Because of the tremendous amount of competition on the market, WordPress hosting is very inexpensive these days. There are plenty of different packages out there. You need to make sure that you’re not overbuying or buying too little as far as hosting programs go. In some cases, you’ll find that you end up actually spending more money in the long run if you don’t by enough in the way of hosting programs.
The Size of Your Host
The amount of storage you have on your server is vital with a regular website. It’s even more important with a WordPress site. This is because WordPress can be used in different ways.
In some cases, WordPress is used to make a simple blog site. Even though these usually start out small, they can get very big very quickly. WordPress’s conveniences themselves are not insignificant in tending to make sites larger and larger. The autoresizing features that allow you to have thumbnails made for you by the theme that you’re using, for instance, make it very easy to upload photos. This means that your blog will likely get full of photos fairly quickly, which can inflate the size of your site, the amount of storage that you need and the bandwidth that you consume.
If you’re using WordPress as a content management system (CMS), you’ll also want to make sure you have adequate storage and bandwidth. WordPress has thousands of themes available for it that are designed to transform the platform into a content management system that’s appropriate for complex business and personal sites. If you use the system in this way, you’ll need to be aware of the space requirements of the theme that you’re using. Image sliders, galleries and multimedia content can chew up space and bandwidth fast.
Paid or Free?
Most of the time, you’re going to get more space and bandwidth—obviously—by paying for it. This isn’t always the case, however. Make sure you keep an eye out for very good free programs. They are out there. There are some offerings by WordPress hosting companies that have enough bandwidth and storage space for all but the very largest personal blog sites. There are even plans such as these that would likely work for small business sites.
With paid hosting, however, the benefits don’t stop at space and bandwidth. You’ll also have to take into account whether or not technical support is something you’ll need. Unless you’re a very advanced tech or you have one working on your site for you, you’ll probably want the tech support that comes with paid hosting. Paid hosting programs sometimes have add-ons, as well, such as the ability to handle spikes in traffic without going over on your bandwidth allotment, database backups, email accounts and more. There are some advantages to paying for WordPress hosting, for certain.
Take a look at paid and free offerings to see which one might suit your needs. Remember that free offerings are sometimes good for starting out, but that you’ll probably want to upgrade at some point.
