What You will Learn:
- Free vs Paid
- Hosting Options
- Reviews – My experience
The Choice is Yours: Free Hosting vs Paid Hosting
IMAGE: “Play Blocks” by nenovbrothers via http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/
Hosting is your ‘rental’ for online space. Without this you can’t have a blog or website. When you choose to start a crochet business or monetize your crochet blog paying for your webhosting should be a no brainer. An investment in your website is an investment in your business.
What do you get with Free Hosting?
- Space to host your blog/website
- A url with YOURNAME.webhostname.com – you may mask this by buying a domain name YOURNAME.com
- Rules and Regulations – you abide by their policies and rules (If they say no affiliate ads, they mean it and will delete your blog for failure to follow terms)
- Some require a link in the footer of your site (weebly.com or blogspot.com)
- F.A.Q. section, help knowledge base, and sometimes person-to-person assistance
- No cost
What do you get with Paid Hosting?
- Space to host your blog/website
- Some offer Cpanel access (manages your account/space)
- Scripts or Software via simple installs
- Email accounts with [email protected]
- Password protection of directories
- FTP access – an easy way to transfer your files
- Support – the quality depends on the company
- Knowledge base with tutorials/videos
- Increase space as your traffic/business increases
- Low cost (monthly, quarterly, or yearly price plans)
- More freedom to design and control your website (as it aligns to policies/terms)
A Plethora of Hosting Options
Free hosting plans include Blogspot.com, Weebly.com, WordPress.com, and Tumblr.com. I’ve used each of these with great results.
Blogspot.com is owned by Google so if you choose to add Adsense to the blog it is quite easy to do so. Many of my crochet blogging friends use this. It is easy to learn. I started on Blogspot.com and my crochet journal is still hosted there. As this is owned by Google it intergrates nicely with Google+, Youtube, and many other Google applications. When you choose Blogspot.com you are also receiving free hosting space.
Weebly.com is a good start for many people who aren’t ready to take the plunge into paid hosting. It has a shop option, Adsense option, tracking, blog, and other great tools for building a website. You receive a url.weebly.com but you can upgrade it to a personalized one if you choose. Weebly does have a paid option which gives you access to more applications, tools, and resources. I found this to require more of a learning curve so I don’t recommend it for those who have never worked online before. When you choose Weebly you are also receiving free hosting space.
WordPress.com is very popular and I find it to be a user friendly software. At first I was fearful of transferring to a new service but once I finally made up my mind to do it I was fine. WordPress.com gives you the hosting and will allow you to advertise your business but not affiliates or sponsored posts. Basically if you are being paid for something (ad, post, review) you can not post it on their hosting.
Tumblr.com is kind of mix between Twitter and Blogging. You can write long posts, share short sentences, share photos, art, quotes, or whatever you choose. I haven’t used this service for very long. I do add my blog posts and patterns from time to time. You can not do affiliate marketing here. I’ve seen people post ‘for sale’ type posts for their creations.
Reviews: My Hosting Experience
I am all for community and free options where available to an extent. Once I got serious about my business I decided to go ‘PRO’ and buy hosting. Why? It’s more of a personal statement for me. It says to me,” no more playing, this is for real and this is my Job.”
Go Daddy – I was gifted a hosting account by Blogelina.com. It was the original host for this blog. I however, was dissatisfied because it lacked a Cpanel. NOTE: CPanel is now included for all hosting options. 11/2013. I also found it to have a lot of downtime – at least once or twice a week. Support for the most part is okay. You can go to the forums and ask questions or use their Help section or Knowledge base.
Host Creo – This is run by an online friend and I used this for about a year. Excellent support. Nearly 100% up-time and is wind-powered.
Mom Webs – This is also run by an online friend (not a reseller) and has a high up-time. Standard Cpanel with VPN options for when your site traffic grows. Help phone number that gets answered within 24 hours by a real person (owner) as well as a very tech savvy – beginner friendly support person.
Other Hosting Options include Host Gator, Bluehost, Fatcow, Dreamhost and (seriously) a plethora of other choices.
Conclusion
Whether you choose a free or paid hosting plan is up to you. My preference is paid for business. I recommend MomWebs.com (paid referral). I also recommend Blogelina.com (paid referral) (offers 1-year hosting with GoDaddy) for those who are tight on funds and still testing the WordPress grounds.
Read about the features of each service and ask around to see what others use then make your decision.
I earn a commission if you choose to purchase hosting with Momwebs.com OR choose to purchase Profitable Blogging course from Blogelina. (Paid Referral – Affiliate Links)
Read More About Webhosting:
- Why I Am Self-Hosted After 5-Years on Blogspot
- How to Transfer Your Blogger blog to Self Hosted WordPress
- Review: Blogelina Cafe – a Video, Learning Membership Site
P.S. Did you enjoy this post? If so, please share it with your friends so they can benefit too. I won’t bite if you leave a comment 😉 . Want more? Connect with me via my social links below or get notifications in your inbox. Let’s keep in touch. 🙂
And all paid hosting is not the same. No matter who you choose, you have to research before making a final decision.
Nice post… Thanks for the info!
Elena, thank you for stopping by.
Thanks for the great summary. I did not know any of that. My blog is part of my WP.org site and I am very happy with it.
Rochelle, that would mean you have a self-hosted site. Thank you for stopping by.