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The Absolute Best Web Hosting For Your WordPress Blog

September 16, 2019
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These Are The Best Web Hosting Providers for Blogs 

If you Google “how to start a blog,” almost every post will tell you to sign up for hosting for your WordPress website with Bluehost…which is exactly what I did when I started my blog in December 2015. The next two and a half years were filled with Bad Gateway errors and sleepless nights on the phone with the support team as I desperately tried to get my site back up and running. Sidenote: If you do use Bluehost for website hosting, their phone support is actually quite decent. In my experience, live chat won’t get you very far, so be sure to call the technical support line if your site suddenly goes down for no apparent reason. 

best hosting for blog

 

If you don’t want to read the whole article, here’s the best hosting services for blogs:

Siteground 0-10,000 pageviews 

Cloudways or BigScoots 10,000 – 150,000+ pageviews

Performance Foundry – 250,000+ pageviews

 

So why do almost all of these “how-to” posts recommend Bluehost? While I do believe some of these bloggers had a genuinely positive experience with Bluehost when their blogs were still small, most love the affiliate money they receive from referring you to use Bluehost. Not only do they have one of the best returns out there, but Bluehost puts a ton of money into marketing so that you know they exist. I just wish they put a little more of that money into better solutions for keeping your website up and running. FYI, I am using affiliate links too, but I solely based my recommendations in this article on the most highly recommend hosts for blogs and not on the amount the hosting company pays. 

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This post contains affiliate links. That means I receive a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking the link at no extra cost to you.

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Another reason bloggers recommend Bluehost for website hosting? It is one of, if not the least expensive hosting platforms out there. If you are looking to start a blog as a hobby and don’t have a lot of money to invest, I completely understand why Bluehost would be enticing. But there’s good news! You can get Siteground, a much more capable website hosting service, for just about the same price. Not only is Siteground more reliable, but they are also known to increase site speed immensely, a major factor in Google’s algorithm. 

best hosting for blog

 

Best Cheap Hosting: 

Siteground 

0-10,000 Pageviews

It took me almost 2.5 years to switch hosts. Why didn’t I immediately move to Siteground as soon as I heard from a multitude of sources that is was better? As a person without a solid technical background, I was terrified about migrating my site. I had read just how simple it was over and over again, but the irrational thoughts of making that move and losing everything kept me from taking action. Luckily, Siteground offers free website migration. All you have to do is provide Siteground with your Bluehost (Hostgator, Dreamhost, GoDaddy etc.) login and password and let the support team handle the rest. Let’s just say they’ve done this a few times before… 

Prior to cancelling the subscription with your current host, make sure you get a full backup of your site and confirm that Siteground was successful in migrating your account to their servers. If you are currently set up with Bluehost, they do very generously prorate the rest of the time left on your hosting. 

siteground hosting

If you are a brand new blogger, I recommend getting the StartUp plan with Siteground and purchasing Domain Privacy as you don’t want any Joe Schmoe to have the ability to find your name and contact info. I’m no techie but have heard from many sources that the SG Site Scanner is unnecessary. And don’t make the mistake I did and cancel your entire Bluehost account if you purchased your domain through Bluehost. I almost lost everything had someone purchased my domain before I realized that I had cancelled that too. If you are transferring from Bluehost to Siteground, I recommend keeping your domain name on Bluehost when you switch your hosting to Siteground.  

Of course, no website host is perfect and Siteground does have its flaws. As you begin to receive a sizeable amount of pageviews to your blog, you will inevitably receive the dreaded warning that your sight is at 90% of its CPU limit. At that point, you will need to upgrade your plan to keep your site from temporary suspension once you exceed the limit. If what I just said sounded like jibberish, I get it because I totally felt the same way at first. And to be fair, still do a bit. The CPU limit of your account determines how much processing power your website uses from the server. CPU usage increases when you get more hits to your website. 

Web Hosting

There are ways to reduce CPU usage like removing unnecessary plugins and scripts from your website as well as installing caching on your site. But, at a certain point you will have to increase your monthly pay with Siteground to where you aren’t getting as good a deal as you could be with other hosting companies. This is actually fantastic because it means you have a large number of visitors to your site and are probably starting to make money blogging if you executed a monetized strategy. 

The other complaint I hear about Siteground is that hosting costs increase greatly in the second year. However, when first signing up for Siteground, you can pay for hosting for 2 years (24 months) at the sale price for both years. Consequently, the hosting cost for two years comes to less than $100.  This may seem like a lot to invest at first, but if you’re still blogging after year one, you will be very grateful to not have to pay more than double what you paid the first year. 

best hosting for blog

Best Hosting for Blogs Receiving Significant Traffic

Cloudways or BigScoots

10,000-250,000 Pageviews

I personally use Cloudways because that is what my developer suggested when I completely re-did my site in September of 2018. Cloudways is an intermediary between you and a cloud provider…if that doesn’t make sense to you, well, I don’t get it either but I do know that it’s fantastic for site speed. I currently pay $11.60 a month on the Vultr server and have around 150,000 page views. That’s a pretty fab deal considering my website has never gone down (knock on wood). 

The only downside is that there is no technical support. Cloudways has a live chat but it’s completely ineffective…don’t expect to have your problem fixed. I do have some issues with my site that I would love to ask my host about; but instead, I’m continuing to let them accumulate until I pay someone to tackle my site problems all at once at an hourly rate. If you yourself are a techie or know someone else who can help if an issue appears, then Cloudways would be perfect as it is incredibly affordable.  

 

Have you been with Siteground for some time and are looking to transfer to a host where you won’t have to deal with CPU limits? BigScoots is a fantastic option for a blog receiving a solid amount of page views each month! You can get managed hosting for $34.95 monthly or 394.24 if you buy annually. As a blogger, Facebook groups are an incredibly valuable resource; I encourage you to join as many as you can. Many people in these groups — especially in the Mediavine Publisher Group — discuss how their page speed increased significantly and traffic grew massively using Big Scoots. And, Big Scoots support is known to respond incredibly quickly to emails and fix your issue, day and night. Essentially, Big Scoots is the perfect alternative for someone looking for a reasonably priced host that also increases site speed and provides tech support with quick response times. 

best wordpress hosting for blog

Best Hosting for High-Traffic Blogs

Performance Foundry

250,000+ Page Views

If you have a high-traffic blog and are making a significant amount of money from your monetization strategies …well, then you probably already have an idea of which hosting service you would prefer to work with. But, in the off-chance you don’t, then may I recommend Performance Foundry for your hosting needs. Hosting is $115 a month or $1375 a year. Yes, that is extremely high. But, with that comes a whole host (ha, see what I did there?!) of perks including up to an hour a month of technical support, speed monitoring, and proactive help should something go wrong on your site. For example, when the Social Warfare plug-in redirected to spam sites, Performance Foundry went ahead and disabled the plug-in for everyone they managed. In other words, the expression “you get what you pay for” certainly applies to Performance Foundry’s managed hosting service. 

Performance Foundry

Have you had success with another hosting provider that has not been mentioned? Please let us know in the comments below! 

Are you on Pinterest? Pin this Blog Hosting Guide for later!

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1 Comment

  1. Raphael Wichtl on July 18, 2020 at 1:58 am

    Thanks for sharing such type of informative article. Keep sharing!!

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