Discover the Best Wordpress Hosts

Picking the right web host for your website depends how you are planning to use your hosting service. You may want to create a personal website, a website for your business, or you plan on creating multiple websites. If you are wanting to create a personal website to keep friends and family updated you may create a blog or photo journal. If you have a business that you are creating a website for you may have different requirements than if you are just creating a personal website. And if you plan on creating multiple websites you will need to consider how much disk space and bandwidth you will require, among other things.

So as you can see there are quite a few variables to consider when choosing your web host. Whatever you situation may be, whether you are setting up your first website or considering a switch to a different web host from the one you currently have, there are a few things to keep in mind when you are in the market for a web hosting provider:

Reliability

Reliability, or uptime as it is usually referred to, is extremely important to consider when purchasing web hosting. Uptime is the percentage of time you can expect your website to be available. You probably won’t find a web host that claims to have 100% uptime. If you do then I would be cautious because 100% uptime is not very likely. However some of the best web hosting providers usually have 99% uptime.

The reason a website might be down, or unavailable, is usually because of maintenance on the servers, a power outage, or something more extreme like a hurricane. Most web hosts put a lot of effort in to avoiding scenarios like these by putting measures in place such as alternate power supplies if the power goes out and locating their data centers in areas that usually don’t see extreme weather.

Most web hosts from time to time are going to have scheduled maintenance on their servers and this might mean that your website will be down temporarily. Keep in mind though that web hosts usually try to schedule maintenance during non-peak times. With the technology we have today there is no reason why a web host should have a low uptime.

Customer Service and Support

Having access to reliable support before and after you purchase your web hosting is crucial if you ever have questions or run into issues. There are a number of different reasons why you may need support. You may have billing questions, sales questions such as purchasing additional disk space, or technical questions if you are having problems getting your website setup.

It is also important to consider how support is provided. Do they have telephone support, email support, a knowledge base/FAQ section, and/or a community message board where employees as well as customers contribute in the support process? Some web hosts will only have one or two of these options while others will have all of them. Let’s look at each of these options closer:

• Telephone support. There are a lot of web hosts that have telephone support but it is important to find out more. Do they offer 24/7 telephone support? If they do you may also find out if the agents on the phone are friendly and knowledgeable. This can easily be determined by giving the web host a call and ask them a few questions about their service.
• Email support. Email support can be great but does take longer to get a response than if you were calling on the phone. Take into consideration the response time when you send support emails. This can be accomplished the same way I described above. The web host may also have a “Live Chat” option for support. Live chat is a text based communication between you and someone on the support team. This is a lot faster than email but can sometimes prove to be difficult when trying to communicate your issue.
• Knowledge Base and FAQ. A knowledge base is a place on the web hosts website where you will find common questions and their answers as well as “how-to” articles on common tasks you may need to perform. A knowledge base is a great place to start when trying to solve a problem or find the answer to a question.
• Community Message Board or Forum. A community message board allows you to search questions and issues other customers have had and see the answers and solutions to them. A message board also allows you to post your own questions for others in the community to help you with. Community message boards are usually moderated by an employee from the web host and while you will find a lot of information is contributed by other customers, the moderators are also very active in helping to answer questions.

So you can see that there are a lot of things to consider about a web hosting support options. Having all of these support options isn’t a necessity for them to be a good fit for you. You need to determine which support options are the most important to you and decide accordingly.

Price

Pricing for hosting service is one of the most visible and competitive options web hosts have. It is important not to judge a web host solely on its price. Shared hosting is the cheapest hosting available and you will quickly notice that there is a lot of competition for the lowest price. Keep in mind that the lowest price may not always be the best choice, even if you are on a tight budget.

Your individual needs will determine what price range you will fall into. If you are setting up a personal website then shared hosting is most likely the best option and can be purchased for relatively cheap, but if you are starting an online business that sells thousands of products you will probably need a dedicated server which will cost quite a bit more.

Free hosting is something that is very enticing. We all love “free” but free usually comes with some draw backs. In some cases free web hosts will put ads on your website. So using a free web host like this would not be a good idea for a business but may work just fine for a personal website. For blogs and personal websites there are some great free options such as Wordpress.com and Blogger.com, both of which have no advertising on your website.

So consider your needs and your budget when determining the best price range for your web hosting. And remember that while price seems to be the top priority on your mind when considering a web host, you should always consider all the other factors the web host is providing.

Disk Space and Bandwidth

The amount of disk space and bandwidth included by the web host are going to be your main considerations when choosing which company to go with. Again this is all dependent on your needs.

Disk space is the amount of storage space you are given for all of the files that make up your website or websites. You will need to make sure you have enough to accommodate your needs.

Bandwidth is the amount of data you transmit to and from your website over a period of time (usually a month). Whenever someone visits your website data is being transmitted to that persons computer. If the same person interacts with your website by, for example, leaving a comment data is now being transmitted to your server. The amount of data being transmitted can increase quickly depending on how many visitors you have come to your website.

If you expect your website to grow over time most web hosts will upgrade your website to have higher disk space and bandwidth. So if you worried about spending a lot of money before your website is a big hit, don’t. You can easily upgrade as your website requires more.

If you do a little research using the options above you will save yourself a lot of time, energy and frustration. There are a lot of great web hosts so with a little effort you can find one that will fit your needs.

Wordpress is an open source blogging platform that is powered by PHP and MySQL. It is essentially a Content Management System, or CMS, and is used for blogs as well as regular websites. Wordpress includes a plugin platform with a massive library of plugin options for almost any need as well as a template system that makes the design process of a Wordpress website easy to manage. If you aren’t a web designer or can’t afford to hire one there are a number of free and premium (cost money) Wordpress templates available on the Web.