This is week 3 of building my freelance writing journey from scratch in Nigeria. If you've been following along, you know week 1 was about setting up my Fiverr account and Raenest, and week 2 was about admitting I had zero clients and feeling lost.
This week, something real happened: I bought my own domain. davidwrites.com.ng is officially mine.
But the real story isn't the purchase. The real story is the trap I almost fell into and what I learned along the way.
Why I decided to buy a domain now
Honestly? I waited until I had the money. Not from blog earnings (I have zero yet), but from the small budget I set aside for building this thing properly.
I noticed that my blog on davidwritesblog.blogspot.com was working, but it didn't feel like it was fully mine. A custom domain won't magically bring me thousands of readers overnight. But it makes the blog feel more permanent. More serious. Like something I'm committed to for the long run.
There was also a deeper reason. I want this blog to solve real problems for fellow Nigerian freelancers the kind of problems that nobody else honestly writes about. Owning my own domain felt like a small commitment to that mission.
The ₦44,000 trap I almost fell into
Here's where it got interesting and almost painful.
I first tried buying davidwrites.blog. The price looked amazing: only $3 (about ₦4,800) for the first year. I almost paid right there.
Then, just before clicking pay, something made me check the renewal price. That's where my stomach dropped.
The renewal price was $26.96 roughly ₦44,000 every year after the first one.
Read that again. ₦4,800 to register. Then ₦44,000 every single year to keep it. That's an 836% jump after year one. If I had bought without checking, I would have been locked into paying ₦44,000 yearly or losing the domain entirely.
I felt sick. I almost made that mistake. Most beginners would have clicked pay without scrolling down to see the renewal price. The first-year discount is the bait. The renewal is the trap.
I cancelled the .blog purchase. Felt bad for a moment almost gave up on the whole idea. Then I tried Truehost and found davidwrites.com.ng available for ₦5,500 for the first year, with a stable renewal of ₦7,000 per year. That's only a 27% increase at renewal, which is normal and fair.
That's the domain I bought. davidwrites.com.ng.
The payment failures that almost broke me
Buying it wasn't smooth either.
My first attempt to pay via card failed. Just an error message, no clear reason. I felt frustrated. My second attempt also failed. Same error, no explanation.
After two failed payments, I almost gave up for the day. I had spent hours researching domains, comparing prices, fighting the .blog trap, and now my own card was rejecting me. It felt like the universe was telling me to stop.
I waited a few hours. Charged my phone. Tried again that evening this time using a bank transfer instead of a card. It worked. Order number #3751833885. Domain officially mine.
The lesson: sometimes the path you planned doesn't work, and you have to try a different one. Bank transfer succeeded where my card failed. If I had given up after the second card failure, I wouldn't own davidwrites.com.ng today.
What I'd tell any Nigerian beginner buying their first domain
If you're thinking about getting your own domain, here's what I learned the hard way. None of this is theory. All of it cost me time, energy, or close calls.
1. Go with .com if you can afford it. Or pick an extension that matches your niche. For a writing blog, davidwrites.com would have been ideal — but it was taken. I chose .com.ng because my audience is primarily Nigerian and African, and the pricing is fair and stable.
2. ALWAYS check the renewal price before you buy. This is the single biggest trap. Many domain extensions show a cheap first-year price like ₦3,000-₦5,000, then quietly charge ₦30,000-₦50,000 every year after. .blog, .online, .site — these are common trap extensions. Read the fine print. Scroll past the discount. Find the actual renewal number.
3. Avoid the 5,000-Naira-to-40,000-Naira trap. If a domain costs ₦5,000 for the first year and ₦40,000 to renew, you're not saving money. You're locking yourself into a years-long expensive subscription. The math doesn't work for beginners.
4. You have many options for where to buy. I used Truehost because they accept Naira and offer fair .com.ng pricing. Other options include GoDaddy, Namecheap, Dynadot, and others. Each has different prices for different extensions. Compare before you commit.
5. Have a backup payment method ready. Card payments fail more often than you'd expect, especially for Nigerian cards on international or local sites. Bank transfer is usually more reliable. PayPal works on some sites if you have it set up. Having two ways to pay saves you from the situation I almost ended up in.
What owning the domain means to me
I'm going to be honest: owning davidwrites.com.ng doesn't suddenly make me a successful freelancer. I still have zero clients. My blog still has a tiny audience. The numbers haven't changed.
But something else changed.
It means I'm building something real. It means when someone reads a post and remembers it, they can find me again easily by typing my domain. It means I'm thinking about year three of this blog, not just week three.
It also means I'm one step closer to actually solving real problems for fellow Nigerian beginners. Problems like the .blog trap. Problems like Payoneer's NIN-SIM restrictions. Problems like figuring out which platforms actually work for African freelancers.
That's the whole point of this blog. The custom domain just makes that mission feel a little more permanent.
What's coming next
Right now, I'm in the middle of connecting davidwrites.com.ng to my Blogger blog. It's more technical than I expected Truehost doesn't give simple DNS management for .com.ng domains on basic plans, so I'm working through Cloudflare to handle the connection.
By next week's update, the domain should be fully live. You'll be reading these posts at davidwrites.com.ng instead of davidwritesblog.blogspot.com.
If you're a Nigerian beginner thinking about buying your first domain check the renewal price first. Always. That five-minute check could save you ₦40,000 a year.
I'm David. Three weeks in. Real domain. Real journey. Still figuring it out.