You’ve chosen a niche and created a plan for your business blogging idea. It’s time to select a blog host. As you review your options, the differences between the plans and their impact on your blog might feel overwhelming. Choosing the wrong host can lead to slow speeds, downtime, and security issues, damaging your blog’s reputation and hurting your SEO. If you’re looking for reliable information to make the best choice for your business blog, this article will compare various hosting providers to help you find the right one.
Feather’s send emails from Notion can streamline your decision-making process. Use Notion to take notes, compare hosting features, and organize your thoughts before making a final choice.
What Is Blog Hosting?
Blog hosting is the service that makes your blog accessible online. When you create a blog, all the files, images, and content that make up your site need to be stored somewhere, and that's where a blog host comes in.
A blog host is a company that provides the digital space on its servers to store all the data for your blog. When someone types in your blog's web address, the host's servers deliver your content to that visitor, making your blog available to anyone with an internet connection.
Typically, blog hosts charge a fee for this service, as it involves maintaining the servers, ensuring your blog is always accessible, and often providing additional services like:
Some blog hosts also offer free hosting options, but these are usually limited in terms of:
Features
Storage
Customization
Additional Services Offered
In addition to storing your blog, many hosting providers offer other services to make managing your blog easier. For instance, they include blogging software, domain registration, website design, and marketing tools. Log hosting is the backbone of your online presence, ensuring your blog runs smoothly for your readers.
Why Do You Need To Choose the Best Hosting Sites for Blogs?
When starting a blog, one of the most critical decisions is choosing the right hosting platform. This decision isn’t just about finding a place to park your site; it can make or break the success of your blog. Here’s why your choice of blog host matters:
Boosting User Experience With Faster Load Times
Let’s face it: no one likes waiting for a website to load slowly. In fact, most visitors will bounce if your blog takes more than a few seconds to appear on their screen. Google data shows that 53% of people will abandon a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. A good hosting service ensures your site loads quickly, keeping your audience engaged and reducing bounce rates. Plus, search engines like Google favor faster sites, which can give your SEO a nice boost.
Enhancing Security To Protect Your Blog
Cybersecurity is a big deal, and it should be on your radar, even if you're just starting. Every 39 seconds, a website somewhere falls victim to a cyberattack. A reliable hosting provider will offer strong security measures like:
This means you can focus on creating content without constantly worrying about potential security breaches.
Accessing Reliable Customer Support
When you’re new to blogging, hitting a few bumps in the road is normal. That’s where having access to reliable customer support comes in handy. The best hosting services offer top-notch customer support, often with detailed tutorials or even AI-driven assistance. This means that when you encounter a problem, help is just a click away, making your blogging journey smoother and less stressful.
Scaling With Your Blog's Growth
Your blog’s needs will evolve as it grows, and your hosting should be able to keep up. The best hosting platforms are scalable and flexible, allowing you to upgrade your plan or add resources as traffic increases quickly. This way, your blog can handle more visitors without sacrificing performance, ensuring it runs smoothly even as it becomes more popular.
Improving SEO Performance
Did you know that your hosting choice can impact your blog’s SEO? Search engines like Google consider several factors when ranking websites, including your:
Your hosting provider influences these factors. Choosing a reliable host can help keep your site online, load quickly, and be secure, leading to better search engine rankings.
Convert Your Notion Notes Into a Professional Blog in Minutes
Feather is an SEO-friendly blog and email newsletter service.
Key Features
Publish blog content and newsletters directly through Notion, with no coding or design skills required.
Automatically publish blog content written in Notion to your Feather blog.
Set up a subfolder blog (domain.com/blog) for better SEO, rather than a subdomain (blog.domain.com).
Manage your CRM and website blog entirely through Notion, offering a HubSpot-like experience.
Customize your design with custom CSS, collect emails, and access additional features.
Want to try Feather? Create an account today for free and send emails from Notion in minutes.
What Are Some Features the Best Hosting Sites for Blogs Have?
Customization Options: A Must for Any Blog Hosting Service
A successful blog host offers customization so you can make your site uniquely yours. By customizing the look and feel of your blog to match your branding, you create a more distinguishable brand identity. A poor hosting site will only offer a few premade templates with no opportunity to customize further.
An Easy Learning Curve: A Key Feature of Blog Hosting Services
Using a blog hosting site should be intuitive. In other words, you shouldn’t need to hire a developer. Because you’re starting a blog and not a business site, you should be able to easily set up, design, and publish blog posts through a user-friendly interface.
Monetization Opportunities: Why You Shouldn’t Overlook This Feature
The backbone of a winning website? Great content, of course. And the more eyes you get on that content, the more revenue potential you have. In other words, your host must offer the option to monetize your blog. Your site host should make these options available or offer extensions that make it possible, whether you achieve this by:
Placing display ads
Carrying out affiliate marketing
Selling merchandise
Ability To Install Tracking Scripts: Why It Matters
Another key feature successful hosts should have? The ability to install tracking scripts. Tracking your blog’s search engine performance is crucial to see how it performs over time. That’s where tracking scripts come in handy. The two primary tracking scripts you should plan to install include:
Google Analytics
Google Search Console
Getting started with these is easy, add them to your blog site’s header tags. You might even notice that your blog host can add them via a “Custom JavaScript” text box, which you can use. Alternatively, if you can’t install scripts or are not interested, your blog hosting site should provide metrics and KPIs that give you insight into how your blog is performing.
Room for Growth: Why It’s Essential Not to Limit Your Blog
As a new blogger, it might be challenging to envision where your blog might be in a few years but as you publish more and more posts, you’ll need more features and capabilities that don’t restrict your website.
Even if you start with a free hosting service, it’s wise to ensure it offers upgrades or has the right site architecture to support an established blog. Look for adequate storage space and a high number of monthly visits allowed, and avoid limitations on metered traffic.
Reliability: Your Blog’s Lifeline
Your hosting provider must be reliable. In other words, you don’t want to pick a host that provides spotty service. One way to vet this is to consider the uptime. When we talk about ‘uptime,’ we’re referring to when your website is available for visitors. You want at least 99% uptime.
Data Restoration Capabilities in Hosting Providers
Another hallmark of a good hosting provider is that they offer simple data restoration that you can rely on in case an unexpected event occurs and your website suddenly experiences difficulty. By ensuring your hosting provider has these measures in place, you can rest assured that you won’t lose your progress in a worst-case scenario.
15 Best Blog Hosting Platforms for Your Business Blog
1. Feather: The Notion Blogging Tool That Will Transform Your SEO Strategy
Feather is an SEO-friendly blog and email newsletter service that allows you to publish blog content and a newsletter through Notion. It requires no coding or design skills.
Key Benefits of Using Feather with Notion
Write blog content in Notion and automatically publish it to your Feather blog.
Set up a subfolder blog (domain.com/blog) for improved SEO over subdomain structures.
Manage CRM and website blog content through Notion, offering a HubSpot-like experience.
Create and send newsletters to your email subscribers directly from Notion
Customize your blog design with custom CSS
Collect emails and access additional powerful features for your blog and marketing needs.
Streamlined Publishing with Feather and Notion
Write directly in Notion and automatically publish to an SEO-friendly blog
Collaborate effortlessly with your entire team during the publishing process
Run your blog and newsletter with Feather today — create a new account and send emails from Notion, or go from notion to blog in minutes!
2. Bluehost Blog Hosting
Bluehost offers affordable hosting rates and a free domain name for one year, making it an attractive option for bloggers starting out. The service offers managed WordPress hosting plus marketing, social media, and SEO tools such as:
Content improvement recommendations
Keyword selections
And more
It also offers design tools if you’re looking for support there. It also provides three hosting options:
Shared
Dedicated
Virtual Private Server (VPS)
If you choose shared hosting, your blog shares server space with other blogs and websites. If you choose dedicated hosting, your blog would have a dedicated private server, which will result in precise uptime and utmost stability.
Understanding VPS Hosting and Choosing Shared Hosting
Virtual Private Servers are a compromise between shared hosting and dedicated hosting: You’re on a shared server, but the software is installed on the physical server to give you private server space, too. Though Bluehost offers these three hosting options, we’ll focus on Shared hosting for our review since this is the go-to option for new bloggers.
3. HostGator Blog Hosting
Whether your blog is intended for a small or large audience, HostGator can help. Some of the service's plans include free SEO tools to help your posts rank higher on the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Features and Benefits
HostGator's drag-and-drop builder makes formatting your blog simple, and the administrator panel includes website statistics to help you evaluate how your content is performing. The Hatchling, or basic, plan has a meager starting price—$3.75/month with a 36-month commitment—which can help you start your blog for less.
Key Features Included in All HostGator Plans
You’ll get a free email regardless of your chosen plan, which will help your blog look more professional. All plans include unlimited bandwidth and disk space, giving your blog infinite room for growth without requiring an upgrade. All plans also include a free SSL certificate, which will help your blog look more secure.
4. GoDaddy Blog Hosting
GoDaddy allows you to easily design an attractive blog, plus manage social accounts for easy content sharing. You'll never have to be concerned about losing your blog content because it offers:
Regular security monitoring
Site backups
One-click data restore
Features and Benefits
Several plans fit a range of budgets, each offering a year of a free domain name and Office 365 email. All plans include a free domain, allowing you to create a professional-looking blog. Regardless of your plan, you will get a free SSL certificate. You’ll get a free Office 365 mailbox, giving you a branded inbox for your blog. Even with the most basic hosting subscription, you get daily backups.
Unmetered Bandwidth and Upfront Costs with GoDaddy
Enjoy unmetered bandwidth with all plans, giving your blog room to grow without forcing you to upgrade to a more expensive plan. Like Bluehost and HostGator, GoDaddy’s multi-year commitments must be paid upfront, which means a significant fee.
5. DreamHost Blog Hosting
DreamHost’s site builder allows you to create a WordPress blog without coding knowledge, making it an excellent option for users of all levels. DreamHost is dedicated to security, too. It has the following:
Multi-factor authentication
Anti-spam policies
Free WHOIS privacy
Features and Benefits
All plans include unlimited traffic, bandwidth, and storage, giving your blog infinite room for growth. They also include an SSL certificate, making your blog look more professional and safe. The monthly price is shown up front on the website, but you can pay more upfront for a lower monthly rate if you prefer.
6. Squarespace
Squarespace is not exclusively a hosting site, but it automatically includes hosting for your blog when you sign up for the service. Squarespace is designed to get your website up and running quickly. It’s known for its:
Getting your blog started is intuitive and easy—simply choose a template, start editing, and upgrade to a paid version once you’re ready to go live.
7. Nexcess Blog Hosting
Nexcess provides fully managed WordPress hosting that is optimized for content platforms. Plans include:
Curated premium plugins
Plugin performance monitoring
Ultra-fast Nexcess CDN
Hosting with Nexcess means your site is:
Fast
Scalable
Secure
Nexcess provides automatic plugin and platform updates, always-on monitoring, and autoscaling when needed (and not when you don’t). Choose from seven different fully managed WordPress hosting plans to fit your needs.
8. Wix
Wix is the perfect choice for anyone wanting to try blogging for free. The service offers an unlimited free plan with all the essential features, and you can upgrade to premium plans whenever you want. Alongside the free plan, you get:
900 website templates Access to Wix App Market with (free or paid) add-ons to your website,
500 MB of storage
Branded Free Domain
The free tier includes some limitations. 500MB storage is enough for text blogging but not data-heavy portfolios. The included free domain (accountname.wixsite.com/siteaddress) includes Wix's branding, which means you have to buy your own domain anyway. The feature set only improves a little once you upgrade to the paid plan. Storage increases to 2GB, and there's a light marketing suite.
9. Weebly
Weebly is a good platform for bloggers who want to start an online store along with their blog. It’s powered by Square, is easy to use and comes with a mobile app. You can create a website or blog for free at Weebly.com, and there are also low-cost paid plans starting at $10 per month with annual billing.
Our advisory board member, Melissa Pepin, shared her thoughts on the platform: “Weebly is perfect for small businesses looking to sell products online without setting up entire online shops. However, the number of template designs is limited and may not be perfect for someone whose top priority is aesthetics for their blog.”
Weebly's E-commerce Integration for Bloggers
One of the main reasons Weebly stands out as one of the best blogging platforms is not its blogging functions but its e-commerce features, which are included with every plan. While this may not matter to every blogger, it will to those who plan to create a revenue channel through selling goods, such as blog merchandise.
The Ease of Use Factor in Weebly
Another area where it stands out is its ease of use. In my opinion, Weebly is one of the most novice-friendly website builders on the market. And while it’s nowhere near the most comprehensive, it does an excellent job of making the process of building and maintaining a website headache-free.
10. 000WebHost Free Blog Hosting
000WebHost includes no ads, quick loading times, and 10GB of bandwidth with the free hosting plan. The service does not offer users any live support. And every month, there's a two-hour offline period, your blog will be inaccessible to all users for two hours a month.
Free Plan and Upgrade Options
The free plan includes 300MB of storage and up to 3,000 allowed monthly visits. If you ever want to upgrade, the paid plans are incredibly cheap, starting at $1.99/month with a 4-year commitment. (Otherwise, $9.99/month.)
11. Blogger Free Blog Hosting
Blogger is another free option ideal for small-scale blogs. You can host an unlimited number of domains and easily integrate your blog and website with your other Google accounts and services:
Calendar
Drive
Maps, etc.
The responsive templates make it easy to design a mobile-friendly site for your blog. There are no ads With the free plan, but SEO assistance and support are limited. Easily set up your blog in just a few clicks:
Sign up
Name your blog
Choose a template
Start posting
Additional Features and Benefits of Blogger
Because Google owns Blogger, it makes it easy to add a Google Analytics ID, which can help you track your blog’s performance. You can connect a custom domain if you have one. You can invite other co-founders to be blog administrators without needing to pay for an additional subscription or share a login. Monetization options are easy to access in the dashboard’s sidebar; connect an AdSense account, and you’re all done.
12. A2
A2 Hosting is a performance-oriented host for blogs that enhances every blog’s performance to be lightning-fast. Like DreamHost, A2 Hosting offers shared and WordPress hosting plans to cater to budget-conscious and performance-oriented bloggers. Interestingly, its WordPress hosting plan starts at only $11.99/month, making it cheaper than DreamHost’s option.
The introductory tier includes:
50GB of NVMe storage
Unmetered bandwidth
Automatic core WordPress updates
A2 Hosting features include a WordPress auto-installer or 1-click setup on Magenta. It also offers the site cloning & staging feature that lets you test your blog’s site without risking losing your current work. All plans include at least:
100GB of SSD storage
Free SSL certificates
Unlimited email accounts
Unlimited transfers
13. InterServer
InterServer is another blog hosting service that meets all your blogging needs. It offers everything you need for seamless blog hosting, including unlimited hosting, at a reasonable price.
Unlike other blog hosts offering generic or WordPress-specific plans, InterServer offers plans specifically for blogging Notion images. Supposedly, the provider has blog-optimized servers, but what this means needs to be clarified. Aside from that, you’ll have:
Daily backups
Round-the-clock security with AI software
On-demand resources for managing traffic spikes that could cause performance issues
The InterServer web hosting plan also supports 1-click installs for over 450 cloud apps (such as WordPress and Joomla), includes the SitePad website builder, and offers free website migration.
Key Features of InterServer's Web Hosting Plans
All plans include free SSL and InterShield protection for improved security. For example, the exclusive security tool comes with Inter-Insurance, a free service that restores your blog in case of an attack. You gain unlimited email accounts for easy communication with your site visitors and business partners.
14. GreenGeeks
GreenGeeks is one of the best eco-friendly blog hosting providers in the world. Their hosting platform is engineered to perform while being environmentally friendly. They offer a wide variety of hosting options, including:
Shared
VPS
Reseller
WordPress hosting
GreenGeeks' Commitment to Renewable Energy
Most data centers consume large amounts of energy for cooling and air conditioning. To reduce their carbon footprint, GreenGeeks puts back 3 times the power they consume into the grid as renewable energy. Other than that, the hosting itself offers a standard set of features.
15. IONOS
IONOS, which used to be called 1&1, is a top choice for web hosting and cloud services, especially for small and medium business bogs, thanks to its high uptime guarantees and fast loading times.
Hosting Plans
IONOS has different hosting plans to fit what you need, from shared hosting to your own dedicated servers. If you’re looking for a great deal, its shared hosting business plan is a crowd favorite that costs only $1 monthly. It’s perfect for standard websites, letting you run unlimited websites with endless storage and as many databases as you want, which is pretty cool for most users.
Guaranteed Uptime and Scalability
Just keep in mind that once the first deal period is over, the cost of the Business plan jumps to $10 a month. IONOS ensures your website runs fast and can handle more visitors as it grows. It guarantees your site will be up 99.9% of the time. It does this by spreading your site’s data across several data centers, so your site doesn’t go down even if one has issues.
Why You Don't Want Free Blog Hosting for Your Business Blog
Loss of Control
Free blog hosting might sound appealing initially, especially if you're starting, but it has significant drawbacks that can seriously limit your potential. One of the most glaring issues is the lack of control. When you use free hosting services like Wix or Weebly, you’re essentially playing by their rules, which can be incredibly restrictive. These platforms often offer limited customization options, so your site might look like a carbon copy of countless others, lacking the unique flair you want for your brand.
Risk of Losing Your Content
Another major downside is the risk of losing your content. Free hosting services can have strict terms of service, and if you unintentionally violate them, even by accident, you could find your entire blog wiped out overnight. Imagine putting hours of effort into crafting high-quality content, only to have it disappear without warning. That’s a huge risk, especially if you’re trying to build a business or a personal brand.
Unprofessional Appearance
Free hosting often comes with forced advertisements and subdomains, making your blog look less professional. This can turn off potential readers or clients, and it’s not a great look if you’re trying to be taken seriously in your industry.
What Is the Best Host for Blogs? How To Choose Blog Hosting
When choosing a blog hosting platform, you can start by narrowing your search based on key features. These include:
Templates
Custom domain names
SEO
Monetization opportunities
Performance insights
Scalability and support
Templates and Themes
Nearly every blogging platform offers a selection of templates or themes, but they are not all created equal. It’s essential to find one that provides the design aesthetic you’re looking for to help with minimum customizations and includes the features you need, including niche features like recipe cards for a food blog.
Custom Domain Names
If you’re looking to start a professional blog or become a professional blogger, you will want to seek a platform that allows you to connect your domain name so that you can build your blog’s brand.
SEO Friendly
For many blogs, the primary traffic source is search engines. So, finding an SEO-friendly blogging platform with built-in tools to help you rank is worth it.
Monetization Opportunities
Whether you’re looking to monetize your blog using affiliate marketing, banner ads or page views, it’s worth knowing which platforms offer the most opportunities to monetize your blog.
Performance Insights
Built-in analytics may not sound overly important when you’re just starting. Still, it can be precious to have insights into how your posts perform so that you can create content and posts more strategically.
Scalability
While you may be planning to start small, it’s worth considering a blogging platform that you can grow with so that you won’t have to switch platforms later.
Support
Though it’s the last thing on many new bloggers’ minds, it’s worth considering the availability of support so that if you ever run into an issue, you know you can mitigate it quickly.
The Ease of Use of the Blog Hosting Platform
Ease of use is another key consideration when choosing a platform to build your blog. While many code-free platforms claim to be beginner-friendly, some are more beginner-friendly than others.
Customization, Templates, and Features in Website Builders
Some are more customizable, offer higher-quality templates requiring fewer customizations, and are more versatile with more features and integrations.
The Integrations of the Platform
Regarding integrations, it’s essential to choose a platform that integrates with any software or tools you already use or plan to use, as this will help streamline your system. For example, if you use Mailchimp for your email marketing campaigns, then choose a platform that integrates with Mailchimp so that any leads generated from, say, a form on your blog will automatically be synced to your Mailchimp account. An email campaign will automatically be triggered (that is, if you have it set up to do so).
Send Emails From Notion and Go From Notion to Blog With Ease Today With Feather
Feather is an SEO-friendly blog and email newsletter service that allows you to publish blog content and a newsletter through Notion. The best part? It requires no coding or design skills. With Feather, you can write blog content on Notion and automatically publish it to your Feather blog.
A Notion-Powered Blog Building Tool
Feather allows you to set up a subfolder blog (domain.com/blog instead of blog.domain.com, because the subfolder is better for SEO). It also enables you to get the HubSpot experience through Notion by allowing you to manage your CRM and website blog. We also offer options to change design with custom CSS, collect emails, and more.
Want to try Feather? Create an account today for free and send emails from Notion in minutes.