This is an article I originally wrote about 2 years ago but it has held up surprisingly well and as I am about to shut down that website permanently I will be transferring the more useful information here. Why let it go to waste?

First of all, a disclaimer, I am currently running this site on DreamHost, one of the most popular web hosts you can find. And yes, the links that are here are affiliate links which means that if you subscribe to hosting on DreamHost after clicking on one of my links you will be helping me pay for the hosting of this site. If you don’t want to do that I suggest Googling Dreamhost or going directly to their website.

So you have decided that you would like to set up a website/blog and you like the functionality that WordPress offers but you really have no idea how to even go about such a thing. Well, I am her to tell you that it is very simple to do. The first thing that you need of course is web hosting. Assuming that you are just starting out on the web and won’t be getting tons of traffic just yet, I recommend DreamHost for your web hosting, but with some caveats. Before using DreamHost I went through three other web hosts and DreamHost is my 4th.  All the web hosts, Dreamhost included, have been quite cheap and you know that old saying: you get what you pay for. It’s true. You will have some downtime. If Dreamhost had been my first host I would have left by now but I know from experience that it is better than others and I just try to accept that I will have some downtime. Hosts that I have used and don’t recommend for various reasons are Aplus.net, ixwebhosting.com and polurnet.com. DreamHost is also recommended by WordPress.

In general though, almost all web hosts allow you to host WordPress sites but be sure to read the details or contact customer support before you sign up to verify that there will be no problems.

Just an extra note about choosing a web host. After having various bad experiences I did a lot of reasearch before choosing my third host. I read literally hundreds of reviews that I found but rather than finding a perfect web host I found that these reviews are unreliable. While some of them may be genuine so many are probably faked by staff of these web hosting companies posting negative reviews about competitors, positive reviews about their own services and claims that the other companies are using these dity tactics. It is so bad out there that you don’t know who to believe so I say, if you are on the fence about which hosting company to choose, ask you friends which they use or perhaps contact a small website or blog owner and ask them and if they are happy with them go with that. Don’t waste your time wading through all the reviews and review sites out there. It might just put you off starting your web site.

I also use Media Temple for another two sites. I use the Grid Service for a WordPress site and Dedicated Virtual for a custom-built e-commerce site (currently closed). For a beginner I recommend DreamHost but for telephone support that is actually very good I recommend Media Temple. (Media Temple is also recommended by WordPress.)

When you have chosen a web host come back here and in the next post I will show you how easy it is to set up a WordPress site.