There are literally thousands of hosts out there that want your money. When you are first starting out, finding a decent host can be a daunting task. There are several options that you can choose from at each host as well.
Eventually you will want to get a dedicated web server for all of your sites. However since you’re just starting out you can simply purchase a shared hosting plan. Shared hosting means that you are sharing the same web server with other people that are also paying the hosting company to utilize their server.
Hostgator is one of the largest hosting companies in the world – you will hear very mixed reviews across the web on their service. While I don’t like the fact that they advertise unlimited space and bandwidth, since that’s physically impossible, they are still a fairly solid company. They have to be doing something right to be as large as they are.
Hostgator has a promotion going on right now specifically for WordPress blog hosting. When you arrive at their website you’ll want to choose the Baby package. This package will only cost you $7.95 a month if you pay for the entire year up front. Enter the coupon code “wordpress” (without the quotes) to get your first month for one penny. Use coupon code JeremiahCooperHostgator to get the 1 penny package for the first month.
As you expand however – I have a company that I wholeheartedly endorse. Liquidweb is by and far the best hosting company that I have ever dealt with. If you aren’t too worried about price, you can start out with their shared hosting services which are around $20 a month. They are more expensive, but they don’t advertise unlimited anything, and they have the best customer support I have ever dealt with.
Either of these companies will get you started – if you are low on cash choose Hostgator. They will be more than enough to get you moving in the right direction. As you grow you’ll want to look into moving onto a dedicated server with Liquidweb.
Today’s post is fairly simple. The only action that I need you to take is to choose a hosting plan and purchase it. Tomorrow we’ll talk about choosing a domain. There are a few ways that you can choose your domain name, and it’s all based on how you plan to get traffic.
About the Author
I am a big fan of Host Gator myself. I have been using them for about five years. Their customer support is exceptional. The only thing I would ad is that whoever you go with, get a dedicated machine if you are doing affiliate marketing. Nothing is worse than an overloaded shared plan. Slow response times and unavailability can cost you thousands in lost conversions when loading issues arise. Something you have no control over on any host when it’s a shared machine.
Great post BTW. Keep it up!
HostGator is really good. Thanks for sharing this info.
Choose your hosting based on the location of your target audience. This helps in speed of surfing and also google webmaster geotarget feature that perhaps rank you differently if you have certain target audiences.
Well I am still Using Hostgator and find its perfect
Surprisingly, I’m the first one to side with Coop on this one. Liquid Web is much better than Hostgator. The only reason why Hostgator may be one of the largest hosting companies in the world is because of their oversold “unlimited everything.” Most people never drive enough traffic to their sites to come near to the server loads needed to crash it. LiquidWeb FTW
This is all very much horses for courses depending on what you need your website to do. For affiliate marketing you may not need a vast amount of bandwidth or for some sites you may expect a lot of hits.
Some hosts will charge you extra for databases (essential for WordPress) and other services while some offer all in one packages.
You also may not want to put all your eggs in one basket on a single dedicated server (or even at a single host).
For some sites the free versions at Blogger and WordPress.com are becoming flexible enough to use too.