If you start a new blog, you want to keep costs low.
This is understandable and usually at the beginning also okay.
However, many bloggers save not only at the beginning of the hosting but also try to avoid every $$ “too much” in the long run.
I would like to show you in this article that this can have a negative impact. In addition, of course, I am also referring to my own experiences.
This article is part of the following series: 52 Professional Tips to Improve Your Blog
Tip 5 – Hosting
To customize a blog extensively and e.g. To use all possible monetarization measures, you have to install them yourself. For this, one needs a so-called web space, which one rents with one of the known or less well-known hosting providers.
Hosted CMS platforms come with various performance options, ranging from budget-friendly to premium plans. Despite cost considerations, opting for the cheapest hosting may lead to drawbacks in the long run.
Start Cheaply
It is not a problem with a cheap hosting tariff to start.
This is usually called shared hosting and this means that you share a server with hundreds or even thousands of others. Of course, one does not see this, but on the server, hundreds of websites run parallel and one gets only very little power resources provided.
Read Also: 5 Key Differences to Compare Shared Hosting vs WordPress
If you start a blog and have only a few visitors, that is also OK.
Saving Money Costs Money
If the number of visitors increases, however, a shared hosting tariff will cause problems. Your blog is slower or there are even temporary failures in which the blog is not accessible at all.
These problems can be reduced using measures such as caching but depending on the development of the blog, this is not enough anyway.
In addition, poor hosting costs money, at least if you want to earn money on your blog.
Many studies show that longer charging times cause many % of visitors to jump off again. One has thus demonstrably fewer visitors to bad hosting.
And those who visit the blog nevertheless have a worse user experience. This means that they tend not to return.
Not to forget Google. The charging time is now also a ranking factor, although not a big one.
My Experiences
My own experiences are certainly typical. I started my blog at 1Blu. This is rather a mass host, which offers cheap shared hosting tariffs.
The first 1-2 years were also okay and the blog ran well. However, visitor numbers increased and the problems increased. The blog was always slow and sometimes even completely lost for a short time.
This, of course, slowed my traffic growth. After some back and forth, I have then moved to BlueHost * (where I am with this blog until today).
I’ve chosen a Managed hosting package. That cost about 15 dollars a month and offered more performance than my previous hosting. I immediately noticed a much better performance and visitor numbers rose overnight.
In the following years, however, there were problems again as visitor numbers continued to rise. I am then at DF on a managed server (I’m all alone on this computer). It costs me over 100 euros a month, but I do not have to worry about anything and the performance is top.
Charging times have improved and visitor numbers have risen by 10% overnight. This of course also increased my income and the investment in better hosting has paid off quite quickly.
Hosting Tips for Blog Growth
Another tip from the practice.
When I wanted at 1Blu a better hosting tariff (and there is of course there), I could not offer an automatic move. I would have had to book a new hosting package and have to reinstall the blog there as if I were new to 1Blu. (Whether this is still today, I can not say)
With BlueHost, on the other hand, there is a relocation service at a higher tariff, which does not have to worry about anything.
Therefore, when choosing a hoster, I recommend that the latter change to a more powerful tariff be automatic. This saves nerves, time, and anger.
Conclusion
Now surely not every blogger needs its server, nevertheless one should not save here in the wrong place.
If you notice that the performance gets worse and other measures (caching, fewer plugins, etc.) do not help, you should rather take a few dollars a month more for a better hosting tariff in hand. Otherwise, you slow down the growth of your blog.
Task
Analyze the performance of your blog and see if it is phase-wise to longer load times or even failures.
If this is the case and other measures do not help, you should look around for a better hosting tariff.