A blog is a must for all writers these days as it is a great tool for promoting your work and services, publish original content, interacting with other writers and even for therapy. It feels great that you have a visible online medium where you can share your thoughts and see it published immediately.

But with your own blog, comes responsibility. You need to update it, enhance and improve it. You also might want to monetize it, and you do need a lot of space if you are planning to use your blog as a writer’s website and portfolio as well. And typically, free blogging platforms don’t usually com with unlimited space and diverse monetizing options.

So if and when you feel the need to host your blog through a webhost company, your research might give you headaches as there are many host companies with very similar plans, fees and properties.

When choosing a host, you want it to give you enough space and bandwidth, a solid up-time (so that your website will be ready to browse and visitors won’t encounter a blog they can’t open) and the capacity not to crash when it sees a sudden increase in traffic.

But how do you choose a host when all host companies have affiliate programs and people are trying to earn money? Sure most affiliates are open about being affiliates, but how do you know the glowing reviews are real? Because for every good review, there is a bad one for the same brand. One writer’s ideal host can be another writer’s nightmare.

Which company do I use?

 

Now, there is nothing with affiliate marketing. I do it too. My blogs are hosted on Justhost.com, and I have an affiliate account with them.

 

What I like about Justhost

–          They have good and generally fast customer service. They respond to your problems quickly and do genuinely try to help.

–          They are not expensive.

–          They offer a free domain name with the account, and you can host as many websites as you want with them.

–          They have a user-friendly website.

What I don’t know about Justhost

–          I don’t know how helpful they would be if I wanted to change host. I never tried.

–          I’ve been experiencing some downtime lately, and I don’t know you get the same amount of time with another host (assuming you have the same shared hosting model there).

What I don’t like about Justhost (although this can be an issue for all shared hosting plans, regardless of the company)

–          That unlimited space and bandwidth isn’t that unlimited. After hundreds of photos and videos, and experimenting with lots of plugins, you might actually go over. Don’t ask me how, but it happened. I suddenly found an email explaining that they can’t open my blog because it went over and I should consider dedicating hosting. The kind of hosting that asks for $100/month and more. Well, I am not going to go dedicated until my site gets like a million visitors a day so I sent them a panicky and frustrated email. Fortunately, the problem was solved after me deleting the plugins that I weren’t using.

–          My entertainment blog doesn’t load as fast as I want it to be.

 

Why did I go with Justhost?

That’s my experience with one host company, and I have admit I chose them before I didn’t really know anything about host companies. I was on a tight budget, I didn’t want to pay extra for a domain name and I had several blogs I wanted to host. Currently they cost 3.75month at the time of this post, but please remember that the prices might change by the time you sign up.

3 Must-Read Posts for Choosing Your Host Company

So to give you a fuller picture, I found some great articles on how to choose a host company based on your needs.

Best Hosting for First Time Websites

This includes options and definitions for different hosting plans such as shared hosting, virtualized hosting, dedicated hosting and more. It features the pros and cons, as well as which option will be good for who. This is a must-read post if you have questions about hosting, whether you have used hosting companies or not.

A Few Good Web Hosting Providers

This no-BS post about hosting gives you the list of the elements you need to pay attention to and why. It also includes reviews and suggestions for 4 host companies, including pros and cons.

Why You Require the Best Blog Hosts for Images

This is especially useful if you are going to have a website with lots of images. I have an entertainment blog, so I use lots of pictures: movie posters, pictures, videos, stills…. I need space,  I don’t want my image-rich posts slowing down how fast the blog loads.

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Which host companies have you used? Which one are you considering using? Why? Please let me know in the comments, whether your experience was positive or negative.