WordPress Hosting Review for Informed Bloggers

WordPress has proved itself as the Best Blogging Platform in the blogosphere, and the demand for WordPress Hosting has been increasing exponentially, with each passing day.

I am going to present a WordPress Hosting Reviewfor bloggers to take informed decision while opting for such services.

Various options available for hosting a WordPress blog -

1. WordPress.com

On WordPress.com, you can host your blog for free, with a basic level of shared hosting. But you will get a sub-domain, like yoursite.wordpress.com.

If you want your own domain name, then it costs between US$ 18 to 25 per year.

Upgrading to WordPress Pro Bundle costs between US$ 99 to 166 per year. By upgrading, along with a domain name you will be able to upload audio and video, 10 GB extra space, no Ads and theme customization options.

A WordPress only Premium theme costs around US$ 70. Which is non-transferable if you choose to self-host at a latter date.

Automattic provides excellent security and back-up features for blogs hosted on WordPress.com.

Suitable for: Casual bloggers, who treat his blog as a personal diary without any intention of commercialization.

Cons: You can’t add plugins, themes and few other features, which are available for free on WordPress.org.

2. Self-Hosted

If you want to host your site yourself instead of WordPress.com, then there are plenty of Hosting Service Providers available at affordable rate.

But your site will be hosted on a shared server, along with other websites.

Few Best and Affordable Web hosting Service Providers are JustHost.com, HostGator.com,BlueHost.com and GoDaddy.com.

Self hosting is quite affordable and costs as little as US$ 2 Only.

Suitable for: Serious and Professional Blogger, who might consider blogging as his sole profession later on. Suitable for Casual Bloggers also for the freedom of using Plugins, Themes, Uploading audio/video, Theme customization etc.

Cons: Due to shared hosting you may experience slow uploading of your WordPress blog. You have to arrange your own security and back-ups.

3. Managed WordPress Hosting

This is just like self-hosted, but with the guidance and help of people who know WordPress better. They will take care everything, including security and back-up.

Suitable for: Established blog or large corporate Official Blog.

Cons: There is no cons except the high price. Affordable for high earning WordPress blogs or Corporate blogs, who seeks quality.

Are you happy with your WordPress Hosting Type? Share your experience in comments below

How to Find the Best Web Hosting

If you want to learn the tips and tricks to get a good hosting with an affordable price, then you must pay close attention to this post. I’m going to share with you how you can evaluate and pick the hosting that best suits your needs. Do not worry if you have zero knowledge about hosting service because I’m going to write everything in the simplest way and not too technical for you to understand. Yes! Let’s start this Web Hosting Dummy Guide right away!

Choosing a good hosting is somehow very similar to the way how you choose a laptop. You do not need to learn every component inside a laptop to pick a good one; likewise, you do not need to have deep knowledge to pick a good hosting. However, you need to know what makes a hosting stands out from the others.

What is Web Hosting?

As a photographer, you may wonder what is web hosting, and why is it important?

In layman’s term, web hosting is space you rent in a computer server for storing and displaying your website on the internet.

It is a core requirement for building your photography website in WordPress.

There are several different types of hosting options such as: shared, VPS, dedicated and managed WordPress hosting.

We will explain all these options for you below, so you can make an educated decision. We will also share our recommendations of the best web hosting companies for photographers.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is a popular choice for photographers because it is affordable and easy to setup for beginners.

As the name suggests, you are getting shared space on a large server to host your website. This allows hosting providers to improve their profit margins thus offering you the service for an affordable price.

It’s a standard practice in the hosting industry to advertise “unlimited” resources, but please know that there are usage restrictions in place. Most small businesses will never exceed them, but if you do, then you will be asked to upgrade your plan.

If you are just staring out, then you only need shared hosting. There’s no need to overpay for resources you don’t need.

VPS & Dedicated Web Hosting

VPS stands for a Virtual Private Server. This is the next step above shared hosting.

While you’re still sharing server space, it’s with a lot less people, so you have more resources and more control over the server settings.

On the other hand, Dedicated hosting is basically a whole server just for your website. These can get fairly expensive based on the size of your website. Since you’re reading this article, then chances are you probably don’t need either of these options.

Managed WordPress Hosting

Since WordPress is a fast growing platform powering over 25% of all websites on the internet, it has given birth to a new industry, Managed WordPress hosting.

Think of managed hosting as a valet service. 100% hassle free because they will take care of everything from the performance of your website to security to backups and more.

As you can expect, one of the best perks of managed hosting is top-notch support from the most experienced WordPress developers and engineers.

On average, it costs 10x more than a simple shared hosting plan, but the benefit far outweighs the cost.

Managed WordPress hosting is a good option for all websites (no matter the size) specially when the owner has no technical knowledge or the time to handle web hosting issues.

The best way to think of it is, you do what you do best (run your business) and let the hosting experts do the rest.

Hopefully by now you understand the differences between each type of web hosting option that’s available for you.

Demerits of Choosing an Unknown Web Host

May Lose Your Website: The main thing you all should have in mind that your website is dependent on the web host and if you’re hosting with any non-trusted web hosting company, you may lose your data and even complete website. So, for every blogger it is recommended to keep the complete backup of your website.
Bad Page Loading Speed: The small or unknown web hosts won’t keep their won servers, instead they may be resellers and that may lead to slow down the page loading speed. And as the page loading is nowadays a main ranking factor of various search engines like Google so you should take care of it.
Worst Support: If you’re running a blog or website, it may happen many times that you need urgent support from your website but in case of a non-trusted or unknown web host, you may feel the bad technical support.

And there may be several limitation of hosting your website with a bad web host. So, how can you find out that which web host in good and provides better support and have its own servers? Guys the following tips are all about selecting a better web hosting company.

Essential Factors to Consider When Choosing a Web Host

Pricing

Most people tend to consider the price when choosing a web host but in reality, while it's indeed important, it shouldn't be the main deciding factor. This in no way implies that you should come aboard with the cheapest web hosting that you can find. You need to consider a web-hosting company that can give you the best cost-to-benefit ratio. Things like state-of-the-art equipment, top-notch server specifications and exclusive hosting features cost money. So it's unlikely that the cheapest web host is able to offer these options. Just remember the old axiom, "you get what you pay for."

Hosting Specialization

Not all web hosting companies are able to cater to the many different needs of customers. There are companies that would be just right for a personal blog, while there are those that provide hosting solutions for large businesses. So before you sign-up, make sure that you are dealing with a company that best understands your needs as the customer. This will require a little bit of research on your part.

Reliability / Uptime

For a website that generates a lot of traffic, it needs to be up almost at all times. Lengthy downtimes will cost you a LOT, and you can't afford that. Just don't be pulled in by companies that claim 100% uptime because they're not true. It's a good thing that there are free uptime monitoring tools that you can find online.

Tech Specifications

If you are launching a small family blog or perhaps a pet fan page, then the most basic hosting plan should suffice. However if you are planning to add a considerable amount of content, then you need to find a hosting plan with enough tech specs to serve your needs. Some of these specs include RAM, disk space, processing power and more. Otherwise, you will find yourself in a lot of headaches due to slow load issues or downtime. And speaking of headaches..

Customer and Technical Support

If a company puts their customer first, then it can always be taken as a good indication. It can't be helped that there are technical aspects to web hosting, so expect to run into some difficulties. So at some point, you will have to contact the company's customer and technical support. Can you call them and be attended by a live person? Are they knowledgeable enough to fix your problems? Do they have a support staff on-call 24/7? Find out about the company's reputation with regards to customer support. Or you can go ahead and call and ask them technical questions regarding your concerns.

Features

Now this is another factor that you should heavily weight when choosing a web hosting service. Basically this is the factor that gives a web hosting company that edge over the competition. Consider these features in accordance with your needs. Do they offer unlimited disk space? Unlimited bandwidth? Do their hosting plans include a site builder? Do they offer money-back guarantees? These are just some of the features that you need to take into consideration.

Hardware

For this factor, you will have to do a bit of research. Companies that take pride of their hardware will surely turn that fact as a main selling point. For the ones that use sub-par hardware, not so much. The quality of the hardware can significantly affect the company's server performance as well your website's.

Payment Plans

It's not uncommon for web hosting companies to entice customers with huge savings if they sign-up for longer termed plans. You should be aware of this sort of marketing strategy. If that web host turned out to be terrible, you will be stuck with them and your only way out is to pay for early termination fees. A good approach is to pay for their monthly rates. This way you can evaluate the provider and see how you like it. If you end up liking their service, you can sign-up with higher payment plans.

Room for Growth

If your website is doing well, at some point your website will grow, and so does your hosting needs. While your current web host fits in with your requirements, this might change once your website grows. Transferring to another web host will take considerable time and effort. So consider a company that has the capacity to handle the growth of your site. See to it that they offer hosting upgrade options such as VPS hosting or dedicated hosting.

Control Panel / User Interface

A control panel is the interface that will enable you to manage different aspects of your web hosting account. Even if you are not the most computer-savvy person out there, you will still have to perform some fairly technical tasks yourself such as email and FTP account setup, installing WordPress. With an easy-to-use control panel, you can easily perform these tasks. The last thing that you would want is to call the support staff for the most basic tasks. Some of the most common control panels are cPanel, Plesk or vDeck.

Backups Policy

Data loss is something that you don't want to happen to your website. The consequences of data loss will surely render you unable to recover. So choose a web hosting company that puts a good deal of significance to their data backup policy. How often do they perform data backups? What are the methods that they'll be using? Some companies will charge you extra for day-to-day or regular backups while there are those that will provide you the necessary tools so you can do the backup procedures yourself.

User Reviews

One of the most reliable sources of information when it comes to the overall performance of a web hosting company are the customer reviews. Find out what other customers say about a particular web host. And try to steer clear of reviews that are found within the company's website as they are likely to be paid or fake reviews. For this matter, it is best to stick with external sources for web host reviews. Sources like Web Hosting Jury and Web Hosting Talk are examples of reliable sources for web hosting reviews.

That’s it! That’s everything I want to share with you today on the things to look for when you choose a web hosting. I do not want to overwhelm you with too much information, so I’ve left aside many details. If you want to learn more about web hosting, perhaps you can leave a comment below and I will try my best to answer you. Good luck and see you again!

Choosing Best Webhosting for Blogger Blogs

To many, blogging is not just a hobby, but a business, a career. Time and again, we have emphasized the importance of keeping a business-minded approach in order to be successful. Being a business of sorts, blogging should also be treated as such. Businesses require investments, and need to grow. So does blogging. When people create a free blog, they don't usually think ahead, and instead end up restricting themselves. The most people would do is, buy a domain and leave it at that, especially Blogger users. They don't realize the importance of a proper web-hosting. Hence, in this post, we talk about why you should get a web-hosting, and which host to choose.

Difference b/w Domain Hosting & Web Hosting?

Domain hosting means that you are simply purchasing a custom URL with TLD extensions like .com .net or .org etc. which will mask .blogspot.com. It costs around $10-$12 a year to buy a domain from blogger itself. With this option you only get a free email ID such as admin@yourblog.com. You can not upload files in your hosting nor can you create sub-domains. You are limited to Blogger Dashboard only.

Web hosting in layman terms is simply buying a storage space for your website online, just like a folder online. Your files will be stored in secured hard disks owned by the web hosting company. Like all our files of services page, tools and Forum are stored with our web host. When you buy webhosting you also get a free domain with it. You can choose to use your existing domain or buy a new one. You can upload JavaScript/CSS, PDF files, Videos, Audios, almost anything on your web host and each file will get your branded URL. For example we have stored our ebook " Pro blogger Secrets Revealed" on the subdomain "Downloads":

Why buy a web-hosting?

Web-hosting refers to storing your website files on a separate and dedicated web server. This is different from domain hosting. Domain hosting simply refers to purchasing a custom URL for your blog. While it is true that Google provides free web hosting for your Blogger, the fact remains that this hosting is really limited. You will face the following restrictions even if you buy a custom GoDaddy domain for your Blogger blog.

You can not create sub-domains (subdomain.domain.com)
You can not create a forum or any similar application
You can not create custom webpages
You will be limited to a few custom email addresses (if they are provided at all)
You will not be able to host scripts on your site, and will have to rely on a third-party
You will not be able to upload files that you want, except for images and videos that can only be added into your posts
There's a limit of 1 GB to the total size of pictures you upload
Each individual page be of at lax 1 MB in size

These are some of the many things that differentiates a blogger from a webmaster. Beginners often don't realize their importance, and are hesitant to spend money on a proper hosting. These features come in really handy if in the future, you want to expand the scope of your blog, and want to add custom pages, applications, tools, and add your custom scripts.

Will Webhosting effect your Blog Traffic and SEO?

Web hosting will give a professional touch to your blog. It gives you a brand name and look. People will be more willing to share your content on social media and link back to your pages. Your reputation would increase threefold in blogosphere. The more backlinks you receive the better your Search engine ranking.

Google considers free domains mostly as spam and so do Sponsors. After purchasing a custom domain with a storage space, your blog will be trusted more as E-A-T (Expert, Authoritative and Trustworthy) . Your chances of getting accepted by AdSense and buysellads will increase tremendously as long as you continue producing High Quality content. It is simply a Win-Win decision.

This very blog you are reading runs on Blogger. We've had experience with many web hosting companies and would likely moving from blogger hosting soon.

It is time to make up a decision! With over trillion of web pages published each day, competition is at its peak and if you have not yet made the decision to kick-start your online business in a professional way then you are missing a great deal of marketing edge. We receive tons of questions daily on webhosting through our forum, Emails and blog comments. To make sure we reply each question in detail, we have crafted this post with the only hope to clarify all your doubts concerning hosting your blogger blogs. This post shares some of the very honest reasons that has helped us tremendously in becoming the Brand that we are today.What are some of the things you should look for when choosing a web host? The criteria for choosing a free web host and a commercial web hosting solution are slightly different although they do overlap.Let's share your view with us through comments.

HostGator Review: Do You Really Need HostGator?

If you’re blogging, you’re running an online business. And any business needs investment, particularly on few things like web hosting, domain purchase etc.

When it comes to buying a web hosting service for your blog, you need to consider few things like;

customer support
pricing factor
reliability etc

One of the best web hosting providers currently available in the blogging world is: HostGator. I’ve explicitly written this post on hostgator review and getting it just for $0.01

Many of the BIG blogs use HostGator to run their businesses. I’ve been using HostGator for several months now, and I never faced any problems with their hosting service. I’m a satisfied customer of HostGator. So I obviously recommend HostGator to host on your blog.

Why Choose HostGator?

Most hosting plans out there will have many downtimes, that means your visitors will not be able to access your website or blog.

Secondly, your server might be slow, which creates a terrible user experience and which can actually make a drop in search engine rankings.

Third, the customer support might be slow, and you won’t be able to solve your site problems within the time! It’s why I prefer and suggest you to use HostGator for your blog or website.

Easy CPanel Navigation

CPanel means Control Panel. Using CPanel in HostGator is quite easy.

CPanel of HostGator is really easy to navigate and you can find desired tools very easily.

Live chat support

Hostgator 24/7 support: Hostgator is one of the 99.9% uptime guarantee with the good support, incase your blog or website has been unreachable for more than 1 hour, you can email to the support@hostgator.com. At the moment, they will service you directly the price free phone support, live chat support
live chat support: You can chat with their support directly. They’ll respond you just within 2 minutes.

Comes with 3 hosting packages

1. Hatchling Plan: If you’re just starting out and not have enough money then go for Hatchling plan.

Hatching plan is for single domain hosting

This plan is ideal for anyone who is planning to host only one website. It’s the cheapest plan and you can upgrade to baby plan at any time!

2. Hostgator Baby Plan: This is the most popular package which is used by almost every blogger (even I use the same plan).

You can use multiple sites just by paying $10 every month! It’s worth every penny..

Baby plan is for more than 1 domains

3. Hostgator Business Plan: You can use dedicated I.P in this plan. You’ll get a dedicated IP, toll free number and private SSL.

This hosting plan is for large websites and corporate companies..

How to Get HostGator Just For $0.01 for the First Month?

Follow these steps..

Step 1: Click the below image and select “View Webhosting Plans”

Step 2: Now choose any hosting plan from the below..
Step 3: Now enter your domain name and use the coupon code LearnBlogTips

Step 4: Enter your payment details, you’re done!

Few other reasons to use HostGator

Free website transfer
MySQL transfer
Script transfer
4500 free web templates
Unlimited domain hosting and
Unlimited MySQL database usage
HostGator is trusted by over 8,000,000 domain owners

The HostGator plans are covered by 45-days money back guarantee, no risk to take, hosting with Hostgator is risk-free!

The 7 Deadly Sins of Guest Blogging

Why?Why?Why?
Why my guest posts are getting rejected everywhere?
F*ck this guest posting system, no one is recognizing my work.
Have you encountered the same situation before?
Well you’re in the right place then!
Lets see how you can crush the guest posting sins to make your guest blogging journey a success.

Guest blogging mistakes that shouldn’t be done

Not having attention grabbing headlines.

I said this and I’ll say this another 1000 times.. headlines are everything.
Okay it’s not my dialogue ;) (Brian Clark’s? Okay give him that credit)
This time we’ll discuss about headlines in another angle.
I’m sure everyone will write good titles on their guest posts.. but what should you remember here is this: good is not enough!
Come on.. say this along with me.
Create great headlines – not good titles
But how can you decide whether your headline is good or great?
Simple.. do two things (which I personally follow)

copy popular posts titles in your niche (and tweak them to make it even more better than the older one)
or work on creating 5 to 7 headlines for the same post (and choose the best one – you can use the remaining titles in the sub headings, so don’t worry about time being wasted!)

Not having these 3 goals before diving in.

Relationships
subscribers
links

Tell me buddy what do you want from the above?
For me: I want ALL!
Lets face this. Why on earth anyone could probably blogging? Either for money or to gain online reputation right?
Have a goal before writing a guest post for someone else.

You’re just rehashing the content.

This is probably the dumbest mistake of all.
It may work in the small blogs, you can rehash it however you want. But it’ll never (ever) work on the top blogs. You’ve to give them something unique.
What’s in it for their readers?
Why should some read your blog post when your topic has already covered somewhere?

You don’t follow EIE rule

Entertain
Inform
Educate

Have you ever thought why most of the guest posts are being generic everywhere?
Reason is this..
They’re considering guest posting as okay-I-should-be-serious mentality.
Who the hell said that you should be seriously teaching the readers in your guest posts? Entertain them. Show them something unique and make them laugh. When you push their “fun trigger’ – no doubt your [your sweet name please] guest posts go viral.

You’re ignoring the oxygen of guest posts – Proof reading

I recently saw few mistakes on a top blog’s guest post, full stops have used somewhere, using ‘or’ instead of ‘are’ etc
Can you guess my feelings at that time? Okay cool down.. chill
Everyone will hate reading an erroneous post. Be sure you’re proof reading your guest posts. Check them thrice, even four times after finishing the final draft.
Undoubtedly proof reading is one of the best things you can do to make your guest posts error free.
Pro tip: Read out loud your content, yes do it this time or take a print out of your posts. Read it offline, I’m sure you’ll edit at least few sentences!

You’re following this strategy perfectly – write, submit and ignore.

Why the hell should you care about promoting your guest posts and responding to comments?
If you want to reap the rewards from guest blogging, make sure you’re spending some time to promote the content with your network and responding to important comments.
By doing this, you’re certainly creating great impression on their readers (not to say how happy would the host author if you respond to comments in a professional way!)

Every blog has some style – follow their writing style instead of yours!

What I still think is: follow your host blog’s writing style.
Let me clear this..
If someone’s writing a guest post for you; how would you react if they submit long blocks of content when you mostly use short and appealing paragraphs?
Your reaction could be like this..

Huh?
What I personally learnt from my guest blogging journey is this: unless you’re already grabbing more people attention with your writing, don’t use your own writing style, instead, observe your host blog’s writing style and follow it.

7 Ways to Attract More Comments On Your Next Guest Post

In attracting the women, the 3 most important words are… listen, listen, listen!
In attracting more comments, I guess it would be.. the following 7 tips!
Below are the 7 effective ways I personally used to get more comments on guest posts.
You’ll also find the live examples including the killer tips to attract more comments.
Share your tips in the comments section if you want to add any.

How to attract more comments on your guest posts?

1. Observe their last 10 to 15 posts

Make a list of 2 to 3 posts [which you’re REALLY interested in]
Also make a list of 2 to 3 posts [which got more comments, likes and shares]
Now, combine both the lists & come up at least with 2 posts. Choose the best among them and pitch that post to the blog owner :)

2. Make sure your introduction is short and TEMPTING

The second most important factor after headlines that’s make readers love your post is this: killer introduction.
I’m very concerned writing introduction lines. I don’t love to read those posts which start with generic lines.
Because they play a vital role in hooking the readers with your content.
3 tips to write tempting introduction lines to attract more comments on your next guest post..

Start with a quote (make sure it’s relevant and catchy)
Start with a wicked line (this will confuse readers minds, thus leads to read them further!)
Start with a question (by doing this, you’re making readers stick to your content from the beginning itself)

3. Talk more about benefits, not features

Write actionable tips
Writing actionable tips on your guest posts is the simplest way to attract more comments.
Your readers should apply the tips immediately after reading your post. This is what makes others to comment.

On my recent guest post (on BasicBlogTips), I talked about unique ways to write faster blog posts. The tips were so actionable that you can apply immediately after reading the post to write faster blog posts without losing the quality. The post attracted about 130+ comments in no time

4. End with a killer call to action (CTA)

No matter if I use Call to actions at the end of posts on this blog or not.. but I definitely use CTA’s in every guest post I write.
Because I need more interaction at the end of the post, and I know having an effective CTA can do that for me. Yes.. call to actions attract more comments. Your readers will love to take action when they find your post useful. It’s your responsibility to making them take some action. When you want to attract more comments on your guest post – simply ask them to share their views about the post.
This makes them to comment. Got it?

5. Be the first person to comment on your own guest post

May be no one has talked about this strategy before..
So lets call this as.. “Rahul’s commenting tip” ;)
The strategy is so simple…
Don’t wait for others to comment on your guest post.. You leave the first comment either by thanking the blog owner for publishing it or adding some more spice to the post. This makes more people to leave a comment on your post. Trust me this thing works! I’ve done it already!
Here’s the small screenshot of it..

Above guest post attracted more than 100 comments, not bad! Try this strategy on your next guest post to attract more comments.

6. Attract more comments by responding to everyone

There’s no need to explain this tip.. respond to everyone. This not only makes an increase your comment count, but it also sends other readers that they’ll get a reply from the blog author! That’s really real KEY to get more comments and engagement.

7. You tell me, I’ll listen now!

Now it’s your turn.. I’ll pick the best tip from the comment section and I’ll include it here with a link back to your site!
So tell me now.. how do you attract more comments?

Do You Know the No.1 Secret to Boosting ‘Genuine’ Email Subscribers?

Your email list plays a paramount role in your marketing. In 2012, 3.3 billion people had an email account. That number is expected to crest 4.3 billion by the end of 2016, according to a report by tech market research firm, The Radicati Group.

With numbers like that, it makes a lot of sense to continuously increase the number of email contacts that you have. A growing email list can attract new customers, generate buzz about your business, build relationships and increase your bottom line.

To help you substantially build your email list, we’ve put together a list of effective ways to increase your subscribers. Each of the four methods below has detailed instructions so you can improve your list without a huge learning curve. You’ll save time and inject your list with new names at the same time.

The no.1 killer tip to increasing your email subscribers is this..
Put an opt-in form at the bottom of the blog post
Most people who visit your blog will not read your content… that’s the sad truth.
But..
If they do read your content and they do make your bottom of the blog post, that means they like what you’re talking about!
They like what you’re offering to them..
And if you’re getting them to the bottom of the blog post, what’s the better time to take action?

The people who enter their email address at the bottom of the blog post also suggests that they actually read your content!

That’s a good person to have in your email list :)

’nuff said..
Now go and apply on your blog.
If you don’t know how to create an email optin form at the end of the posts here’s a small tutorial to create one.
Go to custom_functions.php
Add the following code
[alert]
function afterpost_email() {
if (is_single()) { ?>
Paste your email optin code here [for AWeber users, it’s very easy to embed the single line java code]
<?php } }
add_action(‘thesis_hook_after_post’ , ‘afterpost_email’); [/alert]

While this list offers four specific ways to increase your email list, there are many ways to do so. Considering the value of your email list, you want to continually make efforts to add to it. And of course, we’ve written extensively about using email sign up forms to collect email addresses and why they are a no-brainer for your business.

What’s the most successful way that your business has found to collect email addresses? Share your experience in the comment section below.