It’s My Imagination

Review and Compare Web Hosting

As we are all sitting around relaxing after ringing in the new year, it’s time to think about cleaning house. I don’t mean your actual house, although, I’m working on taking down holiday decorations. What I do mean is it’s time to review your website and see if it’s meeting your expectations. If not, maybe you need a new web host.

Perhaps you’re looking for cheap web hosting but still want service. Or, maybe you want to spend a little more and get ALL the bells and whistles that come with services like unlimited bandwidth and disk space. Or perhaps, you’re new and are looking to create a first time website or blog and need to know what to look for in a web hosting company.

Whatever your goal, if you’re looking for web hosting, check out webhostingreport.com where you can compare web hosting services side by side and be able to make an informed decision before locking yourself in.  Their reports cover topics such as “Best Cheap Hosting” and “Best Domain Hosting” and yes, they’ll even tell you what to look for in a good web host and give you a beginners guide.  They compare everything from pricing to features so it’s worth taking a look at their information before you make your final decision.  This simple step could save you lots of headaches in the future!

Blogging - Getting Started

I was recently asked by a friend of mine how to get started blogging. WOW! This is not as simple of a question as it might seem and I really had to sit back and think, where to begin.

I did decided though that Step 1 is to decide on a web host. Of course, everyone has their own opinion on this subject and there are so many hosts to choose from. I definitely recommended the host I use and even suggested they could click on the lovely affiliate button on either one of my blogs to be taken directly to the host site. I also felt it good advice to allow them to compare web hosting sites for service, quality and prices, because all of these vary widely.

In fact, Webhostinggeeks.com actually lists the top 10 Web Hosts for 2008 right on their home page which makes it so easy to shop and compare.  Their site provides independent reviews from actual users of those web hosts which makes the information quite useful to both new users and anyone looking to change hosts.  In fact,  click here to read a review of the web host that I use for both of my blogs.

I need to check in with my friend to see if she’s decided to move forward into the world of blogging or not.

Hosting Issues?

I’m fairly new to the world of blogging, but I am learning many things. A hot topic since the Google PR smackdown is whether or not it is better to have your own domain and whether or not to use a hosting service. Many bloggers are using free hosting services and with free domains. These are fine if blogging is something you’re doing for fun, but if you do it for fun AND want to monetize your site, it’s my opinion that you should buy your own domain and you should pay for hosting.

Why should you spend the money? One reason is that owning your own domain gives you the security of knowing your domain can’t be pulled away from you without you knowing about it. A good reason for paying for hosting? Customer service. That’s right, when something happens to your site, you have customer service to help you. You also have creative control. Most free hosting services do not allow you to work with your template code and really make your site your own, with your own personality. As for monetizing your site, many advertisers do not want to use publishers who do not have their own domain.

How do you choose a hosting service? First, ask for recommendations. There are many forums and chat rooms where other bloggers and site owners can help you figure out who is the best hosting service for you. There are many people who have used a hosting service called Dreamhost. There is a special Lunarpages Offer for DreamHost Customers and the offer provides $40 off hosting with Lunarpages.com.

Lunarpages has just increased their basic plan which is now 15,000 GB of transfer, 1,500 GB of storage, a free domain name and up to 10 add-on domains. They have been in business for over 8 years and provide all levels of service, from beginners to dedicated servers.

If you’re in the market for web hosting services, you might want to check them out.