Selecting your hosting is among the most crucial factors to take into account when launching a new blog. Choosing the incorrect host can give you a lot of headaches, as well as possibly result in downtime for your blog and income loss. Continue reading to learn how to select the best blog host.

Before beginning a blog, there are a lot of things to take into account. Choosing a theme, blogging niche, hosting provider, and revenue stream are all important decisions. But if you decide to launch a self-hosted WordPress blog, selecting a hosting provider is among your most crucial choices.

There are a plethora of options and offerings available, with monthly prices ranging from less than $5 to over $100. It can be very confusing, especially for a novice blogger. And choosing the right course of action can be extremely difficult, even for seasoned bloggers. So, how do you make a decision?

WHAT IS A BLOG HOST?

Let’s take a moment to define a blog host before discussing how to select the best one for your website. You might be unsure if blogging is new to you. This field’s blogging jargon is so confusing that it drives me crazy.

In essence, hosting is a requirement if you decide to run a self-hosted blog (amazing, huh? I warned you that the jargon was unclear. That is the “home” of your blog.

I like to explain this one with the analogy of a car. In essence, your hosting is the garage and your URL is your car. A hosted blog (such as Blogger, WordPress.com, Wix, Squarespace, etc.) is like renting a car from a specific garage. You won’t have to worry about finding a garage for your car because they will “host” your rental car at their garage—often for free. The drawback is that, naturally, if you’re unhappy with the service, you can’t take your car to another garage.

When you host your own blog, you are the owner of the vehicle, or your blog, and you are free to park it in any garage, or hosting company, you choose. If you don’t like it, you can change it at any time.

SO, WHAT SHOULD YOU CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING BLOG HOSTING?

There are 5 main considerations when choosing blog hosting: uptime/reliability, security, support/helpfulness, extra features and cost. Let’s look at each in turn:

1. Uptime/Reliability

This is a HUGE consideration. If you are spending all that time creating a wonderful blog, writing hard, sharing everywhere and building a business, the last thing you want is downtime!

Downtime is when your blog can’t be viewed by your readers. This can be for a number of reasons: but one of the most common is because your host is having server problems. And hosts vary hugely on this one. Some hosts will proudly declare that they have 99.99% uptime, while others are notorious for being down A LOT!! So try and find this out before choosing your host. If a host has a good record on this one, they will be shouting it from the rooftops (well OK it will be clearly mentioned on their website – possibly with graphs!)

One of the reasons I chose ASPHostPortal, was their amazing 99.99% uptime – one of the best in the industry!

2. Security

Another big consideration when choosing a hosting company for your blog is security. You want to make sure your blog is being protected and is not getting hacked. Now your hosting company is most likely not going to do the whole job for you (this depends a little on the level of plan you are on) – you will probably need a security plugin too, but a good host certainly should do a lot to protect your blog. I love how ASPHostPortal talks about their proactive security practices and firewall rules. It gives me peace of mind!

They also offer (at a small extra cost) a ‘site scanner’ which will check your blog for any security issues/malware and notify you if they discover any problems. They will also email you once a week just to let you know your website is clean. I love this feature as it sets my mind at rest to know my website is OK and they will let me know if they discover any problems.

3. Helpfulness/Support

This is HUGE! And a big reason why I changed from my previous host. Something sometime will eventually go wrong on your blog. You will do something stupid, your site will get hacked, your site will suddenly randomly go down for some reason… when the worst happens you want a host that’s going to give you 24/7 support that is helpful and courteous. A host that goes above and beyond to help you out. And a host who will do all that for free as part of their service. Not a host that will blame anything and everything but themselves and not offer any help in fixing it, or offer help but only if you pay them extra.

The thing about ASPHostPortal is their support is exceptional! They really do go above and beyond to help you out and their support staff are so kind and friendly – and believe me, when you’re in a pickle and stressed cos something’s gone wrong, kind and friendly is what you really need. You can do webchat or ring them on the phone, or submit a support ticket, whichever you prefer.

So when choosing a host, check out what they say about their support, read reviews, ask other bloggers what the support is like…and my top tip: try it out! All hosts will have pre-sales support. So think of a few awkward questions and contact their support team. Obviously, it’s a slightly imperfect test as their pre-sales support team might be different to their customer support team, but it will give you a good idea! Especially if they are unhelpful, rude or they ignore you. If you have trouble with pre-sales support, don’t touch them with a bargepole!!

4. Extra Features

This is something else to watch out for, what else do they offer above and beyond hosting? Do they offer free backups? A testbed site, to test changes before they go live? Features that will improve the speed of your site? Free WordPress set up? Free migrations from another host? An extensive tutorial library? Free SSL security certificate? The ability to add extra domain names to your hosting plan at no extra cost? A free email address?

ASPHostPortal offers all of the above (depending on which plan you choose), but not all web hosts do offer these things, or at least not for free as standard. Remember: don’t just compare on price, but also on what each host actually offers for that price.

5. Cost

Obviously, this is an important consideration too. But don’t JUST choose on price. Please make sure you take into consideration all the other factors too! Just a few extra pennies can make all the difference between a great host, with fantastic support and uptime and a whole load of extra features… and one which causes you a whole load of headaches.

But the good news is ASPHostPortal is actually relatively cheap! In fact, it’s incredibly cheap given the amazing features, support and uptime they offer. Prices start from as little as $3.81 per month – which is basically the cost a couple of cups of coffee from your favourite coffee shop per month – that’s a very small price to pay for great service and peace of mind. And even their more expensive plan, which offers heaps of extra features is only $7.21 per month and will allow your blog to grow to over 100,000 pageviews. That’s a lot of room for growth!