Choosing a Great Hosting Service for Your Site
Setting up your own website and blog is a fabulous way to exercise your creativity and share your thoughts, interests, and experiences with the world. Choosing a great hosting service for your site is an absolute imperative. Make sure that the one you pick treats your site with the same care and attention as you do. Let the following criteria and excellent recommendation be your guide.
By John G. Stamos
Note to readers: The following article, “Choosing a Great Hosting Service for Your Site,” was written and published here on The Renaissance Garden Guy on January 8, 2022. On November 7, 2023, The Renaissance Garden Guy completed its migration from Bluehost to its new home at A2 Hosting. The RGG’s ever-increasing size and storage requirements necessitated the move to its own dedicated, huge, powerful, and lightning-fast A2 server. As you’ll read below, however, and on The RGG’s Host Your Own Site page, and in the RGG articles “Why Start a Blog?” and “Two Websites, Two Hosting Services,” it’s clear that I remain a huge Bluehost fan, AND a loyal Bluehost customer. My latest website, A Man for Some Seasons, is hosted at none other than Bluehost. Read on to see why I love Bluehost.
I’ve been fortunate over the years to have done and seen some pretty diverse and interesting things, and I’ve met a lot of people (and non-people) with diverse and interesting backgrounds. I’ve got a beautiful family and amazing friends. You’ll read all about this stuff in the weeks, months, and years to come.
Suddenly, I’m to my whole point.
You’re going to be able to read about all this stuff in the weeks, months, and years to come because I created a website, or blog. This one. The Renaissance Garden Guy. Since talking all about myself is evidently high on my list of interests, and since I really do love to experience each of my interests to its absolute fullest, I thought blogging would be the best way to help me accomplish these very things. But back when I decided that I wanted to blog, I didn’t know very much about what a blog actually was, or how to go about the act of blogging. I just knew that people used blogs to write about their interests so other people could read about them. So what I’m gonna do here is quickly clear up some terminology, and then tell you about who helped me get my blog up and running smoothly and securely (and who also continues to make sure that it stays that way).
Choosing a Great Hosting Service for Your Site
Blogs and Blogging
The word “blog” is actually a contraction of two words, “web” and “log.” So, as a noun, a blog is a web log. It’s a journal of sorts, brought to readers via a specific location it occupies on the internet. It’s therefore also a website. In the case of The Renaissance Garden Guy website, I consider the whole site a blog. There’s nothing on this site but written content and accompanying photos: posts, articles, pieces, entries – call them what you want, it’s all written content with some pics. Sometimes, a blog exists as a section of a website. You might visit such a site and see the “Blog” as a section which you can click on, and open to read the entries which have been posted there. And sometimes one specific written post or entry itself is called a blog. In all cases, the noun “blog” refers to a piece (or collection of pieces) of written information which the writer is sharing from an address (location) on the internet. The act of creating this written content and publishing (posting) it from an internet address is the verb form of the word “blog.” So right at this minute, as I type this content, I’m blogging. And the act of setting up a website, or blog, for the express purpose of generating this written content for internet viewing, is also considered blogging. Since this specific activity results in a source of income for me, it can be said that I blog for a living.
Got all that? Good. Because we’re on to Part Two (which is also the last part).
Website Hosting
Once I knew what blogging was all about, and that I wanted to do it for fun and profit, I had to find the means to bring my blog to fruition. I had to find someone to get my blog up and out on the internet, and to keep it there. I needed to find a website hosting service.
But I’m not tech savvy. In fact, I’m a tech idiot. So I needed to find someone that could not only get my blog onto the web and keep it there, I needed someone who could help me actually create my blog. And maintain it and add to it, and change it (if I wanted to), and improve it. And that “someone” to whom the honor of hosting/building/maintaining/improving The Renaissance Garden Guy blog belongs is Bluehost.
Why Bluehost? There are a lot of website hosting services available to bloggers. I was initially unsure about which one to go with. But after doing tons of research, I decided on Bluehost. As far as I was concerned, Bluehost came out ahead of all the other hosting services in terms of the following criteria: reputation, value, included products and services, technical support/customer service, and WordPress support.
- Reputation. Bluehost has got an impeccable rep. After talking with personal friends and others in various blogging communities, I found that the consensus was that Bluehost was THE go-to hosting service. Successful bloggers seemed to almost universally recommend Bluehost. For me, a personal recommendation goes a long way. But virtually every digital review publication that I checked out also gave Bluehost the best possible review. These publications have got website pros writing those reviews. When these folks give a hosting service that level of review, I pay close attention. Top10.com recently ranked Bluehost as the number one hosting provider of 2022 with a score of 9.7 out of 10. Like I said, I pay attention to stuff like this.
- Value. Obviously, I encourage everyone to shop around. But for me, I felt that what I was getting with Bluehost (and as you’ll see, it’s tons) was a lot of bang for my buck.
- Included products and services. With Bluehost, you get domain registration (my site’s URL, renaissancegardenguy.com, is registered to me only and is guaranteed to stay that way), super security protocol (their SiteLock Security is unbeatable), free SSL certification (another level of online security), and a free, simple 1-click installation of WordPress (the go-to content management [web building] system for bloggers and web site owners) onto your site. I’m not a techie, but I can tell you that a Bluehost subscription comes with a lot of awesome bells and whistles.
- Technical support and customer service. When it comes to any and all questions or concerns, the team at Bluehost is unbeatable. Their technical support is awesome, and their customer service reps are friendly, courteous, and knowledgeable. And they’re available 24/7. You just can’t beat Bluehost in these areas.
- WordPress support. If you’re tech savvy, you’ll be thrilled with the free, 1-click installation of WordPress onto your newly registered site. You’ll be able to hit the ground running and start building your site, exactly how you want it, and without any help. WordPress is so fertile, well-equipped, and adaptable, the sky literally is the limit. And speaking of the sky… If you’re not tech savvy (like me), than you’ll want to take advantage of an incredible suite of WordPress site building and support services offered by Bluhost, called Blue Sky. You can choose from different packages, from Blue Sky Basic (on-demand ticket support) through Blue Sky Pro, which includes SEO tools (stuff that makes your site get noticed more quickly in online searches), mobile optimization help (so your site works great on all devices), and on-demand telephone support. Bluehost gives you the power and genius of WordPress, and offers you all the help you could ever need in exploiting its awesome potential.
You can see that using a great hosting service is crucial in creating and maintaining a successful website. And here, I’ll use “website” and “blog” interchangeably. It doesn’t matter which word I use, anyway. What’s critical is that you’re able to create your content effectively and efficiently, and deliver it to your readers on a secure, continuous, and consistent basis. A great hosting service will make sure that you’re easily able to do all of that. And in my opinion, the greatest one of those hosting services is Bluehost.
To learn more about Bluehost, or to subscribe to this unbeatable service, feel free to click on the Bluehost banner below, or on any of the Bluehost banners in this article. Check ’em out. If you’re thinking about starting your own blogging adventure, you’ll be glad you did.
Cheers, and Happy Gardening (and Blogging)!
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Great blog John.
Thanks, Erich. I’m glad you liked it. Thanks for giving it a read.
You always give us great information on so many different topics. Your pictures are always beautiful and just as diverse. It’s always a pleasure to read your blog.
Thank you, Kevin. I’m very glad you’re finding the pieces interesting. I appreciate your support.
Thanks for the explanation of a confusing subject.
You made it was to understand
Thank you, Rick. I’m glad it was helpful. Bluehost simplified the process of creating my site for me. I’m very satisfied with what they’ve done for me. They made an otherwise confusing process easy to undertake and successfully implement.
Thank you for helping me to understand. They say knowledge is power. Well you helped me gain some.
Your very welcome. I also learn so much! 😊
Thank you, Sharon. I’m glad you find the information here helpful. I truly appreciate your very kind interest and support.
Still enjoying your blog and learning more each time.
Thank you, Sharon! Have I told you lately how grateful I am for your interest in my efforts, and for your incredible kindness toward me? I can’t ever thank you enough. And it goes without saying that I’m absolutely thrilled that you find the info interesting and helpful. Makes me think I must be doing my job the right way. Once again, and as always, I thank you, Sharon!
Appreciate the explanation of terms. Still dragging myself into this century (mostly kicking & screaming as I go😄) Thanks for helping me understand the workings of the Web a little more.👍
Thank you for your interest in the subject, Jill. Bluehost has played an invaluable role in my efforts. They’ve effectively simplified an otherwise confusing process and helped me successfully launch The Renaissance Garden Guy site. I’m totally satisfied with Bluehost.
This explains so much thank you!
Thank you. It’s a great hosting service. They’ve made the process of creating and maintaining a website a piece of cake!