Hosting recommendations

Please note that my hosting recommendations are for sites that get less than 500,000 pageviews a month. If you get more traffic than that, contact me for recommendations for more robust plans.

Bluehost*

Bluehost is a reliable host with an easy-to-use control panel. They offer only one plan that costs $6.95 $5.95 a month* but you have to pay for a year at a time ($71.40).

• They do daily, weekly, and monthly backups, but you have to pay an annual fee to restore files. (Save money and only pay that when you actually need to restore something.)
• If you have more than one website you can host them all using this same account.
• You have to buy hosting by the year because they don’t offer month-to-month billing.
• If your site gets lots of traffic you will need to switch to a new host because they don’t offer plans for high-traffic blogs.

If you sign up for Bluehost you don’t need to purchase any of the add-ons they try to get you to buy. Just the hosting account will do fine. You can usually find a coupon for them here.

Quality Host Online*

Quality Host Online is a fantastic site too. I’ve used them to host my personal blog for years.

• You can pay month-to-month if you’re hesitant to commit to a full year of hosting.
• For average bloggers I recommend their Personal-ULTRA plan* which is $6.95 a month.
• Like BlueHost, they let you host as many domains as you want.
• Their customer support is prompt, though they aren’t available by phone, only by chat or email.
• If your site starts to get lots and lots of traffic you can upgrade to one of their more robust plans.
• QHO makes weekly backups of your site, but you can pay an extra $1.50 a month to get daily off-site backups.

(Note: Those are both affiliate links, so I make a small commission if you order through them. Both are good hosts though, and I wouldn’t recommend them otherwise.)

How to check the quality of a host

You can search http://www.findmyhosting.com/ to research hosting plans. This site includes user reviews and data on the host’s uptime. Uptime is the amount of time the server is up and running during the month. Their guide to Budget Hosting is also helpful: http://www.findmyhosting.com/cheap-web-hosting.htm

Domains

I believe both of the hosts listed above give you a free domain. If you want to register the domain elsewhere, I usually use Name Cheap* which charges about $10/year. You can usually knock that down a dollar or two with a RetailMeNot coupon here.

How to order

You can either order a plan directly or contact me and I can tell you how to securely give me your credit card information so I can set up the plan for you.

*Affiliate link