Australian wordpress hosting

Why I chose hostgator for blog hosting

June 4, 2022 by admin 6 Comments

[Post updated 04 June 2022] – I already had hosting with Bluehost , Dreamhost , Godaddy and Pressidium (left) and was looking for another alternative for one of my Australian blog to get a wordpress webhost . I was searching for one that is good and still cheap for my blog.

With hundreds of different web hosting companies in this industry, choosing the right one can be difficult. The top three and most recommended web hosting companies at this time were HostGator, BlueHost and DreamHost.[article originally published prior to 2014]

Google Searching on the internet for something, can lead to paralysis by doing too much analysis and so after realising that, I write this post. It can take ages with so much information overload on the internet by thousands of bloggers all having their own view of things.

It can be particularly time consuming searching the web, when you are searching for a hosting service for blogs/websites, because the internet is filled with recommendations for different website-hosting service providers.

The Servers at Hostgator Hosting

Webhosting is all about quality servers ,where your website lives. HostGator sites are hosted in Dual Xeon servers at Dallas. top-of-the-line Dual Xeon in their data centers at Dallas. The data centers are well equipped and connects to 10 backbone providers. Also, HostGator invest millions of dollars every year in new technologies for better performance. They have about 12,000 servers under management at Houston, Texas in the US.

Yes finding a web host is not an easy task. It is important that you get a good web hosting provider if you plan to host many blogs or websites on that server. Always look out for specials on events , but if you cant wait then below are some deals for you, at this stage I am liking hostgator as they have a reputable name for hosting with wordpress websites and good service. [Updated I am now with hostgator, godaddy and bluehost for 10+ years and a thankful customer to them all]

Hostgator Video Day sale

Updated deal/discount links below

HostGator’s rich shared hosting packages offer unlimited storage, email, and monthly databases that give business plenty of room to grow. In short, it’s the best service we’ve reviewed for shared hosting packages. As a result, HostGator is our Editors’ Choice pick for shared web hosting services.

Good blog hosting is hard to find

I chose to do some research and found “Hostgator” mentioned in many blogs so I decided to research it. First off course is the price factor and so I checked their prices for hosting

I hadn’t really browsed around forums all that much for hosting before but I knew it would be a place where people were actually talking about why they like or dislike particular hosting companies something and that made a lot of sense.

Prices for Hostgator hosting (2022 Deals)

Here is a list of the pricing for all the shared hosting plans based on a monthly basis.

· Hatchling: Perfect for single blog (4.95$/mo)

· Baby Plan: Perfect for multiple Blogs ( 7.95$/mo)

· Business: Multiple Blogs + Private IP + Toll free Number (12.95$/mo)

Special deal 2.95 a month

By using different webmaster forums to find which hosting companies other people preferred to use, I found out that apart from Bluehost and Godaddy and other hosters – the overall verdict was Hostgator.

HostGator uses cPanel, the most used control panel. You don’t need the help of a geek to use it as its quiet straightforward and simple . It provides everything you need. It is important to have a user friendly interface and these one-click script installers are a boon to all newbies who do not have much experience with these platforms. 1 Click install can help you create a blog in 10 to 15 minutes

The cPanel dashboard is user-friendly and there is a Live chat support available 24/7. You can also contact Hosgtagor on their customer support hotline: 1-866-96-GATOR.

If you are happy to be more adventurous and choose something other than WordPress for your website, you can also use your hostgator hosting account to install JOOMLA, DRUPAL or MAGENTO (which are all website software similar to wordpress)

Joomla Hosting

HostGator fully supports Joomla, a very powerful and customizable CMS. A wide variety of plugins allow for increased functionality, ensuring your website remains scalable and dynamic for years to come.

Magento Hosting

Start selling online today with your own E-commerce store powered by HostGator and Magento. HostGator’s Business plan gives you everything you need to automatically install Magento, as well as a free dedicated IP and private SSL to accept credit card transactions right from your website.

Drupal Hosting

Develop your website on the Drupal CMS with HostGator! Drupal provides a high level of customization and control over the look and feel of you site. The numerous themes and plugins that are available allow for nearly limitless options.

Features Comparison- Plans and Pricing

HostGator has three web hosting plans, namely the hatching plan, the baby plan and the business plan. The hatchling plan being the basic one which allows you to host only one domain, while the rest can host unlimited domains.

The other good option I liked over here at hostgator was that Customers are not required to sign up for any contract longer than month to month service. They also have Web Hosting With support 24/7 Support Via Phone, Live Chat, and Email!

I also found out that According to Inc. Magazine, HostGator it is the 21st fastest growing private company in America With their current pricing it looks quite good as well –> Unlimited Domain Hosting Only $9.95 a Month so I decided to give them a shot.

Here is one of thier recent promo ad pictures.

DEAL: 20 % off promo On Hostgator

And their penny offer Below

[coupon provided might be outdated – Click image to check latest offer]
Cheap and reliable Web Hosting With Quality Support I have recommended to my blogging friends to host with hostgator and let me tell you, as a web blogger, what a joy it is to work with a hosting service where everything works so well!

More info => for the Geeks On thier servers and features

Detailed feature list of hostage servers

It does not matter if you take Linux or windows hosting package , both support word press hosting

Shared Web Hosting – Linux

Affordable and basic hosting
Hatchling, Baby, Business
Linux server only – perfect for WordPress
1 cPanel but no WHM
Limited to 1 IP and 1 SSL
Private name servers not allowed
No branding
LAMP = Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (includes mod_rewrite)
Limited to 25% use of server resources
25 simultaneous processes
HTTP video and audio streaming only
Maximum of 500 outgoing emails per hour per domain (Addon domains count as separate domains)
30 POP/IMAP checks per hour for your connecting IP address
HostGator creates weekly backups ($15 to request)
Jailed shell access (SSH)

Shared Web Hosting – Windows

Affordable and basic hosting
Personal and Enterprise
Windows server – perfect for ASP.NET
Latest version of Plesk
Private name servers not allowed
No branding
Limited to 25% use of server resources
25 simultaneous processes
HTTP video and audio streaming only
Maximum of 500 outgoing emails per hour per domain (Addon domains count as separate domains)
30 POP/IMAP checks per hour for your connecting IP address
HostGator creates weekly backups ($15 to request)
No Remote Desktop (No RDP)

Virtual Private Servers (VPS) – Linux

Very much like a dedicated server, but costs less and share the resources
Root access
Install advanced software
Customize anything (flexibility in software installations / apache configurations / other custom software like ventrilo and ffmpeg)
Use as basic hosting or host others for profit
Perfect for multiple e-commerce websites
Plans with cPanel or Plesk are managed
Plans without cPanel and Plesk are unmanaged
Linux server only – perfect for WordPress
Unlimited cPanel’s and unlimited WHM’s
1 root WHM (allows selling of reseller accounts)
Unlimited potential for IP’s and SSL’s
Private name servers required
Branding available for cPanel and WHM
LAMP = Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (includes mod_rewrite)
Limited to 100% use of container/plan resources (VPS is still limited to a specified percentage of the server, this is not a solution to overly resource-intensive accounts and heavy traffic)
Unlimited simultaneous processes
Live video and audio streaming allowed (webcams, radio, television)
UNLIMITED outgoing emails per hour per domain
No POP/IMAP checking limits
HostGator creates weekly backups ($15 to request)
You can schedule your own automated backups
Normal shell access (root SSH)

You might Have noticed that I put presidium as (left) on the top, that is because I am not with them anymore. Thier starting deal is good , but when renewal happens at the high price it becomes unaffordable , but their service is great and they offer a free move of your website to their servers. Check their current deal here

SEO Hosting

Please contact SEO Hosting directly to find out what their current plans offer.

SEO Hosting now has its own support team!

Visit the SEO Hosting website for contact information, including a new phone number (866-692-9231) and updated chat support buttons.

HostGator staff no longer has access to SEO Hosting accounts and all future support requests should be sent to the new SEO Hosting Support Team.

Top 1click install webhosting software to build websites in 2020

January 7, 2019 by admin 5 Comments

A website hosting company is as good as the services it provides to its customer. To compare from the best of the best, you need to know if they provide good speed, bandwidth, 1 click install, enough disk space and good customer service to get value for money.

I have a hosting account with most of the webhosts featured over here at some stage and listed them comparing all these essential web hosting features. While not all of them listed here in below table are Australian based hosting, most of the companies are US based servicing clients on a global basis. I prefer US based hosts as they are cheaper have multiple upgrade hosting options available compared to aussie hosts and have a better custom or standard cpanel dashboard for administering and building your website.

The software and quality of the web-hosting company you choose can have a substantial impact on your success online and so it is important to start with the right choice.

Below is a Quick top 3, I recommend if you are on a budget and just starting!

WebHosting Co.

Price

Domain Free

Servers

Bandwidth

Offer

Bluehost bluehost canada

$2.75-12.95 USD

Free

Shared
Dedicated
VPS
Cloud

Unlimited

Go to site

Godaddy

$5.49-10.99 AUD

Free

Cloud
Dedicated
VPS
Shared

Unmetered

Go to site

Hostgator

$2.75-5.95 USD

From $0.95/year

Cloud
Dedicated
VPS

Unlimited

Go to site

Before I started my blog I pussyfooted around a lot as to where to get my blog hosting from and finally decided to get it from a US web Hosting company, even though my blog is based in Australia and Australian focussed, it was because of the huge price difference.

The other factor that eventually supported my decision was that you will get a lot of US traffic to your blog even if your blog or website is Australian focused and Australian based, so it does benefit speed wise for your website loading faster to viewers in both countries.

Some features that are desirable in a hosting provider:

Unlimited domain hosting – you can host multiple domains names (www) in 1 hosting account (which means you can have more than one website in one account). The cheaper plans normally don’t provide this, but if your lucky you still can get a shared plan within $5 and under that provides you with the ability to host multiple blogs under one shared package.

Free Site builder Or wordpress support– All providers support wordpress, but not all have an inbuilt site builder. If you’re building a website with wordpress ( which is what I recommend) then you don’t need a site builder included as its easy and quick to build a website with wordpress.

Email Account: Not all providers give you an email account with your domain name, but most of them listed here do so. So if you got a website blahblah.com then you would be able to get an email such as yourname@blahblah.com for yourself for free. It is important to get a domain email to look more professional

Uptime Guarantee – You don’t want your hosting-company having downtime, which means you are paying them for hosting your website and their servers are overloaded and crashing all the time and so your website is not showing to your viewers or its just taking ages to load because of bad slow servers – not good. Most of the providers listed here have 99.9 % uptime. Page speed and load time are important.

Comparison of website hosting /Blog hosting

Below are some of the top hosting providers in the website and blogging industry, which also include a few which I am currently using with my affiliate referral and discount links. These are well known to established and pro bloggers, with most of these providers already in this industry for more than 10+ years.

The below list focuses more on starter plans featuring shared hosting packages $1 to 5.95 a month ( cheap web hosting ) compared to providers with VPS hosts and premium hosting packages that can range from $29 to $65 a month.

Below I am comparing hosting packages from many hosting providers to find the best features for your website at the best price for your budget

I have written a Recommended against the providers, for the ones I think I would readily sign up for a second account right now.

Speed 90% 90%
Price 87% 87%
1 Click Install 100% 100%
Service 85% 85%

“Bluehost shared hosting prices are reasonably priced, and they are one of the earlier adopters of 1 click install so that you can setup a wordpress blog in minutes. They provide good customer support and have upgrade options to make your journey future proof when you grow with your website.”

— Shoutaloud.com September, 2018

Bluehost Hosting (Recommended)

Website: www.bluehost.com

Price:$ 7.99 Now $3.95 a month (54%off Link)

[ 2018 deal ]: Cloud Sites ~~$9.99~~ $6.95 a month

unlimited domain hosting
unlimited hosting space
unlimited file transfer
unlimited email accounts
free domain name
free site builder w/ templates
free instant set-up

Plus Point:

One click Easy Word press installation

Updated NEW Fast Servers

Special Bonus:

~~60%~~ 54% Percent off Bluehost Hosting Special deal for 2018

Deal just updated – It’s not often that you get such a good hosting offer from Bluehost at 54 % off. The price – It’s an amazing $3.95 a month for 12/24/36 months just for Digitalgrog Blog Readers. Bluehost supports multiple website software and have auto 1 click install for 25 + website software including CMS, WordPress, Joomla, Picture galleries and more which allows you to get your website up and working quickly and easily. Get the latest deal below.

Get Todays Deal!

Speed 95% 95%
Price 60% 60%
1 Click Install 70% 70%
Service 90% 90%

“WP Engine scored highest in the area of cloud capabilities.”

- Gartner, for Web Content Management Systems 2018

WP-Engine Hosting (Recommended fast hosting)

Website: www.wpengine.com

WP Engine (recommended)Starter Plan $35 a Month
[Wp engine has fast wordPress with baked in CDN]

1 website
25k Visits a month
50 GB bandwidth
CDN & SSL(https) included
Migration is done free
Page performance free
Powerful tools available

Plus Point:

Get two months free with annual prepay

Managed wordpress platform for performance

WPEngine Discount offer!

Speed 85% 85%
Price 80% 80%
1 Click Install 87% 87%
Service 67% 67%

“Hostgator prices are reasonably low, and they provide great customer service. That means no outsourcing customer support to other countries, which naturally makes their representatives easier to follow for global users.”

— aus.pccomputermag.com September, 2018

Hostgator (Recommended)

Website: www.hostgator.com

25% off Now @ $3.95 a month(25% off discount link)

Hostgator 1 Penny offer – click here

(Create A Website For Just One Cent For Your First Month! Use Coupon: 1CENT.)

Unlimited Disk Space
Unlimited Bandwidth
Easy Control Panel
1-CLICK Script Installs
99.9% Uptime Guarantee
24/7/365 Technical Support

Plus Point:

Reliable and stress free hosting

Good support

Get Gator Deal!

Speed 65% 65%
Price 99% 99%
1 Click Install 99% 99%
Service 77% 77%

Godaddy (Recommended)

Website Builder Deals:

Website: www.godaddy.com

Price: AUS$ – A$.99*.Com Domain – Get it here with Godaddy

$1.00 Deal (normally$10.99) – Click Here

Easily create your own website
Free Hosting and Unlimited pages
Beautiful, customizable designs
Free Domain with the annual plan
Award-winning 24/7 technical support
*99.9% uptime guarantee
.com.au domain $7.49 a year (limited time)

Plus Point:

They stand out with special deals often at 99 cents for domain and $1 month for hosting with a free domain name thrown in for the initial year. They also offer free USD $100 Bing Ad Credits and Free USD $50 Facebook business promotion Ad Credit with some restrictions applied.

Has Good 24/7 US-based phone support and many other blogger related services, like cheap domains, domain name privacy, SSL security certificates, Cheap domain names and ability to sell your domain name via their auctions.

Godaddy Specials

Speed 87% 87%
Price 90% 90%
1 Click Install 90% 90%
Service 77% 77%

Hostmonster

Website: www.hostmonster.com

Price: $4.95 a Month

[ Get Hostmonster Deal Here Coupon: Gimmemore ]

Unlimited Space & Bandwidth
Free Domain
Unlimited Domain Hosting
Free Site Builders
Unlimited Email Accounts
Free Online Store
WordPress, Gallery and More
cPanel Interface

I’m a bit in favour to Hostmonster with their service speed and other ratings, as I had a blog for 7 years on their platform and never really had a problem. If you really want good speed and your blog to flourish, I would recommend their pro plan at approximate $14 .95 a month to whihc I had upgraded – rather than their budget shared plan starting at $4.95

Hostmonster’s this $14.95 package compares well to some of the premium hosts pricing of $29 to $39 that is offered elsewhere as premium fast hosting.

Hostmonster Deal

Speed 91% 91%
Price 85% 85%
1 Click Install 80% 80%
Service 74% 74%

Dreamhost

Website: www.dreamhost.com

Price: ~~Normally$9.95 a month ($119.40 yearly)~~

www.dreamhost.com

Our Current promo offer:$7.95 a month($95.40 yearly

+ Free lifetime domain registration (use this promo code: startwebsite )

*promo code also applies to two-year plans purchased

*This promo code adds 1 extra FREE lifetime domain registration to any plan signed up for with it!

Unlimited storage.
Unlimited bandwidth.
Free Domain Name!
cPanel cloud platform
SSD based storage
24/7 x 365-day support

They also provide VPS Servers

Our Digitalgrog Dreamsaver Deal >> $50 off hosting offer

Dream Deals

Speed 72% 72%
Price 74% 74%
1 Click Install 70% 70%
Service 76% 76%

Digitalpacific

Price: $4.90 Month

Limited storage 1 GB
Limited bandwidth. 10 GB
1 click install available but excluding personal basic plan
Unknown: If all plans support Word press and other blog software!

Browse Offers

Speed 78% 78%
Price 60% 60%
1 Click Install 65% 65%
Service 78% 78%

Netregistry

net registry aussie webhsot

Website: http://www.netregistry.com.au

Price: $9.95 month

Free website builder
Limited 5 GB Storage
Supports WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento and more
Local data centreUnlimited 24×7 support

Smartyhost was taken over by Netregistry

Registry Deals!

Speed 81% 81%
Price 60% 60%
1 Click Install 65% 65%
Service 78% 78%

Melbourne IT

Website: https://www.melbourneit.com.au/

Price: $27.95 a month to $99.95 a month for cloud hosting and CPanel Hosting @ $12.95 a month.

Melbourne IT is one of Australia’s oldest domain provider and also provides hosting for websites. They have now got cloud hosting which is a bit pricier than shared hosting and supports wordpress, Joomla and Drupal.

MELB IT DEALS!

Speed 65% 65%
Price 60% 60%
1 Click Install 55% 55%
Service 78% 78%

WPhosting

Website: www.wphosting.com.au

Price: $19 a month
Australian Secure, scalable and rock solid hosting for your WordPress powered website

10 GB Bandwidth
1 GB Disk space
99% uptime guarantee
Daily backups

WP Deals

Bomerang Hosting

Website: www.bomeranghosting.com

Price: Sale $6.99 Month (normally$9.99 month

1 Website
100 GB Space
Unlimited Bandwidth
100 Email Accounts
10 MySQL Databases (1 GB ea.)

Deluxe Plan($8.99 Month)

Unlimited Websites
Unlimited Storage
Unlimited bandwidth
500 Email Addresses
Award-winning 24/7 technical support

Use coupon code: Boom2018 for discounts in 2018

Loading speed of your website among other ranking factors is a big factor, for your website or blog and so choosing a hosting company that meets all the essential criteria for your website is important. SSD storage is a new feature that can improve site speed but not as much important compared to other factors.

It is necessary for your hosting solution provider to have a variety of shared hosting plans as well as dedicated server packages for when you want to upgrade.

FREE Domain Name with Webhosting?

Our list above compares local hosting or buying a hosting service for your website, but if you have not purchased a domain name yet – I recommend two providers.

The one I use is Godaddy.com (one of the best) for mainly domain names purchasing and if you are getting hosting from one of the providers above, sometimes you also get a free domain with the webhosting package. free domain name

The other one is Bluehost who also offer a free domain name with their shared $3.95 webhosting plan. They fall into the category of “cheap hosting” and “shared web hosting” for their competitive prices offered and are recommended by wordpress.org as well.

If you intend to get multiple domain names over a period of time, I would suggest Go Daddy as they also provide transfer of domains from other registrars, plus many blogging/website related services all in one place. They have good host & domains promo offers on a regular basis and has 24/7 US phone support.

Today there are a growing trend of new types of website-hosting including cloud hosting and green hosting, however for beginner blogs the shared plans to be the most popular mainly based on price factor.

The information and listing given above is generally what you will need to get started with a hosting company and choose a suitable hosting provider, but if you want to research a bit further, do read on and I will provide more general information on wordpress hosting

How to Choose the Best WordPress Hosting?

linux vs windows wp hosts

There are various different types of WordPress hosting options available such as Free, Shared, VPS, Dedicated, and Managed WordPress hosting. Generally, the shared hosting is one of the cheapest hosting-options ($3 to $5 a month) available and this should be suitable for most beginners in blogging or people starting a website.

If you are looking to start an online shop you can still use wordpress + woocommerce option, but a fully automated online shop solution is better supported with a Shopify solution. SSL certificates are also a important feature to have with eCommerce sites. Godaddy has a wide range of types of SSL certificates with different security levels that they sell. Content Delivery Network (CDN) and Cloudflare would also be a good addon to consider if your hosting an online store.

The above listings are all shared hosting plan prices, with most of them also offering VPS or Dedicated hosting. Most Shared hosting plans easily handles traffic anywhere from 1000 to 4000 visits a day to your website without any problems or slowness.

Once you are getting over 2000 visits a day you can easily generate some money from the traffic either from AdSense or other methods, and it’s time for you to consider moving to a more optimised hosting provider anyway to get the most from your blog traffic.

If you Are getting more than 2,000 to 4,000 Unique visits a day to your blog, it is worth checking out a CDN or then even VPS or Dedicated server hosting. When traffic gets this big on your blog it is wise to do regular speed testing, check uptime and have DDos protection enabled for further security.

The technical Bits – So what is Linux hosting Vs windows hosting

To most people, this won’t matter, unless your more technical minded and worry if your hosting uses Linux hosting or windows hosting. But irrespective of type, both of them do the job efficiently for your website.

Linux and windows are just two different server systems or software which hold your website files and make it all work. Both Windows and Linux support the popular wordpress blogging platform and other website software, however wordpress is more popularly supported by Linux.

The only difference between the hosting type is, if it is virtual private server or dedicated hosting server or shared web hosting with virtual and dedicated normally being a bit faster in speed and pricier.

Most providers give you a custom control admin panel or cpanel which makes managing the backend of your website easy anyway, so it doesn’t matter if its windows or Linux based solution.

Know Your Server and Software

web disk space server

Control panel – A cpanel control panel is very easy to navigate and do admin things on the backend of your hosting panel, so if they have this its a plus for you. Most packages have a control panel/cpanel

Google AdWords – Google/Facebook or Bing Adwords Free bonus provided with a plan is a good bonus to start some free advertising on the search engines for your website. This can be used to get some free advertising traffic to your website when you start.

1 click install – I click install makes it easy to install wordpress quickly and easily. This is the preferred blogging software among bloggers.

Unlimited Bandwidth – Bandwidth is an important deciding factor for speed and loading of your website, so an unlimited plan is good for your website, but not necessary if you would be hosting just a few websites on your plan and not like 20 to 50 websites on one plan.

Unlimited Disk space – This feature varies from provider to provider and if you get unlimited disk space then its a bonus, however most plans are sufficient to run many blogs in one plan. The disk space if the storage for your files that make up your website.

Loading Speed – Speed of your blog or business website can impact if more people end up visiting your website or not. This can get more important as your website grows. Shared servers are good for a start, but when you grow it would be good to have optimised servers with nginx customised infrastructure with caching and CDN if possible to maximise loading speed of your website.

VPS Hosting – This though similar to dedicated hosting is different and is a virtual server. If your hosting solution company have this product when your traffic reaches thousands of viewers a day, this is a good upgrade option to grow from your cheap starter plans. Most hosting companies offer dedicated hosting as well as virtual private server hosting as an upgrade plan.

Phone support vs Live chat – This is good to have instant online support from your hosting company. Rather than pick up that phone and call, you can just have an online chat with a support officer to get support and help.

Renewal rates – Make sure their renewal rates after the first year is not a rip-off. Most providers if they give a cheap inaugural price discount offer, it will usually default to standard pricing after the contract ends/renewal or 1st year – so be aware of this.

Hosting options : Managed WordPress Vs Cloud hosts – Cloud hosting is a new concept and is convenient for new websites with high bandwidth needs as resources can be more easily allocated and upgraded as per needs. Managed WP hosting is good as its speedier than normal plans due to customs server infrastructure that is optimised for better speeds. They normally use nginx, custom caching and advanced server configurations with PHP and CDN.

Linux or windows hosting – Most hosts use Linux hosting for blogging, but it really does not matter, if you just want to run a normal website or blog or online shop.

Support for Blogging software – Make sure it supports at least at the minimum wordpress and also Joomla and Drupal. As these other two are good website alternatives if you think wordpress is not your thing.

Reseller Hosting – This is not really needed when you start your website, but if the provider you sign up offers reseller hosting and you are happy with their service, you can set up your own hosting shop with your own brand name and sell their services. Godaddy offers white label reselling of their hosting and domain name services.

Money back guarantee – Most good hosting companies offer a a moneyback guarantee for their plans from the range of 30 days to 90 days. If they include a free domain name in their plan you might need to process a refund for that as well, but I personally have never had to take a refund so far with the above hosts.

[ Disclosure: Digitalgrog.com.au is a Bluehost/ Hostgator/Hostmonster/ Godaddy / Dreamhost/ Ipage affiliate partner and we also have hosting accounts with these services, which means that in addition to using their service, we also receive a commission for referring new customers. To be fair, though, we would still use any of these Hosting services, but do have a preference for some and so we have done a full review of all the hosting partners we use. Ergo, we don’t recommend Bluehost or any featured host just because we’re an affiliate (every hosting company offers a similar affiliate program and you could pick any of them ), but we recommend Bluehost because they are the best, most reliable option. Plus, because we’re a partner, Bluehost offers a special price for digitalgrog.com.au readers: only $3.95 a month and you already have our GoDaddy $1 special above. That’s a phenomenal price. Links provided above will take you to the latest updated promo deals. Feel free to pick which host suits your budget or preference and good luck 🙂 ]

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Starting a Blog for Making Money Online in 2019

January 10, 2018 by admin 61 Comments

Recently I wrote a extensive post on “how to blog successfully and make your blog popular” , and I received a quite a few questions from new bloggers, who are just getting into the blogging game asking me “How do they make money and start with blogging“. [updated 28 March 2019]

The short story is, that you will need a “Australian WordPress hosting” account and a good “WordPress Design Theme” to truly blog with freedom attract your audience and grow your traffic to your blog.

Making Money from blogging

Making money from blogs is not easy today, it used to be easy at one part of time but now everybody and their dog is in the game.

Today the blogging world is kinda saturated with mom bloggers, business bloggers, fashion bloggers, travel bloggers and all sorta bloggers ( my dog is a princess bloggers).

So you pick any damn niche and you already got competition.

It’s a struggle to survive – if your already in the game

What google says about what a blog is – “A blog is a website, where you write stuff on an ongoing basis” – I really like this simple and to the point definition.

Look and search everywhere, but there is no magic mantra or magic bullet for a Sucessful Blog.

In addition, google keeps changing the goal posts with annoying algorithm updates that keep bugging SEO’s and bloggers.

Every year there is something new with google requirements to be popular in their search engine , like now you need a https website for security, your website design needs to be responsive, you need amp and what not.

Its harder and costlier to make money every year.

What you should do to become popular online ?

You should definitely get your blog a USP (Unique Selling Point) to stay on top of your competition.

If you get this right you will get blog viewers, likes and sharing of your content, which will surely get your blog traffic coming back to you on a regular basis.

This will also encourage your viewers to subscribe to your email list and also people to comment on your blog, which all creates a buzz around your blog.

These all work together in your favour and also help you #rank in google search

Trust me people commenting on your posts or on the blog and contacting you via your contact me button is a sure sign of you becoming more popular (or in some cases unpopular) in your blogging journey.

When you write quality interesting content better than most other blogs, have a professional looking designed website and you share your top written content in the right social media channels and forums – Your blog will soon get noticed and be on its way to being successful.

If all of this happens a lot (people interacting , commenting , likes on facebook, sharing your posts) and it happens more often, then your on your weay to becoming a blogging superstar so to speak and you don’t have to chase money, but the money will chase you sooner or later.

This shows people are listening(reading) to you, want to interact with you and you have become bit of a influencer, and companies and brands love that.

This is a sure sign of achieving success and if you get all these above tips/hints correct and implement it, you will be lucky and will surely succeed. If your luckier than most other bloggers/instagrammer’s then brands will also approach you.

Success surely involves one important thing in these times and that is making authoritative and quality content and getting the word spread about that “Epic Content” you just created to the blogosphere.

You do this by getting it shared on social media ( Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Linked in) and also getting mentioned by popular people of note in your blog niche.

Today many people do outreach to amplify their best content and get it shared online and this can work for you as well. Its not hard to do, outreach can be done by yourself or then you can hire an agency to do it.

Influencer’s are kinda getting big right now on the Instagram platform. Some popular infleuncers get paid quite well if they have a huge following and can earn even more than a full time job.

However Blogging aint getting any easier, so don’t expect the great Matt Mullenweg of wordpress or Matt cutts of google to help you out with this. This job will have to be done by you – by doing the hard yards.

There is another option to speed things up, I would recommend learning from a experienced blogger who is already earning income online. I have got an online tutorial if you want to get started today atleast getting your blog online as a start.

In relation to making money online, I would recommend Rosalind Gardner who is a super affiliate and has helped many into their online affiliate marketing careers, she has an in-depth affiliate guide called – “Super Affiliate: How I Made $436,797 In One Year which covers how to start Your Own Home-based Affiliate Marketing Business.

These guides will surely teach you how to go about and start earning with affiliate marketing or increase your existing blog income

Keeping on top of competition, also involves churning out regular awesome content, sharing it on social media, doing proper SEO so that the content shines, promoting the blog and updating it regularly to match what google search engine needs(SEO) to keep it ranked high on their search engines.

My Post of

“The 3 Steps to Setting Up a Popular and Successful Blog”

just got published at dailyblogtips.com, so you might wanna check out this extensive post to get some tips on – How to get a successful blog going!

For People Looking to Start a blog

Luckily there are quite a few free platforms that help you start out on blogging totally free and so you can start your blog without spending money.

Free Blog Platforms is not my recommended way of starting a blog if your really serious about blogging, but if your cash strapped then you can surely take advantage of this method and get started.

Most successful bloggers would have used these free bloggin services at some part of time or maybe even when they started their new bogging journey. WordPress.com offers free as well as paid options for a website, but if your after self hosted which is most suitable for making money with affiliate offers then the below offer might be more useful.

But, if you can afford a reasonable >> $3.49 hosting a month for a brand new self hosted wordpress blog. I would recommend this as a preferred starting platform. Not only you will have 100 % ownership of your own blog , you dont have the risk of ban or deletion of your website by google / tumblr /wordpress.com (whichever platform you decide to go with)

My recommended service for a self hosted blog is the wordpress software and the recommended service provider is Bluehost hosting. Below is a link to my blog post

With Bluehost WebHosting you get both Hosting and domain name , plus a 1 click install option to get your wordpress blog installed quickly.

The WordPress CMS is recommended, because it is one of the most versatile website software which give you 100 % flexibility in design. It also has awesome flexibility in functionality which can be added if needed with heaps of plugins , WP themes and tutorials available online. Your website can be designed with easy install themes to make it look , just like any professional website. It is also one of the easiest to use blog/website software.

Bluehost hosting , I recommend because I have had blogs on their servers for ages, besides they also have a 1 click install which is so easy to install a website or blog in minutes, just by following their install prompts.

Below is a current deal for you from my blog as I am an affiliate partner with them

Special Promotion Offer for 2019 from Digital Grog + (BLUEHOST)

Special Feb/March bonus, My readers can enjoy the ultimate steal of ~~$7.99~~ $3.95/mo on the shared hosting plan (this promo is for a limited time! – Get it here )

+ offer, $3.49/mo for 36 months (link here) on the Basic Plan.

A self hosted wordpress blog is a website that your run on your purchased hosting account and have full freedom over this website.

Most hosting companies provide a 1 click install nowadays to get your self hosted blog set up easily.

Getting a self hosted wordpress blog will also avoid the hassle of moving your blog later on which every free blogger does eventually.

Because for sure, if you sign up with a free service like blogspot or tumblr or wordpress.com, you will move sooner or later to a self hosted wordpress blog like most professional bloggers do.

This normally happens when they realise the constraints and limitations of using a free blog service or getting a blog deleted for a policy violation.

However, choosing what blog service you want to start with is totally upto you and so are below are some free blogging hosts listed for you.

WordPress.com (or from wordpress.org)

WordPress.org is one of the largest self-hosted blogging tool and software in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day. You can check out their features here and get a free or Premium blog at wordpress.com

Get a free or paid wordpress blog here

Blogger.com ( from Google)

Blogger is free blogging platform by google.com with a host of features to make blogging as simple and effective as possible. You will need a google account or gmail account or then just create one for free when registering with blogger.com

Get a free Blogger blog here

Tumblr.com

Tumblr is a mini blogging or micro blogging service and lets you effortlessly share anything, Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos from your browser, phone, desktop, email.

Get a free Tumblr blog here

These three services are free to use and if you get real popular fast you will have the option of breaking out or branching out from their services to transfer your blog to a paid server.

Most people when it is time to upgrade, move to self hosted wordpress platform with their own custom domain name and webhosting.

As I said before , if you don’t want the hassle of moving hosts and your blog later when you get more traffic on your blog and start to earn some revenue, then I would recommend for you to sign up with Self hosted blog choosing a hosting company with 1 click install to get your blog started. Here are some price comparisons for hosting companies.

Intro – Digital Grog Blog Video

Review of website –> Hosting 2019 ( Best WordPress Host Providers)

Website Hosting 2019 Australia

However, just starting a blog is not sufficient to make money and the best way to ensure you are doing this the right way is to get the right training right from the start. This ensures that you dont have to waste time figuring things out and can start earning money quicker.

There are not many brick and mortar university courses that teach you how to earn money on-line and the online courses that are available are for specific niches like social media marketing, web design and on-line marketing.

The on-line marketing course available in these universities go though the traditional approach and basic concepts of on-line marketing, but is often outdated as this subject matter changes rapidly.

It is best to take a course from a on-line marketing agency that is currently practising this in the market and that is why I recommend Rosalind Gardner who is a super affiliate and has helped many into their online affiliate marketing careers, she has an indepth affiliate guide called – “Super Affiliate: How I Made $436,797 In One Year which covers how to start Your Own Home-based Affiliate Marketing Business.

There is also Affilorama By Mark ling and click bank university .

Clickbank is one of the largest marketplace for digital products and has made many millionaires.

These courses, not only provide you training to earn money on-line as a affiliate (selling other peoples products through your blog/website) but also trains you for making and launching your own product and promoting it.

Some more Useful internet marketing courses

Step by step Instructions to start a WordPress blog

If you don’t have a blog yet and you are ready to get started today with a wordpress website, then you might want to check my tutorial post with step by step instructions on starting a website over here – https://www.digitalgrog.com.au/australia/starting-a-tech-blog-in-six-easy-steps/. This post will give you a step by step break down of how to start your own WordPress blog today with bluehost webhosting.

You can start by choosing a good domain name with our domain checker tool below

More tools : Bluehost Domain Checker

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How to make money with a wordpress blog

No one is going to give away all their secrets for this one. But i can atleast point you int he right direction. Here are some tried and tested methods to make money with your website.

Google Adsense

This is one method whihc needs the least effort to make some money, but will also pay peanuts if you dont have much traffic to your blog or if your blog is in a niche where you cant earn much.

Affiliate Income

This is where many blogs earn top dollar, by promoting products in the niche they are bloggin about to their audience.

Fashion bloggers can earn thousands of dollars promoting the right brands. Technology bloggers can earn thousands of dollars promoting technology and gadgets. Food bloggers can earn hundreds of dollars promoting products in their niche.

I have seen many people in all of these mentioned niches doing anywhere from $2,000 to $40,000 a month in revenue.

Ecommerce shop

This is a new trend where people are creating their own products and selling on platforms like shopify – online shops.

They are many people not stock/products on hand, but selling stuff online and getting it shipped directly to customers from vendors in china, while making a nice commission with no inventory, this is also called drop shipping.

Amazon Niche Websites (Amazon affiliate)

This income stream has taken off in the last couple of years. They are bloggers who write articles on certain niches. example fishing lures.

The bloggers then have links to fishing products from amazon on their website. when a viewer purchase a product from amazon, they earn a commission for advertising that product on their website and making a sale.

While all these methods are good, there is one basic thing they need to make money – Qualified leads or targeted traffic to your website.

If you are getting the right people coming to your website who are interested in your products, you will be making sales.

Targeted Traffic with Advertising

One way to get quick targeted traffic is online advertising with the search engines themselves. I suggest Bing adwords as they are cheaper and more flexible with their ads. Here are some free started coupons worth $50 to get you started.

With search engine advertising you can make unlimited money if you get your advertising right.

New Business and website customers in the following markets receive free search adverting credits to help them get started:

US – $50 in Bing Ads credit –
Canada (English and French)- $50 in Bing Ads credit –
UK – £50 in Bing Ads credit –
France – €50 in Bing Ads credit
Germany – €50 in Bing Ads credit
Brazil – R$60 in Bing Ads credit
Australia – $40 in Bing Ads credit –
New Zealand – $40 in Bing Ads credit –
India – Rs1000 in Bing Ads credit –
Spain – €50 in Bing Ads credit ( New market!) –
Italy – €50 in Bing Ads credit (New market!) –

Other methods for targeted traffic is as I have said before – SEO for your website, awesome content on your site/shop or blog, promotion on social media by you or a hired agency – which will get you on your road to success.

If all this is not your cup of tea and you would just rather doe something quick and earn money , then maybe you need to check these survey websites out here “Make money surveys – Australia” or iSurveyWorld Surveys (Australia) and just fill out surveys and make some money online.

Good luck!

Top picks for Blog Website Hosting for Australians in 2019

October 8, 2017 by admin 92 Comments

Post updated for 2019. Now I do know, that there are some good aussie web hosts in Australia , but if you are starting out with a new website or blogging site and need some cheap hosting then it would be wise to do research before buying your webhosting.

I have used a mix of aussie hosts and US based web-hosting providers in my list below and prices for blogging software and web-hosting can certainly differ a lot between these hosts.

US web-hosts can be quite competitive and affordable compared to some of our local Australian companies.

I posted this price table below in 2017, but prices and features have been regularly updated. [ This post was updated on 09 January 2018 ]

Affordable Wordpress Hosting in Australia

I got this question asked to me on this blog ..

“I am planning to start a blog, most likely using the wordpress blogging platform and I am looking for a good web host (Australian preferable since most of my content will be for Australians).

– I have received many similar questions since then – so I decided to do this post

I have purchased .com.au domains from smarty host (local aussie provider –now netregistry) when I started my bloggin journey, they used to provide a website hosting service as well which i never tested out .

Net-registry are pretty good with their domain names service, however if you want to compare Australian web hosting prices against the US based providers. Some of the US based providers are definitely more affordable even with domain name prices(check my blog post where I recently bought .au domain name from Godaddy at a nice discount price here).

Godaddy also sell SSL certificates which help you secure your website and get https in your url (this help in ranking your website). Their custom plans also feature SSD hard drives now.

Below, I will also include smarty host(netregistry) in my comparison chart for Australian + US hosting providers packages.

Dedicated servers are not listed as they are more pricey and only shared plans which are affordable have been featured here for bloggers and beginner websites .

I will rank them in order of my ratings and preference with the best at the top of this list as per my experience with them, except for smarty host who I don’t use for hosting but just domain names – who is right at the top.

I have been using the rest of the Hosting companies mentioned for the last 10+ years while blogging. Some of these hosting plans listed below, also offer a bonus free domain name.

Australian Vs US hosting Comparison for blogs and websites

To keep it simple I have just added four columns – Click the discount link below to claim the most current discounts
[ninja_tables id=”5733″]

Step 1 – Choosing the Hosting Platform

Most popular blogging platforms Overview

WordPress 60% 60%
Joomla Drupal more 20% 20%
Wix Weebly Squarespace 20% 20%

The figures in bar counter diagram are figures from self hosted managed CMS platforms aggregated from online resources.

The below figures in circle chart are for websites from data received form survey done online.

"Wordpress

WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world and is used by nearly 75 million websites. According to WordPress, more than 409 million people view more than 23.6 billion pages each month and users produce and whopping 69.5 million new posts every month. It also powers more than 25% of the world’s websites.

The first thing to do when you are starting your own website rather than hiring a website designer or web developer, is to get the WordPress platform to build your website.

This platform is regularly updated to keep you safe from hackers and upto date with the latest version of wordpress.

I say this because I have also used Joomla and Drupal website builders which are good content management systems, but they are not as good as the WordPress platform in ease of use and flexibility to customise as per your needs.

The ranking above is based on my use of these service providers based on price, reliability, affordability, up-time, features, ease-of-use, server speed and overall support.

There is always the option to use premuim Australian Web Hosting from good companies like rackspace or crucial, but budget shared US hosting is OK if your are just starting a blog or website.

You can also get an .au domain name and still use US Webhosts to host your Australian webpage.

Above in the chart – Under features, I have updated the ones in green as essential things bloggers would like to have in their hosting plan and the ones in bold black font are the highlights /features of that hosting provider

I have also written more detailed reviews before for some of these web-hosts which can be found below

Why hostgator is good for blog hosting?

Real Reviews on WordPress hosting providers

Dns servers Smartyhost to dreamhost

No daddy or go daddy !! Don’t lose your domain

What is shared hosting?

Shared web hosting is what most people mean when they refer to “web-hosting”. It simply means that many customers’ websites reside on a single web server, and that the server’s resources (CPU and RAM) are shared among every customer account on the machine.

Shared Plans is cheap because many people share one server.

Most shared hosting plans listed above offer free quick install scripts like above in the pic and sometimes also offer free design templates for your webpage, Free domain email, FTP, $100 google adwords bonus and Facebook advertising coupons etc.

Company Overview – Shared Hosting Plan Providers for Blogs

Bluehost.com

Bluehost’s fast and reliable website hosting gives you everything you need to get your website online quickly. Bluehost is a web hosting company owned by Endurance International Group

Key people in bluehost – Matt Heaton (Founder, CEO 2003-2011) Dan Handy (CEO 2011-2015) Mike Olson (CEO 2015-present)

They have servers in Provo, Utah, USA. Bluehost’s uptime is just about perfect (99.98%), well over industry standard which is around 99.90%. Prior to last 6 months

"Bluehost

Hostgator.com

HostGator recently launched their new, premium hosting called HostGator WordPress Cloud.

Founded in a dorm room at Florida Atlantic University by Brent Oxley, HostGator has grown into a leading provider of Shared, Reseller, VPS, and Dedicated web hosting. HostGator is headquartered in Houston and Austin, Texas, with several international offices throughout the globe.

HostGator has been around since 2002, originally founded by Brent Oxley before being acquired a decade later by Endurance International Group (EIG).

"Hostgator

Godaddy.com

Bob Parsons the founder of godaddy is a serial entrepreneur. He sold his first company to Intuit, Inc. in 1994. Three years later Parsons started Jomax Technologies, renaming the company GoDaddy in 1999. In 2000, GoDaddy became an ICANN-accredited domain name registrar. Designated CEO Now: Scott Wagner (Jan 1, 2018).

They have many different kind of plans. While Deluxe and Unlimited WebHosting Plans support and host unlimited Web Sites, owners of single plans may experience periodic decreases in performance once they more than 400 Web Sites.

"Godaddy

Crucial.com

The Sydney-based company has focused on delivering a better experience for customers, with the roll-out of an industry first concept; Managed Google Apps.

Crucial’s roots trace back to a student bedroom in Bondi in 2003 where the company was first formed, and its headcount currently sits at 20 employees before the AVS buy.

"Crucial

Hostmonster.com

HostMonster has been providing hosting solutions to thousands of business and personal web sites since 1996. Our internet hosting package helps businesses and individuals get high-powered service at a fraction of the cost.

Features

Unlimited disk storage
Unlimited domain Hosting
Free drag and drop builder
cPanel Account Control Panel

Hostmonster Deal

Hostmonster : GIMMEMORE Coupon Code

Some of the links on this blog are affiliate links an I might earn a commission from it , rest assured the review is honest and written from my own perspective. The Webhosting features and pricing are as current at the time of writing and links when clicked will update to the most current advertised or discount deal.

I hope, I have helped you in choosing a good hosting provider to get started building your website.

After getting your domain and hosting sorted , there is just one more thing left to complete the picture and make it all come together , which is your blog design and look. A good professional looking wordpress theme is essential for people to get attracted to your blog and also trust and like you blog.

Check out my review post on some of the wordpress theme providers I have been using for a long time.

You can use the free google advertising coupons to boost your website in Google search to get more traffic to your website

Digitalgrog.com.au is a affiliate partner to most of the Hosting services and some other blog related promotion services that I have listed here on my blog and I use, which means that in addition to using their service, we also receive a commission for referring new customers. Digitalgrog is a Bluehost/ Hostgator/ Hostmonster/ Godaddy /Dreamhost/Ipage affiliate partner and we also have purchased accounts with these services

To be fair, though, we still use these services even if we weren’t an affiliate. We don’t recommend any particular host just because we’re an affiliate (every company offers a similar affiliate program), we recommend certain services because they are the best or better more reliable option. Plus, because we’re a partner, these providers offers a special price for Digitalgrog.com.au readers. Get your hosting today and get started.

Because we’re a partner, Bluehost offers a special price for digitalgrog.com.au readers: only $3.95 a month which includes a domain name. We already have our godaddy $1 special offer listed above i.e if you are looking for a cheaper deal.

Links provided above in the table will take you to the latest updated promo and discount deals. Feel free to pick which host suits your budget or preference and good luck to your new start 🙂

Some local reviews ( from whirlpool.com.au)

.com.au, .net.au, .org.au Domain Names

NameScout

I found the cheapest provider to the public at only $59.99 per domain (2 years registration included – I think this is pricey ), they had a really nice site, great functionality (they create redirecting email address’ on their servers that randomly generate so you don’t get spam from who is lookups which is awesome).

Only downside was their customer service, not only they don’t answer emails on weekends, they operate from Barbados, so if you send an email during the day you tend to not get a reply till early the next morning (e.g. 2 am). (Quote: eXtreme)

GoDaddy!

The cheapest I found was which was $7.95 US (on special) but normal price was $8.95 which is still great, and they offer the same management features as most other registrars. Only downside is they have a fair bit of ads on their site (no pop-ups), but since you barely ever visit your registrar it is no problem. I found registration very easy and they customer service was excellent. (Quote: eXtreme)

NameCheap

Namecheap is good: $8.88 US a year for .com, .net, .org and SSl certificates (https in your domain name)
Just registered 2 domains with them – no problems so far. (Quote: pcpowerplay)

Incoming Searches

Should I use an US web host in Australia
Website designing
Website design
Web developers
Domain registrars
How to start a blog Australia
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RELATED ARTICLES

The basics of starting a Blog

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New disruptive cloud Webhosting Company challenges the Billion dollar hosting market

January 9, 2016 by admin 2 Comments

When I recently checked out Craig Fitzpatrick’s new page cloud website building service on Facebook I was surprised by the simplicity of this website building software and yet made aware of how versatile this new technology is. It’s amazing how you can just click and drag and drop and make a website just like that.

The Canadian start up scene is growing in leaps and bounds, just like the Australian start up scene here and this new ground breaking website building technology is just proof of this.In its initial raising page-cloud managed to get $6-million in seed financing from Canadian and U.S. investors – including Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke to get it all started up . Page cloud was also the finalist at TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference this past spring, however they have come a long way since then.

So what is page cloud?

According to their website “PageCloud is the world’s most advanced web editor, a pro tool that brings the experience of Photoshop to the Web”.

In simple words, once you register with them, you can just log into your pagecloud website in your browser and start building your website by dragging pictures, Text etc. from your desktop or laptop onto your browser and make a website. You can also drag an existing website template and then modify it to make a new design for your website or blog.

This technology is best experienced or seen via this introductory video made by founder Craig, which is below

It’s surprising but the team at page cloud is also listening to their new customers and making changes to improve their service every day. Check out their blog to get an update on updates to their service.

Website: http://pagecloud.com/

Their Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pagecloudapp/

Their linked in page : https://www.linkedin.com/company/pagecloud

Twitter: https://twitter.com/pagecloud

[Img from pagecloud blog]

How you could benefit from this new technology ?

For People who want to be in control of their website and design it themselves or maintain it themselves this would be a good easy option. This is also an quick option for developers who don’t want to spend too much time designing new websites but want to give something good in the least possible time frame for their clients

How to get your page cloud website started?

· Purchase a membership/monthly plan with page cloud

· When you create a PageCloud site, it is automatically assigned a name and a public URL of the form: eg. name.pagecloud.com

· Log in and create your website via drag and drop and add content.

· Point your purchased domain name to the page cloud website.

If you got a domain with — > go daddy which is my recommended domain name registrar , then you can follow their detailed domain pointing guide on their website here to point it to pagecloud. Go daddy currently has a cheap 99 cent domain name deal going on , you can get it here.

How does page cloud stack up against other cloud webhosting providers?

There is no doubt about the ease of use of this service, but what about the most important factor -pricing. The monthly fee for this service is priced at $24 a month for 1 site.

I really don’t like the fact that the price still stays the same even if you take a 10 website package @$24 X10 = $240 for 10 sites. We will have to wait and see if they will offer a discount for a bigger website package deal, however their website does offer discount coupons for special deals.

Their refund policy states that they don’t offer any refunds and they will inform you in most cases if they have a problem with your account and need to terminate their services with you for any specified reason.

Drag and drop website building is not really new, with popular website creation companies like www.wix.com and www.weebly.com and www.squarespace.com who are already operating in this space, but page cloud has upped the game a bit with actually allowing you to drag n drop edit and create a website right from your browser.

These more established providers provide free trials of their service which can be a good thing to test things out. The most important bit after checking features offered is pricing and so we will compare pricing below.

Wix Comparison

Wix offers a free trial for their service and charges $4.08 a month for their most basic “connect domain plan” which displays wix ads on your website, so this in most probably not appropriate if you are serious about your website or then starting a business. Their $8.25 Combo plan for personal use is good starter plan and you get a domain free for 1 year. Check out their updated pricing + more plans and detailed features + terms of use here.

Weebly Comparison

Weebly also offers free trial of their service, you can create unlimited pages and host your site for free. For their $8 a month starter plan, you can get a nice website and get rid of their weebly ads on your website, get site stats and also a free bonus domain name for 1 year. Check here for updated pricing plans and more features here.

Squarespace Comparison

Squarespace offer s 14 day trial for their service. They have an $8 a month plan (billed annually) for their starter plan. They also have a monthly plan, but fees increase substantially if you take a monthly plan. They have a fully integrated ecommerce service and give you a domain free with your annual plan. Check here for updated pricing plans and more features.

Page cloud vs Weebly vs Wix vs Squarspace

So to sum it up there is a big price difference between other cloud hosting companies above which are cheaper and page cloud, but then there is also the uniqueness of the page cloud service which justifies a little bit of a higher price, but it remains to be seen if the $24 pricing bracket is justifiable for the unique new technology and ease of use they provide.

IMHO they possibly won’t make as much inroads into the developer market, but would possibly attract a good chunk of DIY website builders who will certainly find this service useful.

Real Reviews on WordPress hosting providers

January 7, 2016 by admin 5 Comments

Reliable and good wordpress hosting is a necessity for professional bloggers. If you are setting up your first self hosted blog with paid hosting or then just searching for more information on setting up a blog – You will need a domain name + a good hosting company as a minimum. [Updated March 2016]

Google will give you both good reviews and bad reviews for hosting , but you yourself need to know what you actually need to start a blog – Like Do you need email forwarding, do you need a Free domain name, are you looking for a CMS website.

A newbie blogger can make do with good shared hosting whihc is quite cheap to start with and more popular blogs with high traffic possibly need a dedicated hosting or VPS service.

Unfortunately, If you search for Word press Hosting on Google – you will pretty much get bad reviews on each and every webhost out there, that is providing a wordpress hosting service. It is difficult to get a 100% genuine review that proves that a particular web-host ticks all the boxes.

99.9 % Uptime for wordpress hosting Guaranteed, Really!

I have now been in the blogging game for many years and gone through quite a few hosting providers. I still currently use Bluehost , Dreamhost, Hostmonster and now go daddy and they have done well, but with many ups and downs over time.

To my good or bad luck I just signed up for go daddy wordpress hosting and a week later happened to come across heaps of reviews saying it is very bad host for wordpress hosting, so I am keeping my fingers crossed.[update – I am still using godaddy now 11/07/2016 and it is still a good choice for beginner niche websites]

Hosting Type	Monthly Plan	Features
Shared	$7.95 Month ( + free Domain name )	Free -SSL/TLS Certificates with Let’s Encrypt Free – Domain Privacy Protection
VPS	$15 Month	Plans include 1 dedicated IP address, 100% network uptime and 24/7 tech support – Unlimited Bandwith and unlimited Domains
Dedicated server	$149 month	Perfect for High Traffic Websites Unlimited bandwidth and full Root and shell access
DreamPress	$19.95 per month!	Automatic WordPress Install & Core Updates Hosted on Virtual Private Servers

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