Food Blogging 101: Choosing the Best Web Host

What’s the secret to a professional, sparkling site? A great web host.

So you’ve decided to go with self-hosted wordpress.org? Wow. I have so much respect for you. You’re obviously serious about building your blog and have a lot of potential. It will only improve from here!

Now that you’re on your way to becoming a blogging superstar, only one point remains. What is a web host, anyway? Excellent question.

Basically, a web host provides space for your website on a server that makes it accessible to anyone via the Internet. When it comes to your blog, the right web host will make the difference between being an amateur and being a rock star.

When choosing the right web host for you, I know you only deserve the best. That being said, there are three main points left to consider:

1. How much traffic are you expecting?

2. How comfortable are you with code/what kind of tech support do you want?

3. What is your budget?

Now that you have some answers formulating in your brain, let’s get you a web host!

Overview

• For the sake of hosts discussed in this post this post, I’m going to assume that you’re using wordpress.org and not some other CMS. (Excellent choice, by the way! WordPress is the best.)
• There are a lot of web hosts out there. A LOT. We’re talking thousands. Even amongst so much competition, there are, in my humble opinion, clear winners.
• Those winners are Bluehost and WP Engine.

Bluehost

Bluehost is a giant in the web hosting world. With almost 20 years of experience and million of domains hosted, you couldn’t ask for any more expertise. Their servers are reliable, tech support is top-notch, prices are very reasonable, and they offer a whole slew of options for all walks of the blogosphere.

Pros:

• The price! With plans starting at just $3.95 a month, there really is something for everyone.
• You’ll never outgrow them. Thanks to the seasoned blogger who’s always got your back (nice to meet you!), you’ll probably advance past that $3.95 plan pretty quickly. But never fear! For you high-traffic bloggers, both present and future, they offer Pro Plans (~$20 a month), managed WordPress hosting (this product is like what WP Engine offers, but less expensive), Virtual Private Servers at varying sizes, and dedicated servers for the traffic giants. You’ll never get bored.
• Their tech support! For a company as large as Bluehost, I’ve been very impressed with the quality of tech support. Everyone I have encountered has been nothing but friendly and helpful. Unlike WP Engine that only offers phone support for the more expensive plans, Bluehost offers phone support for everyone.
• Very easy to use! The control panel (cPanel) is basically self-explanatory, but I’ll do a bunch of tutorials later. But when in doubt, call tech support!
• So many bells and whistles. Bluehost is partnered with everyone under the sun, so you have free products and discounts galore. We’re talking free advertising, software, and even business cards!
• It’s super easy to own your domain! It’s $11.99 to register, and $14.99 a year to renew. Overall, a great deal.
• Great email service. For example, you can have all the yournamehere@foodiefiasco.com emails you want. Okay, maybe not the foodiefiasco part. Your site goes there instead.
• Migrating to Bluehost? 100% free. Wonderful.

Cons:

• They simply don’t have the industry-leading performance that WP Engine does. Your site will still run well, and with a little easy leg work on your part, it will perform just as well as it would on WP Engine. The Bluehost tech support has also given me some helpful tips along the way. It’s also important to make sure your site is on the right plan, but again, tech support was great with helping me decide.

WP Engine

Okay, WP Engine is an amazing hosting service. They’re much smaller than Bluehost as they cater to a niche audience, but that allows them to give you lots of personal attention. WP Engine specializes only in WordPress, and every single one of their sites runs extremely well and at lightning-fast speeds.

Pros:

• They’re very good at what they do. With international data centers and built-in caching (site speed optimization), your site will load super fast all over the world with no extra work on your part.
• Security on your site will be top-notch. But, on the very slim chance that someone does hack your site, WP Engine will fix it for free.
• They have a lot of useful bells and whistles such as the staging area, which allows you to test new elements before you go live. There’s also an abundance of tools at your fingertips built specifically for WordPress.
• As far as tech support goes, they have the largest technical expert to customer ratio in the industry. Period. That being said, they don’t offer phone support for the entry-level hosting.

Cons:

• They’re expensive. The entry-level package is $29 a month, which I know isn’t an option for every brand new blogger. However…
• Migrating your site to WP Engine is also not included. You *can* migrate your site yourself, but I wouldn’t unless I was an expert. You can always hire someone like WP Valet to professionally migrate it for you, but that will cost at least $100-$200. (Or I could do it for you for less!) Moral of the story? If you want to start out with a cheaper host and then switch to WP Engine, it might save you more in the long run to just go with WP Engine.
• Because they’re not as large a company as Bluehost, they don’t have as many partners and features. But worry not! Their performance totally makes up for it.

The verdict

Full disclosure: Foodie Fiasco uses Bluehost. I’ve worked with Bluehost from day 1, and have been extremely happy with them. I highly recommend Bluehost to absolutely everyone. That being said, WP Engine is such a groundbreaker in our industry that I just had to include them. I don’t use WP Engine simply because I can’t afford them. For the traffic Foodie Fiasco gets, it would cost a few hundred dollars a month and that’s just not in the budget right now. And Bluehost has been great to us. So in summary:

If you’re a) starting out and b) know you want to be a serious blogger, choose WP Engine. The $29 may seem like a lot, but it’s really not for the amazing service you get. It’s money well spent. Plus, it’s free and very easy to switch to Bluehost down the line.

If you’re anything else, choose Bluehost. They’re affordable, have plans for everyone, and are quite simply a great web host.

I hope this helps! If you ever need anything, please shoot me an email at kelly {at} foodiefiasco.com. Coming attractions: curry, cookies, and domains!

Previous blogging 101 post: Blogger vs. WordPress

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