WordPress Hosting: Free WordPress Hosting vs Paid Web Hosting

Introduction: WordPress is renowned for its ease of use and abundance of free resources found on the internet. If you are new to creating websites, 99% of time you would be recommended to set up a WordPress powered website. The very first thing to consider when setting up a website is to choose the hosting provider. This post discusses two options: free WordPress hosting and paid hosting.

Free WordPress Hosting Option 1: WordPress.com

For quick and dirty FREE WordPress websites, WordPress.com is the way to go.

Go there, create an account, choose a subdomain (your URL would be in the form of subdomain.wordpress.com) and your website is up and running. No installation. No server administration. Best of all, it is FREE.

However, there are a number of drawbacks:

• limited ability to change WordPress configurations, e.g. cannot add plugins, limited use of PHP scripts, etc.
• WordPress.com may add advertisements into your blog posts

You can remove the above limitations by going Premium (US$99 per annual at the time of writing) which is quite expensive. You would definitely want to consider other WordPress hosting options as discussed below.

Free WordPress Web Hosting Option 2: Other Hosting Providers

There are a number WordPress hosting companies “claiming” to provide free WordPress hosting. However, these WordPress hosting providers may:

• add banner ads to your website (but do not share the revenue with you)
• limit the amount of space, traffic flow or technical capabilities
• charge you for using your own domain
• the paid upgrades are charged exceptional high

If you are tech-savvy (reads: you understand thoroughly their terms and knows the tricks to avoid being charged) and interested in this option, here is a list of these free WordPress hosting providers:

• http://byethost.com
• http://www.freehostia.com
• http://www.100webspace.com
• http://www.000webhost.com

Be warned that you may end up paying more on these “free” WordPress providers than a trustworthy paid WordPress hosting provider. You might read this post on the factors to consider when choosing a free WordPress hosting.

Paid WordPress Hosting

Paid hosting is the definite choice if you would like to create a quality website with ultimate flexibility. With paid WordPress hosting, you can literally configure every single aspect of your website, down to the original code of WordPress (which is not recommended, of course). This is the only way you can build a professional looking and fully functional website.

When looking at different hosting plans, you may come across many different jargons like shared hosting, vpn hosting, dedicated hosting which would cost from several dollars per month to several thousands of dollars per month. How to choose?

For starters, the shared hosting option is more than enough. In fact, edward-designer.com is powered on a shared hosting.

Factors to Consider When Choosing a WordPress Hosting

Besides the cost factor, below are a list of factors you should be considering when choosing a WordPress hosting:

1. Percentage of uptime
2. Size of web storage (amount of data you are allowed to put on the hosting server)
3. No. of domains supported
4. Volume of traffic allowed
5. Help desk Support: Around-the-clock  vs office hours
6. One click installation of WordPress through admin panel
7. Is it recommended by WordPress?
8. Backup of data in case of server errors

Examples of Quality WordPress Web Hosting

a2hosting.com

• lowest cost with superb reliability
• $3.95 per month (can be cancelled anytime) with the use of coupon code: WHTPRIME
• automatic installation of WordPress
• unlimited storage
• unlimited domain
• unlimited traffic
• around-the-clock help desk support
• automatic backup

bluehost.com

• recommended by WordPress since 2005
• installing WordPress is as easy as clicking a button
• $4.95 per month (can be cancelled anytime)
• unlimited storage
• unlimited domain
• 1 domain name of your choice is included
• unlimited traffic
• around-the-clock help desk support
• video how-to guides for absolute beginners
• automatic backup

hostgator.com

• installing WordPress is as easy as clicking a button
• free site-builder included
• $7.96 per month (for 1-year contract)
• unlimited storage
• unlimited domain
• unlimited traffic
• around-the-clock help desk support
• automatic backup

Next Steps

1. Sign up a quality WordPress hosting
2. Register for a domain name (i.e. www.your-name.com). GoDaddy offers the cheapest service starting from US$2.95.
3. Use the 1-click WordPress installation wizard and get your website up and running!

You will enjoy the same level of easy-of-use as WordPress.com but you are in total control of your website. If you write great contents, your Adsense earning will soon take care of the hosting fee and you virtually have free WordPress hosting!

I began this blog about half an year before and now I can earn enough money for my hosting bill with earnings from advertisements and affiliate marketing in only 1 day, e.g. you can sign up FREE for the affiliate plan of a2-hosting to earn US$85 per referral.

Happy WordPress!