Full disclosure: this post contains affiliate links for products and services I've personally verified and/or used and highly recommend. When you make a purchase through one of these links, Bootstrap Logos receives a small commission.
So you want to build a website?
Starting a new website or blog is exciting and terrifying. You go approach it with huge dreams and massive expectations. There are loads of decisions to make: What is the focus? What should it look like? Do I need a logo? What should the domain name be? Clearly there is plenty to consider.
One common question that’s too often an afterthought: Where should I host my site? Not everyone who wants to build a website is a developer. If you can’t code, there is a good chance that WordPress will be the platform of choice to build your site. Now you ask: where can I find cheap web hosting?
Budget is a big consideration, but why do we usually want the cheapest option? I can answer that. We want the get rich scheme to work. We want a weight loss pill that gives us tight and sexy abs. We want it all without having to invest. We are advertised this daily. Have you ever bought a new pair of “cheap pants” only to have them rip the first time you wear them? How about a ‘cheap car’ only to have endless costly repairs? I could go down this path for hours, but you see my point.
When purchasing goods and services you often get what you pay for. Investing a little more for web hosting can be the difference in your blogs success.
Over the years I have built many sites. The best experiences have never been when I tried to save a couple dollars a month. The cheap ones have always caused more headaches. I finally found a host that I love and can’t recommend enough. Flywheel. I host this site and my wife’s business site with them. Switching to them has been a one of the best website related decisions that I have ever made.
So when you are searching for website hosting answer these questions so you can be as happy as I am with my host:
Does the host provide an easy platform for you to manage your site on?
Let’s face it. We’re not all engineers. Building a website is technical. Trying update your site through an outdated system is feels like pulling teeth. Even if you know what you’re doing. Choosing a host that is designed for WordPress will simplify your site’s upkeep. This is important to me because I want to spend my time writing content and promoting my sites. Not doing the mundane technical maintenance.
Below is Flywheel’s dashboard. As you can see the design is simple and clean. I have everything I need to manage my site. I’ve used other hosts but having one that focuses solely on WordPress sites has been a game changer for me.
Will this host help increase my site’s speed?
Most of the cheap website hosting plans out there are on shared hosting. What is sharedhosting? “Shared web hosting service refers to a web hosting service where many websites reside on one web server connected to the Internet. This is generally the most economical option for hosting, as the overall cost of server maintenance is amortized over many customers.” When you buy cheaper hosting you buy space on a server is hosting hundreds or thousands of other sites.
You will notice slower load times and increased downtime compared to dedicated servers. When companies oversell space on their servers it becomes an issue. This is why you should go with a reputable web host.
With shared hosting WordPress cacheing plugins are a must have. You will need to research plugins that will increase your site’s loading speed. As well as spend time setting them up. Boring! Most dedicated WordPress hosts do this for you and it’s wonderful.
Site speed is a big factor in Google’s search algorithm. If you are trying to build your site’s traffic through google search a shared server may not be the way to go.
Is my site secure on this host? Do they provide any added security?
Having your WordPress site hacked sucks! Cleaning up after someone has gained access to your site is a nightmare. With shared hosting you are responsible for downloading and managing security plugins. This can be overwhelming. It’s worth finding a host who does most of the work for you.
Does this host have great customer and tech support?
I can’t say enough how much of a difference great customer support makes. There will be bumps in the road when running a site. Hosting providers that respond quickly, and helpfully, are worth every dollar.
My wife runs a fitness site, The Fit Tutor. A couple of years ago her site went down right before the new year. For five days! I know, what a terrible time for a fitness site to go down. The hosting provider was extremely unhelpful. They took forever to respond, and when they did their responses were vague and unhelpful. It was their fault, not ours. She lost a couple days of business during the busiest time of year. We immediately started the search for a new host. Luckily one of my trusted developer friends pointed me to Flywheel. The experience with them was wonderful. They even migrated our site to their servers for free! Now this is the kind of service we all want.
Is this a reliable host?
I alluded to the importance of reliability in the story above. Having an unreliable host is painful. It’s embarrassing having your audience complain about site speed, and downtimes. It creates extra support emails for your. And it doesn’t help build trust with your site visitors. People won’t to enter their credit card info on a site that is constantly crashing or dragging. So if you are trying to build an audience or business, reliability should have some weight.
Wrapping things up
I mentioned WordPress plugins multiple times in this article. Having a huge plugin database is a blessing and a curse. It allows you to supercharge and extend your site. But it can also create more management. Having a host that reduces your day-to-day upkeep is worth paying for.
I get it, you want to save money. But saving an extra $10-$15 per month on cheap web hosting may not be worth it when considering site speed, security, and time. I don’t want to spend hours of my time maintaining my site’s technical side. I have more important things to spend my time on, and I’m sure you do too.
I hope you don’t have to learn the hard lesson that I did. Cheaper is not always the best choice. Cheaper can mean a lot more work and time wasted.
