Membership Website Hosting
Recommending hosting for a membership site is tricky. Here is why.
I believe that you should minimize your startup costs for your membership site. That means going with a low cost website host.
However, you need to know what you are buying with a low cost membership host.
I use Bluehost as my low cost membership host. But here are the risks.
- I need to do my own backups, and even occasional database repairs.
- There are regular outages that usually do not last more than a minute.
- They have great software in the c panel that help you set up wordpress – but you will not feel comfortable with this if you intimidated by technology.
I have provided people with full service hosting in the past. However, it can run hundreds of dollars per month when things do not go wrong, and even more when there are problems. For that reason, my feeling is to live with the occasional headaches of an inexpensive host. Make sure you do regular backups yourself and have a tech person on call that can help you when you need it.
If you decide to use a host like BlueHost, the good news is that you can put a lot of membership websites on one hosting account. So you should be able to cover your hosting costs with one member per month. Just plan for problems and make sure you have back ups handy.
PS: This blog is hosted on the very bluehost account I am talking about.
