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So you’ve registered a domain. Congratulations. You’ve chosen the Wordpress theme you’re going to use, and isn’t it stunning? It’s got Widget support and everything. Well done.
Now you need to get your hosting sorted. You need to make perhaps the most important decision you’ll ever make with regard to your new blog or website. Who’s going to look after it? Who’s going to make sure it’s online 24hrs a day, 7 days a week? Who’s going to make sure that your Wordpress database doesn’t become corrupt or your precious HTML files deleted?
You thought choosing a host was all about price? Think again. If you’re in any way planning to present a professional face on your site, run a business from it, or have it as a marketing tool for your offline business, you’d better make damn sure you choose the right host. Pick the wrong one because it’s cheaper or has some flashy extra gizmos to entice you and Boom, your precious site could be in trouble.
You need to choose a host that has proven itself to be reliable. One whose uptime, while not 100% is as near as damnit, and one who, when things do go wrong (because, believe me, they will) has the kind of customer service that responds to your support ticket tout suite and doesn’t leave it so long that you wonder if the company is still in business.
So, uptime and customer service — two key criteria for choosing a host. And don’t take the company’s word for how great they are, do your own research. Read web hosting reviews like those on this site. Read forum posts and any other discussions you can find.
There are other criteria, of course. You’ll want a host that uses CPanel and Fantastico (nearly all do) and which allows you to host multiple sites. You’ll want support for mySQL databases and CGI scripts.
And then, of course, there’s price. Price is important, obviously. But don’t let a few bucks a month lead you into making a bad decision. Narrow down your options first, then look at price.
Remember: uptime and customer service are key, and hosting reviews are an excellent resource for identifying which hosts score most highly.
Once you’ve done that, check out these hosting coupons and see if you can save yourself some money.
