Now that you’ve finally launched your WordPress website, you’ll need to host it somewhere. Choosing the right hosting service can be confusing, but luckily this comprehensive guide on best WordPress hosting for beginners will help you pick out the best option. We’ll start with explaining what you should look for in a good web host, and then we’ll get into some specific recommendations that are ideal for your needs as a newbie WordPress user. Let’s get started!
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What is The WordPress host?
Before we dive into all of your options, let’s take a step back and talk about what a WordPress host is. By definition, a host is an entity that provides services or facilities to others; gives accommodation to someone (Merriam-Webster). In other words, it’s an organization that provides servers and hosting tools to individuals who are looking to set up their own websites. And one of these organizations is called a WordPress host. So really, it all comes down to what you expect from your hosting provider—be it reliability, speed, customer service or anything else.
Choosing the right host
There are thousands of different hosting companies out there and it can be hard to tell them apart. But not all hosting is created equal. For beginners, you don’t need a complex hosting solution. You just need a host that is reliable and offers good support at an affordable price (good support doesn’t have to be expensive). We spent weeks reading reviews from professional reviewers, customer service representatives, actual customers and scouring message boards for feedback on hosts that might work well with WordPress.
How much should I pay?
If you’re hosting on a monthly basis, you’ll want to find a happy medium between cost and features. If your business is brand new and hasn’t built up an audience yet, look for a deal that includes unlimited domains and months at no additional cost. You might also consider an introductory offer, which will be higher in price but likely has less restrictions when it comes to how long you can keep it. If your business has been around for years and has established itself as a household name, paying more than $50 per month is probably fine. This gives you some flexibility if you need more storage or if traffic increases significantly after launch—you won’t have to worry about going over your monthly allotment with increased bandwidth use.
Premium plans, especially those that offer unlimited storage and bandwidth, can be tempting. But what if you just don’t have a lot of traffic right now? Should you pay extra to get more options later on down the road? Or should you start out with a cheaper plan and upgrade when needed? Before choosing a hosting plan, ask yourself: how much will I use it in its basic form? If you aren’t sure how much traffic your site will receive, consider starting with a lower-tier plan (like GoDaddy’s Starter or Bluehost’s Basic) and upgrading as your business grows. That way, if you need additional features down the line, you can easily change to an upgraded plan.
The other hosting services you should know about
If you’re choosing a new web host, you’ll want to know all your options. You can choose from two types of shared hosting—managed or unmanaged—and two types of VPS hosting—dedicated or semi-dedicated. Managed services mean that someone else is managing your server and performing maintenance tasks on it; an unmanaged plan means that you get root access, but no one else does. And on both levels, there are different plans based on how much memory and processing power your site needs.