Greetings, all!
My hosting subscription with Justhost recently ended, and I’m trying to figure out what to do with my website (michelleproulx.com). I already renewed the domain name, but the hosting is something like $10/month, which seems pretty high to me.
I tried going directly through Weebly (website builder), but it turns out they don’t have “name servers”, meaning I couldn’t use my domain with them unless I already had a hosting account (which I had with Justhost, which is now expired).
So … thoughts?
I know a lot of people use their WordPress site as their main website — does anyone have any pros/cons to report on this? It looks like WordPress has “name servers”, so I should be able to hook up my domain name to my blog — I just don’t know if it’s the best idea. So, for anyone who uses WordPress as both their blog and website, what are your opinions on this?
The other option would be to get a new hosting account with a site like GoDaddy or Hostgator — but I don’t know much about them, and I don’t know if I should keep my domain name at Justhost, transfer it over to the new hosting site, etc. Or heck, should I try contacting Justhost and trying to get a lower hosting price?
Obviously I have no idea what’s going on, so any and all comments are appreciated!!!
Unrelated media of the day:
Source: http://imgur.com/gallery/lqd6B
Michelle Proulx - Author 
I like webs.com – $60 ish a year includes domain name
Thanks for the advice! $60 seems really decent 🙂
I use them for 4 sites and have used them for about 5 years now. Having tried godaddy and a couple others, I can say webs.com is the best for me. Good luck!
The thing to be aware of with web hosting plans is the storage and traffic you’re paying for. It’s a good idea to get enough space to store your website plus a backup or two. The site I look after on a part time basis often goes over when we do a backup. It costs about $80 AUS / month for 1.5 GB storage and 30 GB traffic – expensive IMHO.
So if you’ve kept an eye on your storage and traffic usage over the last year or so you should know roughly what you need and therefore can work out what to spend. $10 /month is not bad from an Aussie PoV!
I guess websites are a lot more expensive in Australia, lol. I ended up turning WordPress into my main site — I figured it was the easiest option, since I already know how to use WordPress! Then again, I don’t get a heckuva lot of traffic to the site, so I don’t really need a lot of horsepower. Thanks for the advice 🙂
I don’t know much about that stuff, but $10 seems rather common for web hosting.
That’s what I found. But then I realized I can make WordPress my main site for $13 a year, and that just seems like a way better deal, lol.
That’s what I did. Felt it was better to stick with what I was used to. 🙂
WordPress gives you 3.5G Free Michelle plus all the share buttons you could wish for – I use it and have changed themes a few times (you can see the themes and even see what they’d look like before deciding which one to go for – Recommended 😀
Thanks for the recommendation! I ended up making WordPress my main site — check out the new format and let me know what you think 😀
Michelle –
I use iPage for my web site http://www.ronaldherron.com, and WordPress for my blog http://www.ronherron.wordpress.com. I also use iPage for my media page http://www.ronaldherron.org. All are linked to other social media likr The Twitter, the Book of Face, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc.
iPage is easy to use and update, and the price is pretty competitive. I think they’re offering it for less than $2.00/month right now. They also have a variety of themes available, or you can do it yourself.
WordPress is free for my blog, but not if I want just MY name in the URL. They also have a custom wordpress.org host.
Hope this helps. 😉
iPage … interesting! Never heard of that. I’ll check it out 🙂
By the way…you own the domain name, so it should be transferable to any host servers. 🙂
Apparently I can’t transfer a domain name to WordPress — I can just “map” it over. Which seems to work well enough, so … yeah 😀
I use Weebly and didn’t have any problems with my domain name. I transferred it over a few years ago, no problem. I love Weebly better than anything else I’ve used, like WordPress and Webs. I just checked how much my pro account is. Depending on the package, anywhere from $3 to $5 per month, plus the cost of my domain name yearly. If you like them, I bet they could help you get your domain transferred over.
Well, I tried sorting it out with Weebly, and there was this whole thing about name servers and DNS records and … too much hassle, lol. So I just went with WordPress. But I did enjoy using Weebly 😀 The customization options are just wonderful.
$10 per month is about right in Greece, too. My company has developed over 450 websites. One thing I’ve learnt is that migrating a website to a new host is rarely as easy as it sounds nowadays. It used to be pretty simple, just copying a few stand-alone html files, and you were done. Now you need to export/import the database and files, which almost always goes horribly wrong at some point.
So, quite frankly, I’d stay put if I were you. If you feel that you have to move, please make a backup first. I love your blog and would hate for all your posts to disappear! 🙂
You don’t need to tell me how incredibly confusing website migrations are, lol. I spent hours on the phone with Justhost and Weebly trying to sort out the name servers and DNS records. Ugh. I ended up going with just a single WordPress site (I have a home page now!). And I didn’t lose my blog posts, so your wish is granted, lol.
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Not sure. I am just pleased to remain with my wordpress domain.
I ended up going with WordPress myself, and it seems pretty darn good to me! I like that you can make so many pages and menus and such — really great for customization.