Blogging for Healthcare Archives - The Sensory Toolbox

Why I Picked Bluehost for my First Blog and You Should Too My love story with Bluehost starts with a first time blogger--me. Maybe you too, but it’s possible you had your "you know what" together more than I did the first time around.The dream of a blog is a nice one. Writing, sharing with the world, using pretty fonts. Then, reality kicks in. A blog isn’t just a blog; it’s a website. And websites are complicated. Design, code, hosting. This is suddenly a bigger hassle than anticipated. Here’s where my love for Bluehost begins. My First Blog with Bluehost To be clear, this blog (The Sensory Toolbox) isn’t currently, nor ever was with Bluehost. My first blog that was originally started with Bluehost (Better Than Alive. Don't ask about the name. I thought I was being "deep and abstract.") is no longer with Bluehost. I’ll explain why later. Even though I’m no longer with Bluehost, I love the company and I follow what they’re doing very closely.But, first, let’s talk about why I’m SO GLAD that I started my first blog, Better Than Alive, with Bluehost when I first started it a number of years ago.As I dramatically explained before, starting a website can be overwhelming. There is a lot to think about and a lot can go wrong. The dread of opening your site, realizing something is wrong, and not knowing how to fix it is a feeling that wakes many of us up with cold sweats at night. Add to that trying to blog with a full-time job that gives you little time to write any posts, let alone learn to code.I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve broken my website. Now, you likely found this post after seeing a ton of mixed reviews about Bluehost. Yes, it tends to be a love or hate product. The reason for the divide is because products are all suited for different purposes. If you tried to use a fork to spread peanut butter on your toast, it would kind of work, but it wouldn’t be as effective as using a knife. From what I can see, a lot of the people that are using Bluehost are trying to spread peanut butter with a fork. It isn’t a good fit for what they need.Let’s talk about why I love Bluehost for first time bloggers and make sure that it’ll be a smooth experience, like spreading peanut butter with a knife. Customer Support Remember the cold sweats? During the first year of my first blog, Bluehost talked me down from many cold sweats. They are fantastic. My blogs are currently run with Cloudways and InMotion. InMotion has great customer support, but Cloudways leaves a lot to be desired on that front. I think Cloudways is great, but their customer service is one of their biggest downfalls.When having a website meltdown, here are the key factors that can make it better: short hold times friendly, sympathetic, and understanding support staff a willingness and ability to fix the problem It’s worth diving into each of these individually given how important they are. Short Hold Times Whenever I called Bluehost, I got through pretty quickly. This is a big deal when you’re busy, panicked, and worried that your website is broken forever.I have been on hold so long that I’ve fallen asleep on the phone, so like all of us, I’m no stranger to long hold times. You’ll be happy to know that Bluehost doesn’t fall into the long hold time camp. Friendly, Sympathetic, and Understanding Support Staff Bluehost is in tune with beginning bloggers. I called with questions as basic as they come, but always received respectful answers that didn’t devalue my status as a beginning learner. When you’re freaking out about your website, it’s nice to have someone friendly on the other end who will validate the stress you’re going through. A Willingness and Ability to Fix Problems f there’s a problem with Bluehost, Bluehost is eager to fix it. I rarely had issues with Bluehost itself. I made many silly mistakes myself, but few things that were specifically caused by their service.But, what about my silly mistakes?Let’s be clear—Bluehost is a hosting company. This means that they “host” websites and make sure that they are delivering them properly. They aren’t responsible for my silly attempts to adjust my coding or for any problematic plugins I may have installed. Basically, it’s not their job to fix my dumb mistakes.Yet, they often did. There were a number of times I called Bluehost and they diagnosed my problem and guided me through the steps to fixing it. Technically, this was never their job, but they took the time to do it anyway. InMotion gets kudos for this as well.If you’re new to websites, this is a huge plus. A friendly, accessible, and willing customer support team can make all the difference in fixing a problem and continuing towards success, or letting to problem spiral and giving up. Reliable Service Aside from their great customer support, let’s talk about the service itself. Others may have different experiences, but I never had any down time with Bluehost. Of course, this is important. The whole point of a website and a hosting company to deliver it is for people to find it not he web. If it’s down, than there’s no point to any of it. I can’t remember ever having any downtime with Bluehost. Their service worked well, had few hiccups, and basically let me forget it was there.If you have a good web host, you want to forget it’s there. A good hosting company should be electricity. It’s super important and you use it all the time, but you don’t really think about it until there’s a power outage. Bluehost is like solid and steady electricity. Pricing You can’t beat Bluehost’s pricing for their first year of service. As we’ll chat about later, I don’t think you should use Bluehost for more than a year anyway, so you won’t ever need to deal with the price increases.Most bloggers don’t make any money their first year of blogging, which means that expenses need to stay low.Click HERE to head to their website to check their current prices, but they’re normally around $2 a month for the first year for their most basic plan. The most basic plan will get you through the first year unless you plan to have massive amounts of content and traffic. Easy to Use Backend Bluehost is easy to use. While any hosting company will require an understanding of DNS, C-Panel, and other hosting necessities, their backend is clean, simple, and easy to understand.And, if you don’t understand the hosting terms I just listed, call their support and ask! Honestly, I still yearn for their backend dashboard now that I’ve moved on to other places. Some will argue that my current host, Cloudways, has one of the most user friendly backends around. While that’s true, they don’t have a c-panel built in, which can be annoying. Click HERE to learn more about Cloudways!As a side note, it completely changed my life to have a blog as a healthcare professional. If you work in healthcare and don't have a blog, it's time to change that. Why Switch From Bluehost After Year 1? This is my opinion and I’m sure it isn’t chawed by everyone. I’m also sure that many people have successfully used Bluehost beyond their first year of blogging. They wouldn’t be such a successful business otherwise. This is just my opinion about it.Using Bluehost for the first year of blogging is like spreading peanut butter with a knife. As the years go on, your content, traffic, and needs grow. Soon, you’re spreading peanut butter with a spoon, then a fork, and then a toothpick. Yes, you can increase your Bluehost plan to accommodate your increasing needs. But, I would argue that there are better services as you grow, Not that I don’t love Bluehost, but that there are hosting companies that can give you better speed and optimization at high traffic and content levels. Evaluate Your Hosting Every Year I cringe whenever I hear someone say they bought a 10 year hosting plan. In my opinion, you will never have a web host that will serve your needs consistently and flawlessly for 10 straight years unless your website is static.That’s a key point. If your website is a set number of pages that doesn’t need to grow overtime, you may be able to set it and forget it when it comes to your hosting plan. I don’t advise it, but it would be more doable in that case.I have switched my web hosts numerous times depending on what I need from them. I set one year contracts so that I can reevaluate this every year. Summary of Bluehost Benefits for New Blogs As a first year blogger, it’s important to get reliable service, consistent support, and easy to use backends at a reasonable price. While many of you will grow out of Bluehost as your blogs and websites grow, Bluehost is a great place to start.