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The thing is, if you want a blog you are going to need somewhere to host that blog. Ahh, and there’s the rub. What kind of hosting do I need? I don’t even know what hosting is!
Hosting – The Low Down
Think of hosting as something like the landlord of an apartment. Basically, what it does is allow your website to ‘rent space’ on the World Wide Web, and thus be accessible to anyone with an Internet connection (and anyone who doesn’t live in North Korea!). Now, without getting too technical, you can host your website from your own computer, however it’s just not that practical.
Thus, these days many people rely on any number of free and paid hosting services to manage their website. These can run from advertisement laden free services to extremely expensive Dedicated Servers. For the website and blog beginner however, you can get by just fine with the free hosting or low cost hosting options. What follows will be a short preview of what you can get with each.
Free Hosting Options
Webs.com
If you are looking to immediately jump into blogging with as little frills as possible, you may be interested in joining a free web hosting service such as Webs.com. Webs.com offers 40MB of space, 100MB of bandwidth and the options to use web and e-mail based uploading. Webs.com also offers users a variety of various website templates for customization purposes.
Weebly
A great option for those looking for a little bit more customization, try out Weebly. Weebly is free of ads and is widget-based, meaning you simply drag and drop ‘widgets’ into different slots within your template to move your content around. Weebly also offers a free URL and the option to customize a little bit for those who know a little bit of HTML.
Low Cost Web Hosting
TMDhosting
A reliable web hosting service on the rise, TMDhosting offers a variety of features and benefits that would make any blogger smile from ear to ear.
Let’s start with the price. For $2.85 per month (cheap!) you get a free domain, daily backups as well as 24/7 support (for those residing in North America). Those who have made the switch to TMDhosting from other hosting services have also noted that their website loading speed has increased by an average of 10%. Nice!
1&1
Unless you have lived in a cave for the past few years you have more than likely seen a commercial. They are…..memorable….to say the least. 1and1.com burst onto the web service seen many years ago with an extremely aggressive marketing campaign, as been a mainstay ever since.
Noted for the low cost web hosting service plans as well as excellent support network, 1and1 is a good, inexpensive but reliable option for the beginner website or blog owner. If you are looking to upgrade, 1and1 also offers a variety of options, such as managed hosting.
So there you have it. Hosting these days does not need to be a headache. With increased competition has come a variety of free and low cost hosting plans to fit your every need.