What’s THE Best Blogging Platform (and Web Hosting company) of 2014?

Just had an interesting discussion on Skype with Kevin about:

What’s THE Best Blogging Platform (and Webhosting company) of 2014?

To answer this question straight up? It’s not blogspot.com / google’s blogspot, it’s not tumblr, it’s not wordpress.org, it’s not Empower, it’s a ‘self hosted’ WordPress Blog. Does that mean you have to buy a blogging solution? No, you can still do it it cheap / for free. However a self hosted WP blog, has to be hosted somewhere. Hence the real question becomes …

What’s the best Web Hosting of 2014?

Depends what your requirements are.

FREE Tip #1: Buy What You Need

I always recommend people to buy what they need right now, and not buy based upon future projections. Example: I had a friend a few weeks ago who just got a dedicated server. And although that sounds cool? As long as you do not pull in massive amounts of traffic / visitors? Such an investment is a huge waste of money, and probably time as well (as you most have the time get your own server management …. or outsource that as well). So in most cases simple “shared hosting” accounts suffices for upto 20,000 visitors per month. After that? You probably have the money to rent a proper server / CMS webmaster to do the work for you.

Free Tip #2: Do not host at GoDaddy!

Do NOT host your website at GoDaddy. They are still great for domainnames, and simple 1-page websites, but don’t host WordPress websites at GoDaddy, because of incompatibility issues (to be more specific: commercial plugins — IonCube encrypted for example — do not work). Moreover Godaddy’s support department is severely under training and has high response times with wrong answers.

Instead chose HostGator, BlueHost, Arvixe (also great for video hosting). If you’re Dutch based? And you are an entrepreneur? Then the best hosting bar none is: SolidHosting; they aren’t cheap by any means. Is price important to you and don’t care about support?

What’s the best WordPress courses system?

Depends who you listen to. But I’ve found IC-toolsuite to have a very extensive and easy to follow. Plus they provide you with free hosting and free domain name included in the fee of being a business owner.

Best Themes: ThemeForest.net

Top 10(0) Best Plugins: http://bit.ly/my-digital-rolodex

That’s IT really.