How to Save on a Web Hosting Service: 9 Pieces of Advice

Hosting and other additional services can be really expensive, especially when you are just starting an online project. If you follow our advice on this matter, you will be able to save.

If you think about web hosting, there are many things you must consider to run an online site. We should add the domain price and additional services like CDN and SSL certificate to the hosting price.

On the other hand, if you order a VPS/VDS server, you should pay for server management, configuration and server optimization, etc. So, if you just set up a blog or online shop, the price can be a bit high, and you start looking for free hosting.

Analyzing search query, we make a conclusion, that from 3k search request 1k include word “Free”. Each third request is connected with the free domain, free hosting or even dedicated server. To tell you the truth, there are free domain names and hosting, or even VPS servers, but not for a long time. Why? Check more details below.

Free domain

We have found free domain zones such as .tk, .ml, .ga, .cf and .gq during article creation. There are no cons, they are really free. But the question is not always in money.

Trick. These domain zones are very popular among the cheaters, like a phishing website (stealing users’ passwords). For example, the top domain of Mali .ml is absolutely free and very popular among the cheaters. There were 15 million domains registered in 2 months since the domain zone was created. The population of Mali is 16 million. “Domain for each Mali citizen” can be a good slogan for this domain zone. Most of these domains are registered by a few thousand of phishers all around the world. So, if you register a domain in this zone, it can be marked as unreliable by the searching engines.

Let agree, that there is no bright future for your cooking blog or children shop in this domain zone.

Free web hosting

Many well-known and popular hosting companies offer free website hosting. You can get 10-100 MB on a hosting server easily, and these accounts have severe limitations, and there is no support from hosting for these accounts.

Trick. There are three main tricks

First, 100 MB can be insufficient even for a small landing page, and if you need extra space, you will need to buy the plan. And usually, you will need more space quickly. Imagine that you are hitchhiking and a driver stops their vehicle near you and asks you to buy them a coffee. However, if you do not want to help them, you should get out from a car at the next stop. But, you need to get to someplace because you have important work there, and you should not waste time looking for a new car.

Second, the technical issue. The website can be hacked or can be down, or someone can do changes to the website, and it stops working. You will have no other option than contacting the hosting support team. They will charge you for the hours of work for fixing your website, or you will make a deal and order a paid plan.

Third, a marketing issue. Advertising is a necessary source of trade and a reason for creating free service. Place an ad banner and get hosting for free. You can be sure that you should place a banner on the central place of your website and will redirect users from your site. Also, that banner usually not combined with your website design.

Free VPS server

It is hard to believe, but such offers really exist. For example, the well-known company amazon.com offer a free year of VPS.

Trick. You need to have a Gmail account, confirm phone number and credit card (virtual card). After the registration, you will need to add 1 USD to your account balance, and it will be frozen as a confirmation of your capacity to pay. At the end of a year, you will need to pay for the next period.

Let's talk about real savings

Studying all the pros and cons of free hosting, let's come back to 66,6% of users that are ready to pay for the service. For you, our dear clients, current, and futures are the other part of the article.

Pay for a longer period. You can renew service monthly, but most hosters offer the discount for annual payment.

For example, HyperHost company offers Unlimited hosting. Unlimited 20 plan costs 8.5 USD monthly, if you pay annually, you will save 12.24 USD. It will be enough to order the domain. At the same time if you are just starting work with the hosting company, make an order on one month. You will pay more, but you will have a chance to check the quality on a practice.

1.  Use web hosting catalogs to check info about the hosting company. There are many website reviews, check a few before making a general impression.
2.  Do not order in advance. If you just planning to create a website, and it is still on development wait until it will be finished. And check for hosting company discounts. There are few discount periods. For example, during vacation season or winter sales. Also, do not forget about BlackFriday, during this day you can save up to 90% on web hosting, but not all hosting companies offer such a huge discount.
3. Trick. Many promotions are just marketing campaigns and are created to raise interest in a website, and they do not give a real discount. Promotions usually do not have expiration data and do not calculate time after page reload.
4.  Always check about available promotions during the order. Sometimes you can just miss a promotion described in a blog or on the main page. So, do not forget to check the details before the order.
5.  You can get additional service or domain for free due to constant promotions. Check info on the website, add money to balance, pay for six months or more and get a domain or SSL for free. Also, some hosters offer a discount if you just subscribe to their pages on social networks.
6.  Order dedicated VPS/VDS servers only with server management if you are choosing between a few companies according to a specific configuration and are planning to start work. Check if server management is included to your server. Check what tech support will do for free. It will help you save money because hiring an admin is expensive. And if you use paid admin service, your expenses will be growing faster and faster.
7.  Thy to choose the optimal configuration. Sometimes you are looking for specific location, as your SEO expert told you so. However, the location has not got a significant impact. Sometimes similar configurations in different locations can have a massive difference in price. But, connection speed from a European data center or your desired country will have a small difference, so it will not influence on your website promotion.
8.  Always choose a bigger plan than you need. Not all projects can increase quickly, so you better choose a few more additional Gb, not too much. Note, a hoster can easily upgrade or downgrade the plan sometimes even without reboot. Check this info before the order.
9.  Choose hosting with your own tech support. A hosting company offer has a fast response time. So, if you choose a hosting company, and you later require their support, you will get their support quickly.

Success search components: Choose a hosting provider or VPS server that has its own 24/7 tech support, and choose a long-term plan to get an extra discount or free domain.

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