Website Hosting

Website hosting is an essential part of the website building process. If your website domain is your address, then hosting is where you build your house.

There are a wide range of website hosts available. A Google search for “website hosting” will bring up many for you to choose from.

Web hosts also manage any email addresses that are attached to your domain (such as hello@yourdomain.com versus yourname@gmail.com). You are not required to have an email address for your domain, but it can be considered more professional.

What You Need

You will need to select a website host and pay for hosting on a monthly or yearly basis. This service provides access to space on a server where your website files can be stored.

You will also need a domain name. You may already have one, which is totally fine.

What You Don’t Need

As you are signing up for web hosting, you will be offered a number of additional services that come with additional costs (monthly or annually). Unless you have been told otherwise by us, none of these additional services are required. Do not select any of them during check out.

Even though your website will be built on WordPress, you do not need to purchase specific WordPress hosting.

Please select a shared hosting plan that allows you multiple websites and email addresses (best if unlimited). We’ll explain a little more about that below.

What We Recommend

Over our years of experience, there are two web hosts in particular that we have found to provide good service at a reasonable price. These are the hosts we recommend most often.

  1. Dreamhost
    Select their “Shared Unlimited” plan and decide between annual and monthly billing.

    If you wish, you can use this link to receive $50 off the purchase of an annual plan. (Full disclosure, we will receive a $50 credit when you do this.)

  2. Bluehost
    Select their “Plus” plan.

Your Domain Name

If you already have a domain name, you will need to put this in during your hosting account set up. What they need is the URL, or website address, that you have purchased from a domain registrar.

If you don’t have a domain name yet, you will be able to purchase one with your hosting. Sometimes web hosts will offer free domain names with a customer’s first purchase. Search for your domain name to see if it is available. If it’s not, keep searching until you find an available domain name that suits your brand.

(Sidenote: Some domain names are designated as “premium”, which means that they are very expensive — sometimes very, very expensive. In these cases, shopping around won’t find you a better price. It’s up to you if you’d like to pay the premium price for your domain, but often very suitable options are available for less.)

What to Do Once You’ve Bought Your Hosting

Forward us all the emails they send you about your account. Please also include the password you selected at sign up – we will need that to set up your website on your server.

Have Questions?

We’re happy to answer any questions you might have about our website maintenance services, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

Here’s a Video to Help Even More!

Branding, marketing, and web design for women-identified entrepreneurs. Because you are too awesome to have a crappy brand.

e: heythere@tristadevries.com
t: 647-696-9625