There are fewer more tantalizing words in the English language than “free”. Unfortunately, too many brand new bloggers and Affiliate Marketers can’t resist the urge and use free hosting providers to publish their WordPress blogs, and may be doing themselves a big disservice by thinking that free is somehow better. If you’re not all that serious about making money online, this is probably an article you can skip. However, for those looking to actually make some money online, getting cheap on your web hosting service is not a great start.
If there is one thing I can’t reiterate enough, it’s that in terms of your WordPress blog, investing financially in your investment of effort is the only way you’re going to get the results you’re looking for. The writing you do uses time, though, and effort, and you don’t want those efforts wasted by a faulty site that few people can see. With the barrier to entry and cost of entering affiliate marketing being so low, there’s absolutely no reason to sign up for cheap or free hosting.
The Benefits Of Investing In Your WordPress Blog Hosting
While free is free, and free is tempting, you want to make an investment into your WordPress hosting if you want your blog to be seen and have maximum SEO benefits. The benefits of investing in your blog hosting are numerous, and vary from making your blog more visible, to faster page loading times, to a more secure environment, and much more. For blogs that may one day be monetized such as affiliate marketers, these benefits provided are the only way you’re going to get the results you’re looking for.
The benefits of investing in your WordPress blog hosting include:
User support – A great WordPress hosting provider will provide quality user support no matter the time of day or night. Should something go wrong with your WordPress blog, you’re able to contact user support and have your blog up and running again for your audiences in no time at all. Unfortunately, even paid WordPress hosting providers are not known for high quality customer service which is why I usually recommend a service like WPengine over the cheap WordPress hosting services out there.
Professionally maintained servers – By hosting your WordPress blog on professional servers, paid WordPress hosting providers keep your blog not just up and running, but running quickly. Overworked servers are slow servers, and if your blog takes more than several seconds to load, your audiences could start looking elsewhere and search engines will lower your rankings. The internet is vast, and there is a good chance they can find the content they’re looking for elsewhere if they feel that getting it from you is taking too long.
Ample security – You want to keep your blog secure. Being hacked or having data stolen can wreak havoc on your blog, particularly if it’s monetized, and even the best free hosting for WordPress providers won’t provide the same type of security that a paid provider will. Not only will better security give you peace of mind, but it will also help your blog to run faster and more efficiently as it will block bogus requests and phony visitors. Even cheap hosting providers like HostGator aren’t all that secure. Back when I used HostGator my sites were hacked quite frequently, but since I switched to the more expensive WPengine hosting I’ve never been hacked in 3 years.
Content assistance – If you’re blogging, you’re focusing primarily on your content to drive traffic and create conversions or income. Because of this, your content is the most important effort investment you make in your blog, and you want your investment to work for you. With content assistance, you can use simple Google Analytics tools to gauge how well your content is working, and how you can make it work even better.
Performance tracking – You’ll also want to know just how well your blog itself can perform, and you want to catch any slow-downs or red flags before they begin affecting your web traffic. Performance tracking via a paid WordPress blog hosting provider allows you to track your website’s technical performance, so you’re always in the know regarding just how your blog is doing on the technical side of things.
The Disadvantages Of Even The Best Free Hosting For WordPress
Now that we’ve covered the benefits of investing in a paid WordPress hosting provider, it’s important to balance out with the specific disadvantages of even the best free hosting for WordPress providers. The first point that is important to mention is that there is no such thing as a free lunch, and by lunch, I mean WordPress hosting. When a hosting service offers free WordPress hosting, there is an ulterior motive, and that is to advertise their service using your site in some way. It could be in your site’s domain name, it could be an advertisement on your page, but somewhere you will be representing their brand in order to garner sales for them. While this may not be too big of a deal if you’re simply hosting a blog to share with family and friends about your yearly vacation, it will be a burden to those looking to build a professional website, use their content in affiliate marketing, or wish to monetize their blogging. With a hosting service you’ve invested in, you get your own easy to search domain name.
Some of the other common disadvantages of even the best free hosting for WordPress providers are:
- Little to no user support – If your website should go down, which will be a more common occurrence in the overcrowded servers of the best free hosting for WordPress providers, you’re left with little to no help. For affiliate marketers or those looking to monetize their website or blog, this time being offline translates to time not creating conversions.
- Overcrowded servers – The best free hosting for WordPress, while they seem like they may be a good idea, really bog down your WordPress website in terms of overcrowded servers. With too many website being hosted from the same servers, you can expect slower connection times, more frequent breakdowns, and frustrating user interactions.
- Little security – In terms of security, you’re left on your own on even the best free hosting for WordPress providers. If your website or blog gets hacked, or bogged down by false requests, fixing the problem can be difficult and time consuming.
For several reasons, even the best free hosting for WordPress is a bad idea. Investing in the best investment for your WordPress website, however, is not. WPengine offers security, performance tracking, user support, your own domain, professional servers, and everything you’re looking for in a hosting provider to keep your website or blog up and running when you need it most. While free may seem like free at first, in the long run you’re putting forth way more effort for a less successful outcome.
