Do I have to pay for GoDaddy to host my WordPress blog?

Published January 12, 2012 | By AJ

Question:

I think I can do tumblr and blogspot for free, but it seems like it wants me to buy additionaly monthly hosting services for WP.

Can someone walk me through this?

Answer:

Why do think your WordPress.com blog “wants you to buy” monthly hosting and why are you asking about goDaddy hosting like that’s the only choice out there?

If you need more space for your WordPress blog or want to use it to make money in any way, including putting AdSense on it, then you cannot do that on WordPress.com because they will suspend your blog. They won’t even let you back it to export your data. WordPress.com is a good place to learn how to use the WordPress platform, but if you’re a serious blogger, you must get your own web hosting and install WordPress on it before it’s too late. Imagine the horror of waking up one morning and finding out that free blog is gone.

However, I wouldn’t use GoDaddy for a WordPress host. It’s too confusing and they are much too expensive.

Get yourself an iPage account. They have an easy to use control panel called vDeck with a software installer called SimpleScripts. The WordPress software is already in there. You just need to tell it where to install the blog. You’ll get unlimited hosting space and bandwidth, email accounts, blog, forums and more. Oh, and should you ever decide to get more domain names, you can also host them on the same account without having to buy more hosting.

Another option is WebHostingPad with really, I mean REALLY low prices on unlimited hosting. As low as only $1.99 a month. Oh, and get this, they will NOT raise the price on renewals. Other hosting companies advertise low sign-up pricing, but only WebHostingPad locks in the price forever. I really like their software installer. It’s called Softaculous and it’s overflowing with scripts to install on your site. WHP uses the cPanel control panel, my favorite way to manage my hosting account.