So you’ve decided to finally get down to it and begin a blog. You have a lot of great ideas you want to share with the world, a lot of opinions you know others might like to hear, you have a ton of photographs, videos and articles of interest which you’ve decided the best way to deal with is through a blog. You’ve got all your nitty gritties down, written a rough copy of your first post, edited it, and now all you need to do is actually launch the blog. But before you take that all-important step, you might want to read ahead to see just which blog host you should use. There are so many to choose from and they’re all different in so many minute ways that choosing the right host might make all the difference in how much traffic hits your blog. After all, there are millions of blogs on the web space and you don’t want yours to be just one of them. So here are 5 tips on how to choose a good blog host.
- Price: Several blog hosts run for free. In fact, most of them, until you want to upgrade to a higher version with fancier artwork and unlimited customization are generally free. What you need to see before you pick a host is just how professional or casual you want to be with your blog. Always check out blogs similar to yours hosted by various hosts to see which one you’re likely to fit best with. Remember you can always upgrade later on even if you start free.
- Type: If yours is a photoblog you might want to check out blog hosts who deal specially with photographs, like Flickr. If its travel, you should see which ones are experts in that. Your content can vary with photographs, texts and videos of course, but if you’re specifically starting a blog with a main goal, it’s worth your while to go to the experts to take care of it. They will generally have the better tech support team.
- How you post: Do you type it up and post it through your laptop? Do you prefer to use the tablet or even the smartphone? Is the posting immediate or do you not mind waiting a while before it gets done? Figure these answers out and see what support you get from your host.
- How much can you post: This refers to a limit blogging sites may have to the amount of content you can post in a month. You don’t want to be restricted just when you’re in flow. Blog sites have space allocations and you need to ensure yours can fit well into that, but most blogs don’t need too much space.
- Speed: If your blog hosting site has problems with how long it takes to load, this is a red flag. Check reviews and other blogs to see if this is an issue. You don’t want visitors to be frustrated and turn away because your blog takes too long to load through no fault of yours.