As of today, there are a lot of blogs that moving to self-hosted domains. I will be explaining it in a bit if you don’t know what is this means. Well, probably a lot of us already have an idea of what is a self-hosted domain. Also, it’s important to have it for your blog. With that, I would like to talk about How to choose the right hosting provider for your blog.
First, when going from free domain to self-hosted domain it’s not as easy. I’m going to share my experience as well and hopefully, it help you to avoid some mistakes that I did which made me struggle a bit when I first switched my domain. This will make it easy for you to learn How to choose the right hosting provider.
Sharing everything you need to know about it. So when you do it, it will be smooth. And you have an idea of what is going to happen. This way, when you get into a problem or something, you will be able to solve it and don’t need to struggle anymore.
Don’t need to waste your money or want to refund when it’s not the best provider that you want. And that will help you. Because At first, it wasn’t the best experience for me and I had to change the company I was hosting my domain with. I will be talking more about this how to choose the right hosting provider post.
How to choose the right hosting provider for your blog
Alright, let’s talk about self-hosted domains. If you don’t know what is it. It’s when you change your domain from free to paid and have your domain hosted on its own. That means it can have a different ending. The domain could end with “.com” or “.net” or whatever you choose.
The top domain is “.com” and that’s the best option you would want to go for. It’s known for the high price because almost everyone goes for it when buying a host for their domain. So, I would recommend you to choose “.com” but if you have a reason to choose otherwise, that’s good.
When you want to buy to host for the domain or buy a new domain for your blog. You will need a hosting provider and that’s what I’m going to talk about on how to choose the right hosting provider for your blog. And that means a company that will allow you to host the domain.
However, when you browse the internet, there will be a lot of options to choose from and it’s going to be confusing which one to choose. For me, before when I first chose my provider I was just looking for the price but it wasn’t the best idea, to be honest. I will explain to you as I mention the tips on how to choose the right hosting provider for your blog.
There are some things you need to pay attention to before deciding on which provider and sometimes there are going to be more than one. However, narrow it to one based on what YOU need. Also, I’m going to mention something which might help you to save money.
When you want to buy a domain and host. Remember these are different. The domain is not the hosting. This is something I got confused with. However, later I learned about the two and know more about what to choose from hosting providers. It got me confused with the expiration dates as well haha.
Remember there will be more than packages for each provider. And we judge how to choose the right hosting provider based on the first one(mostly known as standard).
- A good security features
Before you decide on one. Make sure to check the security they will offer because this is one of the most important ones. Once you get the domain up and running. You will get a lot of spammy login attempts and people try to log in to your dashboard.
You might find one at a cheap price but don’t have good security features. I don’t think it would be worth risking it for the money. If you can’t afford it, I highly recommend you to wait and keep blogging with the free domain if you already have one until you manage.
One of the security features that you need to pay attention to is SSL. This is very important and it allows browsers and search engines to trust your blog and your domain. It’s one of the requirements for a safe blog. The browser would consider not safe and that means people can’t visit your domain. They need to feel safe reading your content. It’s a good step on how to choose the right hosting provider for your blog to check if they have a good SSL feature.
If you are for the first time buying the domain. I would recommend you to judge the provider based on the standard like I said. Because almost all providers have different prices and packages for everyone. You can know if it’s a good one if they have good standard features including good security.
Also See: How to Start a Blog – The Ultimate Guide to Blogging in 2021
- Good customer support
It’s good to see the price but if they don’t have good customer support. I won’t work with them. Because it’s so important to be with a company that can help you when you get stuck. And mostly we get stuck a lot of times when we buy a self-hosted domain and custom. Especially, when moving because sometimes you already have it but need to move to self-hosted.
This makes it’s important on how to choose the right hosting provider that can be available and experts people. Some providers would hire people with no experience and makes it difficult to deal with the issues.
You can look at the reviews and that’s how you will know about customer support. People like to share their experiences when rating the hosting providers. So, make sure to spend time looking on the internet about the providers.
Don’t rush with the process. Remember that you will be with them for up to a year or more. This means if you choose something that you are not comfortable with, it won’t be a pleasant experience for you.
- Easy to use
You can always learn how to navigate through the dashboard of the provider but it’s nice to have one that is easy to use. Don’t need to struggle from the first time buying the domain and host. Don’t have to ask customer support every time you need something because of a complicated dashboard.
This is not so important but it’s good to look for a well-known provider with an easy dashboard. You can access the server and understand the files. This way, you will be in control of everything. Which makes the job much easier for you when you need to do something with files or servers.
Probably you will mostly find this based on people’s experience when looking up reviews on the provider. Maybe you have a friend or group on Facebook. It can be a nice way to ask before going with the provider. I’m sure some people have experienced with almost all providers and can help you.
It takes time before deciding whether you go with the provider you have in mind or not. Even after narrowing the options. Still, need to go through some features and things to make sure that everything will be smooth and good for the blog. It’s a good thing to know more about how to choose the right hosting provider. Well, it’s going to make it worth the money you will spend.
- Have good offers
Before you jump and buy one. Make sure to look for providers that have good offers. It could be the first purchase discount or offer with a good package deal for you. This will help you to save money and have a good experience. Well, you need to make sure they have the other ones I mentioned on how to choose the right hosting provider.
Considering good price as well when looking for providers. But these are things we might not pay attention to. And we need to check everything before buying. However, if they have everything and got a good deal, I would recommend going with it. Because it will be good to save money for other things.
If you move to self-hosted on seasonal time where companies do awesome offers. You would be lucky to get a really good offer. This way, you still get the good providers and also and also get the most of the deals they do.
Here is some more information and tips that will help you with saving money. Blogging can be a bit expensive and these tips will also help you.
- The down and uptime for their servers
Another important thing to look for when trying to buy a self-hoasted domain is the downtime and uptime for their servers. This is very important because severs tend to go down but some providers manage to get back so quickly. And some have a high chance of having no downtime.
It will be a nightmare if you go with a company that has downtime below 97%. This means your blog could be down and lose readers. Sometimes it goes down in a bad time. SEvers tend to go down randomly and that’s the problem with them. It’s an important step on how to choose the right hosting provider to check this.
Conclusion
Well, this is the end of this post. Talking about awesome tips that will help you on how to choose the right hosting provider. If you ever want to purchase a self-hosted domain or move to another company. Hopefully, these will help you out. Making your first experience or next provider better and also enjoy blogging.
Have you ever experienced moving to another company? And how it’s like and what were the issues you faced? let us know in the comment below.
