1. A domain name (Get one here for just $0.88!)
2. A Web host/website hosting.
A domain name is simply something like www.facebook.com/www.eBay.com/www.example.com
All website hosting is a place where all the pictures, text, files and code which make up a website is stored so that anyone can access it and view the website. All websites are stored on servers which are just basically big computers in data centers around the world.
Now it is true that you can still make money online using free services like this one I'm writing on now (www.blogger.com) and other free website builder services like Wix and Weebly. I think there are even some free website hosting companies but I have never used them.
If you are really piss poor and can't afford $10 a month for a domain and hosting then I guess you could start with one of the free services but nothing in life is really free and it's probably not going to be a good idea to use a free service if you want to make money from your website. If you want a website for a small business like an electrician, hairdresser or dog walker then a free service will probably be ok.
But if you want a website to make money online then you can't use one of the free services.
Let me explain.
All the 'free' website hosting services don't offer a free service out of the goodness of their hearts, the reason they are free, just like all the other big free online websites like Facebook, YouTube, Hotmail, Instagram is ADVERTS, ADVERTS and more ADVERTS!
They offer a free service and make a shitload of cash from Adverts!
How much cash? Well Facebook is worth $328 BILLION! YouTube is worth $70 BILLION!
So you might be thinking 'yeah, so what, I know Zuckerberg is richer than Donald Trump's and Hitler's love child, what has that got to do with website hosting?'
Well the thing about free services is that there are other people's adverts everywhere and the problem is that visitors to your website will be clicking on those adverts instead of your links and adverts which make YOU money.
Another problem is that there is very little support with free services, if you can't access your Facebook account is there a phone number you can call? Hell no!
The goes for free website hosting and if you have a problem you won't be able to call or email support. If your website, all your hard work and income disappears one day there won't be anyone to help you to get it back.
And before someone points out that I'm writing this using a free service I'll have to tell you this isn't my main source of online income, actually I'm lucky if I make a penny a day from it, if I start making some decent cash I will transfer it to my own website with my own hosting.
You are also very limited with what you can do with free hosting, after you have been running your own site for a while there will be things you need to do to make more money like using content lockers, 301 redirects, like jackers and other 'Blackhat' methods frequently used in Internet Marketing (making money online). This free service (Blogger) and many others don't like these 'methods' and they can shut down your account if they find one or a competitor reports you. Paid web hosts on the other hand, as long as you don't do anything really bad or illegal they don't really care what you do with your website as long as you pay your bill every month!
OK, so I'll stop going on about why you need to pay for web hosting rather than using a free service and get down to the actual review.
I decided to write this review to provide an honest of the web hosts available. Now I won't be able to review all of them as there are hundreds, maybe even thousands, I''m just going to cover the ones I have used.
When I needed my first website, for a business unrelated to Internet Marketing I didn't know where to start, there where lots of companies who would offer to build one, usually for hundreds of dollars and then I had lots of friends who where studying programming related stuff at University who said they could make one for me for free, great I thought, so I waited, I kept asking when they would start and eventually I always got the same response, 'I'm too busy now', 'I have too many other projects', 'I can't do it because I need to do some paid work to pay my rent' or some other excuse.
I didn't have thousands of dollars to pay a developer to build me one and I really didn't want to learn coding or programming (I still don't!) but I did need a website so I reluctantly starting looking at how to build a website. I found lots of sites talking about html, javascript, databases, SQL, it was like trying to do a cryptic crossword in an ancient Chinese language!
I was about to give up.
But then I took another look at the company where I bought the domain name from and noticed that they also offered hosting (most do now but I usually buy the domain name from the cheapest company and then host it with another company) and something called a 'Website Builder' which said you could build a website without any coding or programming knowledge, perfect!
Now this was my first website and the 'Website Builder' came free with the hosting, it was pretty basic, like 'click here' to add a picture, 'click here' to add text, 'click here' to add a link. But I had built a website, on my own!
Looking back on it now it was pretty crappy, actually it was really crappy! The pictures and text weren't aligned properly, some pictures where huge, some where tiny, some where pixelated, the text was all in different fonts which I couldn't seem to change, it looked like something a retarded six year old on acid had made if I'm honest!
One day I was trying to improve it by using some code (which I knew nothing about) and I messed it up, big time! I basically screwed the entire site! (There was no support from the web host with the free 'website builder').
So the situation was this, I could either give up on it or try something else, the way I saw it was that I couldn't make it any worse.
So I started searching for a better solution. And I found it! And it was called WordPress.
It requires no coding or programming knowledge, it is like a supercharged version of the old 'Website Builder' I was using before but looks a million times better!
Now you may have heard of WordPress before as a 'blogging' template/program but it is much more than that, I now use it to build all my websites, websites which get thousands of visitors a day, websites which outrank big websites like PCmag.com, LifeHacker.com, eHow.com and even Wikipedia.com!
And WordPress websites don't look like 'blogs', they look like real, professionally designed websites which you would pay a developer thousands of dollars to create. In fact there are 'web developers' who charge clients thousands of dollars for a website and just use WordPress!
There are thousands of WordPress designs/templates known as 'Themes', there are Themes which you can pay for but there are also thousands of free ones which still look great, I always use the free ones.
But just so you can get an idea of how a website built with WordPress looks click here to view a selection of WordPress Themes.
The first time I used WordPress to build a website it took me about an hour as I was following a YouTube tutorial but now I can build a website in 10 minutes!
>>>Ready To Build Your Own Website? Read My Step by Step Guide Here<<<
Now WordPress can be used on any domain and with almost any website host. But not all webhosts are equal and I have tried all of the most popular ones so here is my review of the best and worst website hosts.
#1. Hostgator.com
Hostgator is the webhost I use for all my websites. I have been with them for over three years and never had any problems. They are an American company based in Texas and one of the biggest players in the hosting world. Everything just seems to 'work' with this host, if you are just running one website or more than you can remember (like me) they are the perfect choice. I rarely have a problem (if I do it's usually because it's something I have messed up!) but when I do their support gets it fixed first time. They offer support by phone, email and live chat 24 hours a day/365 days a year - this I like.
Now I'll try to not get too technical explaining this when choosing a webhost you need to understand what you are getting for your money. All websites are run from servers which are basically big computes which store all the bits which make up a website. Generally speaking the more you pay for hosting the more powerful the server, cheap hosting usually means less powerful servers and poor website performance. However Hostgator provide powerful hosting for a very reasonable price and this is why I have stuck with them. To give you an example I just use one of their basic hosting plans that cost bout $10 a month which allows me to host an unlimited number of websites (domain names) and unlimited bandwidth. One of my websites receives over 5000 visitors a day with no impact on website performance, they are always fast and responsive and never go down!
