Since I started helping other people with WordPress websites I’ve had to explain to people what a hosting company is and what it does and what a good hosting package should look like.  Here is my advice on hosting services.

1.  Ask other people who develop websites for suggestions regarding where to host your site.  I currently recommend Bluehost.  There are others who are good as well I’m sure.  I have a Bluehost account and so far have been very happy with them.

2.  Don’t be fooled by glitter.  Anyone who has as a selling point things like “Easy Webstie Builder” or “Choose from multiple templates for your website” is offering those things because what you can do with your website is limited somehow.

3.  It’s 2013.  Pretty much everything should be unlimited.  Unlimited email addresses, databases, FTP accounts, bandwidth and storage space.  Limits on any of these things will mean bad times in your future.  Either you will not be able to do what you want to do or you’ll have to pay more money to do it.

Here is an example of why this stuff is important.

A client wants a new website and has hosting with a company called APlus.  First I had to upgrade her account in order to even be able to install WordPress.  That’s more cost to her.  Then I find out you can only install one instance of WordPress, and it must be installed int a directory called wordpress/.  Additionally there is no interface to directly access the SQL database.  I spent almost 2 hours dealing with these issues.  That’s 2 hours my client had to pay me for.

With Bluehost I’d have configured and installed WordPress on their least expensive hosting plan in about 3 minutes.

I’m just saying . . .