10 Domain and Hosting Considerations for New Bloggers to Keep in Mind

  October 10, 2022 blogging tips 🕑 8 minutes read

Ubud, Bali

 

Buying your domain and hosting as a new blogger seems to induce a particularly uncomfortable form of analysis paralysis.

 

What host should you choose? Why? What host gives you the best bang for your blogging buck?

 

Choices assail you. 1 million seeming hosting companies dangle enticing, budget benefits before your very eyes.

 

What do you need to keep in mind when choosing a domain and hosting as a newbie?

 

We’ll discuss that in a bit.

 

Most bloggers focus heavily on how to drive traffic and profits.

 

Few beginner bloggers ponder:

 

  • what domain name to choose
  • what hosting solution to select

 

Investing in a domain and hosting lays a strong foundation for your blogging campaign.

 

Being perceived as credible buys reader trust, partially, at least. Bloggers who invest in a domain and hosting purchase a fair amount of credibility in reader eyes for the professional image conveyed. Observing a branded domain name sends a trust signal to readers.

 

Owning your domain and buying your hosting allows you to customize your blog.

 

Most importantly, purchasing a domain and hosting lets you largely set the rules for your:

 

  • blog
  • business
  • brand

 

Meanwhile, bloggers on free platforms blog at the mercy of individuals who own those sites. Blogging on sites like blogspot-blogger and wordpress dot com:

 

  • severely reduces monetizing potential
  • dissolves branding potential
  • restricts creativity
  • restricts customizing
  • largely dissolves credibility

 

Buy your domain and hosting as a new blogger.

 

Begin blogging intelligently.

 

Keep these 10 things in mind as you shop around for your domain and hosting.

 

1: Buy ‘Em

 

No matter how much your mind protests, buy your domain and hosting as a beginner blogger.

 

Own your:

 

  • blog
  • website
  • online real estate
  • brand
  • business

 

Customize your blog. Tailor your user experience. Craft your brand. Run a genuine, customized business.

 

Even though fears arise in the mind concerning:

 

  • losing money
  • wasting money
  • committing to blogging intelligently, effectively and efficiently from day 1 of your blogging career

 

the smart choice is investing money in a domain and hosting to begin your blogging career effectively.

 

Using free platforms is not actually blogging; if the free platform owns your:

 

  • blog
  • blog content
  • image
  • likeness

 

then you are a user on the platform, not a blogger on the platform.

 

Bloggers own their blogs.

 

Technically, from a literal perspective, hosting companies own your website because they own the storage. However, unless you do something outrageously idiotic to break their lenient terms of service (in most cases at least), you will in essence own your blog and completely control how you can:

 

  • design it
  • monetize it
  • tailor it

 

This is a no brainer guys. Own your domain. Buy hosting.

 

Build your blog on a rock solid foundation.

 

Own your site, customize it and monetize it how you wish to begin blogging intelligently.

 

Think like an owner, not a renter.

 

Think like an entrepreneur, not a user.

 

2: Pay Up to Play Up

 

Invest at least $15 to $20 or more each month on hosting.

 

Invest $15 to $20 per year or more on your domain name.

 

Pay up to play up.

 

New bloggers drive little traffic. Cheap hosting seems like a smart solution.

 

But when you blog effectively for a bit your little traffic grows slowly but steadily into consistent, increased blog traffic. Cheap hosting solutions cannot handle your increased blog traffic. The end results:

 

  • slow-loading blogs
  • blogs that crash often

 

Hosting is cheap because hosting companies load a high volume of low traffic to no-traffic blogs on a single server. When one or more of these blogs begins to receive more traffic, each blog on the server loads painfully slowly or crashes. Every blogger whose blog sits on the server suffers from being cheap.

 

Using cheap hosting is a bad idea for new bloggers because when traffic increases your blog will crash or load painfully slowly, damaging your credibility and sending readers away from your blog.

 

Pay for premium hosting as a beginner blogger. Paying more money usually ensures that the host loads fewer blogs per server, guaranteeing virtually 99.99% uptime and fast loading speeds. When one or more of these blogs experiences a traffic surge, the server can handle it, no sweat, because there are fewer blogs hosted on the server.

 

Prepare your blog for increased traffic.

 

Gain credibility.

 

Maintain a professional image.

 

Run a fast-loading blog with 99.99% uptime.

 

Blog with confidence.

 

Pay up to play up.

 

3: Pick an Easy to Picture Domain Name if You Can

 

People think in pictures.

 

Choose an easy to picture domain name to do some legwork for your readers, all of whom think in pictures.

 

Consider 5-10 domain name ideas to build a watch list. Pick a domain name that readers can easily:

 

  • picture
  • see
  • visualize
  • imagine

 

to make your domain name memorable.

 

Memorable blog names drive passive blog traffic.

 

Note

 

If you cannot choose an easy to picture domain name simply keep it short and sweet.

 

I decided on a bit longer domain name in bloggingfromparadise.com yet people can easily picture this image and the name perfectly captures my:

 

  • life
  • blog
  • brand
  • business

 

4: Frame Each as a Success Investment

 

Most beginner bloggers resist buying a domain and hosting for fear of money loss.

 

Some fear spending money on blogging because they may dislike this gig and quit 1-2 months into their blogging careers.

 

First, frame this as a wise investment if you decide to blog long term since it feels fun to you. Eventually, you will need to buy your domain and hosting to be seen in a credible light.

 

However, even if you quit blogging after paying 1 year for a domain and hosting I guarantee that you “wasted” or “lost” a helluva lot more money in the past than $200 to $300 for the year. Most of us have wasted-lost thousands upon thousands of dollars on various investments that did not appear to yield any substantial financial return, or otherwise.

 

Take the $200 to $300 hit as an experiment that did not pan out how you expected it to shake out. Move on. No biggie.

 

5:  Research Hosting Support

 

Research support.

 

Pay close attention to blogger reviews regarding responsiveness of support staff.

 

Some hosting companies offer blazing fast speed and virtually 99.99% uptime but their support staff responds:

 

  • slowly
  • rudely
  • ineffectively

 

in addition to not being as knowledgeable.

 

Support is important for new bloggers. Technical blogging issues can and do arise. Support needs to be reliable, timely, knowledgeable and hellbent on offering premium customer service in terms of being compassionate.

 

Invest in good help when things go south with your blog.

 

Accessing skilled, compassionate, timely support guides you through tough technical times with your blog.

 

6: Buy for the Year

 

Invest money in hosting for the year.

 

Be all in.

 

Make a year long commitment to blogging.

 

Either you will love this gig and keep at it with a full commitment or you will dislike blogging and eat a few bills.

 

Noticeable results never build within short time frames, anyway.

 

Beginner bloggers who blog intelligently, generously and patiently usually see increasing results within months 6-12.

 

Invest in hosting for the year to:

 

  • commit fully for a reasonable time frame
  • pro-rate your investment to save money

 

7: Hire Someone to Set Up Your Blog (if You Need to)

 

Most newbie bloggers fear the blog set up process.

 

Hire a developer to set up your blog after you purchase a domain and hosting.

 

Invest money in your peace of mind.

 

Hire a skilled developer to handle this job for you effectively.

 

Beginner bloggers have enough on their blogging plate. Trying to set up your blog becomes overwhelming for many newbies.

 

Hire someone to handle this job for you.

 

Once a pro sets up your blog you can simply write and publish your first blog post to hit the ground running.

 

8: Demand Real Reviews

 

Unfortunately, some fake reviews litter the hosting review world.

 

Shady or outright foolish reviewers – or hosting companies – hire fake reviewers on the cheap to boost their reputation.

 

As a rule, genuine reviewers:

 

  • publish detailed reviews
  • publish honest reviews, including negatives, downsides or drawbacks to using hosting
  • use avatars
  • use full, real-sounding names

 

Beware any hosting company which attracts an army of generic, fluffy, only positive, faceless, nameless reviews. Seeing legions of fake reviewers reflects low quality hosting lacking in performance, uptime and customer service.

 

9: Beware Hosting Shills

 

Hosting shills desperate or greedy to drive affiliate income publish rosy, cheery, solely positive, less than genuine reviews.

 

You get what you pay for.

 

Cheap hosting means cheap performance and cheap support. If a hosting reviewer claims that cheap hosting yields dazzling performance, top notch customer service and a robust user experience, run, don’t walk, to the next reviewer.

 

Read at least a handful of reviews before pulling the trigger on a hosting solution. Get a well-rounded view of various services. Scan different blogger’s reviews.

 

Genuine reviewers will lead you in the right direction with their honesty.

 

Everyone else will fade away.

 

10: Jump Ship When You Need to

 

I jumped ship on two hosting solutions.

 

The company owners moved in the direction of:

 

  • offering scale budget hosting
  • overloading servers
  • slowing down site load speeds
  • offering poor support in terms of response time, technical knowledge and overall quality

 

For the first hosting company, I waited too long. My blog loaded painfully slowly or crashed multiple times daily. Customer service responded at a snail’s pace.

 

Eventually I migrated to another hosting solution.

 

Within a few years, this company got too big, too quickly. Customer service suffered. Scaling also affected my blog loading speed, up time and reliability.

 

I quickly migrated to my current day hosting solution on seeing these red flags.

 

Sooner than later, if your hosting company shows red flags like blog poor performance (speed and uptime) and terrible support, leave them and use new, reliable hosting.

 

Conclusion

 

Keep these ideas in mind before you pull the trigger.

 

Buy your domain and hosting with confidence.

  1. Vishwajeet Kumar says:
    at 11:41 am

    Hello Ryan,

    The domain name and web hosting play an important role in starting a business online. The domain name is the identity of your blog or website. You have shared some helpful and practical tips to Choose the right domain and hosting.

    Regards,
    Vishwajeet Kumar

  2. Ryan Biddulph says:
    at 5:06 pm

    Agreed fully Vishwajeet. Owning your domain with a hosting company is the way to begin your business online intelligently.