It’s always good to be extra careful when you’re searching for a web hosting provider. That way, you can avoid ending up with a web host that suffers a lot of downtimes, load slowly, and offers a less than average experience for your website.

In this article, we’ve rounded some of the most common mistakes that you should definitely avoid so that you don’t end up with a costly mistake.

Not Checking The Reviews

After searching on Google for a web host, you might end up with a hosting company that seems to provide all the things you need for your website and best of all, it’s super affordable!

But here’s the thing, if it’s too good to be true, then odds are it probably is.

We can’t stress enough how important it is that you should always check the reviews of the company before making a commitment to them. You should look to places that offer unbiased and honest web host reviews and beware of the gimmicks. So that, you have an idea of how good or bad the hosting company is.

A few things that you should keep an eye out for in reviews are:

• Customer support complaints
• Downtime or server reliability complaints
• Viruses or security complaints
• Multiple complaints due to server overloads

Of course, there will be times when these reviews might be skewed or biased (whether positively or negatively), so you should always try to look for multiple resources when it comes to reviews.

Choosing Price Over Quality

If you’re just starting out your website or blog, you might not have a lot of budget for a web host. Unfortunately, if you want to have a good quality host, then you can’t let price be a factor when you’re looking for a web host.

As the old adage goes, “you get what you pay for”.

A hosting provider that charges you $3.50/month will probably have fewer features and performance compared to more expensive ones. Of course, that’s not to say that all cheap hosting providers are bad. You just need to know where to look for if you want the cheapest hosting providers around that still provides awesome features and performance.

Terrible Customer Service Or Support

It’s always a good idea to go for a web host that offers multiple customer supports — live chats, emails, 24/7 customer service, phone support, etc.

However, it’s not enough to just have all these support. You also need to look at the quality of the hosting provider’s customer support. What’s the point of a 24/7 support via live chat if it takes you days to get a response from them?

You should research a company’s customer support as they are the ones that will help you if anything goes wrong. Check for reviews online and at forums to find out what other customers are saying about the company’s support team. You can also test their customer support by asking them questions on their live chat before signing up.

If they can’t take the time to answer your questions before signing up, then it’s likely to get worse after you sign up.

Not Understanding “Unlimited Hosting”

Nowadays you’ll find that a lot of hosting providers are offering unlimited hosting, which might sound amazing at first. However, if you take the time to do a little a digging, you’ll realize that their unlimited hosting is not really unlimited.

Here’s the thing, when a company says that they offer unlimited hosting, what they really mean is that they are managing their limited server resources and usage closely to make sure that their hosting capacity does not suffer any significant shortages.

Since most hosting companies (good and bad) uses unlimited hosting, it helps to understand what unlimited hosting really means in the web hosting industry so that you don’t end up over-trusting your web host.

Ignoring The Terms Of Service

One big mistake that a lot of people tend to do is to not check the ToS (Terms of Service) and Mailing Policy of a web host before signing up. If you don’t read up on your host’s ToS, then chances are you’ll end up in big trouble sooner or later.

Hosting companies will often include limitations in their ToS for a number of things, such as unlimited hosting, by limiting your resource usage. There’s also Mailing Policy which can include various limitations, such as how many emails you can send and receive per hour.

The other big thing that you need to look at is the host’s refund policy. Sure, their banners might say “30 days hassle-free refund” or “90 days money back guaranteed”, but always double check by reading their ToS for the actual refund policy and whether it’s worth it or not.

You should always read their ToS and any other usage policies before signing up with a web host, in order to avoid any headaches later on.

Conclusion

Whether you’re starting a blog or a eCommerce website, you should always avoid the mistakes that we listed above when you’re looking for a web host. A good foundation is important if you want your website to be successful and it starts with choosing the right web host. And if you want to focus on building your business, while giving a professional service to manage the tech stuff, you may want to check PapaCare+ from HostPapa.

Are there any other mistakes that we should avoid when choosing a web host? Let us know in the comments!

Short answer: Absolutely.

There are a ton of ways that you can do to make a living online using WordPress beyond creating a food blog or starting a travel blog.

Just to be clear, these are not get-rich-quick schemes. What we’ve compiled are legitimate and proven ways for you to make a profit with the WordPress platform. Of course, it’s going to require some effort and time your part before you can start reaping the rewards.

If you’re ready, here are a number of ways that you can do to make money with WordPress.

Create Themes for WordPress

A lot of the basic themes of WordPress are not that great and the market for bespoke and custom themes can be quite lucrative. If you’re a web designer or developer, then you might want to consider developing custom themes for WordPress.

Do you need to be an expert at coding or be an amazing designer? Not necessarily. You can focus on niche markets and design specific themes that relate back to them. If you know who your target audiences are, then you can cater to them and not have any problem finding people to pay for your WordPress themes.

To get started, you can sell your WordPress themes on your own website or at places such as

• Creative Market
• Themeforest
• Mojo Marketplace

Setup WordPress Blogs for People

Majority of people who uses WordPress, use it to start a website blog. If you’re one of those people, then you’ve already got a set of skill that you can monetize: setting up WordPress blogs for other people.

Plenty of people and businesses wants to start a blog but lack the technical knowledge to do so. You can offer a WordPress blog setup service which can include services such as WordPress installation, setting a WordPress theme, give recommended plugins, etc.

In order to generate awareness for your blog setup services, we recommend creating a section for it on your website and advertise them either through banners, guest blogging, paid advertising, and of course, through social media as well.

Now, there will be instances where new bloggers won’t want to pay for your services. When that happens, you can opt to do your blog setup services for free and rely on affiliate links within your website to generate income. An example would be to recommend them to use a WordPress hosting company to host their blog and you’ll get a commission from them when they sign up for it.

Be a WordPress Content Writer

A great way to make money online is to be a content writer for WordPress related topics. You might not realize this but having the ability to write and articulate well is a great skill to have in the digital world.

If you can write well, then you can offer your writing skill to create content related to WordPress. Sites such as Problogger job board, Paid to Blog,  to name a few, are looking for contributors to create written content about WordPress.

You can even look at your favorite sites or blogs and check if they have a contributor application section where you can submit your articles. And more often than not, they are willing to pay for quality written content.

Before you go about pitching ideas for articles, we do recommend setting up your own website to show your portfolio and previous works. This will help greatly in letting potential employers see your writing style and give exposure to your work.

Make Plugins for WordPress

If there’s one thing that WordPress users will always need, it’s plugins. Plugins help elevate a WordPress website from good to great, by adding that extra features that you need in order to make the website successful.

Developers who are handy enough with coding can try their hands in creating and selling plugins for WordPress.

With thousands of plugins available in WordPress, there’s no shortage of demand for plugins that will help users make their website better. Companies such as Pippins Plugins or OptinMonster are great examples of plugins that offer a solution to problems that users face when using WordPress.

If you have an idea for a plugin or have created one, then you can start selling them at CodeCanyon, or even just sell them straight from your own website. Another way is to take on custom plugin projects from freelancing sites such as Freelancer, Odesk, Elance, etc.

Start a WordPress Consulting Services

An easy way to make money from WordPress is to offer a consulting service for it. If you’re good at WordPress and know your way around it, you can offer your expertise to other people who need it.

Of course, you will need to have an amazing portfolio that shows how good you are with WordPress before you can start making passive income with this. Build up your portfolio first by offering your consulting services (or on selected products you’ve created) for free to the WordPress community or influential bloggers.

You can then ask them to give feedback and testimonials on your website, as well sharing their reviews and experiences working with you, with their audiences. Use this to boost your reputation and generate more sales as testimonials from well-known online personalities will be great social proof.

Sell eBooks, Online Courses, or Webinars

We’ve mentioned earlier that you can make money by being a content writer for topics related to WordPress. If you want to take it another step further, start selling digital products such as eBooks, online courses, or even webinars for WordPress-related topics.

eBooks are relatively easy to write and produce. If you’re a blogger, chances are you have an archive of blog posts that you can convert into chapters for a book. Compile them all together, slap a nice design cover and convert it to a pdf and you have an eBook ready to sell.

Here are places to publish your eBooks:

• Lulu
• Blurb
• Smashwords
• Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing

You can even decide to print your content and make it a real book.

More of a talker rather a writer? Then you can sell online courses or webinars where you can give lessons on things related to WordPress, such as digital marketing strategies or common mistakes that WordPress users should avoid.

Another advantage to doing webinars and online courses is that it helps you build an audience while establishing yourself as an authoritative voice on WordPress.

Monetize Your Blog or Website

When people think of monetizing their own website or blog, they just think of advertising. In truth, there are plenty of ways to generate passive income using your WordPress website without requiring any additional effort on your part.

Take advantage of the content and traffic that you have by utilizing affiliate marketing, directed ads, sponsored reviews, and more, on your blog or website.

Service providers and marketplaces are more than happy to offer affiliate programs for content that includes their links in a natural way. You can even opt for sponsored posts on your blog for brands or services and earn money by recommending them to your audience. Just remember to make it sound natural. Nobody likes a pushy salesman!

Set up a contact form on your website so that brands can get in touch with you and ask for paid reviews, guides, articles, or any other content that you can think of. Just don’t forget to include the stipulation that all of your sponsored content will be based on your honest opinions.

Conclusion

Making money or a decent living from WordPress is not rocket science. You don’t have to be a genius or an expert on all things related to WordPress. Just pick and choose the ones that you’re comfortable with and focus on that. Before you know it, you’ll be making good money using nothing more than WordPress.

Do you have a particular strategy for making money with WordPress? Share it with us in the comment below! Need more ideas on ways to make money online? We’ve got you covered!