How to Choose the Best Web Hosting

7 Website Steps

Step 3: Next up, you need a trusted home for your website. In web parlance, this is called hosting. To get the best experience, you need to choose the best web hosting that works for you.

It’s not too hard to find hosting companies, even if you have a specific website build requirement.

Recommended Hosting Resources

Flywheel

Flywheel offers premium managed WP hosting.

This is the WordPress managed hosting company we use for not only our sites but our client’s sites as well. It’s built for those who don’t understand techie things and for designers who appreciate good looking web software. It’s super easy to use and they have good support. Plans start at $25/month.

Visit Flywheel

Choosing the Best Host for Your Needs

If you’re just starting out, whether you still need to validate an idea or you’re low on funds, we generally recommend a shared host. A popular shared hosting option is Bluehost. To see real thoughts on Bluehost, check out our full review.

If you want better performance than a shared host can offer, leave room for future growth spikes, and have a bit more in the budget, you can go with a managed host option. Managed hosts are specially tuned Virtual Private Servers (VPS) for a specific website builder or content management system. Once again, our favorite managed host for WordPress is Flywheel.

Managed hosts are more expensive than every other solution besides dedicated servers. They are worth it though. The support and uptime are very good. You wouldn’t want your website to go down when you have money tied up.

If you want all the benefits of a VPS but don’t want to get tied down to a managed host, you can do a more hands-on option through a VPS and application service combo. Our favorite VPS and app combo for WordPress is Vultr and ServerPilot. Check out our setup guide and first impressions to get a feel for what it’s like to set up a Vultr server, install ServerPilot, and stand up a WordPress website.

Connecting Your Domain to Your Hosting

THIS IS IMPORTANT.

Now that you have a domain and host, you’ll need to connect the two so when someone types in your domain name, their browser will be able to find your server (web host). We can give you the basics here but if you do get stuck, ask your host. They have great customer support.

And while you’re in your DNS settings and after you have set up your records, look into setting up DNSSEC. It doesn’t take long. Check out this article by ICANN to see what DNSSEC is and why you would want to enable it.