As you might have been made to understand, when starting a self hosted WordPress blog, it is required that you have a web hosting account where you will need to install WordPress.
As easy as that sounds, finding a reliable web-hosting company can really be some sort of hard task considering the fact that there are over thousands of web hosting companies on the internet. These companies all make the same mouth-watering promises and claims.
The claims often includes 99.9% up-time, speed, awesome tech support to take a few. While a few of these companies keep up to these claims, most of them don’t.
First, let me give you a description of what web-hosting entails.
What Is Web Hosting?
According to my own simple understanding, i would describe web-hosting as a home where you keep and maintain your blog. Take for example, you’ve got properties like some furniture and electronics. You would need to house them, right?
Same applies to what web hosting entails. You’ve got a site or, you want to create a site with contents, you would need a place to put them. That’s what web hosting entails.
Was that simple enough? Don’t worry, i am sure you will get a better understanding as time goes on. Moreover, i am pretty sure you should know what web-hosting is and that’s why you are in need of a good hosting company. Isn’t it? I mean, isn’t that why you are reading this content in the first place?
Like i have earlier stated, there are thousands of web-hosting companies on the internet which promises loads of features but most of these companies do not meet up to their reputation and thus causing damage to their client’s website(s).
Wouldn’t it be crazy for you to wake up one sudden morning only to realize that your blog or website is offline? In-other to prevent this, it is essential that you look out for some certain features in a web-hosting company before choosing them to host your blog.
Features To Look Out For When Choosing A Web-Hosting Company
Reliability
95% of all hosting companies on the internet promises 99% up-time. But, not all meets to this claim and if you are looking for an hosting company that promises 100% up-time then sorry, because you might be falling to the wrong hands.
The reason web hosting companies promises 99% up-time is because they believe incidents can occur anytime which could lead to downtime. Knowing that incidents can happen, what makes a webhosting company better than the other, is the ability to get things fixed within a really short pace of time.
In today’s world, there are technologies in place that limits these occurrences. Meaning, the moment a server is down, you could be migrated to another within seconds or minutes. For this reason, they often promise 99% up-time and not 1oo%.
I mean, even your favorite mobile messaging application sometimes experience downtime despite being owned by one of the richest men in the world with more than one data-centers.
24/7 Customer Support
When choosing an hosting account, make sure that they have a 24/7 customer care support just in case you have any issues with your account at anytime.
Often at times, these companies promise 24/7 customer support but, you could send a ticket now and only get a response after a couple of hours. If you are currently hosted by such companies, you should consider moving.
Personally, i like to go with hosting companies that’s got live chats. You should also be watchful here though. While some hosting companies may have online chats, their online chat representatives often know nothing other than selling the product to you. They cannot attend to simple issues as fixing posts displaying 404 error.
Hence, you may want to consider asking a few questions about the webhosting company and what kind of support they offer before having them host your blog.
Fast Response Time
This kinds of relate to what i mentioned in the second point above. It’s not just OK to have a 24/7 customer care support if you the customer do not get answers to your questions in time. As earlier mentioned, some of these companies promise fast response time yet, you send a ticket and only get a response after about 6 to 8 hours.
Imagine your website having some issues and your users / readers not being able to access the contents on your blog. Imagine sending a ticket and only getting a response within 6 to 8 hours or even more. That means, your website or blog will be offline for that long period of time.
If that blog is your money blog, you can imagine how much you must have loosed in those hours of your blog not being accessible.
To avoid this, you should be on the look out for web hosting companies that reply fast to tickets, chats or emails. If you’ve got the money, you should consider going for a premiere web hosting company.
One Click WordPress Installation Scripts
I am quite sure you do not want to go through stress and tough times when trying to install WordPress on your hosting account.
If you are being hosted with the right hosting company, your hosting company should be able to help you install WordPress on your account. However, it’s always a good idea to do this yourself if you’ve got the time. Practice they say, makes perfect.
Most shared hosting accounts out there, has got control panel as part of the package. And often at times, one-script installation softwares like Fantastico, Softaculous are part of the package. With these apps, you should be able to install WordPress on your domain with ease.
Hence, you should make sure that your hosting account provides free cpanel with it’s shared hosting account. That way, you can utilize one click WordPress installation scripts like fantastico etc.
Free Website Transfer Service
Let me ask you a question. Do you know how to transfer an account from one hosting company to the other? No? Great! Not everyone is tech savvy enough to understand how to move accounts from one hosting company to another. Hence, it’s necessary you be on the look up for hosting companies that allow you to do such.
No doubt, a few good hosting companies do not offer this service. Often at times, they recommend contacting a developer to do this. Other times, they charge you. Would you want to pay those extra bucks when you can get relatively good web hosting companies that can help you transfer your website for free? Painlessly, i should add.
With this in mind, you should only opt in for hosting companies offering free website transfer service. Except of course, you know your way around doing these things yourself. I recommend checking out Best 3 Web Hosting Companies Offering Free Website Transfer service.
Don’t Always Go For Cheap, Rather Go For Quality Service
What normally get people into the wrong hosting companies is their desire for cheap service instead of looking for quality service. It is best you speed your money on quality service and watch your blog grow than speeding on cheap service and your blog appears to be offline most of the time.
A few web hosting reviews I’d recommend reading are:
- Arvixe Web Hosting Review
- Namecheap Shared Hosting Review
- Hawkhost Hosting Review
- HostWinds Hosting Review
In my subsequent posts, i will be letting you into some hosting companies i recommend for hosting a WordPress blog. More so, i will be writing on how to easily install WordPress to your hosting account.
Hope this helps in making you choose the right web-hosting company for your WordPress blog?
