A blog has been a popular medium to express thoughts, ideas, and experiences for many years. In the modern business world, it has grown into a platform used by millions of people for the different purposes such as making money, promoting business, sharing information, etc.
But not every blog gets success and there can be numerous reasons for it such as poor writing, horrible blog designs, lack of promotion, unsuitable domain name, etc. However, there is one more crucial thing that can make you fail as a blogger if not chosen wisely and that is web hosting.
Unfortunately, web hosting is still the least bothering thing for most bloggers. But let us tell you if you do not pick the right web hosting for your blog, no matter how effective your writing is, your blog won’t get success.
A good hosting ensures your blog is properly and continuously viewed by your audience. In the simplest words, web hosting enables your blog to be hosted on the internet. If you want your visitors to view your blog, then you need to host your blog on a reliable web hosting provider.
If you are looking to start a blog on the best hosting provider, pay attention to the following prerequisites a reliable hosting must have.
What Makes a Good Hosting Service
Uptime
Uptime means the availability of your blog to your audience. If visitors can’t view your blog then there is not much point in visiting it again. So it is extremely crucial to check with the uptime provided by your host in advance. Standard industry hosting uptime is 99.9%, which means less than this should not be acceptable.
Speed
Similar to uptime, speed is also crucial as slow loading speed may irritate your audience and make them leave your blog immediately. Make sure your hosting provider has adequate capacity to load your blog quickly.
Disk Space
Each hosting provider allocates a certain amount of disk space to your blog. Considering your current and future requirements, you should buy a hosting plan that suits your needs. If your blog won’t contain high-quality videos, images, and graphics, you don’t need terabytes of space.
Features
Also don’t forget to check with features like bandwidth limit, database support, disk space, technical support, SSL certification, email account, etc. Because all of these features are essential when choosing a good hosting provider.
Some Popular Platforms to Start a Blog
WordPress
WordPress is the world’s most popular CMS & blogging platform used by millions of people across the globe. You can start your way with WordPress.com if you don’t care a lot about customization. But there is a certain limit that you can achieve with that option. So when the time comes you should consider moving to WordPress.org. Although it is free CMS yet you have to buy web hosting separately.
The platform allows you to build your blog on your own.
Let’s see some benefits of WordPress platform.
Features
- Offers freedom to use a custom domain name.
- Gives you control over every aspect of your blog.
- You can grow your blog and add features like an online store, forums, etc. using different plugins.
- You get set of free blogging themes.
- It comes with some great features such as backups, security measures, spam filters, etc.
Blogger
It is a free blog hosting service, which was acquired by Google in the year 2003. It lets you create a quick and simple blog within few minutes. The best part is Google itself hosts this platform, which means you need not buy any 3rd party hosting.
Features
- A user-friendly platform for non-tech-savvy users.
- It is a free platform.
- The advantage of Google’s robust secure platform.
Wix
It is a pre-hosted platform to create blogs and websites. The major advantage of this platform is you can simply create your blog using the drag-and-drop tool. However, you should take into account that they like to charge for additional features.
Features
- There are dozens of templates and 3rd party apps, you can use to customize your blog.
- No coding skills required as drag and drop tool lets you create a blog easily.
Squarespace
Squarespace is another popular blogging platform launched by Anthony Casalena in 2004. The platform primarily focuses on small businesses that look for an easy way to establish the online presence by building a blog.
Features
- It has well designed professional templates.
- It supports separate domain name along with e-commerce stores, HTTPs and SSL.
These are few popular blogging platforms used by millions of people across the globe.
Now when you are aware of what exactly you need to look for in a web hosting provider and which blogging platform you should use. Let’s find out some of the popular web hosts that can manage all your blogging needs.
Siteground
You can start your blog in minutes with SiteGround. It provides a lot of great tools that can make your blogging experience easy and great.
SiteGround blog hosting plan starts at $3.95 for month
Let’s take a look at some features it provides, especially for blogging
- Free blog installer
- Free daily backups
- Blog optimized servers
- Domain name registration
- Free CDN service
- 24/7 support via phone, ticket and live chat.
Inmotion
Inmotion seems the right fit for different kinds of blog. It is one of the largest independent web hosting company in the world came into existence in 2001.
It is a managed hosting platform especially optimized for WordPress. If you’re using WP platform for your blog you can consider this option as well. Its
WordPress hosting plan starts at $6.99/mo
Features
- Fast SSD disks
- Automatic backups
- Security protection such as hack prevention, malware protection, etc.
- Unlimited Bandwidth
- Unlimited Email accounts
- 1 Free domain, etc.
A2Hosting
A2Hosting is a well-established web hosting company that provides a wide range of hosting services under the one roof, including shared web hosting, dedicated hosting, domain names, reseller hosting, etc.
The company is receiving positive reviews from users. Its basic plan named as ‘Lite’ begins at $3.92/per month.
Features
- Free backups
- Fast SSD disks
- Free SSL certificate
- Unlimited bandwidth limit
- Unlimited disk space
- cPanel access
- Full WordPress optimization
- Easy auto installer
- 24/7 Customer support via phone
Wrapping Up
This is a quick guide to the blog hosting. Hopefully, this review will assist you to find the web hosting that should work perfectly for all your blogging needs. We would suggest you not to waste time and money by using a web host that is too laborious for your skill.
The post Blog Hosting Review: The Best Place to Start Your Blog appeared first on Web Design Blog | Magazine for Designers.
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