One of the most difficult tasks faced by anyone who wants to start a blog is the process of selecting the web hosting for their site.
We have already explicitly advised you to stay away from free hosting, as they have significant limitations and issues, and at the end of the day, you will face lots of technical hassles.
If you are a new blogger just getting started with the process of choosing your web hosting service, I highly recommend that you opt for reliable, reputable, and cheap shared hosting. I have highlighted the benefits, pros/cons and also shared a list of best shared hosting for WordPress.
For the starter,
There are several web hosting packages available, such as shared hosting, managed WordPress hosting, Cloud hosting, VPS, and dedicated hosting, and for new bloggers, it’s always confusing to determine which is the best choice.
In this guide, you will learn everything about shared hosting and will be able to pick the best-shared hosting by the end.
Why Should You Use Shared Hosting for a new WordPress Blog?
In technical terms, web hosting can be divided into the following categories: Shared, VPS, dedicated, reseller, managed WordPress hosting, and cloud hosting. You can further classify them as Windows or Linux hosting.
When I started ShoutMeLoud (WordPress based business) in 2008, I was overwhelmed with many options, and as a result, I have tried many types of hosting over time. We started with no traffic at the time when we published our first post.
Today ShoutMeLoud receives almost 1.1 million PV/month, and we are currently on a managed WordPress hosting company called Kinsta. However, for the first 6 years, ShoutMeLoud was on a shared hosting & our yearly cost for hosting was less than $120.
These days, our yearly hosting cost is about $5000. This is definitely way higher than what we were paying, but since our WordPress based platform is not new and requires higher resources, this makes sense. At the same time, If I will ever start a new WordPress site, a shared hosting company is going to be the best option for me.
So why use shared hosting?
When you are starting out for the first time, Shared hosting is the best choice. With this choice, you will save money, and there are unlimited resources for hosting which can meet all of your basic requirements. Moreover, VPS and dedicated hosting are costly, and for any beginner, these would represent overkill.
It is highly recommended that you opt for shared hosting as you begin your Internet career. If the time comes when you need more server resources than shared hosting provides, you can simply upgrade to managed or cloud hosting.
I started my blogging journey with Dreamhost, and later on, I moved to Bluehost, then WPEngine & now ShoutMeLoud is hosted on Kinsta.
How To Choose The Best Shared Hosting For WordPress
1. Web Storage and Bandwidth
You will need a certain amount of storage for your website. If you decide to opt for shared web hosting, you should know that you will only get a certain amount of storage space.
Only a select few shared hosting offers unlimited hosting resources, for example, Bluehost or A2Hosting.
You should carefully evaluate your needs and see if the space offered by the hosting plan you have chosen is enough for your website to run smoothly. When you are not sure, ensure your hosting let you upgrade your plan anytime so that your site doesn’t go down due to bandwidth or storage limitations.
Another vital aspect of web hosting is bandwidth. If you choose shared web hosting, you should know how much bandwidth you are allocated and how much your website needs. You should focus on getting as much bandwidth as possible.
2. Reliability and Security
Security is a very important aspect of any website. Especially when 37% of the websites in the world are powered by WordPress, you can’t take security as a joke.
It is in your best interest to choose a reliable shared hosting with an extraordinary reputation for security to host your website. In the shared hosting space, I have found SiteGround to be doing some excellent work to enhance security.
One thing that you should know is, that with shared hosting for WordPress; the security options are limited. They are good, but their security is not top-notch.
You should read to ShoutMeLoud WordPress security guide to improve the security of your WordPress site.
3. Support
Support is another thing you should definitely look for when searching for a shared web hosting company.
You should expect quality and fast support that completely addresses whatever concerns you have. Also, you should look for a company that offers multiple ways of contacting the support team.
These days, SiteGround and Bluehost are said to have the best customer support as they also offer telephonic support. A2hosting is another great hosting regarding customer support.
For bloggers who simply want to start a blog, I recommend opting for shared hosting, for the following reasons :
- Initially, your site’s traffic will be low.
- Shared hosting is costs less than dedicated hosting.
- Most start-up websites are easily handled by shared hosting.
- Many shared hosting also offers free domain that reduces initial cost too.
Most beginning bloggers are short on funds and have little income at the start. For this reason, it is usually preferable to choose a hosting service charging between $5-$15/month rather than spending $20-$200 for managed WordPress hosting.
Moreover, companies like Bluehost & SiteGround are bridging the gap between managed WordPress hosting & shared hosting.
For example, Bluehost offers an auto-installed WordPress blog with SSL + PHP 7.4 with their shared hosting plans. They also provide a dedicated interface to manage your WordPress blog from their hosting dashboard.
Personally, this kind of feature is offered by high-end WordPress hosting. The point here is; that don’t make the mistake of spending a bomb on your blog hosting from day one.
You can start with hosting like Bluehost, and A2Hosting which cost below $7/month & offers high-end infrastructure. When your hosting requirement increases, you can upgrade to high end hosting like Kinsta hosting or WPEngine, depending on your requirement.
Many people believe that shared hosting affects search engine ranking, but in a recent video Matt Cutts, a Google webspam engineer, confirmed that the hosting environment does not affect ranking. You do, however, need to be sure to choose a reliable hosting service that can give your site maximum up-time.
Which Shared Host for WordPress Blog?
Honestly, most of the web hosting services these days offer amazing resources at low prices, but I always judge a web hosting service for its performance and customer support.
When you are dealing with hosting, you need to have basic knowledge about FTP, SSH (in some cases), and other changes which you will be making from cPanel. Unfortunately, DDOS attacks and the hacking of sites is widespread, and you have to ensure that your server quality is up to the task of dealing with any normal hacking attempt.
If you are looking for reliable WordPress shared hosting, I would recommend that you opt for Bluehost, which is officially recommended by the WordPress community.
Once your traffic shoots up, you can easily upgrade to any good managed hosting like Kinsta or WPEngine. Remember, a good shared hosting company can easily handle 15,000 visits in an optimized environment.
Which service do you think offers the most suitable hosting environment for a new WordPress blogger? If you find the information in this post useful, please share it with your friends and colleagues on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Here are a few hand-picked articles for you to read next:
- Best WordPress Hosting For Serious Bloggers
- How Much Does it Cost to Start a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog?
- BlueHost Review: is it a Reliable Hosting for WordPress?
Very good article. I’ve been having a bit of trouble choosing a web host. Thank you.
sir, can u let me know which one should i use for beginner for blogging between wordpress.com, blogger or wordpress.org?thanks:)
@Yuge
Use WordPress.org
sir, sorry, once again, i really confuse, could u tell me where should i go for seeing the price of wordpress.org? thanks. i wanna use my site for blogging and marketing
Hello,
WordPress.org is completely free. However, you need a hosting and domain name to use it.
it means i can use shared hosting at wordpress.org? thanks alot, u help me so much.
hi, pls let me know, as you said in your article that newbie bloggers should opt for Bluehost hosting and you also mentioned that we should go for shared hosting. When I went through the Bluehost website I found there are shared hosting as well as WordPress hosting so, which one I should buy?
Shared
great question. free web hosting has some limitations and you can only single website will run on this hosting and it is slower than shared web hosting also. and not secure than shared web hosting. these are the great and most important things thatswhy shared web hosting is the best web hosting.
My experience is very bad with shared hosting. I am newbie to the website hosting. I own godaddy’s shared hosting. It is very very slow. Basically it is web application. Currently i dont have any content yet on the site. Still it is very slow.
Can you please give me suggestion what can i do for that ?
Hey Mayur,
You should try Bluehost or Hostgator.
I totally agree with you. If someone is just starting their blog or want to have a website for their small business, shared hosting plan is the best one for them. Additionally, they can also choose the shared hosting plan which hosting only one domain with unlimited disk space. An awesome guide for the beginners.
harsh sir..i am still confuse with bluehost and hostgator..can you please tell me..who is the leader in after sales and service
Hi Harsh Bro,
I have read your blog post A-Z. It’s very awesome post for newbie bloggers. Bro, Recently I have started blogging from my passionate. My blog name is BlogMeHub. But I’m confusing about my blogging profession and writing. So would you check my blog for the better suggestion that will help me to drive blogging proper way.
Thanks
Just another great post,
I completely agree with you Harsh, for any new blogger I think he need to consider hosting costs as he will not make enough money from his blog, and this is one of the reasons why newbie WordPress bloggers stop blogging. And he may upgrade his hosting to a VPS or a Managed Hosting after his site earnings can handle costs and have high traffic.
Thanks for sharing Harsh
Nice to see you all with an interesting topic of web hosting. Thanks Harsh for sharing this information which helps to get out from confusion of hosting services. I am now using Linux server hosting for my wordpress website.
I second you Harsh. I believe that since money has to be valued , and also the effort taken to build a website or a blog site matters a lot, it is for the best to be budgeted and rather go gradually. Whether you are a beginner or not , regardless of the same you can vouch for cheaper and much affordable services rather than vouching for the high end premium services which might end up being not so cost effective for you.
Just like you have traversed from various vendors time to time, using different plans and services, eventually things get clearer and you start to understand what is the most suitable service provider for you. Well, that’s how market research is done I guess.
I often end up saving some cash by preferably digging in a lot and finding the most sorted and affordable web hosting service provider.
Likewise every time it’s a WordPress based set up, Bluehost is the first name that pops up in my mind.
And whenever it’s about choosing cheap and affordable domains , GoDaddy rules !
🙂
Harsh I’m a loyal reader of your blog. You know, recently Hostgator was bought by EIG. Many of blogger judge that it will be bad for Hostgator.
I think, that is the good time to you for update what is the best hosting after hosgator sold. I know you have posted about Hostgator alternative after sold, that was bluehost. but I still dont understand, because Bluehost is part of EIG too.
@Nadiar
I have seen so many news and rumours around EIG not being a good company, and I disagree with this. EIG is working as a big giant who is acquiring all small or growing hosting companies. Many companies like Bluehost actually become more reliable after being acquired by EIG as they got more fund to improve their infrastructure. At the same time other low quality hosting like Fatcow remains the same and making them look bad. I believe EIG should rather work on reputation management and clear out all the bells and whistles hurting their reputation.
What do you think EIG should do here?
hello sir,i wanted to ask what hosting should be used for a bitcoin faucet if there are upto 100 visitors online at simultaneously and also which hostig will be suitable and fastest in page load time
@Inamsterr:
Since your’s is not WordPress & seems like an app: I would suggets use cloud servers. You can get one from DigitalOcean or Linode. If you are looking for more managed solution, you can consider Cloudways. Here you can get managed hosting for DigitalOcean. Depending upon your tech skills & Zeal to learn; you should pick one the above. Hope it helps!
Depends. I think the main issue is that dedicated hosting can be really complicated if you don’t know how to run one. But if you have the money and know how to run a dedicated server, I think it’s a good choice.
I think when you are a beginner you should have the attitude that you are in it for the long run – so set up your sites knowing you will have tons of traffic in the future.
I agree with you harsh. The beginners should always start with a shared webhosting and thats the reason I am with dreamhost shared webhosting.
Sathish I hope you having a good time with Dreamhost. Do share your review about the same…
I completely agree with your point.
how much easy in moving from shared hosting to dedicated hosting?
do we need to work on filesystem and database migration etc…
Suresh depends… If you getting cPanel along with it, with cPanel importer you can migrate everything with few clicks.. Else it will be more like Moving a WordPress blog, which is simple.
For beginners IMO the best way is to buy a domain name & go with Blogger (i.e. custome domain name @ blogger)…absolutely free of cost 🙂 I am doing the same & earning with Google AdSense.
Itâ„¢s better to go for some hosting between 5-10$/month rather then spending 20-50$ for dedicated hosting.
Where do u get dedicated servers at $20-50?
Sanjay there are few which offer that…But again they are cheap and quality always come with a price tag…
The good one I know offer VPS for such price…
Thanks for dropping by. 🙂
That will be fine but It’s not always, some shared hosting plans costs more then VPS even dedicated servers in this post that is not, all of this companies offers cheap web hosting.
Its not only for beginners but also for small/medium scale companies which just need an online presence to showcase their products to a larger audience.
I agree with your Vaibhav but it;s not always the same for company who are building web apps which are resource hungry. Is int it?
Easy question 🙂 Look at the price and you’ll get the answer lol
Not too mention it’s easy to upgrade to a dedicated anyway later on during the track
I agree with your comment Michael. And for any new blog or site (WordPress) shared hosting is good enough to hold your traffic and provide you enough resources.
Thanks for dropping by and for your comment. 🙂