So, you have finally decided you want to share your thoughts and opinions with the rest of world. First, welcome to the world of blogging and, second, it is now time to start looking for a blog hosting provider.

Now, you can simply opt for a normal run of the mill hosting provider that gives you everything there is to offer plus a blog page for you to work on; there’s nothing wrong with that. As long as people can access your posts, it really won’t matter, right?

Wrong.

You should first decide if your site is going to be a blog, or a website that has a blog. The difference is that when people come to your site do you want them to read your posts and stay on your blog (perhaps read other previous posts too)? Or, do you have a main website which offers goods and services and you’re only posting your thoughts and opinions to drive more traffic to your domain with the hopes of converting them into customers?

If you are looking for the former, then this article is for you.

But, before we list out what you need to look for in a blog hosting provider you should know that all the other common criteria – like low prices, guaranteed up times, unlimited bandwidth and disk space which apply to choosing a regular hosting provider – apply here too. We’re just looking at what needs special attention when it comes to blogs.

Once that’s clear, here we go:

Start Your Search for Blog Hosts

That’s right, start looking blog hosts as opposed to simple “web hosting providers.” You want to find hosting providers that specialize in blogs and have everything else come after the blog.

This fact will help you in a couple of ways:

• First, you will be looking for a hosting provider that specializes in blogs and their hosting. They will have the expertise and the necessary features that most bloggers (that includes you) will need to run and administer their blogs. This will come in handy when you will need help from their customer support.
• Second, blog hosting providers tend to have cheaper packages because they aren’t coming to you with a whole lot of bells and whistles that you’ll probably never use. For the most part, all you will really need is a few gigs of disk space and a blog application (like WordPress – the most popular one on the market today), and that’s it.

Blogging Platforms

Yes, as we have just mentioned, WordPress does seem to be the world’s favorite blogging platform and there are many reasons why this is so. First, it is pretty easy to use; even a novice can start publishing posts in a matter of minutes.

Second, it is ever so easily expandable. There are hundreds of plug-ins (most of them free) that will allow you to extend your blog. Do you want a photo album in the middle of your page? Easy, simply go look for the plug-in in the library and add it. Need traffic and visitor stats? …Same thing.

Therefore, when looking for your hosting provider, make sure they have, and support, WordPress. The best blog hosting providers offer their clients a “one click” installation procedure – you click on a link and ta-daaaaa your blog is ready for your all your thoughts and opinions.

But, we’re not saying you should be limited to just WordPress. There are many other blogging platforms that are also quite as popular and have followers that swear by them. If you have chosen one of those, you should be able to have them on your hosting account too.

Flexible Templates and Tools

Hosting providers offer templates for their clients. What makes a blog’s template different from a “normal” website’s template is that your writing and thoughts are what people are going to see. You will therefore need templates that enhance your writing as opposed to making your website look good as a whole.

Your template should have (or at least allow enhancements for) blog-specific needs like post excerpts, comment boxes, social media sharing and the easy creation of news feeds.

Scripts and Coding

Although most blogging platforms come already setup for the exclusive use of bloggers you might want to extend it further. Maybe you don’t like the way the titles or descriptions of your blog posts, maybe you want to add a script that will monitor the activities of your visitors, or maybe you want to go into the code and cut out some feature you think isn’t working well with your blog. You will need access to the scripts and codes.

Your blog hosting provider should let you have a free access of the source codes while also allowing you to run your own scripts (legal, non-malicious scripts, needless to say).

Easy Access from Anywhere

The beauty about blogging is that you can get inspired at any time. And at that moment, when you feel like you have a thought to share, you should be able to go online, access your account and post to your blog.

Your hosting provider should let you access your blog from anywhere in the world using easy-to-use control panels and you should also be able to access it on any device (it’s not always that you’re lugging your good old laptop along).

If you can find a hosting provider that offers you these features, then you can go ahead and start blogging with them.