You have your domain name - don't you feel proud? Like a new parent! Now you need to find that baby a place to live.
You are bombarded with hosting ads wherever you go on the Net. Confusing isn't it? Take it from one who has been down all those roads....
Don't automatically go for the cheapest price! You need to find a lot more information in addition to price. See which plans are offered and what is included in each plan. You want cPanel; you want Fantastico; you want 99% uptime; you want complete control over your site through File Manager
What kind of support is available? You want-need-demand :
- Telephone support.
- An online trouble ticket/help desk system for your questions.
- Forums and/or live chat for customer support.
- Email Support
The host I use has all of these and is truly affordable. In fact, I have 14 sites hosted there - at Bluehost. And all on one account too! I have been with 10-12 different hosts over the years, and am most satisfied with Bluehost. I do not make recommendations lightly and I use these vendors myself.
I just moved my sweepstakes site from SiteGround over to Bluehost even though it meant destroying the entire site (it was a Joomla site and I decided upon a WordPress site). Why did I go through that particular nightmare voluntarily? Support - SiteGround's support was awful and I could not take it any more; I would not take it any more! They charged extra for any add-on domains; everything was an extra charge there and they didn't even answer my support issues. The best uptime performance or any other single factor is quickly destroyed by lousy customer service. You will need support at some point, most likely, multiple times. Forewarned is forearmed.
Staying on top of all the various aspects of your site's online existence is essential - from domain registrar to web designer to web hosting. And keep them separate. I use GoDaddy for all my 18 domains. I have control over all of them on one page and that is precisely the way I like it. Read about it in Buy Domains.
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