Everyone loves to get a great deal. That’s why it’s worth it to shop around to get the best possible rate for web hosting. However, finding the cheapest web hosting plans isn’t always easy. It’s common practice in the web hosting industry for providers to advertise really low introductory rates. But in order to get the lowest possible monthly rate, you’ll have to pay up-front and in-full for at least a year. Basically, the longer your contract terms are and the more you pay upfront, the cheaper your monthly rates will be. It’s also worth noting that your rates could double or even triple when it comes time to renew your plan. The best price will always be for your first contract. So you can’t just take the advertised rates at face value. What might sound like affordable web hosting initially, could end up costing you much more than you anticipated.
The word “cheap” doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. A friend of yours could recommend a hosting plan that’s cheap to them, but way out of your price range. Plus, the cheapest option isn’t always the best option. Some hosts have low rates but provide terrible service. This will end up costing you more money in the long-term. That’s what inspired me to write this guide. I’ve taken all of these factors into consideration to identify the most affordable web hosting plans that are worth using. All of the options in this guide are shared hosting plans, which will always be the most cost-effective way to host your website, regardless of the provider you choose. Whether you’re looking for month-to-month plans, annual options, or the best possible rate, you’ll be able to find the best web hosting provider for your website below. The Best Month-to-Month Hosting PricesFor those of you who don’t want long-term contract commitments, you’ll need to find a web hosting provider that offers month-to-month pricing. These prices will be a bit higher than the cheapest advertised rates, but you won’t be locked in for multiple years. DreamHost – $4.95 per monthIf you’re looking for an affordable web hosting option, DreamHost is a top provider to consider. More than 1.5 million websites worldwide are hosted by DreamHost. They have an outstanding reputation, so don’t assume that their low rates are a reflection of their quality. DreamHost offers month-to-month web hosting plans starting for less than $5 per month.
There are no setup fees and no strings attached. You can cancel whenever you want without committing to more than one month at a time. These are two of the most straightforward low-cost plans in the industry. Both plans come with a free website builder, WordPress pre-installed, and a free SSL certificate. Email comes free with the Shared Unlimited plan and starts at $1.67 per month with the Shared Starter plan. I like DreamHost because their customer service team is 100% in-house. They don’t outsource agents like other web hosting companies. However, the trade-off is that live chat and email support is only available for 16 hours per day. With that said, DreamHost has an extensive knowledge base of FAQs and guides making it easy for you to find help on your own. Not only are you able to sign up month-to-month, but you’ll also be refunded if you’re unhappy. DreamHost has an industry-leading 97-day money-back guarantee. Check out my complete Dreamhost review for more details about them. Hostinger – $9.59 per monthHostinger isn’t the most well-known name in the hosting industry, but they offer affordable web hosting with month-to-month contracts. Here is an overview of Hostinger’s monthly rates:
The biggest difference between the three options is the server resources and the number of websites that can be hosted. The available disk space is 10 GB, 20 GB, or 30 GB, depending on the plan you choose. The Single Shared Hosting plan has 100 GB of bandwidth and it’s good for one website. The Premium and Business plans have unlimited bandwidth and up to 100 sites can be hosted. All three plans have a 99.9% uptime guarantee, 24/7/365 customer support, and an easy-to-use website builder. I like Hostinger because their service is reliable and they don’t force you to commit long-term. However, the month-to-month plans do not come with lots of freebies and extras. These are some of the add-ons that you’ll want to consider:
At a minimum, I’d recommend the SSL certificate and daily backups. These are both pretty standard must-have features in web hosting. The Cloudflare CDN is a good value as well. A2 Hosting – $3.70 per monthA2 Hosting is known as one of the fastest web hosting providers in the industry. So the fact that you can get affordable month-to-month pricing from such a reputable provider is a great option. The monthly rates offered by A2 Hosting are a bit different compared to the providers that we’ve seen so far. A2 gives a discounted rate off of the first month of the month-to-month contract. The renewal rates for each subsequent month are higher, but still affordable enough to fall in the cheap web hosting category. Let’s take a closer look at the pricing for these plans.
If you’re in the market for cheap web hosting, then you probably won’t consider the turbo plan, since it renews for $26 per month. Although this plan will give you the fastest speeds. A2 Hosting offers a free SSL certificate with all three plans. However, you’ll need to pay an extra $4 per month if you want a dedicated IP. Site builders, backups, spam protection, and Cloudflare cost extra as well. Another reason why I recommend A2 Hosting is because they provide cPanel control panel. This feature will make it much easier for you to manage your hosting experience. HostGator – $10.95 per monthHostGator’s entry-level rates are a bit higher than some of the other month-to-month plans that we’ve reviewed, but they are still one of the best cheap web hosting providers in the industry. In terms of the value, one of the reasons why I like HostGator so much is because the month-to-month rates are exactly the same as the 3-month contracts and 6-month contracts. So for those of you who don’t want to commit, even for a few months, there’s no reason to.
At first glance, the $10.95 starting point may seem high, but it’s really not the case. Are there cheaper options available? Yes. But when you factor in the setup fees and renewal rates of those other providers beyond the first month, $10.95 is still very affordable. The fact that there is only a $1 difference between the Hatchling and Baby plans is another bonus. In my mind, this pricing structure makes it a no-brainer for you to sign up for the Baby plan. Even if you only have one domain right now, being able to add more down the road without switching plans is worth the extra $1 per month. Additional features like SiteLock monitoring, professional email, SEO tools, and daily backups will cost you extra. HostGator has 24/7/365 support via phone, email, and live chat. They offer instant account activation without any setup costs as well as a 45-day money-back guarantee. SiteGround – $3.95 per monthSiteGround is another top name in the web hosting industry. They have a great reputation and host websites all over the world. Their month-to-month pricing is a bit unique. SiteGround offers a low rate for the first month, advertised as a trial. Then the rate increases for each subsequent month. All trials have a one-time setup fee, which actually makes the trial more expensive than the other months. This is a bit unusual, but it shouldn’t be a reason to turn you away from using SiteGround’s month-to-month plans. Here’s a deeper breakdown of their pricing:
Truthfully, the GoGeek plan price point probably falls outside the range of what most people would consider “cheap” for web hosting. But with enough resources to accommodate roughly 100,000 monthly visits, it’s a great option for a larger website that needs affordable web hosting. For those of you who are starting a new website, you should be fine with the Startup plan. The Best Annual Hosting PricesIf you’re willing to commit to a web hosting plan for at least one year, you’ll get a cheaper monthly rate if you pay for 12 months upfront. These plans will take more out of your pocket initially but save you money in the long-run. iPage – $2.99 per monthiPage has been around for more than 20 years. They are known for website builders and affordable web hosting. More than one million websites use iPage for hosting services. I recommend iPage because their annual pricing rates are cheap and straightforward. As we’ve already seen, other hosting providers offer multiple plans at varying price points. The pricing depends on features and resources. But iPage pricing is based solely on your term length. Then you can customize your plan with additional products. The base price for an annual web hosting plan is $2.99 per month, which translates to an upfront total of $35.88 for the year. Here are some of the additional features that you can add to customize your plan:
Most of you won’t need all of these. But you’ll probably want to add-on the domain privacy and added security at a minimum. That would bring your upfront annual total to $65.82. iPage offers a free SSL certificate and a 30-day money-back guarantee for its annual plans as well. Overall, iPage has some of the most affordable annual web hosting plans in the industry. Read my full iPage review for more on them. SiteGround – $3.95 per monthWe already reviewed SiteGround’s month-to-month pricing. But their annual rates are appealing enough for me to mention them again here. In most cases, web hosting providers give you better discounts for longer contract terms. But SiteGround offers the same monthly rate for 12-month, 24-month, and 36-month contracts. You’ll still have to pay upfront, but you don’t need to commit for three years to get the best rate.
So if you know that you want to use SiteGround for at least one year, these annual rates are much more affordable then the month-to-month options that we discussed earlier. Bluehost – $4.95 per monthMore than 2 million websites across the globe trust Bluehost for web hosting. Since launching back in 2003, Bluehost has become one of the best and most well-known hosting providers in the industry. Bluehost plans are pretty unbeatable when you compare the price to the performance and quality of service that you’re getting in return. Let’s take a closer look at the annual rates for Bluehost shared hosting plans.
In terms of affordable web hosting, most of you probably won’t need or want the Pro plan. But the Basic plan is a great option for a new or small website. If you have the budget to spend a little bit more, the Plus and Choice Plus plans are offered at the same price for the first year. So I’d recommend Choice Plus, as it comes with extra benefits like site backups and domain privacy. Just be aware that all of these plans renew at higher rates after the first year. The renewal rate for Choice Plus is $16.99 per month ($203.88 per year) compared to $12.99 per month ($155.88 per year) for the Plus plan. For an extra $4 per month, I’d still lean toward Choice Plus as the best value. All plans come with a free SSL certificate and unmetered bandwidth. The basic plan has 50 GB of storage, and the other three have unlimited SSD storage. Bluehost also offers $100 in advertising credits for Microsoft Advertising as well as $100 in credits for Google Ads. The free advertising can balance out some of your hosting costs. Read my full Bluehost review for more info about them. InMotion – $4.99 per monthThe web hosting plans offered by InMotion are great for small business owners. So if you’re looking foe cheap small business web hosting, these are the plans that you should consider:
Again, you need to pay upfront to lock in these annual rates. Most entry-level plans limit you to host just one website. But the Launch plan from InMotion allows you to host two sites. All plans come with unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited email, security suite, marketing tools, and a free SSL certificate. InMotion has a free one-click installer for more than 400 apps as well as one-click data backups and restores. Another reason why I recommend InMotion is because of their 90-day money-back guarantee. This assurance should make you feel more comfortable about paying for a year in-full when you sign up. While InMotion does have some add-ons like a dedicated IP and backup management, the plans seem to have more basic features included then some of the other providers out there. Learn more about them by reading my in depth InMotion hosting review. GoDaddy – $6.99 per monthWhen most people hear the GoDaddy name, they automatically associate it with domain registration. But GoDaddy is also a reputable and affordable web hosting provider. GoDaddy’s hosting plans are a great option for website owners that don’t want to spend a fortune to host their websites. Here’s an overview of the annual pricing offered by GoDaddy.
As you can see, GoDaddy has an option for varying budgets. In most cases, the majority of you wouldn’t need to look beyond the Ultimate plan. This choice will give you enough features and resources even if you’re expecting heavy traffic to your complex site. All plans come with unlimited disk space, except for the Economy option, which has 100 GB. Memory ranges from 512 MB to 2 GB, depending on the plan you select. I like GoDaddy because they make it easy for you to scale your resources if you’re outgrowing your existing plan. GoDaddy’s renewal rates after the first year are very reasonable as well. Other hosts will double or triple renewal prices, but GoDaddy only adds on an extra $2 per month for annual renewals. The Maximum plan actually renews at the exact same rate. This pricing structure makes it easier for you to calculate your hosting costs long-term. Cheapest Long Term Hosting PlansTo get the absolute cheapest monthly rates available, you’ll need to lock in a contract for more than one year. This will cost you more money upfront, but save you in the long run. Here are some of the most affordable long-term plans offered by the providers on our list above.
In addition to locking in the lowest available rates, you’re also delaying your renewal upcharges. If you know that your site will be up and running for at least a few years, a long-term contract will offer the most value. Just make sure you sign up for a plan with a money-back guarantee, so you can opt-out at the beginning if you’re unhappy. Calculating Your Actual Hosting CostsWeb hosting costs aren’t always transparent. You can’t just look at the advertised rate on a website and assume that’s what you’re going to pay. No matter which hosting provider you use, there are other costs that you need to be aware of. In addition to your base rate, these are the factors that contribute to your actual hosting costs. Intro pricing and renewal ratesWhether you commit to one month, one year, or four years, your first contract will always be your best offer. But you need to understand what you’re going to be paying when your contract expires. Let’s look at an example, using iPage, which has the lowest annual rates on our list. The introductory pricing rate for a 12-month contract, paid in-full, is $2.99 per month. So your base hosting cost is $35.88 for the first year. However, iPage annual plans renew at $9.99 per month, so you’ll be paying a $119.88 base cost for each subsequent year. Hosting providers are always changing their introductory offers. It’s common to see prices slashed around the holidays, like Black Friday or Cyber Monday. But with that said, I wouldn’t recommend waiting until you see an offer like that to start your website. Contract lengthIf you’re short on cash and don’t want to commit, then month-to-month hosting plans might be more appealing to you. But shorter contract terms translate to higher monthly rates. For example, HostGator’s entry-level pricing starts at $10.95 per month with no long-term commitments. This will cost you $131.40 over the course of the year, which is very affordable. However, if you lock in that same exact plan for 36 months and pay upfront, the monthly rate drops to $2.75. So you’ll get three years of web hosting for $99 total. That’s less than the cost of one year at the month-to-month rate! You’ll have to weigh the pros and cons here. The downside of locking in a long-term contract is that you lose the flexibility to change your plan if you’re unhappy or outgrow your resources. With that said, I’d still lean toward locking in the best long-term deal you can find. You can always continue using your same hosting plan even if you change domain names. Add-ons and freebiesMost web hosting providers will offer extra features built-in to the base cost of your web hosting plan. Some providers offer more than others. Although the price of a plan typically reflects the number of add-ons you’re getting. In addition to web hosting, common add-ons, freebies, and extras include:
The list goes on and on. It’s important to take all of this into consideration. One plan may look more appealing at face value, but you’ll have to pay extra for basic features. Whereas another provider may have higher base prices, but deliver more in terms of extras and freebies. UpgradesAs your website scales, you’ll eventually need to look beyond the cheapest web hosting option. At some point, your traffic and website will exceed the limits of an entry-level shared plan. The next logical step is to upgrade to VPS hosting or a cloud hosting plan. While this may not happen for several years, you should take a look to see what types of upgrades are offered by various web hosts. Ideally, you’ll want to choose a provider that will make it easy for you to upgrade to another type of web hosting. So review those upgraded plans so you can budget and calculate your hosting costs accordingly for the long term. ConclusionYou don’t need to spend a ton of money on web hosting, especially if you have a new or small website. But finding the best cheap web hosting provider can be difficult because the rates depend on so many different factors. I do not recommend choosing a web host based solely on price. You also need to factor in the quality of the service that you’re getting. If your site crashes or goes down, you want to make sure that your hosting provider is available to fix the situation immediately. Here’s a recap of the most affordable web hosting plans that I would recommend:
The first thing you need to do is decide if you want a month-to-month plan, annual plan, or long term contract. Then you can evaluate the host based on features, resources, and customer service. So if you’re in the market for cheap web hosting, these are the providers you should consider. In addition to using this guide to find the best plan for your needs, you can also use it to calculate your actual hosting costs. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/best-cheap-web-hosting/
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Every website needs to be hosted. So if you’re building a new website for the first time, learning how to host it is the only way your site will be published on the web. The concept of web hosting is pretty straightforward. Your website lives on a server. A web hosting provider maintains the server and technology needed to connect your site to the Internet. When an Internet user wants to visit your website, they simply type your domain or web address into their browser. Their device connects with the server and your pages are delivered to the user. Hosting a website isn’t complicated. But you want to make sure you get it right the first time. Otherwise, it can cause you big headaches and problems down the road. So how do you host a website?
There’s an overwhelming amount of information on the Internet about web hosting. The answer depends on multiple factors, such as your technical experience, type of website, and size of your website. That was my inspiration for creating this guide. I’ve simplified the web hosting process into just five easy steps. No matter what type of website you’re creating, you’ll be able to host it with ease if you follow the steps below. Step #1: Research Web Hosting ProvidersWeb hosting is just like any other consumer product or service. If you wanted to buy a new car, you wouldn’t just walk up to a dealer and purchase the first one on the lot. You’d research different types of cars, makes, models, and dealerships to help you make an informed decision. The same concept can be applied to web hosting. All web hosting providers are not the same. Some are undoubtedly better than others. Here’s the thing. There are dozens, if not hundreds of different web hosting providers on the market today. Your research process can help narrow your search. You’ll be able to eliminate certain hosts right away. There are web hosting providers out there that specialize in speed, while others prioritize customer service. Some providers are best for small business websites and others are best for agencies or enterprises. So where should you start your research? Don’t just blindly start clicking through different web hosts on Google. That’s way too time-consuming and it won’t be very productive. Plus, you won’t know what to look for to see if the company is legit or not. Nobody is going to search through all of those results. Instead, I’d recommend finding a third-party guide of reviews. As an expert in web hosting, I’ve written one of these guides myself. After personally checking the features and performance of nearly every web host in existence, I was able to narrow down the top options. So check out my list of the best web hosting providers. You don’t need to pick a provider just yet. But the research process will guide you in the right direction as you continue through each step in this guide. Step #2: Determine Your BudgetThis step can be tricky because it involves more than picking a price point. Your budget will also depend on the features you need and the type of hosting that you want (which we’ll get to in the next step). How much does web hosting cost? You can find hosting providers that offer plans for less than $1 per month, and other providers offering plans for $2,000 per month. Having a rough idea of what you’re willing and able to spend will at least help you narrow down your options. For example, if you’re starting a small personal blog and not expecting tons of traffic, you can get away with paying less than $5 or $10 per month for a cheap web hosting provider. Small business owners and ecommerce sites would likely want to look towards a higher pricing tier. Web hosting is like any other type of product or service. In most instances, you get what you pay for. So don’t expect to pay $2 per month for the best web hosting experience on the planet. While price doesn’t automatically equate to quality, it’s usually a good indication of how many additional features and benefits you’ll get with the plan. If you want dedicated resources, lightning-fast loading speeds, cPanel, freebies, and 24/7 customer support, you can expect to pay a bit more for those hosting services. Step #3: Choose a Hosting TypeNow that you’ve had a chance to research some providers and get an idea of how much you want to spend, it’s time to determine the type of hosting that’s best for your website. You have four main options to choose from:
I’ll give you a brief overview of each so you can figure out which one to use. Shared HostingShared web hosting is a popular choice for new or entry-level websites. It’s the most affordable type of web hosting and doesn’t require a ton of technical knowledge. A shared plan is ideal for websites that won’t be getting high volumes of traffic. As the name implies, your website will be sharing server resources with other sites as well. This can impact the performance of your website. If another site on the same server has a traffic spike, it can cause the server to crash and bring down your website with it. Take a look at my guide and reviews of the best shared hosting plans if you’re interested in this type of hosting option. VPS HostingVPS stands for virtual private servers. With this type of hosting, you’ll be using a single server that’s been separated into multiple virtual machines. VPS hosting is a step above shared hosting. Since you won’t be sharing your resources with other websites, it will improve the performance of your site. Expect to have more disk space, bandwidth, higher uptimes, and faster loading speeds with a VPS plan. This is a great option for websites that will be expecting higher volumes of traffic and need enough resources to accommodate those users. VPS plans give you more control over your server settings as well. If you’re interested in a virtual private server, check out my reviews of the best VPS providers in the web hosting industry. Dedicated HostingThe majority of new websites do not need a dedicated server. This hosting type is reserved for large websites that need enterprise-level hosting capabilities. With that said, for those of you who are more tech-savvy and want complete control over your server settings and hosting environment, a dedicated server plan is the best way to get that. A dedicated server gives you the most resources and therefore delivers the highest performance. The biggest downside of a dedicated server is the price. This is the most expensive type of web hosting, which is another reason why it’s not ideal for new or small websites. Cloud HostingCloud web hosting is new compared to the other three options. But it’s definitely becoming a popular choice for website owners. A cloud plan is ideal for websites that are growing and need to scale server resources as their site gets bigger. If your site is going to surpass 50,000 monthly visitors, it’s time for you to consider cloud hosting. Cloud hosting is a step above shared hosting, yet it’s usually cheaper than a VPS plan. If you choose this option, your site will be run on multiple cloud servers, which decreases your chances of having unexpected downtimes due to traffic surges or server issues. I’d recommend a cloud hosting plan to new website owners who plan on growing their site as fast as possible in the coming years. By going with a cloud plan from the beginning, you won’t have to change your hosting type down the road as you outgrow a shared plan. Check out my list of the best cloud hosting companies to help you find the best plan for your needs. Step #4: Select Your Hosting PlanUsing the information you’ve gathered in the first three steps, it’s time for you to choose a hosting plan. Find a provider that offers the type of web hosting option you need at a price point that’s within your budget. You’ll likely have at least a couple of choices that fit this description. So here are some other factors that you should keep in mind when you’re evaluating a hosting plan. UptimeUptime is the most important feature in web hosting. If your hosting provider isn’t offering a minimum of 99.9% uptime, then look elsewhere. Most web hosts will offer an uptime guarantee in their plans, and compensate you if they fail to meet that promise. ResourcesYou need to make sure that your plan has enough resources to accommodate your website content and traffic. The first thing to look at is RAM, which is your storage. 4 GB of RAM is enough for an average website. That’s the minimum I would recommend for you. Next, you’ll have to consider the bandwidth offered in the plan. 120 GB of bandwidth is enough for 2,000 daily page loads of a 4 GB website. So if you are expecting more traffic or plan to have a larger website, you need to get more bandwidth. Customer SupportYou may not think so right now, but aside from the performance of your hosting plan, customer service should be your next priority. Roughly 20% of web hosting customers agree with this. In a perfect world, nothing will ever go wrong with your website or servers. But realistically, something is bound to go wrong at some point. That’s just the nature of the web hosting world. It happens to everyone, and your site probably won’t be immune from it. During a time of trouble, you want to be able to get in contact with your web host immediately. So look for a plan that offers 24/7 support via phone and live chat. Aside from that, you should also look for providers that have a knowledge base and resource center that will teach you how to do certain tasks on their platform. This type of customer support can really help you get the most out of your web hosting plan. Renewal RatesYou need to look beyond the introductory rate of your web hosting plan to make sure that it will continue to fit within your budget in the coming years. It’s common practice in the web hosting industry for providers to heavily discount new contracts, and then increase the fees when it’s time to renew. Normally, you can lock in the best possible rate by committing to the longest term length, which is usually up to 36 months. But make sure you know how much your plan will cost you at the end of that period. Freebies, Add-ons, and Additional FeaturesYou should also be looking for plans that give you the best value for your money. Most hosting providers will include some extras in their plans as an incentive for you to sign up. Here are some common features to look for:
Most plans come with a money-back guarantee as well. 30 days seems to be the industry standard for this, but I’ve seen plans offer up to 97 days for you to change your mind. Step #5: Register Your Domain NameThe domain name is your digital address. Ours is www.quicksprout.com. I included this step last because you can potentially register your domain name from your hosting provider when you sign up for a hosting plan. Sometimes this will even come free depending on the plan and provider you go with. But with that said, you can register your domain name elsewhere before you settle on a plan. Personally, I like to keep my domain registration services and web hosting services separate. So I’d recommend using a domain registrar for this step. If you’re lost and don’t know where to do this, take a look at my guide on the best domain registrars. Getting your domain from a web host isn’t necessarily wrong. So it’s fine if that’s what you prefer. Regardless of where you get it from, this step needs to be completed in order for your website to be live on the web. Alternative Option: Self Hosting (Not Recommend)It’s possible to host your website without using a web hosting provider, although I would not recommend this option. Self-hosting can be accomplished by using your computer or a Linux machine as a server. It requires lots of technical experience and a full understanding of how websites and servers work. In many cases, self-hosting is slow, unstable, and unreliable. Plus, you’ll be responsible for all of the server maintenance, backups, software updates, and security on your own. Overall, self-hosting is a bad idea, especially for beginners. So I don’t want to spend too much time talking about it. But I wouldn’t be doing my job properly if I didn’t at least mention it as an option. ConclusionHosting a website isn’t as complicated as you might think. In fact, the whole process can be accomplished in just five simple steps.
If you follow the steps in this exact order, it will give you enough information to make an informed decision. This is the most ideal way to host any website. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/how-to-host-a-website/ Creating a website used to be a massive project. And expensive too. Everything had to be built by hand and businesses needed to work with an online marketing agency that would charge them tens of thousands of dollars to build the site. If you wanted a professional-looking site, that was your only option. Things have gotten a lot cheaper over the years.
Now it’s possible to get a polished site for less than $100. About $10 to buy the domain, $30–60 for a good template, and $5–10/month to host it. It’ll look so good that people won’t even realize that you built it yourself. It’ll look like some high-flying marketing agency built it for you. Not only has it gotten cheaper, it’s also gotten a lot easier. There’s a number of approaches you can take to creating a website. Our General Take On Building a WebsiteDon’t get confused by all of the different options for creating a website. For a more in-depth look at how we think about this, check out our preliminary guide on how to create a website. WordPress is KingIn most cases, we highly recommend to build your website with WordPress. It’s an open source platform that allows you to run your website with very little technical expertise. Some of the biggest websites on the Internet are built on WordPress. TechCrunch, The New Yorker, Variety and MTV News, just to name a few. It’s also the most popular blogging platform, so there are hundreds of thousands of smaller websites that use WordPress. WordPress is used by 33.4% of all the websites, and has a content management system market share of 60.3%. Much of our content is centered around WordPress because we use it for all of our websites outside of Ecommerce. Here’s the guide on how to create your website on WordPress. Shopify for EcommerceFor Ecommerce, we like Shopify — which is an Ecommerce website builder that allows you to get an online store up and running quickly. The reality is that creating and running an online store can be a huge pain. Shopify takes that pain away. That’s probably why they are growing so quickly, and so many great online stores are popping up on the platform. Here’s the guide on how to create your website on Shopify. The Dozens of Other OptionsIf you’re reading this right now, then you most definitely fall into the category of someone that should be using WordPress or Shopify. In rare cases, it might make sense to create a website using Wix or a similar website builder. In other (very) rare cases, it might make sense to have a custom built website. A Step-by-step Guide to Creating a Website With WordPressI’ve broken down the 9 simple steps to create your website from scratch. You’ll easily be able to run through these steps over the next 120 minutes. Step 1: Pick a name and find a domain for your websiteThese are not two separate steps, unfortunately. I really wish I could sit down, pick any name that I want for my business, and be able to create the site that I want around that name. Now that the internet is a couple of decades old, we all have to face the reality that most of the good domains have been taken. Here’s how a naming session always seems to go for me:
Websites have also become so embedded in our day-to-day lives that it’s better to change the name of the business to match an available domain than it is to pick a poor quality domain. Through this process, I almost always end up with a completely different name than I originally intended. This is why I consider the “naming my business” and “buying the domain” steps for creating a business to be the same step. I try to only lock myself into a name once I have the domain. We put together an in-depth guide on buying domains here. The good news is that the rest of these steps are a breeze once you have your domain purchased. It’s the first and hardest step to create your website. Step 2: Register your domain nameReal quick, let’s sort out the difference between a domain registrar and a web host. A domain registrar is a company that specializes in buying (registering) domains. A web host, on the other hand, specializes in running servers that host websites. Every web host will desperately try to get you to also registrar a domain through them. The reason is that it’s a great upsell for them. They’ve spent most of their resources building out a hosting service, then they offer domain registration as a convenience, increase the price a bit, and collect a nice chunk of extra profit from you. My philosophy is to buy things from businesses that specialize in that exact thing. Prices will be better and so will quality. That’s why I also use a domain registrar for buying domains and a web host for hosting. I never mix up the two. The best domain registrar is NameCheap. That’s where I have all of my domain names. We put together a detailed review of domain registrars here. Step 3: Decide what kind of site you are creatingMost guides on creating a website will push you into using WordPress. It’s the most popular and flexible website builder. And that’s usually a good recommendation. But there are a few situations where I recommend different options. Simple Portfolio or “Business Card” Sites Many businesses need a simple website that tells people a few things:
This kind of site gives the basic info for the business, nothing more. If this is what you need, Squarespace is your best option for creating your website. It’s incredibly simple to use and will give you a professional site at a very low price. It’s perfect for small businesses. Squarespace will try to convince you that they can handle everything. That’s not true. They’ve created the simplest and easiest website builder out there. Truly, it’s a joy to use. However, they completely lack all the advanced features that an online business needs. The ecommerce functionality is extremely limited, and I don’t know any serious online marketer that uses Squarespace for a content site. If your business an online business, Squarespace isn’t a legitimate option. You’ll hit the limits of its features too fast. If you know that you want an ecommerce store from the beginning, start on Shopify and skip Squarespace. And if you know you want a blog or are planning on doing lots of content, start on WordPress. The majority of this guide is around building a wordpress website. Squarespace makes the most sense when you just need a clean, professional-looking site that gives some basic info on your business. It’s perfect for small businesses, freelancers, and artists. Here’s another way to think about it: If you’re building a business that doesn’t live and die on its website, it just needs a website in case anyone looks for it, like a digital business card, then go with Squarespace. But if you’re website is your business, use one of the more tailored platforms. Ecommerce Sites If you’re planning on building an ecommerce store for your site, don’t use WordPress. We have an entire post here on when to use WordPress for ecommerce and when not to. The short story: it rarely makes sense to use WordPress for ecommerce. The best option, by far, is Shopify. There used to be more competition in the ecommerce tool space but Shopify got too far ahead. Now they’re really the only option and they have an incredible reputation. You won’t regret using them for an ecommerce site. If you’re going this route, we have a 9-step guide on how to create an ecommerce website. We also have a guide on how to start a store that drives real sales. Both of those guides will get you pointed in the right direction. Blog Sites If you want to create a blog with a bunch of content, you need to use WordPress. We have a detailed guide on starting blogs here. Most websites are really just blogs. Some of the biggest, and most well known websites on the Internet are blogs. WordPress powers over 30% of the entire internet. So it’s the only real option for starting a blog these days. What about Joomla or Drupal? Or Typepad? WordPress left all those other platforms in the dust about a decade ago. They’re not even legitimate options at this point. Pick WordPress — there isn’t a single situation where you’ll regret it. When I originally started with this online thing, Drupal sites were still pretty common. I partnered up with an engineer friend of mine and we did a lot of freelance work migrating sites from Drupal to WordPress. Even back then, WordPress was a clear winner. Now when I come across a site on any of these other tools, it’s kind of exciting. It’s like finding an ancient artifact. “This still exists!? How fascinating!” Don’t use any of these other tools, stick to WordPress. Everything Else If you’re not sure or have another vision for your site outside the categories above, use WordPress. It’s the most flexible platform out there. It will do ecommerce, it’ll do simple portfolios, it’ll do massive content sites, it’ll do Fortune 500 marketing sites, it’ll do it all. You might have to customize it more than other platforms in some situations but you can make WordPress do whatever you want it to. And just about anyone in online marketing knows their way around WordPress so you’ll be able to find plenty of people to help you when the time comes. Whether you want to build your site by hand or you have an online marketing agency to do it for you, you should still build on top of WordPress. It’ll shortcut a lot of the programming work and give you the ability to edit basic items on your site without having to edit any code. I’ve managed marketing sites of venture-backed tech startups that employed dozens of engineers — we still had our marketing site built on top of WordPress. It’s the standard choice. Step 4: Get a host for your websiteFor the rest of this guide, I’m going to assume that you’ve picked WordPress to create your site. If you want an ecommerce site, skip the rest of this guide and follow our guide on creating an ecommerce site. WordPress is the tool that you’ll use to build your website. But you also need a host that will store your site and make it available to anyone who visits. The best place to go for most people is Siteground. We have an entire guide here that goes through all the best web hosts. Hosting plans usually start around $5/month. Step 5: Install WordPressJust about every website host has a 1-click install of WordPress. Siteground, the hosting provider I recommend the most has this feature. It’s usually under a section called Tools, Website, Software, or Content Management Systems (CMS). It’ll look something like this: If you have trouble finding it, contact support at your host and they’ll be able to walk you through it. Step 6: Point your domain to your hostLet’s do a quick recap.
Now you’re going to connect all that stuff together by pointing your domain to your host. Then when people go to your domain, they’ll end up on your website. There are a few technical settings you need to apply. This involves configuring a few nameserver settings on your domain registrar for your domain. Your host will give you the correct settings; you’re looking for their nameserver settings. If you get stuck, contact your host and they’ll give you all the info you need. Once you have the nameserver info from your host, go into your domain registrar and configure those settings for the domain that you want to point at your site. Once you’re done, it’ll look something like this:
Step 7: Install a WordPress themeThink of WordPress as the guts of your site, it’s all the pumping that makes your site work. WordPress uses themes to determine how your website looks. This makes it really easy to change how your site looks without having to rebuild your site from scratch. Swap out your old theme for a new one and ta-da! Your design will look completely different. These days, I purchase all my themes from StudioPress. Heads up, WP Engine bought StudioPress and now includes all the StudioPress themes in its hosting plans. WP Engine is more expensive but it’s perfect for serious bloggers. It’s a great way to save money on your theme if you are planning on building a large site to begin with. WP Engine is another one of our recommended hosts if you’re looking for the best. The downside is that WP Engine tends to be more expensive than other hosts. It’s probably overkill if you are just starting out, or creating your first website. Back to themes, are there other options? You betcha. ThemeForest has a marketplace of WordPress themes. There are literally tens of thousands of themes to pick from. They’re usually in the $30–60 price range. When looking for theme, I rank them by the most popular or the highest rating. Then I pick one I personally like. After you’ve purchased a theme, go to the WordPress Theme settings and upload your theme. The Theme settings are under Appearance in the WordPress sidebar menu. You’ll have to click through “Add new” and “Upload Theme” in order to see this option to upload: Go ahead and upload the .zip file you received when you purchased your theme. After it’s uploaded, you’ll also have to click “activate” on the theme in WordPress to make it go live. Step 8: Add content to your websiteNow the fun part — it’s time to create the individual pages of your site. You’ll do this within WordPress. WordPress has two types of content: pages and posts. Think of posts as blog posts that are published under a “blog” section of a site. If you’re not planning on having a blog, then you can skip posts entirely. Pages are the more permanent pages on your website. Like your About or Contact Us pages. When you’re first creating your website, you want to get a batch of pages live so your site feels real. Every website has a few standard pages you should create:
This list will get you started. You can always add more later. Step 9: Continue evolving your websiteAt this point, you have a fully functioning site that looks great. I’m not going to lie, there’s a lot of extra configuration you can do to your site: you can add WordPress plugins that upgrade your site, build out a blog, add an email list, grow traffic, the list is endless. You don’t have to do any of this extra stuff — it’s all optional. It depends on your priorities and goals. A website is an ever evolving thing. The way it looks after you first create it, won’t be how it looks a couple months later. At least that is the case if you are actively working and growing your website. When you’re ready, these guides will walk you through the extra stuff that’s worth considering:
More Guides On Creating and Managing a WebsiteHow to Plan Out Your New Website How to Buy The RIGHT Domain Name – A Detailed Guide How to Develop Your First Brand Identity on a Budget 10 Trending 2019 Website Color Schemes 9 Places To Get Website Images (Paid and Free) The Best Website Fonts That Go Together in 2019 13 Website Design Best Practices 7 Reasons Why You Do NOT Need to Hire a Website Designer The 22 Key Elements of a High Quality Website How Much Copy Should You Write on Your Homepage? 10 Contact Page Techniques That Make People Contact You How To Create an About Page That Matters How to Make a Wix Website in 6 Easy Steps Some useful guides for optimization as your site gets up and running: 5 Easy Steps to Creating a Sitemap For a Website Should You Switch Your Site to HTTPS? Pros and Cons The Top 10 Principles That Boost Your Website Loading Time Web Hosting GuidesYou need a web hosting provider in order to have a website. We recommend SiteGround for most people. For advanced WordPress users, with high traffic websites, it could make sense to move to WP Engine at some point. More about The Best Web Hosting Companies here. Here are some additional guides to help you learn more about web hosting: Everything You Need To Know About Web Hosting The Best Web Hosting for Small Business The Best Web Hosting for WordPress The Hidden Costs of Website Hosting Analytics and ReportingAn analytics tool is important if you want to know what’s happening on your website. It tells you how much traffic you’re getting, where it’s coming from, and what people do on your site. Google Analytics is the standard. That’s what we use for Quick Sprout. Read more about why Google Analytics is the best. Installing Google Analytics is easy. Consuming the reports is a bit more complicated. Here are some guides to help: The 2 Website Analytics Tools Pros Actually Use in 2019 Setup Google Analytics in 3 Steps – The Beginner’s Guide 10 Vital Customizations to Make in Google Analytics A Guide to Google Analytics Add-on for Google Sheets How to Track Your Leads with UTM Parameters Building and Optimizing With WordPressA WordPress website is basically made from what’s called a WordPress Theme and WordPress Plugins. All of the features of your website will come either from the theme or the plugins you install. To help you get started, we reviewed all of the best WordPress Plugins across the most popular categories. Here’s an in-depth review for each category: Best SEO Plugins for WordPress Best WordPress Security Plugin Best WordPress Calendar Plugin Best Google Analytics Plugins for WordPress Best WordPress Directory Plugin Best Membership Plugins for WordPress Best Social Media WordPress Plugin Ecommerce WebsitesIf the primary purpose of your website is to sell products, you’ll need an ecommerce website. We recommend keeping it simple and going with Shopify. Read our full review on Shopify to see why. Check out our review of the Best Ecommerce Platforms, to get a comparison to the other options out there. Get the step-by-step on how to start an online store. Our guide on how to create an Ecommerce website. More useful guides on building an Ecommerce website: How to Transfer Your Website to Shopify Best Ecommerce WordPress Themes Best Ecommerce Website Builder How to Create a Trust Seal On Checkout Page Starting a BlogWhen you really break it down — most websites are blogs, and blogs are websites. They have become one and the same. The most popular blogging platform is WordPress, and that is also the same platform we use for any other website, blog or otherwise. If you’re thinking about starting a blog specifically, and that is why you’re trying to figure out how to create a website…we have over 40 guides on blogging. Here are the blogging guides specific to getting started, and building your blog: Best Blogging Platforms / Blog Sites Best WordPress Themes for Blogs 11 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started My First Blog The Top 12 Tips for Running a Successful Video Blog 10 Lessons Seth Godin Can Teach You About Blogging 100 Lessons Learned from 10 Years of Blogging Creating Your Own Website: In SummaryCreating your website might seem overwhelming at first. It really comes down to starting with these simple steps:
via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/how-to-create-a-wordpress-website/ Traditionally, there have always been three main types of web hosting.
But cloud hosting is a newer type of web hosting that’s very appealing and rapidly growing in popularity. Your hosting plan and provider is the lifeblood of your website. So when you’re evaluating the best web hosting providers, you need to consider every possible option.
Just because something is new or unfamiliar, it doesn’t mean that you should take it out of the running for your decision. That was my inspiration for writing this guide. In many cases, cloud hosting is an ideal option for the majority of websites out there. So if you’re interested in learning more about this alternative type of hosting, you’ve come to the right place. I’ll explain exactly what cloud hosting is, how it works, and show you some of the best cloud web hosting providers on the market today. You can use this information to help you pick a cloud hosting plan that fits the needs of your website. What is Cloud Hosting?Broadly speaking, “the cloud” typically refers to remote storage solutions. For example, you can store pictures from your smartphone or documents on your computer to a cloud storage space like Google Drive. This is different than storing files locally on something like an external hard drive. I’m sure you’re familiar with both of these scenarios, and you probably even use cloud storage for something in your digital life. When it comes to web hosting, the cloud is a little bit more in-depth, but the same principles still apply. With cloud hosting, your web host isn’t connected to one physical location. Your website resources are maintained across multiple virtual servers in the cloud. Each cloud server is responsible for specific sets of tasks. If one of the servers in the cloud fails or goes down, the others will automatically pick up the slack to render those required resources. As you can see from this visual representation, your website will continue to run smoothly with cloud hosting, even if there is a problem with one of the servers. Your website will benefit from increased uptime rates and won’t be as susceptible to unplanned downtime. With a singular server, you’re essentially putting all of your eggs in one basket. This is a huge risk when you’re dealing with something as important as your website. In addition to fixing potential problems with one server, cloud hosting will keep your site stable, even as your traffic increases. Cloud hosting is also extremely easy to set up. For those of you who want to start hosting on the cloud right away, it can be a faster deployment option than something like a dedicated server or shared server. Who is Cloud Hosting For?Cloud web hosting is ideal for medium to larger-sized businesses and websites that are growing rapidly. One of the major benefits of cloud hosting is the ability to scale resources on-demand, which is crucial for growing websites. Most cloud hosting plans have flexible pricing options, meaning you’ll only pay for the resources that you’re actually using. If you’re anticipating random traffic surges or a steady increase in website traffic in the coming years, then cloud hosting is the perfect option for you. Cloud hosting isn’t for everyone. For those of you who have a small personal website, small blog, or a micro-business, you probably don’t need to use cloud hosting if there is no growth coming in the future. A shared hosting plan is fine for those types of websites. When you’re ready to grow your website, you should consider upgrading to a cloud hosting plan as opposed to a VPS. While a virtual private server will be able to deliver enough server resources, a cloud plan is usually more cost-effective. Enterprise-level websites with the need to customize their server settings would benefit from a dedicated hosting plan rather than a cloud solution. Any website with more than 50,000 monthly visitors is a viable candidate for cloud hosting. It’s the perfect option for larger websites that can’t afford to have any downtime. Cloud Web Hosting ReviewsThere are lots of hosting providers out there right now that offer cloud web hosting services. But not every plan is the same. I’ve taken the time to research all of the factors that determine a great cloud web hosting plan. As a result, I was able to identify the top cloud hosting providers: Check out the detailed reviews of each one below so you can determine which hosting provider has the best plan for your website. SiteGroundSiteGround cloud hosting is perfect for websites that have outgrown their shared plans. These plans are fully managed, meaning that their DevOps configure your entire cloud account for you. With SiteGround handling the IT aspect of your hosting, you can focus on other areas of your business and website. You can add resources like RAM and CPU at any time with just one click in your admin settings. One of my favorite features is the ability to turn on auto-scaling, which will automatically render appropriate resources during times of unexpected traffic spikes. With SiteGround, you can completely configure your own cloud and plan based on the resources you need. But here’s a look at their basic plans: Entry Cloud
Business Cloud
Business Plus Cloud
Super Power
The Business or Business Plus plans should be more than enough resources for the majority of you, so that’s what I would recommend starting with. As I said before, you can always scale your resources to meet traffic demands. SiteGround provides advanced priority support to its cloud hosting clients. You’ll also benefit from webmaster tools like a dedicated IP, free CDN, free SSL, daily backups, and a private DNS. HostGatorHostGator is one of the most well-known names in the web hosting industry. Their cloud hosting plans are some of the most cost-effective options on the market today. Let’s take a look at some the three basic cloud hosting plans offered by HostGator: Hatchling Plan
Baby Plan
Business Plan
It’s worth noting that these prices are introductory rates for 36-month contracts. They are 45% cheaper than the actual price, which you’ll end up paying when you renew your contract. All cloud hosting plans come with a free SSL certificate. The Business plan comes with a dedicated IP, free SEO tools, and free domain as well. I like HostGator because the dashboard makes it easy for you to monitor the performance of your website. You can quickly view data related to page speed, uptime, reach, and more. Scaling your server resources is simple as well. This can be done with just one click, without any downtime, reboots, or data migrations. DreamHostDreamHost has the easiest cloud setup in the industry. You can get your cloud servers live in less than 30 seconds. With that said, DreamHost cloud is best for developers. They have server options that are made for databases, web apps, and running tests in addition to websites. You can continue working the with DevOps tools that you’re already using. DreamHost also gives you full root access for complete control over your cloud servers. The best part about DreamHost is that you only pay for what you actually use. You’ll get charged for resources on an hourly basis based on the size of your server.
The 2 GB server is the recommended option for websites. You will not be billed anything when you sign up. Instead, you’re billed based on your monthly usage. The only area where DreamHost falls short is their customer support. You can only contact customer service via email or live chat, which is only available for 16 hours daily. So if you prefer phone support or need help in the middle of the night, you’re out of luck until the morning. A2 HostingA2 Hosting has a reputation for being one of the fastest web hosting providers on the market. Their cloud plans are just as fast and reliable. I like the A2 cloud options because the plans are fully customizable based on your needs. Plans start at $5, $10, and $15 per month, respectively. But you only pay for the resources that you use based on how you configure your cloud servers. If you want to have cPanel, it’s an extra $19.95 per month and not available with the lowest-tier pricing plan. A2 offers a 99.9% uptime promise as well as an anytime money-back guarantee. Although there are some contingencies to both, so make sure you read the fine print of your contract. If customer support is important to you, then you’ll definitely be satisfied with A2’s 24/7/365 guru support team. This cloud hosting provider is ideal for those of you who want unmanaged cloud hosting with lightning fast page loading speed. InMotionInMotion may not be the most well-known hosting provider in the industry, but its cloud hosting plans are certainly some of the best. They have cloud hosting solutions for everyone.
Altogether, InMotion has 10 different plans and pricing tiers for cloud hosting, which is the most I’ve seen offered by any provider. For website owners, you’ll want to focus on the small business plans. InMotion makes it easy for you to scale your resources as your site grows. You’ll also get a resource monitoring dashboard, free auto backups, rapid provisioning, and full snapshots of your servers. InMotion offers a free SSL and free cPanel license with all of its cloud business plans. How to Find the Best Cloud Hosting Plan For YouNot every cloud hosting plan is the same. Some hosting providers offer different features and benefits compared to others. When you’re evaluating a cloud web host, these are the factors that you should take into consideration. Scalable ResourcesYou need to make sure that you get a web hosting plan with enough bandwidth, storage, and disc space. In order to make this decision, you need to have some idea of how much traffic you’re going to get. But new websites face a common dilemma when they’re looking for a hosting plan. They have to decide if they want to get the highest possible bandwidth, even if they won’t come close to exceeding those limits. Or should they start with a lower bandwidth plan and upgrade as their traffic starts to increase? Cloud hosting solves this dilemma. Since your website is hosted on multiple servers, you won’t have to worry about exceeding bandwidth. If one server is maxed out, you can always pull resources from another. Look for a cloud hosting plan that lets you easily manage and configure your server resources in-real time. Here’s an example of what this looks like on HostGator Cloud, which is a provider that we reviewed earlier in this guide. I’d recommend a cloud hosting plan that allows you to scale your server resources without needing any approval from the provider. This is something that can be managed from your admin dashboard. PriceMost traditional hosting plans require you to pay a fixed monthly rate. You’ll be charged this amount even if you don’t use all of the resources on the server. But cloud hosting is much more flexible in terms of pricing. So I’d look for a hosting provider that charges you based on the resources that you actually use. Here’s an analogy. Let’s say you go to an all you can eat buffet, where the food options can also be purchased à la carte. The buffet price is $20 per person, which is the most you’ll have to pay, regardless of how much food you eat. But if you only eat $10 worth of food, then wouldn’t it be nice to get $10 back? That’s how some of the best cloud hosting plans are structured. This relates back to our previous point about being able to scale your resources on demand. For example, let’s say you just built a bunch of new backlinks and you’re expecting a particular blog post on your website to go viral. Rather than upgrading your entire plan (which you’d have to do with other types of web hosting) you can just increase the resources needed during that traffic spike and put everything back to normal when your traffic levels out. In this case, you’d only pay for the actual server usage during the surge. Here’s an example of this pricing structure from another one of the providers on our list, DreamHost. As you can see, pricing is based on usage. Each plan has a maximum monthly rate. Even the fine print at the bottom of the page states that you’ll only be billed for what you use. So look for a hosting provider that offers a similar pricing structure. Speed and PerformanceUptime rates, speed, and performance need to be a priority for every website owner. If your hosting plan doesn’t deliver the best performance, then it doesn’t matter how cool, new, or high-tech the solution is. The majority of cloud hosting servers will increase the capacity of your website, which boosts your page loading speed. Cloud hosting doesn’t put as much strain on a singular server, the same way it would if you had a shared, dedicated, or VPS plan. If your website has lots of resource-intensive data such as videos, images, and other media content, then cloud hosting is something that you need to take advantage of. Look for a cloud hosting plan that delivers content from the nearest remote server. This will ensure that all of your loading times are as fast as possible. At the end of the day, your website visitors don’t care what type of hosting plan you’re using. They just want your site to be responsive and load quickly. By prioritizing things like uptime and loading speed with cloud hosting, your website will ultimately perform better from the user end. SecurityNo matter what type of web hosting plan you have, security always needs to be a priority. Fortunately, cloud hosting is known to be very safe. That’s because your website is isolated from any potential problems with a physical server. Everything is being handled remotely, which wouldn’t be the case if you were relying on a singular server that’s hosted locally. If a local server was compromised, then your website would be at risk. Whereas if one server in your cloud network was hacked, failed, or had a system overload, your website would stay up and running without any downtime or delays. Look for a web host that offers any additional security protection as an incentive with your cloud hosting plan. ConclusionCloud web hosting is the perfect solution for growing websites. If your shared plan can no longer accommodate the needs of your site, then you should consider switching to a cloud solution. So what’s the best cloud hosting provider? It depends on what you’re looking for. Here’s a recap of the cloud hosting reviews above:
I’m confident that one of these options will fit the need for your website. So if you’re looking for a reliable cloud hosting provider, you should start here. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/best-cloud-web-hosting/ Uptime is the most important part of hosting your website. This should be the first thing you use to evaluate the quality of a potential hosting provider. What exactly is uptime? By definition, this is the amount of time that the server hosting your website is up and running. Uptime rates are typically listed as a percentage, such as 99.95%. If a hosting provider has strong uptime rates, then it’s a good indication that their servers perform well. So if you choose a provider based on this metric, then you can assume that your site will stay up and running nearly all of the time. The problem with choosing a web hosting plan based on uptime is that it’s tough to independently verify claims made by different web hosts. Nearly every hosting provider will claim to have high uptimes, which forces you to take their word for it. That’s why I created this guide.
I want to clarify any misconceptions about uptime rates in web hosting. I’ve done the research and identified the web hosts with the best uptime rates to help you make an informed decision. Whether you’re creating a new website or you’re planning to switch hosting providers for your existing site, this resource will be a valuable reference. Why is Uptime Important?Imagine this—a user lands on your website and it doesn’t load. Now what? 88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a website after having a bad experience. I think it’s safe to say that a down website falls into this category. You spend so much time, money, and effort finding different ways to drive traffic to your site. But if the site isn’t live up and running when people arrive, it’s a major concern. Every second that your website is down has a direct impact on the success of your website. Downtime causes lost sales, missed lead generation opportunities, and creates a negative perception about your brand in the eyes of the consumer. Think about it for a minute. What would your impression be of a website that wasn’t loading when you tried to access it? You’d probably just look elsewhere for your needs. A 99% uptime rate might sound good. But if you translate that percentage into time, you’ll quickly realize that is not the case. If your site was up for 99% of the time, it would be down for more than 3.5 days throughout the year. I wouldn’t consider a provider offering anything less than 99.9% uptime, which is typically the industry standard. But as you can see from the graph above, there is still a drastic difference between 99.9% uptime and 99.99% uptime rates. Uptime also has a direct impact on your SEO ranking. If your site is down frequently, Google and other search engines will penalize you for it. Best High Uptime Web Hosting ProvidersThere are plenty of hosting providers out there delivering high uptime rates. But with that said, you shouldn’t choose a plan based solely on uptime. You’ll be out of luck if your provider has high uptime rates but poor customer support. When your site goes down (which it will eventually) then you’ll want a provider that is easily accessible and acts quickly. The providers below all have strong uptime rates as well as other factors that make a great web host. HostGatorMore than 8 million domains are hosted on HostGator. This provider offers a 45-day money-back promise and a 99.9% uptime guarantee on all shared hosting plans. If HostGator fails to meet this guarantee, they’ll issue a credit for one month of your plan. You just need to create a support ticket within 30 days of the month that it happened. The 99.9% uptime guarantee only applies to HostGator’s shared and reseller plans. Dedicated servers are prorated based on the amount of downtime. HostGator is very affordable. Even the highest-tiered shared plans start at less than $6 per month. Another reason why I recommend HostGator is because they offer 24/7 support 365 days per year via phone and live chat. So if your site is down for any reason, you’ll be able to get in touch with their team to straighten everything out. For some of the best uptime rates on the market, you should consider using HostGator Cloud. These plans are priced higher than their traditional shared options, but it’s the best way to scale your server resources. You can read my full HostGator Cloud review here. Media TempleMedia Temple has a 99.99% uptime promise. They call it the “DV 20/20 uptime guarantee” because they refund 20% of your monthly fee for every 20 minutes of downtime. This is one of the best promises on the market, although there are some contingencies. This guarantee is only offered for the DV (developer) plans. Those are self-managed and managed VPS plans starting at $30 per month and $55 per month, respectively. Media Temple defines uptime as the server having power, being connected to the internet, and responding to a ping. Scheduled maintenance, repairs, emergency maintenance, DDoS attacks, outages due to programming environments, and problems caused by you or your location are not covered under this promise. Credits max out if you reach 100% of your monthly billing rate. In order to receive this credit, you must request it from Media Temple within five days of the occurrence. SiteGroundSiteGround is one of the most reputable names in the web hosting industry. They have outstanding customer service and deliver 99.99% uptime rates. The reason why SiteGround’s uptime rates are so strong is because of the technology that they use. This provider uses Linux containers that remain stable during unexpected traffic surges. The technology is resource-efficient, meaning that servers won’t be overloaded very easily. SiteGround’s staff leverages technology to proactively monitor all of the servers in-house. This monitoring system makes it easy for SiteGround to quickly identify and fix any errors that are causing downtime. Furthermore, by actively monitoring servers, they are able to predict potential problems and prevent them before any downtime occurs. SiteGround uses AI to prevent brute force attacks that can cause downtime. This solution can stop up to 2 million attacks per hour across all servers. Shared hosting plans from SiteGround start as low as $3.95 per month. DreamHostWith a 100% uptime guarantee, DreamHost’s promise is unmatched by its competitors. Even with such a significant uptime promise, DreamHost offers some of the most affordable plans on the market today. If DreamHost fails to meet this promise, they will credit you one day of hosting for every one hour of downtime, up to 10% of your next renewal fee. Like most hosting providers, there is a catch to this policy. DreamHost only starts assessing downtime once you open a support ticket reporting the problem. That’s why you need to have a web monitoring service that will notify you whenever your site goes down. But we’ll talk about that in greater detail later. More than 1.5 million websites use DreamHost for web hosting. DreamHost also offers a 97-day money-back guarantee, which is the best I’ve seen in the industry. A2 HostingIn addition to uptime, speed is one of the most important factors to consider when you’re evaluating a web hosting provider. A2 Hosting specializes in speed. Aside from being one of the fastest providers in the industry, A2 Hosting also delivers a commitment to 99.9% uptime. A2 credits its customers 5% of the monthly fee for every hour that the site is down. Although downtimes caused by DDoS attacks, network conditions outside of their network, browser issues, caching issues, and ISP network issues aren’t covered in this policy. Any scheduled maintenance won’t count towards downtime either. A2 Hosting offers shared, VPS, and dedicated plans. All of which are fast and reliable. If you’re looking for an industry-leader in web hosting, A2 and its strong uptime should be a top consideration. Understanding Uptime “Guarantees”Most web hosting providers will offer an uptime guarantee as a selling point. But those guarantees don’t necessarily deliver the results that you’re looking for. A 99.9% uptime guarantee doesn’t mean that your site will be up and running 99.9% of the time. It usually means that you’ll be credited for any downtime below that promise. Don’t take uptime guarantees at face value. You need to read the fine print to truly understand what different providers are offering you. Some uptime guarantees have lots of contingencies. For example, a hosting provider may not count planned server maintenance as qualified downtime. Theoretically, your site could be down for an entire day and you’d receive no compensation for it. The compensation for downtime is insignificant compared to the amount of money your site is losing as the result of that downtime. So don’t get too excited about a credit or refund. However, a provider’s willingness to offer this type of compensation is usually a good indication of their uptime performance. Other hosting providers cap the amount that they’ll refund you up to a certain percentage of a plan. Factors like natural disasters, Internet failure, or hacks might not be covered in an uptime guarantee either. Basically, you can’t just blindly choose a web hosting provider because their homepage guarantees a 99.9% uptime. You need to dig deeper and find out what that means. What Causes Downtime?In a perfect world, your website will be up and running 100% of the time from the day you launch it until forever. But that’s just not going to happen. Even the best web hosting providers have some outages. Here are some common causes of downtime:
As you can see, there are plenty of reasons why your website might be down. It can’t always be attributed to just one thing. It’s also important to understand that not all downtime is the same. For example, scheduled server maintenance from 2:00 AM to 4:00 AM on a Sunday morning is different than a crash at noon on a weekday. The former won’t be as harmful as the latter. Furthermore, the type of website you have can also affect the impact of your downtime. A small personal blog with less than 5,000 visitors per month will survive if its down for an hour. But an ecommerce site with one million monthly visitors would suffer major losses if the site went down unexpectedly. How to Improve Your Website UptimeWhile certain causes of downtime are out of your hands, there are still steps you can take to ensure high uptime rates for your website. Choose a Reliable Hosting ProviderThe first step to high uptime is finding the best hosting provider for your website. While an uptime guarantee is nice to have, I’d rather have a host that delivers on their promise as opposed to simply offering credits as compensation. Look for hosting providers that have a proven track record in the hosting industry. Customer support is also a top evaluating factor. If your site goes down, you need to make sure that your hosting provider acts quickly to fix the situation. Find a host that offers 24/7 support so you can call or live chat with an agent as soon as something goes wrong. All of the providers on the list above are reputable and come highly recommended by our team here at Quick Sprout. So this is a great place for you to start. Use a Website Monitoring ServiceWithout a website monitoring service, your site could be down and you won’t even know it. But with website monitoring, you can track the performance of your site and be notified immediately in the event of any downtime. This gives you the chance to ensure that your hosting provider is doing their job. You can contact your provider to see what steps they are taking to get your site back up and running. While most hosting providers don’t have the reputation for being dishonest, website monitoring is the best way to know for sure if your guarantees are being met. Change Your Hosting Plan TypeAs you can probably imagine, the type of web hosting plan you have will impact the performance of your website. Uptime definitely falls into the performance category. Shared web hosting is the most susceptible to downtime because you’re sharing servers and resources with other websites. A problem or traffic spike on one website could potentially bring all sites on that server down. VPS hosting and dedicated server plans will come with more resources, so there won’t be as much strain on the servers being used by your site. Your site will still be susceptible to downtime related to maintenance, but traffic spikes would be an unlikely cause. Cloud hosting plans are another hosting option that will increase your uptime rates. This type of hosting involves multiple servers across a network. So if one goes down, your site can stay running on the others. Use a CDN (Content Delivery Network)A content delivery network, better known as a CDN, is a way to unload some of your site’s content on servers that are closer to your website visitors. CDNs are typically used to increase the speed of a website, but they can also prevent incidents that cause downtime. If you use a CDN, then it will free up space on your main server, which reduces strain and lowers the chances of a crash due to a surge in traffic. Some hosting providers will offer a free CDN with your hosting plan. ConclusionYour website is useless if people can’t access it. That’s why you need to find a web hosting provider that delivers high uptime rates. These are the top options that I would recommend.
Each of these providers is unique in their own way. For example, HostGator is best for scalable resources while Media Temple is best for developers. So make sure you choose the provider, plan, and hosting type that best fits your needs. But regardless of which option you select, you’ll be satisfied with the uptime rates if you go with a provider on our list. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/web-hosting-uptime/ When it comes to hosting a website, performance is usually the first thing that everyone looks for. You want to find a web hosting provider that delivers strong uptime rates, high speeds, and enough resources to run your website. While performance is obviously crucial, lots of webmasters forget to consider managing their hosting plan after they sign up. Your current hosting provider may offer strong performance, but if it’s too complicated to manage your account, then you should look for a cPanel web host.
What is cPanel? cPanel is one of the most popular control panels in the web hosting industry. The interface and dashboard make it easy for webmasters to manage things like domain names, backups, email addresses, files, account preferences, and more. In my experience, once you’ve used cPanel, there is really no looking back. I’ve experimented with other dashboards, but cPanel is the best for beginners and experts alike. One of the reasons why cPanel is so popular is because it’s a web-based control panel, meaning you can manage your website from anywhere with an Internet connection, as opposed to needing software on a specific piece of hardware. Anyone with a website can benefit from cPanel hosting. Whether you’re looking for a shared hosting plan, virtual private server (VPS hosting), or dedicated server, a user-friendly hosting interface will make your life much easier. cPanel Web Hosting ReviewsLots of web hosting providers have cPanel hosting. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should pick just any host offering this feature. There are other factors that need to be taken into consideration. Rather than spending time digging through dozens and dozens of hosting trials to try and find the best web hosting provider for your website, you can just refer to this guide to learn the best cPanel web host. These are the top cPanel web hosting providers: I’ve already done the research for you. All you need to do is determine which option below best fits the description for your cPanel hosting needs. BluehostI ranked Bluehost as the best overall hosting provider for its user experience. So it should be no surprise that they rank high on my list of cPanel web hosts. More than two million websites across the globe rely on Bluehost, so you know that this is a provider that you can trust.
Bluehost lets you manage access control from your cPanel dashboard. This allows you to restrict access to certain areas of your hosting account, which is ideal for those of you who will have multiple users logging in. For example, as a small business owner, you may not want to give your blogger access to your billing account or server resources. For those of you who are looking for a VPS plan or dedicated server, you’ll have root access from cPanel as well. This will give you complete control over your server to make any custom changes, without needing any additional software or hardware. Dedicated plans allow you to increase storage on-demand from cPanel as well. You’ll be able to do this without any assistance from a server administrator. All Bluehost plans come with a free SSL certificate, 24-7 customer support, and a 30-day money-back guarantee. HostGatorHostGator is one of the most popular names in web hosting. They offer affordable plans and deliver quality performance. No matter what type of web hosting service you’re looking for, HostGator has a plan for you.
Altogether, this provider has 12 different web hosting plans to choose from; all of which come with cPanel. With HostGator, you’ll always get the latest version of cPanel with your hosting plan. HostGator also provides some additional incentives like:
All shared hosting plans come with a 99.9% uptime promise and a 45-day money-back guarantee. Hostgator is compatible with the most popular CMS platforms including WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and Magento. HostGator is one of the best web hosting providers for websites that need to scale their resources. Having access to cPanel for managing all of this makes everything easier. InMotionAs a business owner, InMotion should be one of your top considerations for hosting your small business website. cPanel comes standard for managing your Linux-based server, regardless of which plan you choose. This makes it easy for you to set up your domains, manage resources, handle site automation, and more. Furthermore, InMotion allows for one-click app installations with more than 400 applications that can be managed directly in cPanel. Whether you’re using WordPress, Drupal, or other CMS systems and shopping carts, InMotion is an ideal solution for your website. The one-click installer also allows for easy upgrades, convenient maintenance, as well as rollbacks to previous versions. Here’s a look at the introductory pricing rates for InMotion web hosting:
All of these plans come with cPanel for free. In addition to the one-click app installer, you’ll also benefit from data backups, free SSD drives, SSH access, secure email, and other great freebies. InMotion has been using cPanel with their hosting plans for more than a decade. This has allowed their IT team to customize the backend specs to speed up its responsiveness and ultimately allow for a more seamless user experience. InMotion hosting plans are backed by a 90-day money-back guarantee, which is an industry-leading offer. So if you’re looking for a reliable web host with a feature-rich cPanel, look no further than InMotion. SiteGroundSiteGround is another well-known hosting provider that uses cPanel. These are some of the top cPanel features for SiteGround:
Managing files through cPanel is something else that SiteGround makes extremely easy for webmasters. All you have to do is upload files and add new folders to keep everything neat and organized. This will ultimately make things easier for you whenever your site needs maintenance. For advanced users, you’ll be able to manage complex settings, like “Chron Jobs” in cPanel as well. This allows you to run specific commands to optimize your disk space. SiteGround has shared hosting plans starting at just $3.95 per month. They also offer cloud web hosting, which starts at $80 per month. Regardless of which option you choose, you’ll be able to manage everything with ease through the platform’s responsive interface and dashboard. For those of you who plan on using SiteGround for web hosting, I’d recommend checking out my SiteGround cPanel tutorial to help you get started. iPageWith introductory plan rates starting as low as $1.99 per month, iPage is one of the best cheap web hosting providers on the market today. For such a low price, iPage comes with a surprising amount of benefits like unlimited disk space, scalable bandwidth, unlimited domains, and a free SSL certificate. They also offer a free domain for the first year after you sign up. In addition to web hosting, iPage is known for its website builder. But the free version that comes with the shared hosting plan is only good for building six pages, so it’s not realistic for you to create an entire website with it. iPage uses, cPanel, but there is one catch—you need to sign up for one of their VPS hosting plans or dedicated servers in order to get it. Those start at $19.99 per month and $119.99 per month, respectively. Unfortunately, the shared plans do not come with cPanel. Instead, iPage uses something called vDeck Control Panel as an alternative. vDeck is fine, but it definitely lacking compared to cPanel in terms of its capabilities and interface. Learning how to use it is a bit more challenging as well. With that said, the iPage VPS plans are very cost-effective compared to other providers out there. So it won’t cost you too much for an upgrade to get cPanel included with your hosting. A2 HostingA2 Hosting isn’t the most well-known name in the web hosting world, but this provider offers the fastest speeds on the market today. Speed, reliability, green hosting, and excellent customer support make A2 a top option for anyone. They also have a wide range of hosting plans and prices.
All of the A2 plans come with cPanel for free. If you recall, iPage’s cheapest plans don’t with cPanel. So being able to get cPanel from A2 for less than $1 more per month is a great deal. With A2 Hosting, cPanel allows you to do things like:
A2 also uses Softaculous, which is made for installing software to your account with just one click. Softaculous and all auto-updates can be handled directly from your cPanel dashboard. How to Find the Best cPanel Web Host For YouAs you can see, every cPanel web hosting provider is unique. Whether it be the price, type of hosting, or other features, some hosts will be a better option depending on the needs of your website. When you’re evaluating a cPanel web hosting provider, there are elements that need to be taken into consideration. Performance metrics like uptime and speed are a given. So rather than focusing on those, I’ve identified some other factors that you should look out for when evaluating prospective web hosts. Free cPanel LicenseFirst and foremost, if you want to use cPanel then you need to find a provider that offers a free cPanel license. There are plenty of hosts out there that offer cPanel for an upcharge, but there’s no reason to do go with them if you can get it for free elsewhere. With the exception of the iPage shared hosting plan, every provider on our list offers cPanel for free. One-Click App InstallationsA major cPanel benefit is its user-friendly dashboard. So for those of you who plan to install third-party apps, it will be easy for you to manage everything in one place. Look for a web hosting provider that advertises one-click app installs. In my experience, this is much easier than complex downloads and installations. Whether it be CMS integration, ecommerce functionality, or anything else, a simple app installation will make your life much easier. Once installed, cPanel usually will allow for one-click or auto-updates as well. Site Builder ToolsThis shouldn’t be a deal-breaker, but it’s a nice feature for those of you who are building a new website from scratch. If your web hosting provider has an adequate site builder, you can essentially benefit from a one-stop-shop for your website needs. Normally, I would not recommend bundling a hosting provider and website builder. I think it’s best to stick with providers that specialize in web hosting and platforms that specialize in website builders. Usually, there isn’t any overlap between the two. With that said, if you’re just building a simple website like a small personal site or blog, then you can get away with this for sure. FreebiesPrice always needs to be taken into consideration when you’re looking at different web hosting options. Some hosts appear cheap, but then upcharge you for basic features. So it’s in your best interest to identify the features you need and then look for a host that offers them for free.
These are some common freebies offered by hosting providers. I’d also keep on eye on their money-back guarantees. 30 days seems to be the industry standard. But I’ve seen 45 days, 60 days, and even as high as 90 days. ResourcesIt doesn’t make sense to choose a cPanel hosting plan that doesn’t accommodate the needs of your website. While cPanel is a great tool, it doesn’t make up for poor performance.
You need to make sure that these types of resources accommodate your website traffic. For new or growing sites, it’s in your best interest to find a cPanel hosting provider that gives you the opportunity to scale. With all of this in mind, here is a recap of the best cPanel web hosts on our list.
There is something for everyone in this guide. So you can choose the hosting provider that best describes what you’re looking for. Alternatives to cPanel HostingNot every web hosting provider offers cPanel, so you’re not forced to use it. In most cases, people think cPanel is easier to use. While I agree with that statement, it all comes down to personal preference. For example, earlier we talked about iPage’s hosting plans. For less than $2 per month, you can sign up for shared hosting, a free website builder, and plenty of other freebies. But this comes with vDeck Control Panel. So if you prioritize price over convenience, you might decide to go with this option instead. Alternatively, DreamHost is popular web host on the market today. But instead of using cPanel, they have their own custom control panel. I know plenty of webmasters who love it. Hostinger is another great hosting provider that does not offer cPanel. Even so, I would still strongly recommend them. So don’t let cPanel availability be the determining factor in your web hosting decision. While I personally think it’s a great feature, you can still explore alternative solutions. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/best-cpanel-web-hosting/ How is your website performing? No, I’m just talking about how many visitors you’re getting or how much money you’re making. I’m referring to the actual backend performance of your site. The truth is, factors like uptime rate or page loading speed have a direct impact on conversions and other KPIs. Most web hosting providers will offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee. But how can you know for sure if they are meeting that promise? The solution is simple; you need a website monitoring tool.
Website monitoring services can help you determine the strengths and weaknesses of your site. Based on this information, you’ll be able to make any necessary adjustments in order to improve your site’s performance. Everyone with a website can benefit from website monitoring tools. It doesn’t matter if you’ve owned your site for a decade, launched within the last year, or you’re building a new website from scratch—you need to monitor its performance. What is Website Monitoring?Years ago, website monitoring used to be challenging. It required on-site servers and complex packages for IT departments. Today, website monitoring is easier than ever before. Site monitoring tools are now offered as managed services. This provides webmasters with an easy to understand dashboard view of the most critical metrics of a site’s performance. A website monitoring service can help you track things like latency, load balancing, site traffic, uptime, and other factors related to the health of your website. Website monitoring tools can determine everything from a large-scale outage to a traffic surge on your ecommerce site. These types of tools can help you make critical decisions when it comes to things like scaling your server capacity or allocating resources in a more cost-effective way. Here’s the bottom line—you can’t effectively manage your website without using a website monitoring service. The Best Website Monitoring ServicesThere are dozens of website monitoring tools available on the web today. How can you possibly know which one is the best for your website? Fortunately, I’ve done all of the research for you. This guide contains the top site monitoring services for every type of website out there. You don’t need to spend a fortune on website monitoring. I’ve included a mix of both free and paid monitoring tools to make sure that you can find one that meets your needs and fits within your budget. StatusCakeMore than 100,000 users trust StatusCake for website monitoring. Some of their biggest clients include Microsoft, Netflix, FanDuel, and JetBrains. StatusCake has over 200 monitoring servers across 43 different countries. They actually have a monitoring server on all but one continent. The reason why this tool ranks so high on my list is because it has one of the fastest testing intervals on the market today. So far, we’ve seen tools check the status of a website every minute or every five minutes. But StatusCake has an option for 30-second intervals. In order to get the fastest monitoring intervals, you’ll need to sign up for the Business plan, starting at $66.66 per month. StatusCake also has a Superior plan, starting at $20.41 per month. For that rate, the testing interval jumps back up to one minute. For those of you who want a website monitoring service with advanced features, StatusCake is a great place to start. Depending on the plan you choose, you’ll benefit from things like:
Another top feature of the Business plan is access to team tools like multi-user login and audit logs. Like some of the other top website monitoring services out there, StatusCake offers a free plan with basic features. If you sign up for free, your site will be tested in five-minute intervals and you’ll have access to root cause analysis for any downtimes. The free plan also comes with page speed tests every 24 hours. But beyond that, you’ll need to upgrade if you want any of the advanced features. MonitisMonitis has been around since 2006. This website monitoring tool is used for monitoring more than 300,000 websites across nearly 200 different countries. Major companies like Visa, BMW, and Avis use Monitis as a web monitoring solution, so you know that this is a brand you can rely on. Its cloud-based platform is one of the best ways to monitor the uptime of your website. Since everything is run via the cloud, you won’t have to install any software or hardware to take advantage of this tool. Uptime rates are monitored down to the minute and your history is archived for two years. It uses more than 30 check locations to monitor your site’s uptime from major markets across the globe. Monitis runs tests using multiple protocols like HTTP, HTTPS, PING, and DNS to ensure accuracy. It also does VoIP checks, public IP checks, and email checks. You’ll have access to daily, weekly, and monthly reports as well as instant alerts for any failures. Monitis comes with synthetic transaction monitoring and full page load monitoring as well. The synthetic transaction service is ideal for any ecommerce website. It simulates a user’s interaction with your checkout process to ensure that all steps are always working properly. Monitis also includes features for RUM (real user monitoring) and server monitoring. Pricing for these services starts at just $12 per month. You’ll get a 20% discount if you commit to an annual plan. I like Monitis because the pricing is fully customizable. So you only pay for what you actually need. Here’s an example of some features that I selected. These features would cost about $50 per month or $480 for the year with the 20% discount. But as you can see, I didn’t include any application monitors, custom monitors, or sub accounts. These additional services would add to the price. For those of you who are running a basic website like a blog, you probably won’t need synthetic transaction monitors, so you wouldn’t be paying as much. Overall, this is one of the best website monitoring tools on the market today. At the very least, I’d recommend taking advantage of the 15-day free trial to check it out. Uptime RobotFor those of you who don’t want to pay for a site monitoring tool, Uptime Robot has one of the best free website monitoring solutions available. The free monitoring plan comes with 50 monitors and two months of log history. Your website will be checked in five-minute intervals, which is pretty good for not having to pay for anything. Uptime Robot initially launched back in 2010. For the first five years, the service was completely free. They didn’t launch a paid version of this tool until 2015. For those of you who want faster downtime detection and more advanced features, I’d recommend upgrading to the Uptime Robot Pro Plan. The pro version comes with one-minute monitoring intervals and up to 20,000 monitors. Although I’m assuming that most of you won’t need that many monitors, it’s nice to know that this platform has enterprise-level solutions. The pro plan also comes with:
Pricing for 50 monitors starts as low as $5.50 per month with an annual plan. The price for 20,000 monitors is $649 per month, but there are more than 20 plans in between those two extremes. So you’ll definitely be able to find a price-point that fits your budget. It’s worth noting that if you want the discounted annual plan, it only applies for the first three years of the service. After that, you can expect a 20% increase in price. One of the reasons why I love this solution is because it lets you set custom downtime notifications. If your site goes down for 10 seconds, you don’t need to know about it immediately and waste a notification. But Uptime Robot allows you to set your alert frequency based on how long your site has been down, such as one minute or two minutes. This allows you to ignore minor downtimes. PingdomPingdom is well-known for some of its free tools like the website speed test and real-time outage map. These are two things that I use all of the time. But beyond that, Pingdom also has some great paid website monitoring services. Some of the top benefits of Pingdom’s website performance monitoring include:
I recommend Pingdom because its API integration allows you to easily automate your interactions. It’s also a top option for teams. You can set up your notifications so that the right team member is always alerted. This will drastically improve your incident workflow process. Pingdom goes one step further by not only alerting you of a problem but also identifying the root cause. As a result, you’ll be able to fix it faster to get back up and running with minimal downtime. There are three different pricing tiers offered by Pingdom. These are the discounted rates for an annual contract:
Pricing is based on resources. Depending on the plan you select, you’ll get either 50, 80, or 250 uptime and endpoint monitors, respectively. Advanced monitors range from 3 to 25, RUM ranges from 500,000 to 5 million page views, and user logins range from one to ten. Unlike some of the other website monitoring services that we’ve seen so far, Pingdom’s plans aren’t as customizable. So you’ll have to pick the one that best fits your needs. With that said, Pingdom does have enterprise-level customization. For those of you who want more advanced monitoring options, you can add-on server monitoring for as low as $9 per month. MontasticMontastic is another free website monitoring service with paid versions as well. Here’s a look at the different pricing plans. This tool is as basic as it gets. Unlike other options on our list, it doesn’t really have a dashboard or offer any advanced features. Montastic will simply notify you when your site goes down, and then again once it’s back up. The free service monitors your site every 30 minutes, which isn’t as good as some of the other free plans out there that do this every five minutes. For the most part, I’d only recommend the free version or the $5 per month plan to smaller websites. Aside from those options, I can’t really justify the cost for something so basic. Montastic is definitely not the best website monitoring service you’ll ever see. But I included it on my list because not every webmaster has a need for extra bells and whistles. If all you want is a notification within 30 minutes of your site going down, for free, then Montastic is a great option for you. UptrendsUptrends is a cloud-based solution for website performance and network monitoring. They have been around since 2007 and serve major websites like NASA, Johnson & Johnson, IBM, Shell, and the Discovery Channel. If you want a free website monitoring service, Uptrends has an option for you. Simply provide them with your email address and website to be notified whenever your site goes down. This is one of the most straightforward and basic plans that you’ll find. Uptrends also offers a free website speed test that can be customized based on device, screen size, bandwidth, and browser. It’s one of the best free speed tests on the web today. Besides the free tools, Uptrends has five different paid website monitoring plans.
The Business and Enterprise plans allow for complete customization, you can check the interval testing frequency and buy extra monitors as well. Features like transaction monitoring and API monitoring are also customizable on these plans as well. For those of you who want RUM (real user monitoring) in your plan, you’ll have to add that on separately. Pricing for RUM starts at $5.09 for 100,000 page views per month. This goes as high as $127.31 per month for 5 million page views per month. In short, Uptrends has website monitoring solutions for everyone, regardless of the type or size of the site. Uptrends stands out as one of the top website monitoring services on the market because of its customer service tools. They have an academy, knowledge base, and other resources making it easy for anyone to learn more about how to monitor a website. Host TrackerHost Tracker is a website monitoring service that offers some unique features compared to some of the other tools on our list. In addition to uptime reports, downtime alerts, and SSL monitoring, Host Tracker will let you know if your domain is listed on a DNS blacklist. You can also get advanced features like server load parameters for elements like CPU, RAM, and HDD. Host Tracker automatically pauses any Google Ads if your website goes down. It will start those ads back up again as soon as your site has recovered. Choose from one of three plan options:
All plans come with a 30-day free trial. So at a minimum, I’d recommend using this option to explore the dashboard and take a closer look at their features. More than 320,000 websites are using Host Tracker for site monitoring. They have over 140 monitoring locations worldwide and average over 15,000 alerts per day. How to Find the Best Website Monitoring ServiceAs you can see from our list, not all website monitoring tools are created equally. Some platforms have more advanced features than others. Depending on your needs, here are some features and factors that you can use in your decision-making process. URL Monitoring FrequencyA website monitoring service is useless if it doesn’t track your uptime and notify you about downtime occurrences. But most services don’t track websites in real-time, meaning you won’t know the very second that your site goes down. URL monitoring happens using interval checks. The fastest time we’ve seen is every 30 seconds and the slowest time we’ve seen is every 30 minutes. If you have a business website with lots of traffic, you’ll want to find a plan that checks your URL status every minute, at a minimum. Otherwise, every five minutes should be fine for most of you. Server MonitoringNot every website monitoring service comes with a server monitoring plan. This is not typically something that’s offered for free either. A server monitoring tool will keep on eye on resources like memory, disk space, CPU usage, and more. It’s a great way to help understand how your server resources are being allocated, and if you need to make adjustments to your web hosting plan. Real User Monitoring (RUM)RUM is one of the best ways to gain quick insights on how people are experiencing your website. This advanced monitoring system collects information on how real people interact with your site. Based on this data, you can recognize strengths or weaknesses on your website. It can also help you identify and troubleshoot any problems with its performance on the user end. PriceLike anything else, price will likely play an important role in your decision-making process. You don’t need to spend a ton of money on website monitoring. If you have a small website or personal blog, you can get away with a free monitoring service. These plans will essentially just notify you when your site goes down and provide some basic reports. For those of you who are willing to pay for website monitoring, plans on our list range anywhere from $5 per month for a starter plan to $650 per month for enterprise-level monitoring. There are plenty of outstanding options out there that fall within the $30 to $100 per month price range. ConclusionWhat’s the best website monitoring service? It depends on what you’re looking for. One website will be happy with a free plan that provides basic reports, while another website might need advanced features and reports. That’s why I included an option for everyone on my list above. Here’s a quick overview of the plans on this guide:
Even the paid plans on our list have some type of free trial available. So I’d recommend taking advantage of those offers before you settle on a service. You can usually get a lower monthly rate if you lock in an annual contract. Keep that in mind when you’re going through this process. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/best-website-monitoring-services/ A2 Hosting has been around for nearly 20 years. This independently owned hosting company may not be the most well-known name in the industry, but it has worldwide data centers and provides outstanding services. If you’re looking for a reliable web hosting provider, look no further than A2 Hosting. A2 delivers strong uptime rates and great customer service. When it comes to speed, A2 is second to nobody. Fast web hosting and A2 are synonymous. In fact, I named A2 Hosting as the most reliable and fastest host on my list of the best web hosting providers. Whether you’re new to web hosting or looking to change web hosting providers, A2 needs to be taken into consideration. I created this guide to give you a more in-depth review of A2’s plans, features, and benefits. Is A2 good for web hosting? Find out my answer below.
A2 Web Hosting PlansLike most web hosts, A2 offers several different hosting options. The plans can be segmented into four different categories: I’ll go over the pricing and features for each of these plans as we continue. Shared HostingA2 Hosting has some of the best shared web hosting plans on the market today. The choices are competitively priced, and offer plenty of benefits. A2’s shared plans definitely deliver in terms of performance as well. There are three different shared plans to choose from. Here’s a quick overview of each one. For less than $3 per month, the Lite package might seem appealing to some of you with a small single website. But with that said, I’d recommend the Swift plan, at a minimum. You’ll get double the resources for an extra $0.75 per month. Even when it comes time to renew, the Swift plan is only $2 more per month than the Lite plan. For those of you who want the fastest shared hosting plan on the market, you’ll have to sign up for the Turbo plan. Don’t get me wrong; the Lite and Swift plans are still faster than average in terms of shared hosting. But the Turbo plan is as fast as it gets. A2 Turbo is up to 20 times faster than its competitors’ shared hosting services. The concept behind Turbo is simple. A2 allocates more resources per user and fewer users per server for sites on this shared plan. If you pair that with the enhanced performance over Apache, you get blazing fast shared hosting speeds. All of A2’s shared plans come with unlimited storage, unlimited transfers, a free SSL, and free site migration. VPS HostingIf you’re looking for a step above shared hosting, you might want to consider a virtual private server. A2 offers both managed and unmanaged VPS plans. Most web hosting providers either offer one or the other, so it’s nice that A2 has both to meet the needs of a wide range of customers. Unmanaged VPS
Managed VPS
A2 also has something called “Core VPS” plans. The prices for these are exactly the same as the managed plans. The only difference is that the Core VPS comes with root access. While the pricing for the unmanaged VPS plans may seem appealing, these are not for the everyday website owner. An unmanaged VPS is for experienced developers who want full customization over their virtual server. With an unmanaged VPS, developers can select exactly how much RAM, storage, and other resources that they want. So you’ll only end up paying for what you need. All unmanaged plans come with your choice of Linux OS. But you can change this on-demand at any time. The managed VPS plans are more suitable for the majority of websites. Resources max out at 8 GB of RAM, 150 GB of storage, and 8 vCPUs. This should be more than enough to accommodate a growing website. Reseller HostingIf you’re a developer, web designer, or have an agency, reseller hosting might be the best option for you. You should consider A2 reseller plans if you want to sell web hosting plans to your clients. This is a great opportunity for you to earn some extra cash while providing more value for your existing services. Here’s an overview of the pricing and features for A2’s reseller plans. If you read my guide on the best reseller hosting plans, you’ll see that these prices are very affordable. I wouldn’t consider the Bronze plan. So we can eliminate that as an option right away. It’s the only plan that doesn’t come with free WHMCS, which you’ll need in order to effectively manage your clients. You could always buy it separately for an additional $10 per month. But it’s better to just upgrade your plan to Silver or Gold. Plus, 30 GB of storage probably won’t be enough to manage more than a handful of clients. The Silver package offers more than double the storage for less than $5 more per month. Overall, the Gold reseller plan is my top pick. With 150 GB of storage and 1,000 GB of transfer speed, it can accommodate up to 250 websites. This gives you plenty of opportunity to scale your reseller services. Dedicated HostingDedicated servers are the top of the line in web hosting. Most of you probably don’t need a dedicated hosting plan. These servers are made for websites with high volumes of monthly traffic. Small businesses or medium-sized websites don’t necessarily need enterprise-level hosting. Large ecommerce shops good candidates for a dedicated server, since the server resources like bandwidth, RAM, storage, and CPU output won’t be shared with any other sites. As you can see, A2 has four different dedicated hosting plans. Only the Unmanaged Flex Server and the Core Flex Server come with root access. Similar to the VPS plans, root access is really intended for developers who want complete control and customization over their server. Personally, I’d go with the Discount SSD server. It’s got more than enough resources to handle an enterprise-level website. The price is pretty affordable as well compared to other dedicated servers on the market. If you want that optional root access, you can go with the Core Flex Server. It’s still fully managed but the root access will be there if the day comes when you need it. All A2 Hosting dedicated servers deliver some of the fastest loading speeds that we’ve seen in the industry. Benefits of Using A2 For Web HostingNow that you’ve had a chance to review the different A2 Hosting plans, it’s time to see what makes A2 a good web host. I’ve identified A2’s top benefits and competitive advantages. If you’re on the fence about using A2 for your web hosting services, these benefits might help you make a decision. Ultra-Fast SpeedAs I’ve mentioned throughout this guide, A2 is known for its blazing fast speed. If you compare it to other web hosts on the market, A2 is faster than all of them. Take a look at this speed comparison chart that includes some other well-known names in the industry. This is one chart where being at the bottom means you’re the best. A2 clocks in around 150 ms. That’s more than twice as fast as popular providers like GoDaddy and Bluehost. With plan names like “Swift” and “Turbo” it’s clear that A2 is playing to this advantage. If you’re leaning toward a shared hosting plan, you’ll be happy with the speed no matter which option you choose. But the Turbo plan is really going to take you to that next level. A2’s speed continues to be unmatched when we look at their VPS and dedicated servers as well. So if you have a site where speed drives conversions (such as an ecommerce site), then A2 is a great option for you. Great Customer SupportAny time I’m reviewing a potential web hosting provider, I always prioritize customer service. Web hosting is too important for your provider to neglect you in times of need. In most instances, you probably won’t need to contact your provider. So customer service might not be on the top of your priority list right now. But I can promise you that it will change in the event of an emergency or times where you want some extra assistance. A2 has 24/7 live chat, phone, email, and ticket support. I prefer live chat, so I gave it a try to see how fast and responsive it would be. I was connected with an agent in less than five minutes, which is a little bit slow for my liking. But once I was connected it was smooth sailing from there. The agents are friendly, knowledgeable, and respond quickly. If you look up customer reviews for A2 on the web, you’ll see plenty of endorsements for their customer service experiences. A2 Hosting has an extensive list of articles and guides in their knowledge base as well. This is great for those of you who prefer self-help options. Enhanced SecurityAll A2 Hosting plans come with HackScan and KernelCare. These are both components of A2’s perpetual security initiative. HackScan is essentially malware protection. It runs 24/7 to prevent attacks from happening to your website. KernelCare is a software extension. It allows A2 to update the security of their kernels every day without having to reboot any servers. With KernelCare, you’ll benefit from faster updates and no downtime during updates. This ensures that your kernel is always up to date on the latest security software. Essentially, both HackScan and KernelCare are preventative security measures against malicious attacks on your website. Tools For DevelopersSome of the A2 plans are definitely geared toward developers. More specifically, developers would probably consider the unmanaged VPS plans or one of the dedicated servers with root access. The reseller plans are a great option for developers as well since you can get admin-level access to servers. A2 works with all major content management systems. Some examples include:
You can install a CMS with just a couple of clicks, even without the help of a developer. A2 Hosting has its own website builder as well. This is a user-friendly way to build a website as a beginner. Keep in mind, the pricing for the site builder is a bit different than the base price for the shared hosting plans. Your A2 Hosting plan is also compatible with Cloudflare CDN. This will keep larger files separate from your server to keep loading times as fast as possible. Free Site MigrationsIf you’re currently using another web hosting provider, A2’s team will move your site to their servers for free. All you need to do is contact their customer support. Other hosting providers charge $100 or more for this service, so it’s definitely a great added value. There’s just one catch. The number of sites that they’ll migrate for free depends on the plan that you’ve selected. All of the shared plans come with a single site migration. The reseller, VPS, and dedicated server plans come with 25 free migrations. You need to be able to provide A2 with your existing cPanel credentials for this to go smoothly. Otherwise, they may require a small fee for the added work. Environmentally FriendlyA2 is carbon neutral, which is also known as “green” hosting. They’ve partnered with Carbonfund.org to ensure that every server is carbon neutral. While this might not be a dealbreaker, I think it’s nice to use a web hosting service that cares about the environment. You can then turn this around and use it as a marketing strategy for your website as well. If A2’s servers are green, and you’re using their web hosting services, that means your website is environmentally friendly by default. This could be a huge selling point. According to a recent study, 73% of Millennials say that they’re willing to pay more for sustainability. But marketing and sales aside, supporting an environmentally-friendly business is an added perk of using A2 for web hosting. Other ConsiderationsBefore you sign up for an A2 Hosting plan, there are a few other considerations that you should keep in mind. I’ve identified a few cons or downsides of using A2. High Renewal RatesUnfortunately, low promotional rates and high renewal pricing seems to be the industry standard in web hosting. A2 implements this policy as well. So don’t expect to pay the same price forever. You won’t get a better deal than your initial contract. To get the lowest possible rate, you need to choose a 3-year contract. There’s one part of their pricing policy that doesn’t quite sit well with me. According to A2’s terms of service, your plan will automatically renew unless you contact them via email at least 15 days before the renewal period. You also have the option to submit a request to cancel through their customer portal. If you’re signing up for three years, there’s a good chance you might forget to do this 15 days before your contract is up, meaning you’ll be forced to renew at full price no matter what. UptimeSurprisingly, A2 doesn’t have the best uptime rates in the industry. I’ve seen some months throughout the year where their uptime rates slipped to 99.6% or 99.7%. Those numbers aren’t awful, but they are definitely below satisfactory. Fortunately, A2 guarantees a 99.9% uptime rate. If they fail to meet this promise, they’ll refund you 5% for every hour that your site was down. While the credit is a nice way to show their commitment to customer service, I’d rather just pay full price and have strong uptime rates. Plan RestrictionsSome of you might be drawn to A2 Hosting because the shared plans are so affordable. But if you’re considering the Lite options (the cheapest plan), you should be aware that it has some limitations. The plan is only for a single website and doesn’t come with the fastest servers. If you decide to use their cheapest website builder, it will only give you the option to create one page. That’s obviously not enough to build an entire website. There are some other cheap web hosting plans out there that aren’t so restricting and have significantly lower prices. ConclusionDo we recommend A2 Hosting for web hosting? Absolutely. A2 is an industry leader in speed. They are known as a reliable and reputable provider with outstanding customer service. When it comes to shared web hosting, VPS plans, dedicated servers, and reseller plans, A2 is a top option to consider for every category. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/a2-web-hosting-review/ Hostinger’s roots date back to 2004 in Lithuania. Although their web hosting services weren’t launched until 2007. Their first web hosting plans were available on 000webhost.com, before changing to hosting24.com in 2008. After those first few changes, the Hostinger brand as we know it today was born in 2011. While the company is fairly new compared to other web hosting providers on the market in 2019, the platform has 29 million users across 178 different countries. This growth is impressive, to say the least. In short, they are not a small company. But is Hostinger a good web host in 2019?
Hostinger is best known for its low-cost web hosting. If you refer to my best web hosting providers guide, you’ll see the Hostinger ranked first for the best cheap web hosting plans. So for those of you who are looking for an affordable web hosting option, Hostinger needs to be taken into consideration. You can use this guide to decide if Hostinger has suitable hosting plans for your website. Hostinger Web Hosting PlansCompared to other web hosts on the market today, Hostinger doesn’t offer as many options. Their hosting plans are segmented into just three categories. The good thing about this is that the plans are very straightforward. I’ll give a more detailed analysis of what these plans include as we continue. Shared HostingHostinger has three shared hosting plans. Here’s a brief overview of each one: Single Shared Hosting
Premium Shared Hosting
Business Shared Hosting
As you can see, each pricing tier comes with added features and benefits. Since a free SSL and domain registration are pretty standard features for most web hosting companies, I wouldn’t consider anything less than the Business plan. Right now they are actually running a special for a free SSL with all shared plans. But I can’t promise that will always be an option. If you have an ultra-small blog or personal website, you can probably get away with the Single or Premium shared hosting. But just realize that you’ll outgrow those plans quickly as your traffic scales. These are suitable options if you just need to get your site live but don’t plan to add much to it. Cloud HostingCloud hosting is a relatively new type of web hosting service. For those of you who want to know more about what it is and how it works, refer to my guide on the benefits of cloud hosting. The cloud hosting plans provided by Hostinger are a step above the shared options. Let’s take a closer look at what each cloud plan offers. Cloud Startup
Cloud Professional
Cloud Enterprise
All cloud plans come with unlimited bandwidth, isolated resources, a free dedicated IP, free domain registration, and a free SSL certificate. As you can see, these plans come with significantly more resources than the shared options. The cloud hosting from Hostinger is best for small to medium-sized websites that are growing and need a web host that can scale with them. The pricing for these plans is kind of in no man’s land. For comparison purposes, you can get 6 GB of RAM, 6 CPU cores, and unmetered storage from HostGator’s cloud hosting for about half the price of Hostinger. But SiteGround’s cloud hosting plans start at $80 per month for fewer resources. So if you look at it from that perspective, Hostinger’s cloud plans are still relatively cheap. VPS HostingUnlike other web hosting providers, Hostinger does not offer dedicated servers. So their VPS hosting plans offer the most speed and performance. Hostinger has six different virtual private server options.
The pricing for the most basic VPS starts at $3.95 per month and the most expensive VPS starts at $29.95 per month. As you can see, there is quite a wide range of variety and options for you to choose from if you go this route. In the world of virtual private server hosting, this is about as cheap as it gets. But for those of you who are considering a VPS for your website, I think you can do better elsewhere. Check out my list of the best virtual private servers (VPS hosting) for some other options. I have some additional affordable providers on there, like iPage, if you’re price-sensitive. Benefits of Using Hostinger For Web HostingNow that you have a firm grasp on the different types of web hosting plans offered by Hostinger, I want to take some time to explain why Hostinger is a top web hosting option. I’ve identified Hostinger’s best features and benefits below. Decent UptimeCheap web hosting services might seem appealing on the surface. But it’s not worth going this route if your uptime rates are going to be insufficient. Hostinger doesn’t have the best uptimes rates in the industry, but they certainly don’t have the lowest either. Usually, we like to see web hosting services deliver an average of 99.9% uptime over the course of a year. Hostinger has some months in the 99.8% range, and even as low as 99.04%, which definitely brought their average down. But some months of 100% uptime saved their average. You need to weigh the cost against your needs. If you have a small personal website with minimal traffic, 10-14 hours of downtime in a year isn’t going to kill you. However, if you have a business website, you’ll want slightly better rates. Overall, Hostinger’s uptime rates are good enough for most small websites. Fast Loading TimesFor a cheap web host, Hostinger has surprisingly fast loading speeds. On their website, Hostinger states that their server response time is 43 milliseconds, which is very good. Although I was unable to verify this number in any tests. I’d say that this should be advertised “as low as 43 ms” instead. You probably would need to have a top-tier plan using very little resources to achieve those speeds. Either way, you can expect to have loading times somewhere in the 300-400 ms range on average. Again, this still pretty good for the price. The industry average for page loading speed is closer to 900 ms, so Hostinger pretty much cuts that number in half. Money-back GuaranteeIf you’re unhappy with your Hostinger web hosting services, you can get your money refunded within 30 days of signing up. This should be a good enough reason for you to sign up if you are on the fence about how your site will perform using Hostinger. 30 days is basically the industry standard for web hosting promises. Most providers will offer you this period, at a minimum, to change your mind and get your money back. Hostinger’s money-back guarantee is good, but it doesn’t go above and beyond compared to some other web hosts out there. We’ll talk more about this in greater detail shortly. Live SupportFor me, customer support can make or break my decision to use a web hosting provider. If I have any questions or problems, I need to know that I can contact my web host immediately. However, this may not be as important for some of you. Again, if you’re using Hostinger to host a small personal blog, then getting in touch with a customer service representative in an instant may not be at the top of your priority list. Regardless of your situation, it’s nice to know that Hostinger’s live chat is easy and fast. To test it out, I sent them a message asking for help and got a response in less than one minute. I was happy with the language and terminology used by the customer service rep as well. Their instructions were simple and easy to follow. Furthermore, Hostinger has knowledge base articles on their website that offer guidance for self-help. I’d recommend using those as a resource if you end up choosing Hostinger. Free Domain and Website BuilderAll Hostinger plans come with a free domain and website builder. So for those of you who are building a new website from scratch, you can take advantage of Hostinger’s easy to use drag and drop builder. They have lots of great templates for you to use as a starting point as well. Honestly, Hostinger’s website builder isn’t the best on the market. But it’s good enough for a simple website. I wouldn’t let this feature make or break your decision. But it’s a nice added benefit for those of you who are just looking for a cheap web hosting offering an all in one solution. Hostinger has the ability to be your one-stop shop for hosting, domains, and site builders. Simple InterfaceThe Hostinger administrative dashboard is super easy to use. It’s very straightforward, even if you don’t have much experience with web hosting or managing a website. It has large icons segmented into different categories, making it quick and easy to find exactly what you need. You’ll have access to any installed apps, like WordPress, from here as well. Hostinger makes it easy for you to change your usage, upgrade your plan, change your domain, and manage your email settings. You can even access your usage statistics to see if the plan you’re currently signed up for meets the needs of your website. While Hostinger’s interface is easy, it’s not perfect. But I’ll go into greater detail on this shortly. “Unlimited”Hostinger has some great unlimited options available for specific plans. For example, both the Premium and Business shared hosting plans come with unlimited bandwidth, unlimited MySQL databases, and unlimited email accounts. That’s why I’d recommend choosing a higher-tiered plan over the entry-level pricing. I think the unlimiteds and freebies are worth the few extra bucks per month. PriceHostinger is cheap. So if you want a low-cost web host, this is a logical place for you to start. But keep in mind that like most web hosts, Hostinger has some tricks and ploys when it comes to their pricing. Here’s a look at my checkout page when I selected the Single Shared Hosting plan, starting at just $0.99 per month. So this should cost just $12 per year, right? Yes and no. In order to lock in this low monthly rate, you need to sign up for a 48-month contract. Monthly rates go up for anything less. When I added some basic features like daily backups, Cloudflare protection, and priority support, the rate went up even higher. Other features like an SEO toolkit start at $10 per month. Other web hosting providers may have higher entry-level pricing, but they include these features even in their most basic packages. Keep in mind that your rates will go up when it’s time to renew your contract. Again, this is a pretty standard practice in the web hosting world. Other ConsiderationsAnything cheap usually comes with some trade-offs. Hostinger is no exception to this rule. There are a few drawbacks that you should keep in mind when you’re reviewing their plans. Must be Logged in to Access SupportEarlier I explained that Hostinger offers fast and reliable support. But priority support doesn’t come with all plans. If you choose the Single Shared Hosting plan without any add-ons, then you may have to wait a bit longer to speak to someone. Furthermore, you can only access the live chat feature if you’re logged into your account. This can be a problem if you’re locked out of your account or forget your password. It also presents a challenge for prospective Hostinger customers. For example, if you’re not currently using Hostinger, you can’t live chat with a representative if you have questions about migrating your site to their platform. Instead, you’d have to just submit a general inquiry ticket through their website and someone will contact you via email. This is not ideal. But again, it’s a tradeoff for the price. Traditional cPanel is Not AvailableHostinger’s interface and administrative dashboard is simple and easy to use. We talked about this earlier. However, they do not offer traditional cPanel. For the most part, cPanel is the industry standard in web hosting. So if you’re used to using cPanel, then you may be a bit frustrated using Hostinger’s version. But for those of you who are new to web hosting, you won’t notice the difference. Hostinger’s control panel will be just fine. Exceptions to Payment TermsAs I said before, Hostinger has a 30-day money-back guarantee. But there are some exceptions to these terms that are worth mentioning. You won’t necessarily get a “no questions asked” full refund for all of their services. The following products are not available for refunds under this policy:
Domain name registrations and transfers can be refunded if they are canceled in the first 96 hours of the purchase, not 30 days. You can read Hostinger’s full refund policy here. Additional Domains Aren’t FreePremium, Business, Cloud, and VPS plans come with a free domain name. But if you’re planning to use Hostinger to host more than one website, you’ll need to pay for additional registrations. With that said, the prices are pretty affordable. You can get a .xyz or .tech domain for just $0.99 per year. But .com domains start at $8.99 per year. For those of you who are registering a new domain, I’d recommend getting it somewhere else. You can check out my list of the best domain registrars for alternative options. ConclusionDo we recommend Hostinger for web hosting? Yes. Hostinger is a trusted name in the industry, offering cheap web hosting solutions for small websites. So if you’re looking to cut costs on web hosting, then you can consider Hostinger. Even though Hostinger offers cloud and VPS hosting plans, I’d personally stick to their shared options. This is what they are best known for. The Premium and Business shared plans will be more than enough to meet the needs of a small website or a personal blog. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/hostinger-web-hosting-review/ If you’re new to web hosting, InMotion might not be a name that you’re too familiar with. Maybe you’ve heard of them, but they don’t have the same brand recognition as some of the other big players in the industry. While they may not have Super Bowl commercials with women in bikinis, InMotion is one of the most reliable web hosting providers on the market today. In fact, I ranked InMotion as the best web hosting for small business on my most recent list of the best web hosting providers. InMotion is also known for its outstanding customer support and best business practices, which as earned them a top rating from CNET for 16 years. The Better Business Bureau gives them an A+ score as well. So for those of you who are looking to host a new website or transfer your hosting service of an existing website, InMotion needs to be taken into consideration. This extensive guide covers all of InMotion’s hosting plans, the benefits of using InMotion, and some other considerations to keep in mind while making this decision. Is InMotion good for web hosting? Find out below.
InMotion Web Hosting PlansI already mentioned that InMotion is a top choice for small business web hosting. They have plans to fit the needs of both business and personal websites of all shapes and sizes.
We’ll take a closer look at the pricing and features of each plan so you can figure out which one is the best for your website. Shared hostingInMotion’s basic shared plans are geared toward small businesses. They refer to these options as Business Essential Hosting. Here’s an overview of the three shared plans. InMotion’s pricing is very straightforward and transparent. What you see is what you get. These are all great choices for static websites, custom applications, and any data-driven CMS. All of the Business Essential plans also come with a free drag-and-drop site builder, which is a great bonus for those of you who are planning to build a new site from scratch. You’ll also benefit from a free domain, data backups, free SSD drive, SSH access, and a free SSL. InMotion’s shared plans are supported by multiple languages so you can develop your site in Ruby, PHP, MySQL, and more. Even with these entry-level hosting plans, InMotion lets you choose your data center. With any Business Essential plan, you’ll have unlimited disk space and bandwidth. These price points are very affordable, especially considering all of the features, benefits, and freebies. They are definitely a tier above the cheapest web hosting plans on the market, but the cost is still reasonable. InMotion offers other shared options specifically for WordPress and website building. But for similar pricing points, you won’t get unlimited storage or bandwidth. There are also restrictions for how many sites you can host. That’s why I lean toward the Business Essential plans with the drag-and-drop builder included for anyone who needs it. VPS hostingFor those of you who are looking for more power, customization, and additional resources, then look no further than the VPS plans from InMotion. All InMotion virtual private servers come with the following features:
The VPS plans are ecommerce optimized and offer optional root access, for those of you who want that added control over your virtual server. Most of you probably want a hands-off hosting experience. In this case, InMotion offers fully managed VPS services with each plan as well. The fully managed services include things like server monitoring and data migration. I’d recommend the VPS plans for websites that experience high volumes of traffic with the occasional traffic spike. Maybe your small business runs limited time sales or deals on a monthly basis that draws more people to your site at those times. In this case, with just one click you can always add additional resources to increase power and speed to meet those traffic needs. Developers and IT teams may be interested in the cloud VPS plans from InMotion. These unmanaged plans are ideal for quickly building, deploying, and scaling applications. Virtual private servers are best for small to medium-sized businesses that are continuing to grow. If you’re just running a small personal blog, then you’ll be fine with the shared plans. Dedicated serversDedicated servers are the top of the line in web hosting. You’ll only need to consider these options if you need enterprise-level resources.
As you can see, there’s a pretty wide price range here. If you select the Essential, Advanced, or Elite plans, then you can customize your InMotion dedicated server. As expected, any changes will impact the price. In the example above, I upgraded the memory and SSD drives. This raised the Essential plan price from $105.69 to $161.85 per month. I’d rather customize one of those first three plans as opposed to paying over $500 per month for the top dedicated server. In most cases, you probably won’t need that one. I don’t have any issues with InMotion’s dedicated servers, but this provider specializes in VPS and shared hosting for small businesses. If I wanted a dedicated server, I’d look elsewhere. Check out my guide on the best dedicated hosting plans if you want to review some other options. Reseller HostingReseller hosting is very niche-specific. It’s made for web developers, designers, and agencies who want to squeeze some additional revenue out of their existing clients. So if you fall into that category, you might want to consider InMotion’s reseller hosting solutions. InMotion offers both shared and VPS reseller plans, totaling six different options:
All plans come with a free WHMCS license to make it easy for you to manage automated billing for your clients. InMotion also offers assisted setups and migrations. This is helpful whether you’re starting from scratch or migrating your existing client sites to InMotion. InMotion’s Launch Assist will ensure that the onboarding process goes as smooth as possible. I’d recommend the reseller VPS plans. The traditional reseller plans are ok, but they don’t come with scalable dedicated resources, root access, or a WordPress optimized stack. Those plans also aren’t ideal for large deployments. Even if you’re only managing a handful of sites right now, I’d still go with a VPS reseller option. The starting price is very affordable and the benefits are significantly better. For a more in-depth analysis of InMotion’s reseller plans and some other options, check out my most recent list of the best reseller hosting plans on the market today. Benefits of InMotion for Web HostingNow that you’ve had a chance to review the different hosting plans, I want to show you some specific areas where InMotion stands out as one of the best web hosting providers. 90-day guaranteeI won’t consider using any web hosting service that doesn’t offer a money-back guarantee. Not because I plan to use it, but because I’m hesitant to pay for something that the company doesn’t stand behind. In web hosting, 30 days is the industry standard. I’ve even seen a handful of providers that offer a 45-day or 60-day money-back promise. InMotion blows the standard out of the water with their 90-day money-back guarantee. It’s worth noting that the money-back promise only applies to the business, VPS, and reseller plans. Plus, you need to sign up for a minimum of six months to get this benefit. All month-to-month plans and dedicated servers have a 30-day guarantee, which is still good enough for me. Outstanding supportInMotion is an industry leader in customer support. This is a huge selling point, especially since some other web hosting providers fall short in this category. For the most part, all of your web hosting needs will go smoothly. But if at any time you have a question, problem, or need some sort of assistance, it’s comforting to know that the InMotion team will be there to help you out. InMotion offers support through live chat, phone, and email. In my experience, you won’t have to wait more than a couple of minutes to be connected with an agent. If you’d rather learn on your own, InMotion has online tutorials and a community forum as well. There are more than 3,000 articles on their platform with a wide range of categories to choose from. I always look to see what a provider’s customers are saying about them online. It’s not uncommon to see lots of complaints related to customer service. But that’s not the case with InMotion. Sure, there’s the occasional unhappy customer. But the vast majority of customer reviews praise the support offered by InMotion’s team. Above-average uptime ratesUptime is something that cannot be sacrificed when it comes to web hosting. If people try to visit your site and it’s down, that’s going to be a big problem. InMotion’s uptime is good. It’s not the best that we’ve seen, but it’s certainly not the worst. For shared plans, you can expect about 99.95% uptime rates. If you’re paying for a VPS or dedicated server the uptime will be better. But overall, they still come in above industry averages and it’s a reliable web host. You won’t have to worry about your site going down for extended periods at a time. Fast page loading speedIn addition to outstanding customer support and specialty VPS plans, InMotion is known for its speed. Speed is crucial for all websites, but it’s especially important for businesses. If your pages are taking too long to load, it’s going to frustrate your customers and they could abandon your site. Furthermore, page loading speed has a huge impact on your SEO ranking as well. Google rewards sites that load quickly. The shared web hosting plans are sufficient, but you’ll definitely want to consider a VPS plan if you want blazing fast loading times. FreebiesI’ve written reviews in the past about web hosting providers that offer low pricing and then get you to pay extra with add-ons and upsells. InMotion includes more value with the basic packages compared to other web hosts on the market. Here’s a quick look at just some of the shared hosting freebies, which are available even for entry-level plans. Furthermore, VPS plans come with free site transfers as well. Competitors typically charge $100, at a minimum, for this service. While a freebie shouldn’t make or break your decision to use one web host over another, it’s a good way to add value to your plan. Enhanced securityUnfortunately, cyber crime is something that every website owner needs to be aware of. You can’t have the “it won’t happen to me” mentality. Most web hosts will offer some form of security protection for their clients, but I think InMotion really goes above and beyond with their plans. By partnering with third-party security companies, InMotion’s plans help prevent DDoS and brute force attacks against your website. So you may not need to add extra layers of security, which will save you some money in the long run. Other ConsiderationsNo web hosting provider is perfect, and InMotion definitely isn’t an exception to this statement. While InMotion has its fair share of benefits, there are some potential drawbacks you should be aware of as well. High contract renewalsYour initial contracts with InMotion will be the cheapest. When your plan renews, expect to pay full price for their services. Unfortunately, this seems to be the industry standard for web hosting. There are only a handful of web hosting providers that don’t increase the rates after the first contract term. So how much more do you have to pay? It depends on the plan. For example, the Pro shared plan promotional rate is just 8% lower than the renewal rate. But the highest-tier VPS plan is more than 50% off. There is no avoiding this. Just make sure you understand what your rate will be when it comes time for you to pay full price. Your promotional rate won’t last forever. Delayed verificationsAs a new customer, you won’t have instant access to your plan. For security reasons, all customers need to be verified over the phone, which delays the sign up process. I’ve even heard of some instances where InMotion has also required new customers to provide a photo identification card, although this is not a standard part of the verification procedure. But if you look on the bright side, at least you know that InMotion is going above and beyond to ensure security. However, this can be a potential turn off for some clients, especially for people located outside of the US or Canada. Plan restrictionsIf you have a shared hosting plan, you’re going to have some restrictions. While InMotion advertises free backups, it’s only for websites smaller than 10 GB. Furthermore, file restoration can only happen once every four months. There’s a fee for those of you who need this on a more frequent basis. These types of restrictions will disappear for higher-tiered plans, like VPS and dedicated server hosting. ConclusionDo we recommend InMotion for web hosting? Yes. More specifically, InMotion is best for small businesses. This provider specializes in VPS plans as well. Overall, InMotion is considered one of the best web hosting providers in the industry for its outstanding customer service and reliability. Is it the absolute best web hosting provider that we’ve ever seen? Probably not. But they still rank pretty high on our list. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/inmotion-web-hosting-review/ |
Sean BrianWhile radishes deter certain insects naturally, they require similar growing conditions as carrots. Although the crops both have roots, radishes grow and germinate quicker, allowing carrots to continue growing in the soil space available when the radishes are harvested, Archives
April 2023
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