A note about domain names and website hosting.
Every website needs a domain name and hosting. Domain name registration refers to purchasing the actual url that your website design will appear on (example: larajdesigns.com). Website Hosting refers to the company that will actually store your website design files. Typically domain name registration runs about $10-$20 per year and hosting runs about $100 – $400 per year, depending on the type of hosting you need and which company you choose.
Below are a few companies that we recommend for domain name and hosting for ourselves and our clients. In our line of work we have come across MANY different domain name and hosting companies, and these are by far the best. Many companies are very expensive or have terrible customer service. Please note that some of these companies we receive commissions from affiliate accounts, but we chose them specifically because of their quality, customer service, and ease of use – and our opinion of them has in no way to do with our commissions :)
WordPress Website Hosting
OUR RECOMMENDATION – WPEngine
WPEngine is by FAR our favorite hosting company for WordPress websites. The customer service and uptime is phenomenal, the technical support staff is very helpful, security is top-notch, automated backups run every night, and migration from your development site to your live site is a breeze. They even offer “staging” sites on your hosting so if we are making a large change on your site we can use the separate staging name to make sure everything is all correct before making it live to the world! We have installed WordPress websites on MANY different hosting companies, and have learned which ones are the worst and which are the best. Choosing the right hosting company is imperative to be happy with your beautiful new website. WPEngine is highly recommended if you have a WordPress website.
**IMPORTANT NOTE FOR WORDPRESS SITES**
If you chose a hosting company for your WordPress site that is NOT WPEngine, we are only able to include a maximum of 1 hour of time for your site to go live. Many other hosting companies do not work as well with WordPress, and a lot of extra time can be needed to move the site over because of their less-than-stellar server settings. Making your new site live may take anywhere from 1 hour to 6 hours (or a week in worst case scenario situations with server-in-the-basement type hosting with bad support) The cost/time of moving your beautiful newly designed website over to a WPEngine account when it is time to go live is included at no charge. WPEngine hosting is fabulous :) If you choose to go with different hosting for your WordPress website and it takes longer than the 1 hour that is included with the cost of your site, any additional time will be billed at our regular hourly rate.
Please contact us for more information regarding website hosting and domain name registration. We would be happy to give you a recommendation for your particular situation.
Domain Name Registration
OUR RECOMMENDATION – Namecheap
If you do not already have a domain name for your website, Namecheap is a great and economical company to purchase domain names. They have great customer services and prices, much better than some of the other companies you hear about in all the radio and television advertisements (in our opinion).
