After months of pondering a new name for my new site, I came up with the name Glocoa. It merges the words Glam and Cocoa. This site is going to be a bit different from my previous site (momentswithdes.com) because I am taking a more professional approach. This means I will be conducting interviews and conducting research on various topics.
WHY THE NAME CHANGE?
I felt like “momentswithdes” was not a name that could easily be branded. I also didn’t feel like it had much flare or was unique enough to make people stop and wonder, “Hmm! What’s that?”
WHY DID I DECIDE TO SWITCH TO A SELF-HOSTING SITE?
I wanted more freedom to design my blog the way I wanted and to have complete ownership of my blog. I felt this was the only way that my vision could come to life. With a self-hosted blog, I did not run the risk of having someone take down my site because they owned it. That right there, was the biggest weight off of my shoulder.
WHAT IS YOUR VISION FOR THIS NEW BLOG?
My vision is to create a space for women to gain access to loads of information on various topics that are affecting them everyday. I want to provide women with information that will help in improving their health and lifestyle.
These topics will all be covered in the “Let’s Talk” category of my blog. I will still be covering aspects of my life which you will find in the lifestyle category in the “Blog” dropdown. I feel it is important that you get to know a little about me and that is why I want to share aspects of my life.
WHAT SELF-HOSTING PLATFORM AM I USING?
After many months of research, I decided to use chemicloud as my self-hosting platform. It was super easy to set up and the process took me under 15 minutes. I picked this web-hosting platform because it had, by far, the best reviews across different websites and it was one of the most affordable for a three year time-frame. I am affiliated with chemicloud, but I can honestly tell you that I would not speak so highly about them if they were not a great host.
Update: It is August 2021 and I still have not had one issue with chemicloud.
WHAT SHOULD YOU KEEP IN MIND WHEN SELECTING A HOST FOR YOUR BLOG?
You should pay attention to four factors when selecting a host which are customer service, price, setup time, and reviews. I think these are crucial in selecting a host. For example, it was always recommended that I use bluehost, but the reviews begged to differ. A lot of people had many issues with bluehost and that just did not sit well with me. I had looked at countless YouTube videos and review sites and again more bad reviews about different hosts. I was so confused and I did not just want to pick any one host because I felt pressured. I wanted a host that took the worry off of me of making sure that my blog was always operating properly. Blogging in itself is stressful at times, so worrying about my host is just added stress that I didn’t need. Chemicloud took care of all that and then some. Some hosts might be cheaper per year, but money is not a huge factor to me when I am thinking of having a strong host that can support my blog for years to come.
SHOULD YOU BUY A HOST FOR ONE, TWO, OR THREE YEARS?
I say go big or go home and get the three year option, but if you are not sure how serious you will take blogging then do the one year. Within that one year, you will know whether you want to continue blogging or not. For me, I started with the WordPress-owned blog that was free. I used that previous blog to try out blogging and I loved blogging so much that I knew I would continue to make that commitment. I did not like that WordPress could easily take my blog down anytime they wanted, so I knew switching to a self-hosted blog was my best option. Please DO NOT buy a three year or even two year host if you are not really into blogging. It will be a waste of your money.
I am so excited about the launch of my new blog and I can’t wait to see how far it goes in the future. It’s going to be so fun discussing a wider range of topics and producing content that you’ll hopefully love.
**Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links that I may earn a small commission. **
About The Author
