Websites live on web hosting servers. (Blogs are websites too.) How to pick the right web hosting service for your self-hosted (WordPress) blog?
Any website is delivered to the world by its web servers. Hence, the performance of your website depends on your web hosting.
Given the mission-critical role of hosting, you have to select the right one for your blog.
Web Servers
Not all web servers are alike. Like other computers, web servers have Windows or Linux as their operating systems. Then there is the web server application installed. (No, you don’t have web servers with MacOS.)
When you go out shopping for web hosting space, you might come across different options for web hosting servers. Some of the common attributes are listed here.
- CPU Processor: Intel, AMD
- RAM (Memory): 32 GB, 64 GB, etc.
- Hard Disk: Storage space
- Operating System: Linux, Windows
- Server: Apache, IIS (for Windows)
- Host of other scripts and applications
- Server or datacenter geographical location
For self-hosted WordPress blog, you need Linux-based web hosting with Apache web server application, PHP, and MySQL (database).
Hosting Packages
Web hosting companies provide the option to take complete web servers or a part on rent.
In hosting terminology, these are identified as the following:
- Shared web hosting
- Virtual private server
- Dedicated server
- Reseller hosting
- Managed hosting
- Cloud hosting
Shared web hosting is the most affordable hosting where your website is hosted on a server along with others. All the websites on the server share the same resources, including CPU and memory. It is ideal for small websites and blogs. Unless your website drives tens of thousands of visitors daily, shared hosting will meet your requirements. This is the hosting you need when starting a blog.
Dedicated server is at the top-end of the service range. With a dedicated web hosting server, you don’t share the computer resources (CPU & memory) as the computer only hosts your website(s). You need a dedicated server when operating a large website or where lots of computing is required.
Virtual private server is kind of semi-dedicated server with some CPU and memory resources dedicated to your website(s). You still share the web server along with others.
Reseller hosting is web hosting that can be resold.
Managed hosting provides a value add-on: support for managing and maintaining the website. Managed hosting is specific to a platform such as WordPress managed hosting. Due to the additional service, it is generally expensive.
WordPress hosting is among the latest hosting packages offered. Basically, it is shared web hosting where the server has been optimized for running WordPress.
Cloud hosting provides the ability to seamlessly scale your website in terms of CPU resources, memory and space. Here the website is not tied to any one web server, instead uses a network of computers. Such hosting can be based in one location or spread across the globe.
Check the Quality
Web hosting can make or break a website. Here are the key features of good hosting.
- Website uptime: Your server should be up and running 24/7 so that your website remains accessible all the time. Ideally, it should be 99.9% or better.
- Server speed: If your sever is not fast, the website will take longer to load. Any website that takes longer than 3 seconds to load is considered slow.
- Geographical location: Though the Internet is one giant global network, the geographical location cannot be ignored. The location of your server should be closer to your potential visitors. When you are targeting US visitors, your website will be faster when served from any US-based server.
The Right Hosting
For self-hosted WordPress blogging, you need a shared web hosting that’s reliable. It should also support the requirements for WordPress.
Though you can live without it, a web hosting that integrates WordPress within its dashboard for easy installation and management is preferred.
Your hosting provider should support 99.9% website uptime. Anything less than this and you should be prepared to occasionally find your website being unavailable.
Picking the wrong web host can impede your success with your blog. Not only your website will be down or slow, it will affect your search rankings too. Hence, choose a reliable hosting provider.
Bluehost is among the popular hosting companies for shared web hosting for WordPress. With its support for WordPress, you can easily create your blog without any problem. (Note: It is not the best hosting available., but it’s cheap and good enough for beginners.)
Do you have personal experience using Bluehost? Yes, we have used it for both WordPress blog and business websites. We have never had any problem with it. You will learn about how you can easily create a WordPress blog in this series.
Pro Tip: Buy hosting for the maximum tenure possible. The discount is available only on the first billing. Also, buy the package that allows you to host multiple websites. You will really appreciate your decision if you plan to create more websites or blogs.
Of course, there are some other good web hosting companies too. However, Bluehost seems to be the right pick when considering ease of use for beginners and value for money.
Avoid Cheap Web Hosting
Some companies offer cheap web hosting, say, $1 per month.
Don’t fall for the low price. Your chances of getting stuck with poor web hosting is high.
If you pick cheap hosting, your website will be slow and remain unavailable quite often. Eventually, it’s going to cost you a lot more: failure of your blog and lost potential revenue.
Treat your blog like a business and invest in it!