In order for you to build your own blog or website, either for personal or business, you’ll need at least two things. First, you’ll need to choose a domain name for your site and second, you’ll need some type of web hosting. Basically, web hosting provides a place for your personal blog or business website to be accessible to the world via the internet.

If you do not have a hosting account setup yet, I would recommend having a plan for your site and performing a little research before purchasing any type of web hosting. This will help you determine what type of package you’ll need to get started.

• What goals have you set for your website?
• Both short and long-term?
  Is your focus on blogging or do you have additional ideas for a website?
• Have you set a budget to get started and for everything else you will need?
• Will your site be hosting a number of larger files for download?
• Do you plan on selling any type of products such as physical or digital?

There are additional questions that you need to answer, but these should be enough to help stir your thinking process.

Keep in mind, if you’re just starting out, many of the resources for your blog or website are probably going to be minimal. In other words, you’re not going to purchase a large hosting package for things you don’t need.

While most web hosting services will allow you to upgrade packages, it’s still a good idea to verify their individual procedures and terms.

No matter what direction you choose for a web host, over the long-term there will probably be a number of changes or additions that eventually take place. If you do things correctly, your blog or website should evolve over time, therefor, certain changes will happen as you expand and grow.

What these changes might be will depend a lot on what you’re trying to accomplish. Whether it’s internet marketing or ecommerce, you should have in place some kind of basic plan of what you will be doing, where you plan to go, and how you will get there. Like I said, this is a basic plan that includes the previous questions above plus more.

Hosting Services

So, let’s talk a little about hosting services. First of all, there are plenty to choose from. However, just like many other things, hosting providers are not created equal. The price for hosting, uptime, downtime, space available, number of domains, database usage, customer service, and so on. Whereas every web hosting service may look the same or even offer some identical plans, their services and terms will definitely be different.

As for my sites, I prefer using a variety of providers specifically Bluehost, Namecheap, and Siteground. Read my Bluehost Review here. They all offer great services and superior products. They also offer exceptional customer service and speedy response to questions along with fast turnaround times in solving problems. To me, this is a very important issue as I don’t want to wait 24 hours or more just to get a response.

They all have an easy navigation system, and each utilize cPanel. Siteground uses the standard cPanel screen while Namecheap uses the Paper Lantern theme. Since WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems or blogging platforms online, each service offers an easy one click install using the Softaculous Apps Installer.

Now, many internet marketers will often choose popular services such as GoDaddy, Hostgator or Bluehost among others. One of the things that attracts them to their services is the feature of unlimited bandwidth, unlimited database and unlimited disk space. Of course, and just so you know, almost all web hosting providers will offer similar type services within their packages.

Remember, when it comes to your web hosting options, do some research first, understand what you need, and what will fit your budget.