How To Choose A Good Web Hosting Service (2024)

I see many beginners struggle with picking a web hosting service for their website.

I can understand because it’s a matter of choosing one that is reliable but does not cost a lot. As a beginner, we don’t have a big budget to spend on hosting.

The good thing is that there are many options available that have a reasonable price and provide a good hosting service.

Cloudways

I recommend Cloudways as a good hosting service for beginner websites. It’s reliable, scalable, and has a reasonable pricing structure.

I found the customer support to be decent when I had to contact them. It’s not the fastest support, but they are knowledgeable and get your problem solved.

I would recommend getting hosted on the Digital Ocean server that will cost you $10 per month. One good thing about Cloudways is that you pay per month, unlike many other hosting services where you need to pay upfront for the year. At least, for getting a discount.

I’ve written a step-by-step guide on how you can set up your website using Cloudways.

WPX

Cloudways has good support but you need to manage the setup on your own. So there is a little learning curve when using Cloudways.

If you don’t prefer to do the installation yourself and don’t like handling technical stuff, you can go for WPX hosting.

These guys have excellent and fast support where they will answer you in a few minutes. They’ll do everything, including setting up the WordPress hosting for you.

WPX hosting is reliable and fast. You’ll have no issues getting your beginner website ready with them. But you’ll need to pay a premium for this service. It costs about $25 per month to host with WPX.

Bluehost

I can understand people going for Bluehost because it’s a cheap hosting option, especially when you’re on a budget.

I started my website on Bluehost because that was recommended by a training course I took. But I don’t recommend it unless you’re really on a budget. You can use Bluehost for the first year and then switch to a better hosting option like Cloudways.

I think Bluehost is slow and clunky to use. I’ve seen it cause issues with some websites using Ezoic ads.

It works OK when you’re starting out and have low traffic. But once you have significant people visiting your website, it’s best to upgrade to a better hosting service.

Things to consider when picking a hosting service

Here are some factors to consider when choosing a hosting service for your beginner website.

Website Requirements:

You’ll find that hosting service providers have pricing options depending on bandwidth, storage, number of websites, etc.

So check these conditions carefully before you consider the hosting service for your website.

Uptime and Reliability:

I think this is the most important factor when picking a web hosting service. If the service is not reliable, your website traffic will be affected, which affects your Google rankings.

That’s why I prefer to pay a little more to use Cloudways over Bluehost because it’s a lot more reliable.

Server Location:

You need to use a service provider that has servers in the location of your choice. If you’re targeting a US audience, you want the hosting servers present in the US. 

This helps improve your page speeds because it’s close to the readers. So check the locations where the hosting provider has placed their servers.

Scalability:

Some hosting providers limit the bandwidth, storage, and number of websites depending on their pricing plans. If your site traffic increases, they may cut off this traffic and force you to upgrade to a higher plan.

So it’s best to check how scalable the hosting service is before purchasing. This is another reason I like Cloudways because I can control when I want to scale my website.

Technical Support:

As a beginner, you may need to rely on support a lot when setting up your website. So it might be an important consideration for which hosting service you choose.

I think the best technical support you’ll get is from WPX hosting. Cloudways is good but there are things you’ll need to do yourself. With WPX, they’ll manage a lot of things for you.

Control Panel:

Different hosting services can have different control panels. So you need to learn about it after you have bought the hosting. One common type of control panel is called cPanel.

This matters if you use a hosting where you need to get involved in the technical setup of your website. If you use something like WPX, they’ll do it for you. With Cloudways, they have their own type of control panel, which I think is easy to learn.

Security Features:

It’s important that your hosting service has good security. There are many instances where your website could get hacked because of poor security at the backend.

Security features like SSL are also important for building trust with visitors and Google. So, I recommend going for a hosting service that will include SSL certificates on your website.

Services like Cloudways and WPX will provide firewall protection to your website. It prevents spammers and hackers from getting access to it.

Data Backup:

The more backups you can have of your website, the better. Because anything can happen to your website and you will need a backup.

I recommend choosing a hosting service provider that will take backups of your entire website every day. I know that Cloudways and WPX hosting does this for your website.

Price and Payment Plans:

As a beginner, you’ll be on a budget. So you need to choose a hosting plan that will fit your needs with this budget.

I would still say stick with a reliable and fast hosting service provider even if you have to pay a little extra. It will save you a lot of pain and effort once your website has reached a certain level of data and traffic.

Hosting providers will have different plans based on the number of websites you want to host, the bandwidth, and storage. Pick one that is the cheapest and will get the job done for you.

They may provide you with a discount when you pay for the entire year rather than monthly. Cloudways only has monthly payment plans, but it usually comes with a 2 to 3 months discount when you first sign up.

Compare prices, but don’t compromise on quality for the sake of saving a few dollars.

Look out for any hidden costs or renewal price hikes.

Migration Support:

If you are starting a new website, you don’t need to bother about this. But if you already have a website and you want to move hosting, you may need migration support.

Premium services like WPX will do the migration for you. Cloudways will do one migration for you for free. There are also free tools that make it easy to migrate any WordPress website from one host to another. Cloudways has its own migration tool available for free.

5 Best Hosting For WordPress (2024): Fast, Inexpensive, Reliable

Conclusion

I know choosing a web hosting service can be a tough choice when starting your website.

If you want my opinion, I think you should pick from either Cloudways or WPX. If you want the entire hosting setup done for you, then WPX is a good option.

If you want to save a little money and are OK dealing with a little learning to set up your website hosting, then I recommend Cloudways.

If you’re really on a strict budget but still want to start a website, then it’s OK to go with Bluehost until your website has grown in traffic.

If you have questions about web hosting and how to pick the right one for your needs, let me know in the comments or send me an email.