Most business owners tend to leave the website hosting to their website designer as it is 1 less thing to think about.

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Although I can see the convenience in doing this, there are some advantages of looking after the hosting yourself.

What is Website Hosting?

Before I go any further I want to explain what hosting is.

Website hosting is a service that allows businesses and organisations to post a website onto the Internet. A web hosting service provider is a business that provides the technologies and services needed for the website or webpage to be viewed online. Websites are hosted or stored, on special computers known as servers.

Most hosting companies require that you own your domain or site’s name in order to host with them. If you do not have one, the hosting companies will sell you one.

This morning I was at the Mullingar Chamber’s Annual Budget Breakfast where a local firm of accountants went through yesterday’s Budget 2020 and I got chatting to an HR consultant this is looking to self host her own site.

She initially had a paid Wix site and wants to upgrade her site to a WordPress one (big thumbs up from me) and she was quoted €130 to host the site for 1 year from Irish based Lets Host. I told her that that was expensive and I could find her a much better deal, which I did.

Now I am a big fan of Carlow based Blacknight and have been using their hosting for multiple sites and buying domains from them for just over 2 years now. Customer service is great and I haven’t experienced any instances of any of the sites that I look after crashing.

But then I stumbled upon a great deal by Blue Host which is at today exchange rate only €129 for hosting for 3 years that includes a free SSL cert. Compared to Blacknight’s hosting for 1 year is €30+ VAT and another €30 + VAT for the SSL cert. 

After delving a bit further I discovered a few more benefits for hosting with Blue Host:

– WordPress actually recommends hosting with Blue Host and that is good enough for me
– I have also seen reports saying that Blue Hosts has very fast loading speeds
– The control panel is really easy to use in a non-techy way

Both are good but overall Blacknight’s dashboard is very technical and is more suitable to website designers and Blue Host’s dashboard is much easier to use and would be easier to use for newcomers.

3 Benefits of Hosting Your Website Yourself

Save Money

The going rate that web designers charge for hosting for 1 year around €100 + VAT.

€129 for 3 years with Blue Host compared to €100 per year is a significant saving.

Easier to Switch Website Designer

If you are in charge of your hosting and you want to switch web designers at some point down the line you can do so without having to have that awkward chat asking for hosting and login details as your new web designer needs them.

You are not Left in the Lurch

Website designers come and go and they usually move on once work dries up, sometimes without letting their clients know.

Hearing the phrase “I can never seem to get hold of my website designer” is all too common. Sometimes they decide to go travelling or just upskill to earn more money learning a specialised computer language that pays more.

So if your web designer does go AWOL at least you have full access to your hosting.  

You’ll find a good website here, to check out to see what hosting a WordPress website has and to see if a website is, in fact, a WordPress website. So if you input my website name you will see that I am currently with Blacknight, but I will move to be with Blue Host next year when my current deal with Blacknight expires.

Final Thoughts

Whether shelling out €100 per year for website hosting and letting your web developer take care of all your website hosting issues or looking after it yourself is your best option, is up to you.

But if you do decide to go down the DIY route with Blue Host do make sure that you let Google know in Google Analytics that your business is located in Ireland because it will assume by default that it is located in America because that is where Blue Host is based. Keep on “The Big Gs” side is always a big plus to climb up their rankings!

Blue Host doesn’t sell .ie domains but they will still host a .ie domain. You can buy a .ie domain from several domain providers such as Blacknight.

Personally, I will jump ship to Blue Host next year because of fast loading times and getting an endorsement from WordPress.

I hope that this wasn’t too technical but if you need any further clarity, let me know.

Gary