Attention : Henbima’s blog has moved to “henbima.com”

I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

I have just saw an alert in my television, that there is a 7.2 earthquake 15:42 happened in Bengkulu Indonesia near Aceh (A city devastated by one of the biggest tsunami in world history, 9.2).

BMG Indonesia, Indonesian Meteorological Buereau said that the earthquake potentially going to be a tsunami. Haven’t got the news yet, but i do hope it’s not gonna be another disaster for Indonesia…

I am currently thinking to have my own domain for my blog.

Yes, this hokkymart.com is my own domain, but it was first intended to be my company (read:shop) domain. I ordered the domain so i can have my email with “@hokkymart.com” prefix in my name card as well as all my correspondence.

This blog was started just for fun, and wrote all the mumbling i had in mind, nothing serious thinking with it. But now, i realize that, blogging is not just for mumbling, having fun and sharpen my english. It actually can be used to make money, making friends and many more.

Why do i need my own domain, rather than continue using this blog as my blog. Well, some people out there already pointed out some of the benefits of having my own domain rather than subdomain. Below is my excerpt from fellow bloggers :

• Bloggingmix says, the benefits are :

1. Freedom and Security Purposes - Blogs under a subdomain is usually hosted for free (e.g. Blogger and Wordpress), hence, these blogs are under the mercy of the site administrators. Failure to comply could mean the suspension of your blog.
2. Better Search Engine Ranking - Based from experience, a domain name compared to a subdomain generally has a higher search engine ranking especially when it’s well optimized. Blogs or websites under a subdomain is in high suspicion of spamming. Since it’s free, the potential for spamming and abuse is very high. On the other hand, websites that use their own domain names are considered to be less spammy. Why would you spam using your own domain when you’re paying for it?
3. Keep Your Google PR and Other Rankings - Most of the successful bloggers of today started blogging with free blogging services like Blogger. As soon as they have established a number of readers and credibility, they move to host their own blog. The problem with moving your blog is lossing your Google Page Ranking and other ranks if all the while you’ve been under a subdomain (e.g. yourblog.blogspot.com). If however you have your own domain name, you can keep all your link juice, your precious PR and other rankings when you decide to move and host your own blog.
4. Easier Branding - With your own domain name, branding is much easier. I’m sure you don’t want to look some fly-by-night who can’t afford $10 per year to register your own domain name.
5. More Blog Monetization Opportunities - The fact. Advertisers are becoming more picky with blogs where they want to advertise. If you’re with PPP, Sponsored Reviews or Smorty, you probably read opportunities that are not accepting reviews from blogs under a subdomain. If you’re using a subdomain, you are lossing alot of opportunities to earn from your blog.

What i can’t agree more is : Registering and using your own domain name is really cheap.

• Nasir, the winner of TophostingCenter competition about the importance of owning your own domain, says this in his blog :

1. First and foremost reason, it gives a professional to your blog/site, if you own a domain
2. Most of the times, sub domain are ignored by search engines to be listed in their search results
3. Subdomains are subjected to follow certain rules and regulation, in some cases show compulsory link to their main site4. Sub domain are not registered on you. Moreover sub domains do not have email address support, like you@yoursite.subdomain.com, whereas in domain you have a support for email address like you@yourdomain.com
4. You are no more than a tenant, Sub domains are registered on their respective owner, whereas if you own a domain your are the real boss
5. Subdomain url’s are hard to remember with those slashes, dots, hyphens, numbers etc example Http://.123-mysite.free-site.com/
6. In the other hand if own a domain url’s are based on your name or company so its easy to remember
7. Subdomains like blogger, wordpress and other free platforms does not support PHP, MYSQL database, ASP etc, In the other hand domains PHP, MYSQL database,ASP and lot more are supported
8. In sub domains like Blogger,Wordpress, or any other free platforms do not support file hosting of word,PDF,.exe files on to their server.In domains you are allowed to upload and host many files on to their servers
9. Sub domains(expect wordpress) do not have multiple pages like http://You.subdomain.com/contact. In other hand in domains, you can have a number of multiple pages

Reasons given by Nasir and bloggingmix should be enough for me to start considering a domain name for my blog. Other than reasons stated above, i think having my own domain, will somehow motivate me to post more and socialize more with other bloggers, this long domain name, is not an easy name to remember as well…

These few days have been busy days for me. My brick and mortar business, the shop, needs my attention more. It made me have to leave my online business and online learning to make money for a moment.

This blog was also affected. It’s almost a week i didn’t make any post, while i used to post one every 3-4 days.

Few days off from blogging and internet was good for me. I used my off time from the internet, to done some of the jobs i have postponed since last week.

Usually my free time, off the work, was used to learn some more about online business and browsing, looking for some new insight about making money online. But this week, i use most of my time reading and learning from ebooks i downloaded and websites  bookmarked.

So many times i downloaded good ebooks and crossed on a good website but never had the time to really read them. I think, it is unwise to have an information but never really learn from the information, and try to put the information into real action.

Few weeks ago i wrote something about focus, but the next few days, i lost that focus again.  I think i have to refocus once again….

Have you ever think that you pay too much for your hosting cost compared to what you really going to need and use?

When you think to have your own domain name for your blog or website, finding a web host is probably the first thing will cross your mind, isn’t it? And if you are a beginner, you might think that, whoaa, i had to buy a host package which has big storage and gigantic bandwith as cheap as possible.

Than you start your browser rolling, from web page to another just to find which company offer the biggest and meanest of all, you might even think going for a reseller plan, as the bigger you buy the cheaper the cost gonna be, it might even cheaper than your sneaker. Well, i did too, and i know some people who did too, that’s why i know for detail.

Have you ever realize that decent blog with decent content like wordpress plus some decent .jpg, themes and plugin need no more that 50MB to alive? Well yes it’s different story for a photo gallery.

Do you let your monstrous bandwith sitting doing nothing?

If your blog is just a first time blog for you, you got no plan to monetize it or use it in anyway other than to say Hello World and keep relationship with your fellow friend. And you know that :

• Your blog will gonna filled by some few short post per day,
• Your blog is personal diary which mostly contain text and sometimes photos too,
• Your blog which attract only 30-50 people per day,

than your monstrous bandwith might be sitting at the corner smoking without doing anything good.

I know a guy who has PR5 WordPress Site with Alexa traffic rank at around 100.000 with 400-600 unique visitors a day, just uses less that 1GB of transfer each month, and how do you and me the average joe and jane would swallow that 10GB of bandwith monthly?

It is a mind opening

What i am writing here is not to offend any of web hosting company whose offering those gigantic package in cheap, a lot of people i know benefit are getting great benefit from your packages. Neither if you are a client of a gigantic package and you have purchased any of those package because you see it fit your need, than hot for you.

I just want to give people a chance to see whether they are paying what they really need, and a new point of view for some people who doesn’t want to spend money on anything they don’t need for.

THC Rudolf plan suit me

I myself host my blog and some niche wordpress site here in tophosting center, because i feel it has a good customer service and there is great people whose ready and willing to help, even though there are some limitation on my shared hosting plan, but hey, i get what i paid for.

The reason i choose THC over the other, was because it offered me lifetime hosting with its limited rudolf plan. It was my plan to have some niche websites and subdomain in an account and the rudolf plan perfectly match it. Eventhough my bandwith and storage meter haven’t move even near to its maximum bar so far.

What do you think?