Web hosting is one of the things bloggers have to consider when they are setting their blogs. There are different types of hosting one can go for. However, to get the best value for your money, you have to know what you are targeting with your blog. For example, if you will simply be blogging and interacting with readers on your site, you may not need a web hosting package with advanced features like ecommerce.
What To Look For In A Blog Hosting Provider
There are a number of things you should consider when choosing a blog hosting provider. Some of these include:
1. Pricing
Pricing is a major thing to consider when setting up your blog. If you will not be offering anything for sale or getting any form of income, strive to keep your costs low. There are many cheap webhosting companies that offer excellent services. Shop around the Internet and compare prices. You might also want to compare the features of different hosting package before purchasing.
2. Bandwidth
Bandwidth is crucial when choosing a blog hosting company. It refers to the amount of traffic that is allowed to your blog every month. If you have a small niche website that does not attract high traffic, this might not be a big concern. Ideally, a monthly bandwidth of 1GB per month will be sufficient. This means that only 1,000 unique visitors will be able to access your website within the month. However, if you have a high traffic blog, it is good to go for unlimited bandwidth. This can usually be done by paying a minimal upgrade fee to the web hosting company.
3. Disk Space
You have to consider the amount of disk space being offered before you purchase. Usually, a 5GB disk space will be sufficient if your blog will not be hosting large files. However, if you intend to have high-resolution images, audio and videos on the blog, you will need a bigger disk space.
4. Features
You might also consider looking at the features of the package. For example, can you install popular applications like Joomla and WordPress? This is especially important if you intend to use the platforms for your blog. Other things to consider include the number of email accounts you can create, access to the control panel, and compatibility with other technologies like ASP.net and PHP.
5. Uptime and Downtime
A good web hosting company should provide an uptime of 99.7% and up continuously for at least 3 months. There is no company that can guarantee a 100% uptime. Various things can happen that can cause a downtime. These can include software bugs, human errors, natural causes and others. Any company that provides 99.7% uptime is good.
Types of Web Hosting
There are two major types of blog hosting you can opt for: shared hosting and dedicated hosting. Simple blogs that do not sell anything online will work fine with shared hosting. In fact, most blogs are hosted on shared hosting. However, if you have a robust blog and would like to expand your ecommerce capabilities by offering you customers a secure shopping experience, you will have to get dedicated hosting. In shared hosting, your blog is hosted in one server together with several other blogs from other customers. For dedicated hosting, your blog is allocated its own server. Shared hosting is cheaper than dedicated hosting. However, should there be an outage caused by other blog owners, your blog will also be affected and may not be available during the downtime. For dedicated hosting, you are guaranteed better uptime. A good web hosting company should offer you excellent support services regardless of the type of hosting you have purchased.
