Even after I posted my FAQ section about my blog I was still getting questions about one thing in particular! You guys want to know even more about how the hosting part of how this blog is run and I’ll do my best to answer.
I’m going to start from the beginning. The first thing you’re going to need to do when you start a blog is choose a hosting service.
I always get a lot of questions about my blog but the number 1 question I get is:
What hosting service should I use?
First, let me begin with the fact that his page contains affiliate links and what that means is if you ultimately make a purchase from a link on this site I get a small commission with no increase in cost to you. (Are you tired of reading that on the blogs now? Thank the FTC <– not an affiliate link.)
Okay now that we have that out of the way… Like I said “what hosting service should I use” is one of the most frequently asked questions” I get!
I use Bluehost. I’ve been blogging since 2015 and haven’t ever considered switching hosting services. Not once. Not even the time I accidentally deleted my first blog I had worked on for 11 months!
Truthfully, this is not the place to come for an in depth review about Bluehost. I still consider myself a novice when it comes to all this technical mumbo jumbo but I’m happy to share my thoughts and conclusions up until this point.
The Pros
Customer Service
The Bluehost customer service people are incredibly helpful and the worst thing I can say about them is you might have to wait 5 minutes. Big deal though. They have lots of options to get in touch when you need help but I’ve personally used only the chat and phone, both of which worked out well!
I waited for someone on the phone for about 2 minutes and about 4 minutes with chat. I’ve also noticed that the “wait times” they describe when you’re waiting for customer service are usually exactly right!
If you’re like me and are a novice when it comes to starting websites it’s really good to know someone is there to help you (without judgement.)
Price
I know a lot of people put price on the con list for Bluehost but through my research it seems like in the long run they are very competitive on price! Especially if you’re thinking you want to take this blogging gig to the next level.
And even though Bluehost doesn’t offer huge discounts for first time users, I’m one of those people who hate it when I get a great deal for a year and then the price quadruples for year two. So I was okay forgoing an unbelievable deal for a year in order to go with Bluehost.
Renewals
When it comes time to renew each year, you can either put your site on auto renewal or have them send you email reminders that it’s time to renew. I highly recommend doing auto renew so they automatically bill you when it comes time to renew the site; this way you won’t accidentally miss the deadline and lose all your hard work!
Domain Name Checker
Just like most other companies they also have a free domain name checker. You can type in the name of the domain you’re thinking about getting and see if it’s even available.
What I like about using Bluehost’s domain name checker is if your desired domain name isn’t available, they give you other options! Sometimes their ideas are better than my own!
Scalability
Lastly, I’m only two years into blogging but I’m always thinking about the future. So something else I looked into before signing up with Bluehost was scalability. If the time comes that I’m getting soooooo many hits on the site (or I upload 1,000 too many photos) that I need a private server, I’m positive Bluehost will be able to help me with little to no down time on my site.
That’s about all I can think of for now. To be quite honest, I don’t have any negative things to say about Bluehost which is why I didn’t/couldn’t make a con list. The only minor thing I could think of was when I use chat, I sometimes feel like they are talking to multiple people. But I think that’s the name of the game when you get help through chat… and who can blame them for multitasking chat tickets? It’s probably a money saver.
Any questions let me know and I’ll be sure to update this page as time goes on!
