The Importance of Choosing Adequate Hosting for your Blog

Choosing the right web hosting for a blog can be just as important as for a regular website. You want your blog to be able to cope with the content in contains as well as the traffic it attracts. With many blogging platforms there is free hosting available, with Wordpress and Blogger two popular examples. But is free blog hosting adequate? The answer to this is sometimes yes, but this often isn’t the case. If you plan on the occasional basic post and don’t expect a large amount of traffic then the free hosting that comes with many blogging platforms might be adequate. This is more likely to be the case for personal and general interest blogs than for business blogs.The main reason why free blog hosting is not always appropriate is that you can’t usually have your own domain name; you normally have to use a sub-domain of the platform you are using. For example, if your blog is called Chocolate News rather than having a domain name of ‘chocolatenews.com’, it would have to be something along the lines of ‘chocolatenews.blogspot.com’ or ‘chocolatenews.wordpress.org’. A business really needs its own, completely unique, domain name but there are also other reasons why free blog hosting might not be sufficient. It can, for one, only cope with a limited amount of traffic. For many blogs this isn’t a concern but for those that aim to attract thousands of visitors every week it will likely prove problematic. Some don’t have the same thought process when hosting a blog as they do when hosting a website. It can, though, be just as important to make the right decision. After all, there is little point in having a blog if your potential visitors cannot view it. There are a number of factors that need consideration.With any website, whether it is a blog or not, reliability is crucial. Web hosting is the most important factor in whether or not a blog is reliable. Unreliable hosting could result in a site regularly being offline meaning no-one can view it. Poor hosting can also lead to slower load times, thus meaning frustrated visitors resulting in them leaving the blog. This could include those who would return to the blog, therefore losing potential repeat visitors.  Prior to choosing your hosting provider you need to think about the amount of traffic you expect to attract. It is wise to discuss this with potential providers so you have the adequate bandwidth dedicated to the blog. The more bandwidth you have, the more traffic the blog can deal with while remaining online and without its performance being impacted. While most blogs have relatively simple functionality – such as a series of text-based blog posts – if you have a more complex blog then the hosting will need to be chosen accordingly. An example of this is where audio and video files are included in posts. So which type of hosting do you need for your blog? This comes down to many factors, with the main options being free blog hosting, shared hosting and dedicated hosting. As mentioned above, free hosting isn’t always ideal but that doesn’t mean it never is. For a personal blog with basic content and a relatively low number of visitors this may be perfectly adequate. It is certainly not the best option, though, for a business blog, particularly due to the domain name restrictions. Shared hosting is possibly the most common choice. You can have your own unique domain name and for most blogs is suitable. It can deal with the functionality of the majority of blogs and if traffic levels aren’t sky-high the bandwidth will be sufficient. Dedicated hosting may be required for larger or more complex blogs. For those that drive thousands of visits a week, or even a day, then dedicated hosting should be the preferred choice. Choosing the right web hosting for a blog is important. While free or cheap hosting might seem tempting, it may lead to problems with the blog. As well as the practical problem of people struggling to view the site, it can also harm the blogs reputation. That doesn’t mean that these cheaper options are never suitable though. Andrew Marshall ©