I’ve been reading a lot of articles on how to be a better blogger, post ideas, things to and not to do, and how to make some money through blogging. I feel I could be so much better at this whole thing so I’m doing what I do to learn more about how I do that. Plus, by now, it should be apparent that I am constantly looking for more ways to bring some money into the household and, from everything I’ve been reading, this could be a really good way to do that.
I’m not looking into this with the hopes that having the blog bring in money will replace the need/desire for any of the other ways I’m bringing in money. I know there are those out there that make great money doing so, but I don’t think that is the standard. Maybe I’m wrong about that. Please tell me if I am. Anyway, I’m just thinking that any money coming in is a good thing and always a help. I’m committed to this blog so why not make it make money?
I looked into Siteblog for a way to do this. It’s relatively inexpensive, though has the potential to become more expensive with add-ons and such. I signed up for Google Adsense after gettting the site on Siteblog all set up the way I believe I wanted it. After I got the Adsense advertising code to embed on my site, I went through the steps to embed it on the landing page. It wouldn’t show up. Since I am really new at that kind of thing, I hopped on Siteblog’s help chat. I found out rather quickly that the only places I can place advertising with them is on my Contact and About pages. This makes no sense to me, especially since the most viewed page would be the landing page, a page not set up for advertising. Bummer. I am in the process of having them close my account.
So, why didn’t I just go with WordPress.org? I have no idea. I should have. I guess maybe I just wanted to give something else a try. Now that I have, and it turned out so completely stellar, I will be moving forward with WordPress.org in the very near future.
I have read on here that WordPress helps you through the whole transferring from WordPress.com to WordPress.org process. This is a really good thing since I really have no idea how to do any of that. Then there is hosting.
As I said, I have been reading about all the ins and outs of blogging, and have heard of quite a few different hosting sites that are supposed to be great. Bluehost is one that I have seen mentioned a number of times. So is GoDaddy. There have been others mentioned, but there names slip my mind at the moment. True to fashion, I did a Google search for the top rated web hosting. The search result I chose was: http://www.webhostingbest10.com/.
The top rated web hosting site on this list is eHost.com. They offer hosting for $5.50/mo, though, at sign up, it is discounted to $2.75/mo. I’ve never heard of them, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t good. I’m not sure if the monthly price is based on paying for a year or if you can be billed monthly. I’ll need to look into that. eHost throws in some Google Adwords, Yahoo, and Bing advertising credits when you sign up, along with some cloud storage and WordPress blogging tools.
The next web hosting company on the list is HostClear. I tried to go to their site but Norton blocks it, with a message that looks like this:
|
|
As you can above, I have the option to proceed anyway, but I don’t think I’m going to ignore the warning this time.
Next up on the list is iPage. The offer here is for $1.99/mo (regulary $11.95/mo), and includes much of the same things eHost does, such as WordPress tools, cloud storage, and Adwords credits, along with SiteLock security tools. No Yahoo ad credits with this one, though I’m not sure if that is really a big deal or not.
Number 4 on the list is ideahost at $2.99/mo (regularly $5.98/mo). This one looks to be very similar to eHost, with pretty much the same things included (ad credits, WordPress tools, cloud storage, etc.). They also offer 24/7 tech support along with tutorial videos, but so do iPage and eHost. I like the idea of having tutorial videos since I don’t really have any experience with actual site building.
SiteBuilder is up next. There don’t appear to be any market or cloud storage perks with this one, but that could be something that comes up when you sign up with SiteBuilder. Their landing page doesn’t tell you how much the cost is per month. I, personally, don’t like having to sign up for anything without having all of the pertinent information first, such as price. I did a Google search for review on SiteBuilder to see if I could find any more information about them. The reviews on Trustpilot.com show them having horrible reviews. So, as far as I’m concerned, SiteBuilder is off my potential web hoster list.
Since BlueHost is one that I have heard of in multiple articles I’ve read about starting your own blog, I am going to include them in this list. BlueHost is ranked number 6 in the web hosting top ten article. Web hosting is offered at $3.49/mo to start, regularly $7.99/mo. BlueHost also offers a money back guarantee. If for any reason at any time you decide you are not in love with BlueHost, let them know and they will refund your money. Also offered with your subscription to BlueHost are some wonderful tools, such as 1-click WordPress transfer, ovver $150 in advertising offers, and 24/7 support. One of the services offered, for an added $79, is 1-on-1 training to get your site up and running, and to learn how to use all of the different programming tools used in that process. I’m starting to see why BlueHost has been mentioned in so many articles.
From this quick look into web hosting, BlueHost sounds like the one I will probably use when I am ready. Between now and then, I’ll probably start chatting with BlueHost to find out more before moving forward. I know there will be no major changes for a couple of months while I get my poop in a group. If anyone has any more info to provide, please do let me know in the comment section. I’m almost ready to take my training wheels off.
Dragonfly Gypsy USA 
You haven’t written about Uber for a while. You can email me a response. Love Dad
LikeLike