
| - Provide service, such as search engine, web | | | | need to make a decision on when to build our own |
| directory, blogging, forum, social network service | | | | websites. |