Today I got two shocks from Bluehost. In a space of one half hour. Both made me cried. In sadness. In joy. In that order. Read on about my personal shocking experiences with Bluehost 😳😁
The first shock came this morning when I saw an email notification of auto-renewal billing from my web hosting, Bluehost. It was around USD6XX for the next three years😅😅
I did a quick conversion to MYR and realised that couldn’t afford paying that amount at one go 😢 While brewing my morning coffee, I considered my options:
- Do I quit blogging and therefore, quit Bluehost? (Maybe)
- Do I change to another hosting provider e.g. GoDaddy, Exabytes (Malaysia-based host)? A cheaper one… And migrate the entire website? (Possible)
- Do I contact Bluehost and see if we could come to a shorter lease? Yearly for example. (Highly likely)
- Or could I pay Bluehost in instalments? (Hmm… possible?)
For those who are new to blogging or having own website, may ask why lah so expensive? Cannot simply use the free ones?
Continue reading – I’ll briefly explain the why’s below.
Websites: Free or Paid?
Yes, we can go down the free route using Weebly, Wix and many more (check out your free options in this post). And that will come with a link address (a domain name i.e. your branding): yourname.weebly.com
If you don’t mind, that’s entirely okay. Free and easy is always a good option for starters. The free option is also teachers and educators teaching students on how to create websites or for cash-strapped start-ups and NGOs.
These free platforms do offer upgrading to a paid one when you’re ready.
However, if you want to make it your own i.e. blog posts, videos, own business or research – and own your content – it’s best to get own domain name and link it to a web hosting.
Owning your own website address is similar to having your own house (or home) – though, on a rented land. The house address is your domain name. The rented land is the web hosting. So that you can do anything (well, almost…) in your own ‘landed property’.
And just like a laptop, it needs an operating system (e.g. Mac, Windows OS) to run it. To operate a website, the open-source platform WordPress.org is widely-used (~30%) but there are other platforms that you could consider.
Now, what type(s) of house with its exterior and interior designs and decorations depends on your personal tastes.
If it’s a business, clean and simple designs with easy navigation go a long way to elevate your customers’ online experience. All these come under website designs and website themes.
For example, I use Nucleare as my website theme. My domain name is draisyah.com. My web hosting is Bluehost. And WordPress.org is my website ‘operating system’.
Some internet savvy people have more than 3 websites or online portals that they administer and serve as businesses. During this pandemic and beyond, going online seems like a wiser and preferred way.
In these few paragraphs, I’ve introduced four big concepts on creating a website: Website themes, Domain name, Web platforms/OS and Web hosting.
If it’s still unclear to you, you can read this fantastic guide or search the internet – it’s replete with guides and courses on creating a website for beginners.
Shocking personal experience with Bluehost as my web hosting
Bluehost is my web hosting in the last three years. Since I started this blog post in the third quarter of 2017, the service has been excellent. Few glitches. About 3-4 times – due to 1-2 hours of service interruptions and due to my own mistakes (playing around with the settings).
When issues arose, so far I have yet found the need to call them. Bluehost resolved the issues with their services via chats. Every time.
Just like today. When it’s time for my web hosting renewal.
So I contacted Bluehost technical staff via chats and informed the staff about my predicaments. That I would like to change the web hosting service to a 1-year contract, instead of 3-year.
They disagreed (and it was put in a good way).
In a matter of 5 minutes, the staff provided 2 different solutions. Their second solution was an offer – a shocking discount for the next three years. A discount of over 60%!
A wonderful offer I could not refuse. Thank you Bluehost!!😁
And what do I learn from this experience?
- First, to ask. A help or a big discount is perhaps just around the corner 😉
- When the universe conspires to make things happen – it will just happen. If there are repetitive road blocks, detours, people or walls that frustrate you – these are big red flags. Leave. It’s not yet or not meant for you. It could also be the start of a new chapter…
- Today, it dawned upon me to continue this effort – online courses, workshops and this blog to keep inspiring you, my readers, to create beautiful presentations in 21st century higher education.
Semoga bermanfaat.
Note: This post contains affiliated links.
