Seven Tips To Help You Choose The Right Blog Hosting
Choosing the right host for a blog is much more important than what many think. Although a really good CMS like WordPress will not consume a lot of server resources, as the blog grows, the right infrastructure needs to be present. Choosing a bad blog hosting provider will lead to slow loading times, incompatibility with different plugins or themes and ultimately, lost traffic and income.
In order to choose the best possible blog hosting, there are some things that have to be considered. Never agree to a deal before you analyze the following aspects.
Check The Downtime Stats
Reputable hosting providers guarantee a really high server uptime. Never work with a provider that does not offer at least 99% uptime since this means that your blog might be down when you need it the most. Downtime stats have to be transparent and need to be included in the contract that you sign. High uptime stats show that the technical staff taking care of blog hosting is quick to react when problems appear.
Read The Scope Of Service
Some hosting providers will lure clients with many different deals that look great. However, when reading the Scope of Service agreement, problems become visible. For instance, in some cases you are offered a free domain name. Always read the terms of service to know exactly what is actually guaranteed and what is not.
Determine If It Comes With Free Set-Up
When you choose blog hosting, one of the best features to have is free set-up. This means your site will be online really fast and you can focus on the content as opposed to the technical side of setting up everything.
There are numerous problems that can become visible as you analyze how set-up is handled. For instance, in some cases you are responsible for setting up the MySQL database, connect it with WordPress and more. If you want assistance, you need to pay extra. Since most blog owners are just interested in the blog, not how it is built, having free set-up is a huge advantage.
Be Wary Of Traffic Limitations
Traffic limitations need to be considered whenever your blog is expected to grow or if you already have a lot of traffic and you want to transfer to a new provider. Traffic limitations can be quite problematic since in some cases, when you go over the traffic limit shown, you are asked to pay more. The amounts you pay are normally much higher than expected. Fortunately, this practice is not as common as it used to be. However, this does not mean you cannot have problems as the blog grows.
The best blog hosting providers will have some sort of traffic limitation in place but it will be really high. For instance, the basic plan could handle traffic up to 25,000 unique monthly visitors. When the traffic limit is passed, you want to see the possibility of quickly upgrading your host to a new plan, without having to pay a lot for it, of course.
Determine Your Budget
Speaking about payments, blog hosting is nowadays more affordable than it ever was. Even so, there are still so many hosting providers that charge a lot more than what would be fair. The trick is always to get as much quality as possible for the money you pay. At the same time, you need to determine the budget you have. Based on how much money you can spend on blog hosting, choose providers that offer features you actually need and that can accommodate how much traffic is expected.
Upgrading Options
Every blog owner is interested in growing traffic. As traffic grows, the current hosting package might become obsolete. This is where upgrading steps in. Reliable hosting providers give access to one-click upgrades, allowing you to choose a new package that is more suitable for the current needs of the blog. Also, the more upgrading options are available, the easier it is to make a great choice. Will you want to move to a dedicated server or to VPS server after initially choosing shared hosting? This is just an example of an alternative that should be present.
Customer Service
Many consider this to be the most important thing to consider when choosing blog hosting because problems can always appear. You should never get a package from a hosting provider that does not have 24/7 live customer support available for clients.
As an extra related tip, read reviews written by real customers about the customer service experience that they had. This can instantly show how problems were solved and what quality to expect from the customer support department.
Final Thoughts
When you consider these seven tips to choose the very best blog hosting for your business it will be so much easier to make a good choice. Never hurry and do not believe everything that is said. The more you research information about the provider and its blog hosting, the easier it is to make a good choice! Generally, the more reliable the provider is and the higher its reputation, the better the blog hosting packages offered.
