Choosing a web hosting company can be a difficult task, web hosting companies mention a lot of technical specs which will be hard to understand if you are a new blogger.
So in this post, I am going to show, How you can find a good web hosting company.
You will learn about all the specs and metrics, which you should check before you buy your first web hosting.
And at the end of this post, I will share my favorite web hosting company that costs less and provides more features.
So let’s begin
Analyze Your Audience Size And Needs
This is one of the main mistakes that lots of bloggers make. Some bloggers overestimate their audience size and others underestimate it.
So you need to know your audience size before you buy your first web hosting.
Excited to know your audience size.
You can use SEMRush or any of your favorite keyword research tools to find it. Here I will show you how to guess your audience size using Ubersuggest.
Step 1: First head over to ubersuggest.com (it’s a freemium keyword research tool) and enter one of your important keywords in the search bar.
Step 2: Now, the tool will show you how much traffic your main keywords get. For example, the keto diet plan keywords get 90000 searches per month.
So a blogger who is making a blog around the keto diet will need more bandwidth and fast servers to handle the traffic.
Note: The keyword I saw you early is very competitive so you may take months or even a year to rank for that keyword.
So first analyze your audience size and needs.
Choose Fast Servers
User experience is one of the important elements if you want to grow your blog in 2024 and so on.
From the last decade, google was asking developers to create a better user experience for their users
In the early months of 2020, Google released an update called Page Experience. And made site speed one of the ranking factors under Core Web Vitals.
Maybe you are thinking that I don’t want traffic from google. Does it matter to me? Let me tell you a scenario,
You are going out to buy some clothes for you. You went to a store near your apartment.
But you saw a big queue outside of that store, all of them trying to get clothes.
Now, what would you do?
Do you wait outside the store or will go to the next shop?
You probably head towards the next shop.
This same thing happens to your readers when your website takes too much time to load.
That’s why having a fast website is so important.
According to Bishnu Mahali (owner of this blog), Rocket.Net is the fastest web hosting for WordPress out there right now.
But it is costly, so I will not recommend you to start your blogging journey with this.
If you're just getting started, you can look at budget options such as Dreamhost, Bluehost, HostGator, etc.
Good Support System Is Important!
WordPress or any other CMS comes with lots of small yet painful problems.
And if you are designing your website by yourself then you can get into trouble and in that case, having a good support system can be so helpful for you.
The web hosting which you are planning to buy should have a 24x7x365 experts support system.
Even better if the hosting company provides live chat support.
My previous web hosting had a terrible support system and that’s the reason my site was down for more than 10 hours.
Almost all well-known web hosting companies claim to have an expert support system. Until and unless the company is oversaturated or under saturated.
Go With The Trusted One
You spend a lot of time planning, designing, and programming your website or blog then suddenly your server crashes and you lose all your data.
That’s why having a trusted web hosting is so important.
I know that this can happen in any web hosting company, but most of the big brands make a daily backup and use external resources to save the data.
If you want to go with a new web host company then first ask other buyers about the company, Ask how is the service and should I purchase it or not?
If you find positive reviews then you can buy them.
However, I will still recommend you to go with well-known ones like Rocket.Net, Dreamhost, Bluehost, GreenGeeks, or A2hosting, to be on the safer side.
Research About Downtime / Uptime
I have been blogging for the last 3+ years and in this time I have used many web hosting companies, I found one thing similar in almost all the hosting companies and that is 99% guaranteed uptime.
Some companies were able to keep their promises and some failed.
But how you know which company is going to have high uptime.
Don’t judge it by the design of the website instead I have a tool that will help.
Here is the step by step process
Step 1: Find out a blog or website which is hosted on the same web hosting company which you are planning to buy.
(You can check the review section to find websites that are hosted on the same web hosting company.)
Step 2: Now, open a web tool called dotcom-monitor.com and add the website you found.
Step 3: Monitor the website for a couple of days.
Here you go, if you found that the website you have entered has no downtime then probably the webserver is strong and has less to no downtime.
Control Panel And Interface
I am guessing, you have no ideas about web designing and if your web host doesn’t provide a simple and easy-to-use interface then it can be a big pain.
Sometimes as a solopreneur, you have to deal with some advanced stuff like editing the htaccess file, managing the PHP version, or installing a custom SSL certificate.
In that case, having an easy cPanel or interface can make your work easy. In my experience, I found Bluehost, Rocket.Net, Flywheels, etc. to provide an easy-to-use interface.
I guess almost all well-known web hosting companies provide cPanel to manage backend works, so you can read the documentation or watch YouTube videos to understand cPanel.
Or you can invest in managed WordPress hostings which are so easy-to-use and understand that you can figure them out yourself within a few minutes.
Check The Billing Cycle
This is one of the best traps which almost all web hosting companies set up to get newbie customers.
In the first year of hosting, they provide a huge discount and from the 2nd year, they charge 50% more than the actual price.
So before you buy a new hosting, check the billing cycle.
You can simply ask customer support to know how much you have to pay in the next year.
If you can learn how to migrate your WordPress website to a new host then I will recommend you to change your web hosting every year to save some money.
But always try to upgrade your web hosting companies.
Pro Tip: Always try to purchase web hosting or any digital goods in the Black Friday sale to save some extra money.
Anytime Upgrade In Your Plan
Before you buy a new web hosting check if the company provides an anytime upgrade in your plan.
Because in the first few months you don't know how your website will be going to perform.
So in case if your website or blog gets tons of traffic then you might have to upgrade your plan to provide a seamless experience to your users.
You can ask customer support if you can anytime upgrade the plan or not.
It's not a deal-breaker however you can ask it to be on the safer side.
Author’s Recommendation
I have been blogging and making websites for clients for the last 3+ years and in these years I have learned that good web hosting makes a good impact on your business.
So choosing a good web hosting company for your business is important.
However, I will not recommend you to invest a lot of money in web hosting.
Start with the plan which costs less but provides a good service and you can upgrade the plan as your business grows.
My most recommended web hosting company to start a WordPress blog is A2Hosting and Hostinger.
Both of the web hosting companies cost less but provide a good service.
Conclusion
If you are looking for a good web hosting company to start your blog but you are confused about which hosting to choose then this was the best guide for you.
Just follow all the instructions and process above to get a good web hosting company.
However, I am curious to know which hosting you are going to choose.
Please let me know in the comments.
