What to look for in Hosting Plans

This is in response to a question from reader Chris, who is one of the Mike’s Life subscriber community. He asked “I’m about to set up my first blog, and I’ve found your site full of good advice, but I’m bewildered at all the different hosting options available, and would like some help.”

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Essentially, there are three different types of web hosting available:

Shared Hosting

This is where most people start. With shared hosting, your site or blog will be on a server with a number of other websites – you don’t get to choose, your host will decided where to put it. The biggest advantage of using shared hosting is price – plans are available from as little as $5 a month. The biggest disadvantage is that you have no control over the server’s resources – if another site on your server starts generating loads of traffic or server requests, your site will suffer and slow down. If that starts to happen, talk to your provider, who will usually be happy to move you to another server.

Virtual Private Server

In this scenario, your blog will be hosted on a shared server, but your “part” of that server will effectively be partitioned off, for your use only. That means you will have a minimum amount of server resource at all times. When you change, you will immediately notice an increase in speed and performance. You can host multiple websites on your virtual server, with multiple URL’s. My advice is to switch to a VPS as soon as you start to notice problems in page loading times creeping into your blog. Blogs use a lot of server resource – accessing databases and loading photos and video.

Dedicated Server

Here you actually have your own server, your own piece of hardware. So you have total control over whatever it’s doing, and only your sites are using the server. It’s a expensive option – at least $100 a month, but once your traffic justifies a dedicated server, you won’t look back in terms of performance.

So what should you look for from a provider?

• Support options – do they offer 24 hour support? How easy is it to access? Can you live chat? Can you telephone? Are there any claims about response times?
• “One click” uploading – most hosts will offer simple “one click” uploading for Wordpress, Drupal, forums etc. Look for this, it’s so much easier than a manual installation
• Multiple Email accounts – can you have enough to do what you want? You may want different accounts for different writers, or to use to subscribe to other sites
• Domain parking – as you grow your online business, you may want to buy and park domains – most hosts offer this free of charge
• Disc Space – make sure you have enough disc space for the job – blogs can use an awful lot, especially if you have a lot of photos or audio
• Back ups – is there a simple process (many are even automated) to back up your site and databases?
• Uptime guarantee – if your site is down it will cost you readers. Does the host offer any guarantees? Remember, even a 98% uptime guarantee may mean your site is down for a week per year!
• CPanel – CPanel is now the industry standard for accessing your server. Most hosts offer Cpanel, and it’s a good option and intuitive to use.
• E Commerce – if you’re likely to want to sell things from your site, then choose a host which offers an E Commerce option
• Upgrade Options – Does your proposed host offer upgrades to VPS and dedicated servers? You will want to upgrade as you expand, and most hosts will make the move for you.

I consider the above to be the bare minimum, but also look for any specifics you might need for your site like streaming video, photo gallery support, spam filtering and any other specific programs. Do your research and ask around on social media for recommendations.

For those interested in my situation, I started on a shared hosting plan with Servage. That was a mistake, as Servage don’t offer any upgrade options, so once the site outgrew shared hosting (which only took three months!) I had to go through the pain of moving it manually. I moved to a VPS with Inmotion Hosting, and I’ve been very, very happy so far with their service and the performance of my server, which is running three busy sites, and has a number of parked domains on it. I’ll move to a dedicated server before the end of the year.

You might also enjoy: